Latest / WCHS Network Podcasts / 06/26/2024 Ask the Expert with Foster Construction

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06/26/2024 Ask the Expert with Foster Construction · WCHS Network Podcasts

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Learn more at STAYSAFEWV dot com. This message is brought to you by
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the West Virginia Governor's Away Safety Program. Hendry Pleasant, good morning to you.
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You're listening to ask the expert of you see Ah, just the voice
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of Charleson. I'm del Cooper Thinks for tuning in and apologize for your ears
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there for the moment. A little bit of feedback because we're moving some things
2:25
around in different studios here and upgrading the eleven eleven Virginia Street, the audio
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center of the universe. A couple of wires get crossed every once in a
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while. We apologize for that. Thank you for staying tuned, joining me
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in the studio this morning, looking forward to continuing our discussion that we have
2:39
approximately every month or so. Is Brett Hodgson is here. He is the
2:42
owner of a Foster Foster Interior Foster we Foundation Repairs kept on want to say
2:52
interior and then that's gonna throw people off again. Foster Foundation Repairs. We've
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been a pressman coming on here for a long time. We've we've talked about
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the website is Foster Construction WV. It's the same website, but you can
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go to more focused on the services and deliveries that what Foster Foundation Repair can
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do it for you. You can now go to Foster Foundation Repair dot com.
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Foster Foundation Repair dot com. Phone number for them is threes are A
3:15
four seven seven six sixty two sixty three, seven seven six sixty two sixty
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three. However, this morning you can give us a call three zero four
3:21
three four five fifty eight fifty eight. Three es aer A four three four
3:23
five fifty eight fifty eight is kind of our number that you can get into
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if you have any questions on how you can deal with any foundation issues that
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you have problems around your home, You have some creeping issues coming up,
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maybe you're worried about, and we're going to talk a little bit about this.
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You know, that kind of an arid spring and early summer so far,
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although we've had some moments of rain, overall, it's been pretty dry
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and I don't know if we're officially in a drought status, but certainly,
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you know, anytime that we get extreme weathers one way or the other here
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in our region, that means it well, there's issues with settling and things
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like that. So maybe your house is having those problems or you have some
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questions about that. It was to call this morning three zero four three four
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five fifty eight fifty eight. Anyway, Good morning man, how you doing
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this morning? I'm doing wonderful. Good morning, do you too. It's
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we're now although you know I guess we've been in summer for a little while.
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We've really been cranking into these ninety degree days here recently, kind of
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humid a lot of these days. There's been a couple of days with a
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little dryer heat, but mostly humid. I saw this morning. I think
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the humidity was in the eighties at the first part of the morning. But
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these these when you start having weather systems like this. Although you know,
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climate is a long term thing and the climate lasts for a long time.
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Weather happens every single year, you know, but that doesn't mean that when
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there's certain extremes that happen, whether it be extreme moisture or extreme dryness or
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something like that, that could start affecting your home. Absolutely, the climactic
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conditions will, you know, seasonally, will definitely change the moisture content of
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the soil, which will cause different things to happen. I was out water
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in my brown grass yesterday and there's an area, you know, they're basically
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looking at the ground. I mean, there's areas where there's large cracks developing
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out in the yards where the clays is drying out and shrinking and the soils
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pulling back from the curb. And these are all signs of the sort of
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I don't know if we're technically in a drought or I haven't looked into that,
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but the dry conditions that we've been experiencing. It's interesting though, because
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I don't know. It's a week or two ago. Somebody called and said,
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I live in Winfield, and somebody called in Charleston said their basement flooded
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that night before, and I was like, there's no way, it didn't
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even rain last night, but apparently there was like a two inch and a
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half or two inch rain all of a sudden, and it flooded their basement.
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So it's amazing how it seems like when we get rain, it's just
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a really heavy downpour. It doesn't have time to soak in and it just
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runs runs right off into the ditch and drains it down over the hill.
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So nothing's really getting wet around around the foundations at this point. And that
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is something even with somebody with like an investment property or something like that.
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Although you may not be in a flood plane, you do want to make
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sure that you're that as we're talking about, you know, basements or maybe
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uh, submerged levels of living or something like that. You want to make
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sure that those are I know, there's no such thing as waterproofing exactly,
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but you want to make sure that your water divergence and your water systems are
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good on stuff like that, because you could cause a lot of damage and
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living quarters if you're not careful. Yeah, I mean, and we do.
