Well, I'm in Michigan, and not Texas, and we generally do full, poured basements, although I have done some post-tension work.

Quite honestly, and....not completely understanding the common foundation usages, work, quality, and engineering specs of your area, I'd say....

That this looks pretty minor.

I don't understand why ATS didn't mention the exposed rebar. It is my understanding that it essential that rebar NOT be exposed in order to preclude corrosion. I recall pouring a foundation for a tower in which I had to keep all rebar a certain distance from the forms in order to meet the tower manufacturer's specs. I don't remember what the distance was. Three of four inches, perhaps.

I suspect the crew may have been upset that they had to do the pour in the wee and dark hours. Perhaps they got back at you by not doing their best work.

It happens.

Is that slab sitting directly on clay soil or on concrete piers to bedrock and void boxes between soil and slab?

If it is sitting directly on expansive soil, I'd be very concerned (because the slab will be stressed a lot).

Did they forget to vibrate? Why are there so many defects? I imagine that those defects continue in the invisible interior of the slab.

"I imagine that those defects continue in the invisible interior of the slab."

Sorry....but why would you imagine that?

I was a licenced custom builder in Toronto for 20 years--off this year for medical reasons. But I've only built full foundations. Even with vibration, you get some minor honeycombing, as you can see. Some of that is because the rebar is improperly located. Since you had an engineering inspection, I presume the rest of the rebar was placed as specified. The builder should be sure to use high-strength non-shrink grout, not just "mortar" over where rebar shows.

You can only hope they did a slump test and didn't "water" the mix as it came off the truck to make it easier to spread.

Any further examination of the slab will involve core sampling; and non-destructive techniques such as radar, echo-impact, x-ray etc. I don't know if any beyond core sampling are economically feasible for a home.

I suspect frog hopper is right,... they hurried the job due to the hour of the morning.

If I may add a question to your thread:

What can be done when supervising the pour, to make sure this happens as little as possible? What can I specify before hand?

"Sorry....but why would you imagine that?"

Because it is possible that the reason why the concrete didn't flow properly is spacing of rebar and aggregate size. The OP said that they insisted on full rebar vs. post tension. Full rebar is spaced a lot tighter than rebar with post tension tendons. The aggregate looks very coarse and I'm wondering how well the concrete flowed inside the slab.

If they poured at 4am, how could they even see what they were doing?

I appreciate your responses. To answer some of the questions raised:

frog hopper - pre-dawn pour was because we started having 100 degree plus temperatures in early June with overnight temps only dropping to the mid 80s. So, we wanted the pour done in the coolest part of the day/night. Around here, middle of the night construction work is not that uncommon - in order to escape some of the heat. Eg., road construction crews almost always work nights - especially in the summer. Plus, we gladly offered a premium to have it done then so the crew was getting more money for the same job AND escaping having to work in the blistering sun. Given that, why do you think they might want to "get back at us" by doing less than their best work?

dgmarie - lots of electric lights like the ones used for outdoor concerts. The place was lit up like a Christmas tree and I've got the electric bill to prove it!

jrldh - the footers and slab are all poured concrete with rebar reinforcing. The whole thing is poured at one time. The footers were dug down below the surface... I don't know the depth but must assume that it was per the engineering specs since the engineering firm that designed the foundation did a pre-pour inspection and approved it. I think around here they just dig down to a level that is deep enough not to be overly affected by surface moisture changes. Not sure how far down that is but I know they did NOT dig down to bedrock. The geotech survey took core samples that went down 20 feet and even that did not reach bedrock. Thus, nobody could afford to build a house around here if they had to dig down to bedrock for the footers. Instead, the slab is designed with interior footers (or maybe they are called something else) in a grid pattern spaced about six feet apart under the entire slab. I think it might be what is called a "raft foundation slab."

I didn't take pictures of the form work but found this image on the web that looks a lot like what mine looked like before the pour and shows what I mean about interior footers in a grid pattern.

