Be Thankful Your House Foundation is Intact

Turkey

TurkeyHappy Thanksgiving to everyone!

I randomly came accross a blog entry from Lt. Col. George W. Runkle USAFR (Ret.), a consulting Structural Engineer with Runkle Consulting, Inc. in Loganville Georgia.  His practice appears to be focused on residential projects, including forensic analysis of foundation problems. Back in september he blogged about 2:10 Warranties in the housing industry which cover structural problems with the house from 1-10 years after construction (the builder is typically responsible for the first year), and what that means in terms of what the warranty company will cover if your house starts having foundation problems. He says that most warranties have language that talks about a “catastrophic” failure of your foundation that makes the house unlivable, not just cracks in the walls because of foundation problems. He gave the example of a house he was looking at that was experiencing a slope failure in the back yard that caused the back half of the house to move, essentially splitting the house in half. The warranty company denied the claim saying the house was still livable! Yikes!