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I mean the definition of waterproofing is what I mean. Yes, you're
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never I mean, if there was enough water on the ground, it's going
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to come up from the basement. But I mean, we do waterproofing and
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and it is a commercial type grade waterproofing system that we will do on the
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exterior. It's it's a basically it's a two part system with a rubber membrane
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and self adhering rubber membrane to the foundation, and then a drainage plane that's
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a vertical drainage plane that's applied directly to the foundation as well. So there,
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I mean, we have really as far as water, you know,
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water in a basement, we can certainly keep a lot of water out or
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keep the water out, and then also there's options to manage it if it
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were to happen to get in in different situations, if you didn't go with
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a full waterproofing system. There's ways to manage it internally within t your drain
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systems. You can also text your questions this morning if you have questions the
7:11
three zero four nine through five five zeros or eight three zero four nine three
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five five zeros you eight one way to get ahold of us, or you
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can call like I said, three zero four, three four five fifty eight
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can give antoin to holler. He's answering the phones over there for us this
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morning. If you have any questions where you want to get in. Going
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back to kind of your open where you were talking about some of the symptoms
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that you see around the yard with cracks in the yard and pulling away from
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the curbs some and things like that. Obviously we can see that I just
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did a lot of yard work just the other day, and so I was
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going around my house trying to tidy some things up, and you see a
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lot of this, you know, where the where some of the taller grass,
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like where you maybe haven't done edging or something for a while, starting
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to brown and kind of pull away from the house. You can see some
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of that. The grass doesn't just some of the grass just doesn't look great,
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that healthy. I don't water my grass, you know, when there's
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a drought, usually I don't need to. But I'm seeing, you know,
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like the grass is not looking all that great, that the earth is
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really hard and cracking in places it is pulling away from like the roads and
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stuff like that. Okay, so that's my yard, and you know,
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maybe cosmetically that's not great, but that means that there's a whole network of
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things that are happening around your house too. Yeah. That I mean,
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it's it's as a whole to the earth around, not just the top six
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inches, but everything's getting dry. When when you're starting to see those cracks,
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I've seen situations where where the earth has pulled two to three inches away
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from the house because it's gotten so dry. And normally that's you know,
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I've been called out to look at some sort of settlement or lateral movement issue
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that's as a result of that that very those very dry conditions. I haven't
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I haven't been you know, of all the all the estimates and site visits
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that I've been performing recently, most of them have been water related and water
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entry related to some extent. I expect in the next three four weeks,
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we'll start seeing people start calling for cracks that are developing in their foundation due
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to these do these very dry conditions. What regions are I get regions might
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be a little bit too broad. Neighborhoods or areas in the like the Kanav
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Valley are susceptible to things like that. Is it more places built on hillsides
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or does it just depend on the soil makeup or is there places that you
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know, just from being experienced as you are and being around you forever,
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I'm gonna start getting calls from this pocket or this pocket or whatever it might
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be. I mean, there's definitely streets that that we go to more often
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than you know. Obviously, if they're longer streets or bigger neighborhoods, that
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very common. But no, I mean this a lot of it. You
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know, Tays Valley to Charleston we have. I mean, they're they're similar
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issues. Whether it's a lot of it, it can be from poor original
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construction techniques, too shallow of a foundation, something put on the edge of
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a hill in Charleston, like we see a lot around here, or some
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of these foundations are two and a half three stories tall, just until you
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get to the first level of the house. But no, it's it's it
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affects the whole region really to one extent or another. Does it mean that
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there's a greater issue or that there is an issue with the original job if
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as you start getting like in the arid environments, if you start getting some
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cracks and damages like that, is that something that no matter who does the
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job, at some point in time, that's likely to start happening depending on
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the extreme of the weather. Or does that mean that there could be some
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underlying issue as well? Well, I mean we're both. Yes, it's
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very unusual for a geotechnical engineer to be involved in a residential new build.
