by L.B. Woodgate

Created on: February 20, 2010

With all of our advanced technology, the home is still a hand built product that requires human intervention to preserve it.

Now that you have spent a small fortune on your new home, don’t expect it to be problem-free. Hopefully you’ve bought from a reputable builder (see my article on this) and when legitimate breaks do occur they have a reliable warranty department that addresses them quickly and gets it done right the first time.  The first and perhaps the most critical area of your home’s exterior that needs attention is the foundation upon which it stands. Some simple steps here can go a long way in preventing more costly repairs later.

New homes sit on top of what I call “virgin soils”, that is, soils that have not had the weight of human-made construction on them before. The compaction of foundation soils that occurs prior to setting the foundation will still allow some settling once the home is complete. This new weight and gravity will insure this. It takes a full year for the soils that your home sits on to fully settle. If this settlement is uniform you will notice almost nothing of its effects.

Once the house has completely settled the single most important thing you can do as a homeowner to prevent future cracks is to make sure you maintain a balanced moisture content in the soils around the foundation. Soils expand and contract in relationship to moisture and temperature. When soil moisture content varies around your foundation it too will create an unequal movement that puts stress on one section of your home, thus effecting cracks in drywall inside and brick veneer outside. Think of it as a dry sponge that expands as it gets wet and shrinks when it drys out.

In areas where extreme heat and scant moisture occur the soils will shrink dramatically. Any home that resides in these areas will require manual watering periodically to insure that excessive shrinking doesn’t occur. No amount of technology employed with foundations today can supersede climate conditions when they become severe enough.

Clearly when it is warmer you will have to be an active participant in providing a proper moisture balance in soils around the foundation. Your focus should be on the area approximately 18 to 24 inches from the base of the foundation. It is recommended that you purchase a soaker  hose placed on top of soils around your home to help you maintain this moisture balance in the summer.  If you have the money to invest in these hard times there are foundation drip lines that can be installed under the surface around the foundation to replace surface-placed soaker hoses. They can be connected to an existing sprinkler system or run independently off of the water meter. They are less of a visual distraction and can be set with a timer much like your lawn sprinkler system.

To determine if the moisture in the soils is relatively similar around the foundation, use a probing tool, like a screw driver, that will penetrate to a depth of about 9 inches. Using no more than arm strength the probing tool should go in all the way with slight resistance. If you have to lean on the tool to get it to go in then the soils are too dry; if it goes in the soil like melted butter, the soils are too wet. Adjust your watering habits to create a balance where the probing tool will go in smoothly at the same rate all around the house. Soils should always be moist, NOT damp.  Your goal here is to create a moisture balance around your foundation where, when it DOES move, it will do so equally, preventing stress points that cause cracks.

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