I'm pretty sure they must have vibrated - maybe just not enough - because parts of the edges look great and, if they hadn't vibrated at all, I suspect the entire thing would have this cottage cheesy look rather than some parts of it.

Worthy - Really glad you chimed in. Have read lots of your posts and have come to believe you know what you're talking about and give good advice. Would you happen to have any "rule of thumb" that you would go by in determining whether the amount of honeycombing is "normal" or "excessive"? If there had been only a couple of dinner-plate sized spots, I probably wouldn't have been worried at all. It just seems like there is so much of it on my foundation. But, since I gather that builders tend to go back and cover over any honeycombing, it's not like I can go out and look at other houses that have stood the test of time and see how much honeycombing they have compared to mine. Thus, any insight you can provide based on your building experience would be really helpful.

With regard to the visible rebar, a more careful inspection shows that: 1) all visible rebar is at least an inch or two below where the edge of the concrete should be if it had filled the form properly. 2) All the spots where rebar is visible are located in areas where the top surface of the concrete is deliberately sloped slightly downward (like where the garage doors will be and along the edge of the porch.) When they were flood-curing, I noticed that in a few places, water was leaking from between some of the form boards and now, if I recollect correctly, it was right at these spots. So I'm wondering if that might have washed some of the concrete away from these areas before it could set up? If so, then there probably is less reason to worry that the interior footers will have exposed rebar.

BTW Worthy, I had found a half dozen or so funny-looking lumps of concrete setting off to one side and had wondered what they were. I looked up the "slump test" that you mentioned and sure enough, these lumps seem to be the remains of slump tests. Apparently they did one for each truck-load of concrete. That in itself eases my mind considerably because it certainly suggests they were doing things right and not taking shortcuts.

frog hopper - pre-dawn pour was because we started having 100 degree plus temperatures in early June with overnight temps only dropping to the mid 80s. So, we wanted the pour done in the coolest part of the day/night. Around here, middle of the night construction work is not that uncommon - in order to escape some of the heat. Eg., road construction crews almost always work nights - especially in the summer. Plus, we gladly offered a premium to have it done then so the crew was getting more money for the same job AND escaping having to work in the blistering sun. Given that, why do you think they might want to "get back at us" by doing less than their best work?

Because your original post gave the strong impression that you insisted on the night pour, and that you had to compensate them (or the owner of the business, maybe not the workers) in order to get them to do it, thus indicating that it was something not welcomed by the concrete crew.

Why in the world would you have to suggest it and pay extra for it, let alone require it, if it is normal practice in your area to pour at night in hot weather?

BTW, night work on highway projects seems to be pretty routine in a lot of places. It causes much less disruption to traffic, and the crews can get more done at night than they could if they had to deal with daytime traffic. I don't think it relates to your foundation pour at all.

When we started having 100 degree weather at the end of MAY (usually it doesn't hit 100 till around mid July) and the weatherman predicted no relief in sight for at least 3 more weeks, I asked my builder about doing a late night or early morning pour. He said the subcontractor he uses often does night-time pours in the heat of the summer but charges a night-time differential - to pay for trucking the necessary lights in and to pay his workers for rolling out of bed in the middle of the night. My builder said he hadn't calculated that additional cost into his bid because we were supposed to be pouring before it got this hot. (Early June usually tops out in the 80s.)

I told my builder I would pay the differential out of pocket and to ask his regular sub if he and his crew wanted to go ahead and do a night-time job even tho it was only June instead of July or August. Since night-time pours are often done around here, I'm sure the crew has a regular amount that get paid by the subcontractor for working "nights" so I would imagine/hope they got paid the same amount they would have if we had done the pour during the night later in the summer.

In any case, no one seemed grumpy or at all upset when DW and I showed up with 6 dozen doughnuts well before dawn.

The engineer's report says "honeycombing is common...where improper consolidation occurs" and no structural deficiencies are visible. I'm not an engineer and haven't been on site, so I can't responsibly add much other than it doesn't look too much worse than other foundations I've seen. I do wonder if it was vibrated at all.