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But yes, I mean geotechs can really limit the likelihood that you'd have these
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issues. Now, they're going to probably require you to do some quite a
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bit more, take quite a bit more steps than typical residential code compliant construction
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basically the minimum standard, which is just dig a trench, throw some concrete
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in the ditch and go from there. They may have you go deeper,
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or there's a lot of different different techniques that they use throughout the country that
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we don't use, like waffle slabs and things like that. In this area
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down south, they do a lot of the slab construction, and they'll do
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those waffle slabs, which are essentially reinforced, very heavily reinforced labs. But
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yeah, the environment definitely, I mean, it's primarily just the standard construction
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techniques that have been used in this area for the last fifty sixty years,
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which is that along with our terrain and then aging of systems terra cotta downspout
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drains or foundation drains that are cracked or crushed or roots have infiltrated them,
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or they've just come disconnected for whatever reason because the earth that's shifted. Those
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are the things that really lead to these a lot of these issues when it
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comes we know how bad things can get when it comes to like water penetration
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and different things like that. And we're going to talk a little bit more
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about water here in just a moment. But when it comes to like if
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you start seeing cracking from dry environments and different things like that, what are
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some of the what ultimately could that mean for your home? Does that mean
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ultimately you could get some crack in the foundation that would then it lead to
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like water seapeach or something or what are some of the things that folks that
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maybe they see some of these symptoms, they're like, it hasn't caused any
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problems yet, so maybe it's not gonna be that big of a deal.
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I mean, it certainly can and it may not. I mean, there's
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a lot of houses that that don't have issues. There's there's a house we're
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working on right now. It was we excavated the foundation to repair the wall
12:24
that was hit by a car. Oh wow. And before that it had
12:28
no problems, and we excavate down and this thing is sitting on bedrock.
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I mean, we're we're fighting rock just to get excavated to water rewaterproof this
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wall. So there's you know, there's it's just varies based on where the
12:41
house was put and what what happened to be on that on that lot.
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Yeah, So there's a lot of variables that could get involved with something like
12:48
that, depending on on where you're located, at the age of the house,
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how it was constructed, in different things, and different things like that.
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This isn't necessarily you're a get but you don't do new construction and it's
12:58
not really your thing. But for folks that are listening out there. I'm
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just curious, if you're out there shopping for a home in your in your
13:03
market is new build homes. Is there anything in particular that maybe it would
13:07
be hoove a first time home buyed, or maybe not a first time but
13:09
somebody looking to purchase a home to to uh uh to uh observe as far
13:13
as foundation creation or anything like that, or particular branding or style or anything
13:18
like that that would tend to be more durable. Now, I mean,
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we we have the most common I mean in our region, we we do
13:26
have slab construction. My mother in law has a house she'll be moving in
13:30
new construction in two or three weeks. It's sitting on a slab. That's
13:35
not terribly common in our region, or probably more more commonly to have a
13:39
basement or a crawl space. But all the all three different types of foundations
13:43
that we see around here. I mean, we also see post and being
13:46
pretty mostly in older construction, but they all have the similar risks associated with
13:52
with the development of issues. But as far as you know, new construction
13:56
goes, it's having having an engineer if you're actually paying, if you're buying
14:01
a spec house. You're kind of just walking up and buying what you get
14:05
what you get. But if you're having a house built, engaging an engineer
14:09
or somebody that is very knowledgeable as kind of a third party individual to kind
14:15
of set expectations and make sure things are done and inspections along the way would
14:18
be the best protection that all makes sense. Hav any questions this morning,
14:24
You're welcome to give us a call. Would love to hear. You can
14:26
point to the direction of the conversation whatever direction you want to go in this
14:28
morning. If you have any questions about foundation repair around your home, other
14:31
repairs that you're looking to have answered, or if you're just concerned about some
14:37
things that you're seeing and you want to know if that's going to be leading
14:39
to some problems in the future, or maybe you had some repairs done in
14:41
the past that you're not real happy with and you want a second opinion.
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All kinds of reasons. You can give us a call this morning and call
14:46
Brett Hodgton. He is the owner of Foster Foundation Repair also a professional engineer,
14:50
so he can give you counsel from multipitude of directions. You can give
14:56
us a call this morning at three zero four three four five fifty fifty eight
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three zer A four three four five fifty fifty. It is our number.
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You can find out more information online. It's Foster Foundation Repair dot com.
