Filter Fabric for French Drain - Don't Waste Your Money! Filter fabric for french drains is not required. It's a myth. Websites and YouTube channels promote it with reckless abandon. Here's why it's a waste of money. Water drainage is misunderstood by many a homeowner, builder, YouTube personality, and building inspector if my incoming email […]
House Settlement Debunked - Lumber Shrinkage Often, the Culprit Roy subscribes to my free newsletter and reached out to me about a month ago for one of my phone consult calls. He needed help engineering a drainage system around his house to stop water from infiltrating his basement. I offer a house-drainage design service. I […]
Water Ponding Against Foundation - It Doesn't Always Cause Wood Rot Two days before writing this column I saved an Ohio homeowner $30,000.00. Fortunately, he stumbled across my website and found out that he could talk to me on the phone. He was suffering from water ponding against his foundation and was considering signing a […]
How to Stop Water Flooding Into Your Home - Set Your Foundation High Water is both your friend and your foe. You need it to live, your plants and landscaping need a sip, and if your pets are like my stunning American Dirus dog that looks like a dire wolf, they need lots of water. […]
Bad New Home Builder - On My Own Street! Over the past five months I’ve watched the dream of a neighbor I’ve yet to meet start to come true on my own street. It started just after the snow melted when two men arrived with a giant machine that wrestles logs and chain saws. Their […]
Cracked Stone Small stones can be cracked with a sledgehammer. But what about solid bedrock that extends through the globe to China? Well, you use a giant jackhammer when blasting is too expensive or there are other houses too close to the blasting site. Part One of this two-part series is below the Cracked Stone […]
Install a New Concrete Foundation - Going Up! Recently my daughter purchased an old camp summer house on a lake. The house is about eighty years old and was built on crude cinder blocks that just rested on stony soil. Frost heave over the years has caused the doors and windows to not fit well. […]
How to Prevent Brick Foundation Problems - Go to the BIA A few weeks ago, a visitor to my AsktheBuilder.com website wanted to know about brick foundations. Karen had this ambitious desire to build a small 900-square-foot house by herself. She was well aware of her physical limitations and asked me if it was possible […]
Surfside City Condo Collapse - My Early Guess: Rusty Rebar Fractures and Weakened Concrete Columns This past weekend, my wife asked me all sorts of questions about the tragic sudden collapse of the 40-year-old condominium building near Miami, Florida. We’ve dated since high school and she knows I’ve got a geology degree instead of one […]
Foundation Repair: How Much Does It Cost? (2021 Pricing Estimates) Your foundation is the footing of your entire home. It's the 24/7 soldier that keeps your floor, walls, windows, doors, and possessions safe and secure. So, what happens when it starts to fail? You may notice a door that doesn't shut quite right, a section […]
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