The last place I built, vibration was in my specs, but the former showed up with no vibrator. I had to run to a rental place to get him one and a generator to run it. Meanwhile, a half-dozen mix trucks were rumbling away around the block waiting.

cpate

I took the liberty of posting a couple of your pics and your concerns on a "builder's only" site for comments. I believe you will find their observations of interest. (They get real touchy if they think you're not a pro!)

Thank you to everyone and especially to Worthy for posting my pics on the "builder's only" site. That was really helpful.

After reading all the comments here and on the site Worthy posted on, plus everything else I can find about foundations and foundation repair and after talking to an engineer (from another state unfortunately) who has the expertise to actually do non-destructive foundation testing, we've finally decided that our best option at this point is to go ahead and allow the builder to do the "cosmetic fix" with high-strength, non-shrinking grout and then keep our fingers crossed that no structural effects show up down the road.

Turns out that appropriate non-destructive testing of the foundation is pretty much cost prohibitive for a residential project. Plus, such testing can only result in one of two outcomes:

1) A finding that there are no structural problems which means we've bought "peace of mind" at the cost of not having enough money to finish the build unless we scale back to the very most basic of finishes and leave out pretty much every detail that made this our "dream home" to start with. - ergo, we wind up with a basic tract-home quality house that was built for a high-end custom-home price and which we would never ever be able to sell for what it cost to build; or

2) A finding that there are structural problems which will cost who knows what amounts to fix and which, in theory, our builder should be liable for. Unfortunately, in the past two weeks, I have also discovered that our builder lied to us and to our bank about having appropriate insurance in place before the foundation was poured. That in itself was a total breach of our contract and fraud but no insurance company will now insure the foundation because the work done prior to coverage! Plus, it has become clear to me that despite my having checked his references - including his financial status with his bank - he is actually on very thin ice financially. I suspect his bank is actually aware of this but was less than forthcoming to me about his status. All of which means, if we found out we actually do have foundation problems, he would probably bail from the whole contract and possibly even split town! My lawyer tells me a lawsuit in that event would be throwing good money after bad because if the builder is essentially broke and had no insurance then he is pretty much judgment proof which means even if I win there would be no way to ever collect from him. So, if there are foundation problems, we would have to pay to have them fixed or sell the property - with a known bad foundation sitting on it but no house - to someone who could afford to either fix the foundation and finish the house or have it jackhammered out and start over fresh. (Can't even imagine what it would cost to jack-hammer out nearly 2000 sq ft of rebar reinforced concrete slab!)

So, we have fingers crossed that there are no real structural problems and are going ahead with the build on the CHANCE that the foundation is "good enough" and we'll wind up with our dream home without losing our shirts in the process. I'm not usually a head-in-the-sand kind of person but, at this point, I don't feel I have any other viable choice.

Needless to say, I am livid especially because I DID check this guy's references every which way from Sunday including checking the website of our state agency that is supposed to register and police builders. They showed him as having a clean slate but it turns out that their on-line records appear to be at least 18 months out of date because in the last two weeks I've found out about 2 major lawsuits that have been pending against him for well over a year - both of which include claims of fraud as well as whole strings of construction defects. Plus, I've found out that the county D.A. is considering bringing a grand jury on him and indicting him for criminal fraud!

At this point, I'm hoping he manages to stay out of jail and not declare bankruptcy long enough to even finish my house. And in the meantime, I'm at the site every single afternoon checking every single thing that has been done that day for myself and spending half the night researching what each stage of the build SHOULD look like. Builder is still scheduling subs and directing the build but, after confronting him about his lack of insurance and the two lawsuits, he agreed that from this point on, all financial matters will be routed through me and I made d--n certain he got the requisite coverage. I have also contracted for an independent third party inspector (not ATS) to come out an do several "phase inspections" at key points in the build - although I can't imagine any other problems/defects that could be quite so potentially expensive to correct.