15:03
Foster Foundation Repair dot com, located here in Charleston, West Virginia, and
15:07
you're welcome to give us a call this morning to steer the conversation. One
15:11
of the questions I had when it comes to foundations, and I was thinking
15:16
about this area and the types of homes that you see a lot, and
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there may not be a huge difference, but I know when I was doing
15:22
mortgages for a long time that when you talked about like prefab modular homes or
15:28
like double wides that were put on a foundation or something along those lines,
15:31
that they were always treated slightly differently from like a financial standpoint in different things
15:35
like that when it comes to foundation and from what you do, are there
15:39
additional cautions or things that you look out for for like a prefab or a
15:43
manufactured home that's been put on a foundation, Is there anything different about those?
15:46
Well, so a manufactured home is going to be put on typically on
15:50
peers, and we don't get we don't do a lot with manufactured homes,
15:54
we we certainly would fix one if if it needed to. We definitely don't
16:00
set them or do new construction. But a modulars essentially considered a stick built
16:06
home, just like every other home that you see. In fact, one
16:08
of my employees is in the process of having one built and they just had
16:12
the foundation put in two weeks ago or so. But no, I mean,
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they're they're they're the similar. They're very similar. From my home inspection
16:22
experience prior to this, I'd say from the modular home standpoint, they typically
16:30
come from the plant perfect, I mean, in great shape. The only
16:33
issues. A lot of times the issues that we would see was what was
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done on site. Maybe they didn't put the foundation in level, or they
16:41
did poor hookups with the plumbing or something like that. But from a foundation
16:45
standpoint, residents typical site built residential house versus a modular we're looking at I'm
16:51
exactly the same. So any foundation issues that there may be or anything along
16:55
those lines, the repairs generally going to be the same. It's the same
16:59
type of thing. From the most Yeah, I was curious about that because
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I know that on the on the the mortgage side and the real estate side
17:04
of things that used to be. Anyway, my knowledge is two decades out
17:07
of favor now, but it used to be quite considerably different to handle one
17:11
over the other. Yeah, and it still is it still well, that's
17:14
it surprised me from that same point. Things changed from time to time,
17:18
but maybe not all that much. And when it comes to we've been talking
17:22
a lot about how dry it's been in the arid situation that we've been in,
17:25
what that might be for mean for your foundation and things like that.
17:27
But in West Virginia, and of course just not long ago, we came
17:32
across our the big I guess eight year anniversary on the big flood of twenty
17:36
sixteen that came rolling through here, and that really kind of recast the shape
17:40
of the area in a lot of ways. I know, flood plains were
17:41
redrawn after that. A lot of places that had never had any kind of
17:45
water damage before we see having water damage. And you've been in this industry
17:49
and around this for a long time, including back then, have you seen
17:52
a change as far as there is there more? Is there more congreisant aware
18:00
of water related issues for foundations and things in these new areas or these new
18:03
areas are just places that we're seeing having to be addressed after the fact of
18:07
what's going on as far as the shape of the region after what happened in
18:11
twenty sixteen. I mean, obviously people had to move and were displaced.
18:15
I've seen some houses lifted, but there hasn't really been I mean normally it's
18:19
if somebody has water issue, they have a localized water issue to their own
18:23
property. So I haven't seen any big shift that I've noticed from that.
18:29
I mean, there are definitely there's definitely a lot more awareness I would I
18:33
would say now about mold and water infiltration, and you know what, the
18:37
damages can be caused can be caused by that. Cross Space encapsulation is a
18:44
good example that's being pushed quite heavily in the industry. And this time of
18:49
year is a time where where humidity outside is high. So in the event
18:56
that you have a cross space or someone has a cross space and it is
18:59
a standard to crawl space, like most crawl spaces in the region were constructed,
19:03
that means high humidity outside, then you likely are going to have that
19:07
high humidity in the crawl space as well. There's times when it gets so
19:11
humid in a crawl space that I've seen it in crawl spaces where it's literally
19:17
raining or dripping off the duct work, or even water is condensing on the
19:21
floor joists or the insulation, and that's all related to just excess humidity accumulating
19:26
in that crawl space, and a cross space encapsulation is an excellent way to
19:32
manage that moisture to keep it out and then manage it with typically with a
19:36
dehumidifier to keep those humidity levels down. But the encapsulations are wonderful. They
19:44
create a very nice environment, they're very clean, They serve their purpose very
19:49
well as far as controlling the water vapor, and there's a lot of other
19:53
benefits like energy improving the energy efficiency of the home into our air quality is
20:00
typically going to be improved. That's what I was going to say, Like
20:03
people that have like that, even when a you know, a clean house
20:07
or whatever, people that have like odor sensitivities and things like that, it
20:10
seems like something like a crawl space encapsulation could help in that regard with because
20:12
the recycled air would be less infected I guess to some degree. Yeah,
20:15
yeah, a lot or less. Its supposed Yeah, most crawl space.
