Obviously, this is a summary of what’s happening, but it doesn’t appear the homeowners have much recourse, The quarry and concrete maker don’t appear to have engaged in fraudulent behavior, or tried to deceive people. WHen a problem like this crops up after 30 years, it seems hard to find fault.
Yeah, but don't worry... they're still selling it for use in bridges, tunnels, dams, and skyscraper foundations.
Everyone’s worst nightmare.
.
Fire insurance
Those local governments approved the building of those houses and should stop taking property taxes from all residents who have houses with that particular aggregate under them.
Can we assume the owners names are USHER?
So, rebuild the foundations. The houses, unless they have collapsed, should be sound enough to withstand the house being jacked up and for the foundation to be rebuilt in place of the old one.
Thinking of buying a home in Ct., better get an extensive inspection before you buy .... owners will be trying to unload and will go to great extents to hide the defect.
By the way, those houses should now have negative values (demolition costs). Property taxes in CT should be adjusted far downward to compensate.
Why would a replacement foundation cost $100,000 to $200,000? Houses are moved all the time here and put on new foundations, if it cost that there wouldn’t be any reason to do it. Older houses on basements routinely have basement walls replaced because the clay soil here expands and contracts, over decades eventually cracking and pushing the basement walls in below grade, requiring steel reinforcement or replacement. That’s in the range of $20,000, not $200,000.
It is not cheap, but I lived in a place where they moved houses to build freeways. You can move a whole house and set it on a new foundation, a lot cheaper than buying a new house. You can fix the problem.
Where I live now they move houses to get away from Lava flows. Post and pier foundations work great.
Be creative.
Class Action lawsuit against the concrete supplier, and any other businesses related to it. Proper cement mixture would not have this problem. Their business liability insurance should be able to award enough to at least help.
We live on a steep hill in a sub-division. Lots of houses here after 40 years, have some cracks here and there. The builders have come and done some repairs and blamed the drought etc. for settlement problems.
We hired an engineer to come an investigate. He said all the houses are gradually sliding down the hill. None of the codes, state, county, or federal required supports to go down to bed rock, or some such.
Homes could be retro-fitted with some support from the down -hill side, but only guaranteed for 20 years. Since the cracks didn’t appear for 15 years, and weren’t bad, nor progressing rapidly, most people just shrugged, slapped something over the foundation to make it look good, and went on living there.
Feel sorry for these people.
foundations to improper installation, specifically the tendency of some contractors to add water to wet concrete to make it pour faster.
other ready mix providers in the area used the same aggregate from the same source,”
Sounds to me like the Builder was cutting corners to finish on time.
Of course, this is in Connecticut, where they are helpless lefties. If it were Indiana, everyone would know that duct tape would fix it good.
"inspectors are on site during commercial and public jobs, ensuring that concrete is mixed and installed properly."
The problem w/the same quarry and concrete did not appear on commercial jobs (according to spox for both). Blames contractor for mixing improperly - adding water to get it to pour faster.
If true, this'd put the blame on those building the foundation. Yet no one in article going after them.
"but there are some problems where you need government intervention because of the magnitude"
I'd say this disaster is actually small enough to be handled by charity. Haiti earthquake drew quite a bit a change.
I always though gov should get out of the charity business - just have an office make it easy to hook up the needy w/the generous.
Happened to a bunch of Homes in Costa Mesa, CA that were built in the 60’s or 70’s. The Slab Foundations didn’t just crack, they disintegrated.
The Homes had to be jacked up, the old Foundation torn out from under the House and a new Foundation poured.
They can fix this. The house can be raised off of the foundation and the foundation can be repaired. I know people who have done this to have the foundation leveled which is another big problem. It is an issue if you don’t have the funds, because you cannot sell the house while the condition exists. Not the end of the world however and there are possible solutions.
You can jack the house and re-pour. There are companies who specialize in it. Cost is $30,000 and up, depending on complexity.
Average house has 80,000 lbs of building materials in it, so a foundation is sort of important.
Mr. Blandings builds his Dream House. The perfect Movie about building a House in CT., circa 1948. LOL
Just damn. Luckily, my Konnecticut foundation was poured in 1956, back when concrete was concrete.