The Chronicles of Nickerson - The Grid Pattern

There are two things that we know for sure about concrete – it is hard and it cracks. But the crack inside the front door started to get wider and wider at a noticable rate after the rains began. And one day when were cleaning our daughter's room, we lifted up some of the carpet squares to clean them and discovered a whole pattern of wide cracks that hadn't been there a few months earlier when we had laid the carpet.

We made a few inquiring calls. Our goal was to find out if rapidly growing cracks were normal in a concrete floor. It turns out that the apearance of cracks was not an issue at all, it happens all the time. Good news. But the rapidly growing size and the grid pattern starting in the center of the house and very obviously moving toward the southwest corner, was a sign of a poorly laid foundation. Insufficient hold up a 3-story, steel-framed, stucco house. Bad news.

We called in some other experts to have a look at the leaks and the cracks. Each of the 5 independent consultants from different trades had the same response - the flashing on the windows and roof were done incorrectly and that the foundation was settling more rapidly in one corner due to insufficient (or lack of) piers. And that we have a 100% chance of having mold in our walls due to the water intrusion. More bad news.

This brings us close to today. We passed our one year anniversary on May 13th. I've spent a lot of sleepless nights thinking about this. It has become a topic of conversation with friends, our neighbor who bought the other house built at the same time in the same style by the same builder, which is having all of the same problems, and with Charlie.

There are laws, and moral and ethical standards, that require that everything about a property be disclosed to any potential buyers. And although there is a chance that someone out there may be willing to buy a house that leaks, has mold in the walls, a cracking foundation, warping floors, and a wobbly fence (we also have landscaping issues), we couldn't get current market value for it. We'd lose our investment. And for us, that would hurt. There is also the fact that we would have to forfeit the lifestyle we have created for ourselves because, and probably in large part because of these houses which is disturbingly ironic, there has been a building moritorium in this area to stop any more large homes from being built.

As with any first person account, this one has been written very one sided. Mine. There are three sides to every story and this one has even more – the builder, two home owners, dozens of subs, architects (whose name has never been officially connected with the finished product), engineers, the broker, and a slew of experts. I'm only telling mine.

What would you do?

We now have ants entering the house through cracks in the stucco. They are not those little annoying California ants, they are the red biting Texas ants and they are building a lovely home in our walls. If we're lucky, the mold will kill them. We've gone from living in a sculpture to living in an antfarm.

On the brightside, we received the last of our window screens this morning.

Posted at 12:29PM Jun 02, 2006 by sarad in General  |  Comments[2]