20:19
Most homes that have a crawl space have duct work in the crawl space or
20:23
their their age fact system is in the crawl space and your return duct work
20:27
is down there and it's under negative pressure. So any leaks in that duct
20:33
work, any gaps in that duct works, which they all have, are
20:37
that's going to be pulling that air into the house should be going through a
20:41
filter first, but still it's that air is coming into the house. There's
20:45
also a thing called stack effect, which is basically obviously heat rises, so
20:52
there's always air migrating through stack effect from the crawl space up into the home
20:57
and ultimately makes its way into the attic and out. That's just a common
21:03
uh, that's common for all for all homes. So if you got a
21:06
basement that that errs starting in the basement and working its way up through it,
21:11
it's so interesting to me when we have these conversations on how however you
21:18
want to approach it. You can call it a domino effect, or if
21:19
it's like a living organism or whatever it was. Houses can be so finicky.
21:23
Sometimes, you know, you change one thing, maybe the location of
21:26
a window or the way something is juxtaposed against something else, and the domino
21:30
effect that that could cause for the rest of your house could be fairly significant.
21:33
Yeah. That that brings up an interesting point. A good friend of
21:37
mine has a basement and a cross, a small basement with a crawl space
21:41
attached. Access access from the base to the crawl space was gained through the
21:47
basement, and he was having condensation issues in his basement. He was getting
21:51
moisture that was condensing on the floor and on a wall. So his father
21:56
came in put in an exhaust fan that was pulling air, creating negative pressure
22:00
in the basement, and exhausting it out made the situation worse. So I
22:06
went over there and helped him out with this, and what we ended up
22:07
determining is that, for whatever reason, I don't remember the exact details of
22:14
it, but when his basement door was closed and his HVAC system was running,
22:18
it was creating negative pressure in that basement and it was pulling air from
22:22
the crawl space into the basement, creating high humidity levels. It was a
22:26
simple fix. All he did was cut a louver event, put a lover
22:27
event in the door. But it is Yes, homes are very finicky and
22:33
they can be tricky to figure out what's causing those things. And there's not
22:41
every situation has the cookie cutter repair that might be on the back of another
22:47
company's truck that needs to be sold to you list before we go to commercial
22:51
work. We'll do that here in just a moment. We do have a
22:52
phone call that has called in this morning, and we have calling in this
22:56
morning with a question for Brett. It is it is John, John,
23:00
good morning, How are you doing this morning? Good? How about yourself
23:03
doing very well? You're on the phone with Brett Houston from Foster Foundation Repair.
23:08
What's your question this morning? Well, my question is I'm a retired
23:11
builder. I'm seventy two years old now, so plenty time to retire.
23:15
My question about frost lines. Of course, most houses are put on trench
23:22
footers, and as I recall, back in the late seventies, when we
23:26
had those really severe winters the frost lines. The building departments of different cities
23:34
in this area deepened the frost line down the twenty eight inches. But I
23:40
seem like I was the only builder that ever paid attention to that. What
23:44
does your guests know about frost lines? Well, so obviously that's going to
23:48
vary by region. But I consider the frost line to be twenty four inches.
23:52
That's where I'm gonna put my footers, or a minimum of twenty four
23:56
inches, assuming i'd dig down and find decent oil. But yeah, twenty
24:02
four inches is what I would consider the frost line and cities. Cities do
24:06
have different I believe Charleston's is twenty four I actually don't know that for to
24:11
be one hundred percent sure. Okay, another question I earlier in the show,
24:17
you were talking about having to go in and reparge and rewaterproof foundation.
