Home Self-Care Is Important Too
If you’re reading this you’ve probably received my physical mailer, Home Self-Care Is Important Too. Outside of offering to share contacts for my go-to termite, sewer, foundation and drainage inspectors, arborists and affordable painters, I wanted to offer suggestions for maintaining your home from a realtor’s perspective. Often, small projects can protect your home over time. For example, simply consulting with a rain gutter install company or your gardener about keeping water away from your foundation, can add years to its life. And paint does more than offer a strong return on investment (assuming you’ve chosen on-trend colors that also suit your home). Paint also helps keeping moisture out, protects against wood rot, makes termite damage easier to spot earlier on and reduces air intrusion to improve insulation.
In Los Angeles, termites comes hand in hand with owning a home. Often first-time home buyers will be overwhelmed when they hear in escrow that their future home has termite damage. Of course, degrees of termite damage vary, but most issues are treatable and maintenance is really the key here. Your home should be tented roughly somewhere every 10 years, but this time frame can sometimes be extended with safe treatments from your licensed termite inspector. Borate wood treatment soaks into the wood and keeps termites from eating it. I’m certainly not a licensed Termite Inspector, but happy to share my go to inspector when needed.
Foundation Evaluation from an Engineer’s Point of View
“You are probably asking yourself why foundation evaluation reports and recommendations for foundation repairs vary dramatically for the same property from different foundation contractors. The answer is simple, the people preparing the reports are contractors, they have their own opinions, and they are hoping that they will be hired to perform the recommendations in their report.
The foundation is the most important part of the construction of the house. Without it, the house will not stand. There are many types of foundations. The type of footing depends on the location of the house, the type of soil present, and the slope of the lot. Some homes have crawl spaces with concrete footings and stem walls to provide access below the house to perform typical maintenance of utilities. The construction material of the stem walls can vary from river rock, concrete or masonry. Some houses have conventional concrete footings with concrete slabs poured on grade. These types of footings are not possible to review, since they are buried. There are portions of the footings that are visible, and we rely on that portion exposed to determine the condition of the foundation system. If the property is located on a hillside, the foundation may consist of deepened concrete piles and grade beams, extending the footing into competent soil.
From an engineer’s point of view, from the time the building was constructed to today, the house and foundation have been subject to sustained building loads, as well as transient loads from wind, seismic and rain and human events. These forces subject the foundations to stress and can cause settlement or cracking of the foundation system. The amount of distress is subject to a wide range of opinions. Some contractors believe cracked concrete needs to be repaired. Some will recommend adding “band aids” or “staples” to install metal straps and bolts to repair the footing. Some will recommend adding a new footing adjacent to the existing footing, while others may recommend the foundation to be removed and replaced.
This is where the value of an engineer comes in. The engineer will consider the building loads, and how those forces over the life span of the property have contributed to the observed current condition. The cause of the damage could be from water adjacent to the foundation, tree roots, excavation adjacent to the footing, soil erosion from stormwater, and poor soil conditions. With the determination of the cause of the problem, an appropriate recommendation for the remedial work required can be made.
The evaluation reports prepared by the contractors are valuable in the negotiation process. The actual work required to restore the foundation system to the intent of the original construction should be determined by the engineer.
With proper engineering experience and judgement, the engineer can provide recommendations that may be significantly less than what is recommended by the contractor.
Jeff Roberts, PE”
