Our New Home’s Hidden Nightmare: Why We Need A Foundation Repair

When we moved our family across the country into our forever home, we planned to dive right into building our unfinished basement. But our expectations quickly changed after moving in.This week we got news that no homeowner ever wants to hear. Our new home has a bowing foundation wall in the basement that needs an expensive structural repair. Not only was this not disclosed by the sellers, but our home inspector didn’t catch it either.

Foundation Repair Red Flags: Vertical Wall Cracks, Flooding, and a Leaning Basement Wall

The day we moved into our new home, the basement was full of water.

Not a good sign.

We learned from neighbors that it had been an incredibly rainy month here in Colorado. Unusually so. Flooding in the basement was a new problem for many homeowners here. With this in mind, we cleaned up the water and called a basement company (Groundworks) for an evaluation.

Then I started noticing other red flags about our foundation.

We found vertical wall cracks along the windows and upper parts of the foundation wall. And a noticeable lean in the concrete wall towards the middle.

My gut told me something major was going on.

When Groundworks come by a month later, they confirmed for us that our North basement wall has a 3″ lean and is in Stage 2 wall failure. The next stage is collapse.

Leaning Foundation Repair Cost

Groundworks quoted us $17,000 for the foundation repair and another $25,000 for basement waterproofing solutions. This was quite the shock for us! They recommended some extensive waterproofing:

• Add two sump pumps based on the size of our basement (1200sqft)
• Install a tile gutter system in the concrete floor
• Replace the window well taps for drainage
• Add a vapor seal along the foundation walls
• and more.

Being new to the area, Colorado soil, and Colorado homes, we felt hesitant about all of these suggestions. Knowing it’s possible our home has never flooded before, these solutions seemed like overkill.

We decided to prioritize getting our foundation repaired first, and then slowly add waterproofing solutions as needed.

Our priority is fixing our leaning foundation first.

Foundation Repair In Our New Home: Who’s At Fault?

Since this is such a major, expensive repair we didn’t expect about in our new home, we need to do our due diligence to see if we’re on the hook for the cost of this.

There are a few avenues we want to pursue before we consider anything else.

1. Is our home inspector liable for this foundation repair?

Not only did our home inspector miss this leaning foundation wall, but he also missed the major cracks around the egress windows that indicate wall movement.

I poured through our contract agreement to see if this person would be liable for this mistake. Unfortunately, according to our contract, we’ve missed the 30 day time frame to report this type of issue that would make him liable for covering this repair cost. However I still reached out to him and informed him about the situation. He is planning to come take a look at it next week.

If we had known about this structural foundation repair issue in the purchase process we would have asked for sellers concessions to help cover the cost.

It would have made a big difference in what we offered for this home.

2. Is this foundation repair covered under a warranty?

This house had a structural repair done in 2012 on the West basement wall. We knew this before buying the home. In addition to adding counter-foot bracing in the West wall, they added this small beam in the center of the North wall (see below) attached to the floor joists above. The North wall is the one that is leaning and has vertical cracks in it now.

So clearly someone knew about a foundation problem on this North wall. But nothing was disclosed to us. Our home inspector and sellers failed to inform us about this steel beam. You can clearly tell it’s pulling away from the framing.

I contacted the original foundation repair company to see if there is any kind of warranty. Thankfully they still had the repair paperwork, but it looks like they contracted the work out. I’m still waiting to hear back from them again on who did the actual repair work. They’re going to review our case.

My gut tells me this will be a dead-end. Since it’s been over 10 years since the original West wall repair, there is most likely no warranty.

Unfortunately, foundation repairs typically aren’t covered under any kind of home warranty or home insurance.

3. Should we pursue legal action against the seller’s?

Most likely, we are stuck covering the cost of this major structural foundation repair.

I don’t believe this level of wall movement would have occurred because of all the heavy June rain. This issue existed before our home was sold, while the previous owners were living here.

A few people have recommended we get a real estate lawyer and pursue legal action against the previous owner, since so much was left undisclosed. Including this obvious foundation issue.

We learned from neighbors that this has sat empty for a year, with no one here to maintain it. This explains why so much of our home is in disrepair.

But we desperately want to avoid suing anyone.

The cost of pursuing legal action doesn’t make sense. If anything, we’d be willing to reach out the previous home owner personally through our realtors to inform them about this situation. Maybe they’d be gracious to help.

4. Getting second quotes for our foundation repair

Foundation issues typically aren’t covered by home insurance. And if it were, we did not have specific flood insurance coverage that might have covered this damage.

The last step will be getting additional foundation repair quotes from local companies.

I’ve been reaching out to local construction companies, concrete companies, and companies that specialize in basements. Through word of mouth, I found one that specifically does foundation repairs here in Northern Colorado. They are coming over next week to give us another quote.

If we end up needing to pay for this structural foundation repair ourselves, which is probably the case, we’ll need to take our time figuring out how to pay for it wisely.

Being a homeowner isn’t always fun.

We still love our new home. We chose it for a reason and I can see us living here for a long time.

I still believe this home is a valuable investment.

Every house has its stuff. It’s just hard with that stuff shows up unannounced!

I know there are many of you who have encountered similar situations. Major unexpected, expensive repairs in your home like sewer pipes, water lines, foundation issues, roof issues, etc. I know how disheartening it can be.

If we had stayed in our old Texas home, we’d be paying about this much in the next 3-5 years to repair old siding and windows anyway.

Home Value Vs. Investment

Our neighbor who is a home appraiser reminded me that the most recent comparable sale to our home (ranch-style, unfinished basement) in our neighborhood sold for $44,000 more than we we paid for ours. Another comparable one with a finished basement sold for $100,000 more than ours a few years ago.

I truly believe we’ll see the return on our investment here in the years to come. We’re confident we can continue to update this home within our budget and turn a profit if we ever move.

We love our home and want to stay as long as we can. This feels like a home we can thrive in as a family. Making it safe for years to come is important.

This structural foundation repair is a big snag we need to figure out. We’re looking forward to being on the other side of it.

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Our Home Inspector Missed A Leaning Foundation Wall In Our New House: Who’s Liable?