Foundations

City Home Inspections

Foundations like many parts of buildings can be unique to themselves.  While often houses in an older neighborhood will have been built by a single or just a couple contractors and so should be similar to each other, the reality is that even side by side they will often perform much differently.  Neighboring houses will have been remodeled or added to over the years soils under two houses are different etc.  When inspecting a structure you often will need to look for the subtilities.  Minor cracks may tell an underlying story.  Is there any sign of erosion, is there a sign perhaps that site drainage runs against the foundation thus undermining the structure.  As a Home Inspector you may not be able to walk around a house and fully inspect a home’s foundation. During your inspection you will need to pull back vegetation and probe the soil at the base of the home.

Age is also a big player in a houses story.  In large older urban settings, the age of the house will tell you important facts.  Building standards have changed over the years, reinforcing steel was not commonly used prior to the 1950’s in San Francisco and not adopted into the local building code until the year 2000.  Any house built prior to 1950 most likely doesn’t have a reinforced foundation, certainly not to today’s standards.

I bought and renovated the house in the middle of this picture.  When we started the work we quickly discovered that these three houses share a party wall, two houses sharing a single common foundation.

We needed to go back to our local Building department to get guidance on how to proceed.   This thew a speedbump into the process, we resolved the issue and moved on but the point of this odd example is that you never really know what lies beneath your house.

When you buy your home it is important that you work with an experienced inspector, not just one who has inspected a thousand properties but one who has worked on, renovated and built the type of house you are buying.  In an older home, this experience is what will properly and fully inform you of purchase.  While it is not possible to see into every closed wall or see through the concrete of the foundation, seeing the subtilities of the picture your structure is painting for you will give you the kind of knowledge that will set your expectations and inform you about the future work you will be investing in your home.

Bryan is a Licensed General Contractor working in the San Francisco Bay area.  A link to his website is here.  Bryan has been operating his home renovation business for over 30 years.