24:22
I found the way we always did it is we made sure that the foundation
24:29
drying fat down next to the footer and on top of the footer. Have
24:33
you experienced problems when people do it otherwise? Yes, we we put ours
24:41
adjacent to the foot just like you're you're you're mentioning there are there are architectural
24:47
details that show them on top of the footer as well. The Carlisle waterproofing
24:52
system that we use. Actually there are their their details show it on top
24:56
of the footer. But I'm my preference is to collect the water as low
25:00
as possible, because if you're on top of the foot or normally in a
25:04
basement scenario, you're only going to be four inches below the slab, the
25:08
interior basement floor slab. But also I want to collect water at the bottom
25:14
of the foot or where the where the footer is bearing on the earth,
25:17
So water's not collecting that twelve inches until it builds up into and gets collected
25:22
by the foot or drink. I was always reminded when we parched and water
25:27
proofd a foundation wall, especially when hillside would eventually be set next against it.
25:34
The old cliche you only get one chance to do it right the first
25:37
time, because you mess it up the first time, you got problems,
25:41
you know, Yeah, going okay, Well, thank you for your time.
25:45
Yeah, thanks John, John, We appreciate thanks for your phone call.
25:47
Appreciate you calling incommist rating just a little bit on those things. What
25:49
we're gonna do now, we're gonna take a break, We're gonna reset just
25:51
a little bit. We're going to come back. We have about ten minutes
25:52
left in the program. You can control where the conversation goes, if you
25:56
would like, you and give us a call this morning. Three z er
25:57
A four three four five fifty to fifty eight like John just three zero four,
26:00
three four five fifteen to fifty eight. You can also text us any
26:03
questions you have to three zero four non three five five zero zero eight.
26:06
Brett Hauchon is here from Foster Construction Foster Foundation Repair dot com. It's where
26:10
you can find more information Foster Foundation Repair dot Com. Their phone number three
26:12
zero four seven seven six sixty two sixty three seven seven six sixty two sixty
26:17
three. We'll take a break and be back right after this. You're listening
26:18
to ask the expert with Foster Foundation Repair on five eight wc HS the Voice
26:22
of Charleston. Hey, it's day valid for Parmers stores and now that the
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is Kayla Ross. My favorite sport is football. When you think of football,
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you don't take up limit. What do you mean pro? There's a
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pro level, right, because there's actually different We actually have different visions within
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the WSA through right. Yeah, So D three, D two and then
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pro. Let's talk with Carl Lee. Present it by Attorney Frank Walker.
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Frank Walker Law dot com. Find all episodes at WCHS network dot com,
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slash Let's Talk of production from the Voice of Charleston five e ad WHS.
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According to USA Today, one in seven children in West Virginia face food in
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A good retirement takes planning. Let's get started today. Good morning,
28:02
here's your traffic update in Canall County. Debris on the roadway on I sixty
28:06
four East at mile marker forty seven. That's right there at cross Lanes.
28:10
Maintenance on I seventy seven North at mile marker eighty two to mile marker eighty
28:12
two point five, the northbound left lane is closed. That's past Cabin Creek
28:18
Road, and maintenance on I seventy seven North at mile marker twenty to mile
28:21
marker twenty point five, the northbound right lane is closed. That's at Camp
28:25
Creek. I'm Chapel in the WCCHS Network traffic studio. You're listening to ask
28:42
the expert WCHS the Boys and Charleston. Thanks for tuning in on this Wednesday
28:45
morning, another hot day in the city of Charleston in the state of West
28:49
Virginia. I think we might have a potential of I think the stunt thunderstorms
28:52
maybe was earlier today, possibly overnight. I'm not sure if we're going to
28:56
have much weather today, but it's gonna be hot yet again. Once again
29:00
talking about some of the weather related issues that could surface around your house,
29:03
both with the air temperatures and the sort of drought situation that we're in.
29:07
Now, as well as the what could happen when it's overly wet outside,
29:11
which we're often talk about when bred Hashen is here. He is the owner
29:15
of Foster Foundation Repair Professional Engineer as well. Something that John brought up before
29:19
the break that I thought was kind of interesting. You guys were talking about
29:22
the frost line and what role that that plays and why that's an important aspect
29:26
when doing construction or new builds, and I'm a little ignorant as far as
29:29
that goes. So that is actually a very important part of the building.
29:33
Depending on the depth of the foundation. How is how does that work?