Hopefully this nightmare won't get any worse but with all of this going on, I probably won't have much time for visiting this forum so again, thank you to everyone and I would deeply appreciate prayers, blessings, good thoughts, and/or the sending of positive karma my way.

Cpate - I'm starting to wonder if you have my former builder. I'm in San Marcos and your builder sounds shockingly familiar. Did you get a fixed price contract? Was his bid lower than most with better than average finishes?

My builder was a low bidder with fairly high-end finishes. I questioned this and he said that he uses very few subs, has his own crew and even builds doors and cabinets himself. I saw his work and thought it was very good and thought that he had a really good reason for having a low bid. Was I ever wrong! We somehow managed to close before the house was finished (The builder knew exactly how much to finish to get the closing) and before long we were out of money with a ton of things left to finish and the builder turned out to be a crook. It also didn't help that the bank was a little too loosey-goosey with our money which is a whole other story. I called all the builder's references who originally gave us glowing recommendations just to find them recanting and saying that the same thing happened to them. I had the bank, mortgage broker, real estate agent and former clients all tell me how wonderful this guy is and how happy we will be with his work and attitude. So here we are, almost a year later, still finishing our house on our own out of pocket. Luckily, DH is handy and most of the work is getting done DIY. We still paid way less than what the house is worth but we didn't want to do it this way.

And don't get me started on the TRCC. What a joke! They actually make it harder for homeowners because builders can proudly show they are registered with the state giving them credibility when in fact, the TRCC is completely worthless! I received no investigation, barely any followup and they pretty much said that they don't go after fraudulent builders unless there is big (as in $$$$$$) money involved. Otherwise, they just make sure builders provide warranties. And if the builder doesn't provide a warranty? Well, then by God, they get their registration revoked! That'll show them! Oh, how do you get stuff fixed if your builder doesn't respond and his registration has already been revoked? Hmmmmm, that's a good question . . . Yes, I've had a few discussions with the TRCC.

Wow, didn't mean to spill my guts like that but I couldn't stop!

kellyeng -

Could be the same guy although, in our case, his bid was right in the ballpark with those from two other bidders. (We had a fourth bid that was much lower which we rejected figuring that that fellow was low-balling and would later try to hijack more money out of us to complete the project.) Was your builder's first name Patrick by any chance?

The houses Patrick built that we visited looked terrific and we called a full half-dozen of his references who all said marvelous things except for one woman who said she still had some "very minor" punch list items that needed to be taken care of. I figured even a reasonably honest builder might let some minor punch list stuff go undone if he got busy with other builds... and the fact that he would give me this person's name as a reference might just indicate that he wasn't carefully "vetting" who he gave out as references. After all, probably every builder, no matter how bad, has SOME happy customers that he can give as references. So I just made sure our contract called for me to hold back $10K at closing until all punch list items were completed so that I would have some clout to get him back to finish those things - or the money to pay someone else to do them.

I too gave TRCC an earful because, if their website hadn't said Patrick had a clean record, I would have gone to the county courthouses in the area and personally looked for evidence of lawsuits. I do know how to do that and would have because after all, this is the biggest purchase I will ever make in my life. But since you can't file a construction defect lawsuit in Texas without going through TRCC first, I reasoned that if TRCC said they had no record of complaints filed against him, then there was no point in spending the time checking county court records in a dozen surrounding counties.

I really wish that one could sue TRCC because through their negligence, they misled me and are a huge part of the reason I'm in this pickle. I would NEVER ever have hired this builder if TRCC hadn't misled me. But again, my lawyer says the agency has "governmental sovereign immunity" making it impossible to sue them. What a crock. And on top of all the stuff you mentioned, it appears that if a builder has his registration revoked, all he has to do is start a new company and re-register with a different person named as "agent" and he starts over with a clean record. TRCC needs to be either totally dismantled or totally revamped. As it is, they protect the people they are theoretically supposed to be policing and do an active disservice to taxpayers!