29:37
Yeah, it's important to really really everything with the house. I mean water
29:41
line. You definitely want your water line below the frost line. But as
29:44
far as the footer goes, if your foundation is not your foot at the
29:48
bottom of your foot is not below the frost line, then as the ground
29:49
freezes and thaws in the winter months, your house is going to be going
29:53
up and down and up and down, and it doesn't always go back down
29:57
to where it started exactly where it started, So that that can definitely play
30:03
havocs on a house with a shallow footer. It's also It's also back to
30:10
the shrinking and swelling. The lower, the lower the footer, the less
30:14
uh, the less affected it will be by the swings of the a drop
30:18
to a wet season because of the surface, you still have groundwater that will
30:23
keep it dry, and it's it's drying, you're just gonna be less affected
30:27
by the climactic conditions, the large swings in the in the moisture content.
30:33
And then of course if it's if it's really shallow, you can be affected
30:36
by by erosion as well. All the things that you need to be aware
30:40
of. But yet again it's something else that you know. Having an expert
30:42
on your side to like point these things out to you're help you in some
30:45
way. I mean, these things help when it comes to accumulating this knowledge
30:49
as a homeowner. And just a couple of minutes left it before we have
30:52
to get out here, but a few things I just wanted to get out
30:55
for our clients in there. Of course, with Foster foundation repair, we
30:57
talk a lot about foundation repair, the encapsuling of the cross spaces, waterproofing
31:03
the basements and things along those lines, and all of these things are very
31:06
important parts to the homeostasis of your home, to make sure that your home
31:08
is always in good shape and able to you know, survive going into the
31:14
future. You know, when you finance your home, most of the time
31:17
you're financing for fifteen, twenty or thirty years. You know, you want
31:18
to make sure that the investment that you're making and these things are going to
31:23
are going to be solid as far as that goes speaking, I've had this
31:26
happen, and both of these happened before you and I started doing a show
31:30
together. But so I didn't have much counsel to give to my friends and
31:33
family where this was happening to it. But I had somebody in my family
31:36
just recently they were looking at just refinancing their home, and out of the
31:41
blue, they had done some financing in their home here and there in the
31:45
past, and suddenly they were told they have a foundation issue and it was
31:48
a fairly significant one, and now they were looking at they couldn't get financing
31:53
for their home because they had to repair this other thing for the value to
31:56
even retain what it was previously. And when you get into situations like that,
32:00
that's when you really need to work with someone like yourself, because you
32:04
are protecting your investment at that point. John Burdett in here a lot,
32:07
and he's like cautioning people and looking at homes at an investment, and this
32:10
is one of those reasons, because you have to take care of these things.
32:13
Absolutely, yeah, you don't want it to be a liability, but
32:17
yeah, I mean as an engineer, I look at that. I look
32:21
at a house very differently, at least I think I do. But I
32:27
think it's critical that if someone has a foundation issue, that they have an
32:30
engineer working with them, whether it's me or a third party engineer. Third
32:36
party engineers they're they're not driven by dollars and cents on how many peers are
32:40
put in the ground or how many how many feet of waterproofing gets done where
32:46
there's a little bit of a So I just think it's critical for me because
32:50
the other thing is they're more likely to correctly diagnose the problem and provide a
32:55
correct repair that's actually going to fix the problem. There's unfortunately so many times
33:00
I come across, say a house that's been repaired, Uh, They've they've
33:04
put in helical peers or push peers or something to stabilize the house for a
33:07
further settlement, and the cracking was actually caused by a lateral movement at the
33:10
front of the house. So they spent money doing repairs and it and it
33:15
didn't even fix their problem because it was improperly diagnosed by I don't think somebody
33:21
them probably was dishonest, but just somebody that didn't know didn't identify the correct
33:24
the correct thing. And that's I've seen it happen so many times, and
33:28
it's it's a very hard conversation to start with the homeowner say they fixed the
33:34
wrong thing, and and and and an engineer is going to be much less
33:38
likely with that to occur. And and there's there's some good engineers around here
33:43
that we work with that that if if, if they wanted to, you
33:47
know, I'm happy, I'm very happy to work with other engineers, do
33:51
their scope of work, have them come out review view our work while we're
33:54
performing it to make sure they're happy, make sure they want make any adjustments.
34:00
You know, when we're digging and we expose something that they would have
34:04
never known was underneath the dirt, and we call them out, let them
34:07
have a look at it, and let them tell us what to do,
34:09
and we do what they say. And I prefer working with an engineer,
34:15
Well, I don't necessarily prefer it, but I'm very happy to do it.
34:19
And if I need. If there's no engineer involved, then I'll draw
34:23
up the drawings and act as the engineer of record, like in South Charleston.
34:30
I don't know if it's mandatory, but it sure seems like it's very
34:32
close to being mandatory that an engineer be involved in the project. Well,
34:37
if you think about the advantage that it gives you to and with the sketch
34:38
that I just kind of laid out there, you're looking at not even just
34:42
selling your home, maybe you're looking at refinancing to do something, you know,
34:44
whatever it might be, and suddenly you find out that you have this
34:46
fairly major issue that's with your home. Not only could it affect the structural
34:51
integrity of your home as you continue to live in it with your family,
34:52
but if you're somebody that's looking to become an empty nester in the next ten
34:57
years or something, and the part of the plan was always to have the
35:00
bigger house and then when the kids left, you're gonna sell the house and
35:02
downsize a little bit, these things can get in your way. I mean,
35:06
if you have a major foundation issue and this is part of like your
35:08
retirement plan or something you're going to downsize after a certain age or something.
35:12
This could be a huge issue to keep you from being able to do that.
35:14
Yes, yeah, I've seen, you know, when I was doing
35:16
home inspections and just structural inspections prior to the foundation repair, I'd see oftentimes
35:22
i'd get called out as a result of the scenario you mentioned where the appraiser
35:27
notes on their their their report that the value of the house is contingent upon
35:31
a you know, basically a clean bill of health from an engineer. So
35:36
then then the lender requires the engineer to come out and then that report is
35:40
either it has to be fixed or it's or it's in good shape. Yeah,
35:45
but normally if an appraiser is calling out for a foundation issue like that,
35:47
it's I'd say more often than not, it's probably an issue with like
35:52
with with your body and with doctors generally speaking, if we're talking about foundation
35:57
foundation issues is earlier the best, Like the earlier you can you even track
36:01
issues sometimes, right, so you may go out to a site and be
36:05
like, you know, this isn't something that maybe you need to worry about
36:07
today, But why don't we keep an eye on it. Yes, earlier
36:08
is always better because we may be able to do certain things like improve storm
36:15
water management to maybe a downsabout drain system upgrade or something to get water away
36:21
from the foundation that that can slow or stop the issue altogether or slow it
36:25
down to where it's not because some of it. Some of the things are
36:29
the excess excess cyclical movement where the house is moving up and down seasonally so
36:35
much that that it's causing issues. And I've got a great example of that
36:38
in Saint Albans that we're monitoring where from the winner to the last time I
36:44
was there, it from one of the house to the other it has changed
36:47
over an inch, so that it definitely happens. But yes, earlier is
36:52
always better. There's definitely things that can be done to hopefully stay prevent the
36:59
larger repair that needs to be done. And you know things aren't getting cheaper
37:02
also right from that standpoint, So that's why you need to be village it
37:07
and stay up, stay up on it. Is just like when you take
37:08
care of your body, you got to take carry your house as well,
37:12
and try to keep you as close as possible in the homeostasis and Brett can
37:15
help you do that. It is Foster Foundation Repair. Foster Foundation Repair.
37:19
You can find out more information online Foster Foundation Repair dot com. Very easy
37:22
to get to and the phone number three zero four seven seven six sixty two
37:24
sixty three. Three zero four seven seven six sixty two sixty three is a
37:29
number that you can call. You can find Foster Foundation Repair here and ask
37:32
the expert. It's every fourth Wednesday of the month that you can tune in
37:37
here on five ADWCHS for ask the Expert with bred Hodston from Foster Foundation Repair,
37:40
located at ten seventy four Sunset Crest Center in Charleston, West Virginia.
37:45
Is that right? I don't know where that came from. Sorry, what
37:47
is your address? Our business address is sixty two Massyope Drive. I do
37:52
feel there you go. Sorry about the information there. Let's go ahead and
37:57
call that for aday. We'll see you back here next month. YEP.
37:59
It's good to see. Thanks for appreciate that. Have a great day everyone
38:00
on five ad W c HS W c H S A W two four three
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A R F M Charles Don W two A three A Q Cross Lanes A
38:30
w v r C Media Station. We're proud to live here too,