At least my bank requires my signature before they will make any disbursements so I have some protection on that front. Of course, if Patrick is colluding with his subs for kickbacks I could still wind up with money problems because I really don't know - and have no way to find out - how much various portions of the build should cost. We could easily get to the point where only 15% of the money is left and then discover that there is still 30% of the cost still to be spent and have Patrick disappear at that point with all his profit in his pocket.

I was so looking forward to building this home and now I'm hating every minute of it. I only hope that people are right that, once we are moved in, we will be able to forget the pain. [Of course, I will always have the niggling fear in the back of my mind that my foundation could fail at any moment.]

It's pretty scary to discover defects, then discover your builder is lying, and then that the state or whoever is possibly covering for bad builders. I went thru something similar a few yrs ago. Though thankfully not in TX as from everything homeowners there seem to be saying, the TRCC is just to protect builders. Like a lot of similar pretenses about 'regulating' builders, it placates angry homeowners just long enough that it passes into law, then everyone finds out it was a sham from the get-go. Many states have a "right to repair law" along the same lines but the TRCC is by far the worst example.

IMO the owner of a defective house, (even if just suspected at this point), needs to document everything and hire their own experts. As unpleasant as it seems, you need to know the truth while you might still have some leverage, and before critical deadlines to do anything about it, pass. I discovered the first signs of foundation failure after closing. People also told me it was cosmetic, but when it got worse and many experts looked at it, it was revealed that the builder took shortcuts and the foundation was failing seriously. Had I not acted quickly to get this proof in writing and notify the builder, I'd have lost my window of opportunity to have any legal recourse against him. It was a hard battle but I eventually did settle, a far sight better than pretending it wasn't happening and aborbing the loss later, which is what some people opt to do. There's no going back from that, and if you sell without disclosure your'e at legal risk from your buyer too.

Since you are in TX you should check out Homeowners for Better Building, hobb.org which is based in TX. Also Homeowners Against Deficient Dwellings, hadd.com. BOTH organizations can potentially offer info that will help you avoid pitfalls. I also highly recommend finding a good construction defect attorney even if you have to pay for a couple hours of his or her time. They can tell you what you must do, what you should do, etc under TX law. Don't wate your time on hack lawyers, (even if they agree to consult for free), get a good one who knows the score. Conventinal consumer protection laws can be out the window due to these special laws and agencies that 'regulate' builders and if the lawyer doesn't know that they can do more harm than good.

I forgot to add that you should never assume your bank is going to abide by the rule you set up to only releaes funds to the builder with lien waivers and your approval. I have read many news stories about banks releasing funds anyway. This is particularly true if the builder recommended the lender, and often it turns out the bank completely failed in its fiduciary duty--if such duty actually existed. Some of the saddest stories I've read were of retirees who lost their savings to a contactor and bank who colluded to take their money but the house was never built, or was built very poorly. The builder closes up shop, the banker says they had no duty or whatever, and everyone profits off the scam while the retiree goes back to work to be able to afford a place to live. NEVER assume the law is going to be enforced. You have to stay on top of everything, sad to say.

I would urge posters to put their stories on HADD and HOBB as well. It is important to hear TRCC experiences as they are up for Sunset Review. You can get details on both sites.

I forgot to add that my builder is registered with the TRCC under three different names. Before we began to build, I searched for my builder on the TRCC website and the business was registered under his wife's name. She did participate in the business so I didn't think that was unusual. Later (post ripoff) I did a search on the TRCC website for my builder's relative's names (learned a lot about his family during the build) and came up with two other registrations using his mother and brother. Funny thing is that the business name was the same but the spelling was different! I contacted TRCC to let them know and they said that was impossible because you have to have a DBA to register. HELLO!! All it takes to have a DBA is to register with the county, pay a $15 registration fee and open a business bank account! But they insisted that it must be separate individuals and, to my knowledge, they never even investigated the separate registrations. At the time, I was sick of it all and just wanted to concentrate on working on my house. I wish we had gone to an attorney but I knew the builder didn't have a pot to pi** in and it would be good money after bad.

Tiffany2, I'll check out the HADD and HODD websites. Thanks.