Yes, I know about this. During extreme dryness I water around my foundation. Always have. My house was built in 1927. It has no evidence of foundation problems. It's just old. :)

Moni

That is bad. Another concern is shifting natural gas lines. There have been houses literally blown up from leaking gas lines ruptured by shifting soil during dry summers. Ugh drought is bad news.

We had a conversarion with out builder about this a couple of weeks ago. yes, it's happening and in our area it's happening to homes of all ages.

Our builder has only had calls for interior wall crack repairs so far. either sheetrock or plater - cracks nonetheless.

Hey, Rosemary - is this REALLY a Sears House? See the link....

Here is a link that might be useful: Dougan House

We've always had issues with small cracks developing in the drywall of our home (built in 93). We're on the site of a old clay quarry.. which is nice because of the lakes left from the digging, but bad because of the clay.. which shifts more due to drought.

We have several new horizontal cracks developing in the drywall as well as previously patched vertical ones reappearing. We do have some floor cracks in the basement, but have never had any problem with water leakage due to them. Our neighbors 2 houses down had a severe problem with this years ago and had to spend over $10,000. We are in the St. Louis area.

I am sure it's true. It's been written up in the paper here to keep the soil watered 6 ft around the base of your home to keep it from doing that very thing. My Mom had a brick home and she wouldn't waste the water to do it. There was a crack in her living room across the ceiling and down part way on one wall. The was a crack on her front porch you could put your finger in. It would close up during part of the year.

Shifting and settling foundations are huge problems in Texas. Even though, my parents keep their beds well-watered, they've still seen incredible settling from the last few years of drought. There are large cracks where walls meet and where walls meet ceilings. I don't know what they will do to fix it.

I read that article in our paper, Rosemary. Of all the things you don't think about happening, that sure is one of them. I pity those poor people and the huge bills they will have to fix it. Maybe FEMA will help, 'ya think?

My old schoolhouse is constantly shifting and always has over the years. Didn't realize people watered around their foundations for this. I actually have the opposite problem, too much dampness! But, this summer was really dry so perhaps I'll see problems later that I'm not aware of now.

Yes, we had some settling due to drought and it caused a water leak in the foundation last year. We had to have our pipes re-routed and also had to have the bathroom remodeled because they had to rip out the bathtub and bust the wall and part of the floor open to access the leak. And, of course, home owner's insurance did not pay a penny. Thankfully, the foundation itself is fine.

Yes it is happening in ND around Minot where we had the flooding last year and little rain this year. Someone show us what to look for and suggested ways to fix it. It should not cost thousands if it is caught in time. We have a basement, but dug and reinforced the basement walls and floors with steel and have drain tile around the house and no plants next to the house.

It's fairly common in this area, due to the gumbo soil that will hold water like sponge and dry out as hard as concrete and shrink.

I just have a simple black soaker hose along the foundation, about 4 to 10 inches away from the wall (it's just not laying down straight). I run water in to it about once a week or so, for 24 hours.

Realize, I have soaker hoses all around my yard, with water running through them 24/7 just a bit faster than dripping, to keep my plants alive and growing. I just hook the other one up, once or more per week.

Yep, my water bill is high, but my yard is my pride and joy.

Moni

I've heard of it. We were put on water restrictions this summer and last. We make sure our beds around the house get a soaking on our watering days. We have an automatic sprinkler system so it does the work for us.

Oh yes it is a way of life in Texas and Oklahoma. We have had to water our foundations on all of our houses. In Dallas our pool concrete decking had started shifting which can also cause the pool to shift and crack. Luckily we caught it in time. We kept soaker hoses all around the house and pool.
We have soakers around most of the house here, on timers, which keeps the flower bed watered as well. Setting up the soakers and the timers was a project my husband took on and he did a great job, so many people have come to look at it so they can set one up too. It has 4 separate zones that come on at different times so we are not losing water pressure with all on at once. Works incredibly well.

It happens all the time, and in more places than you'd think.

Silly me - I forgot Rosemary rarely returns to her posts. :(

Chloecat, I sent you an email. Did you not get it? :(

To answer your qestuion, the Dougan House does not appear to be a Sears House or a kit house of any kind.

As to the original topic, thanks for the replies.

I have more than a passing interest in houses, and before I saw these articles, I had no idea I house could suffer such a fate.

And I was surprised that insurance doesn't cover a penny of it.

Anyway, thanks for the replies. Fascinating (and scary) topic.

Rosemary, no I did not get an email. Thanks for clarifying the Dougan house.

yes. There was a news item on my local ISP site. It was said that most of the probelms were fro houses siting on mostly clay soils. Not a lot of detail was given, but I know rom expereince that clayey soils do shrink a lot u pon moisture loss. I don't think that houses with deep foundations such as those with basements are having as much trouble. Those houses are getting some crack from normal minor settling.

I envision real problems developing from the following conditions:

1. No bsement, houses on slabs. Often, these have shallow foundations, and some inexpensive slab buildings depend a lot on the slab itself for support.

2. Soil unde a slab not consisent from end to end, for example, all clay at one end with a mix of clay ans humus at the other end. These two soils will shrink at different rates and bend/crack slabs.

3. You can expect trouble if a slab foundation is placed on fill that has not been thoroughly compacted. Making a significent depth fill and then compacting only the top surface is not adequate. The fill should be compacted as fill is added in layers, say no more than 3 to 4 inches deep. Effective fill has to be compacted as it is built up.

4. Building codes around here require that excavation for footings must go below the frost line and reach undisturbed soil, whichever is the deeper. If this is not done, footings can settle unevenly. The goal is little to no settling.

5. Footings can settle differently if one end of a building is much heavier than the opposite end and this was not accounted for in the footings. For example, one end of a house could have a full masonary fireplace and be two to three storeys tall while the other end of the house is only one story.

"It's fairly common in this area, due to the gumbo soil that will hold water like sponge and dry out as hard as concrete and shrink."

Yep.

Envision our clay/gumbo soil as play-doh;

let that stuff dry out & it shrinks so much it rattles around in its "box", leaving house foundations unsupported.

I think most cities in our area now require post-tension concrete slabs.

Steel cables are stretched in a grid over the area to be poured.

Once the slab has cured, the cables are cut so that they don't stick out.

The cables hold the slab together, sort of like braces on your teeth.

but you still need to water.

Also, adding massive amounts of compost & a thick layer of mulch works strikingly well;

When I lived in an area where the soil was black gumbo clay that had been abused for generations (cotton, cattle, chemicals, no amendments), I would see 1" cracks almost as soon as the soil dried out in late spring.

After several years of dedicated (obsessive?) gardening & soil improvement, the soil had no cracks, ever.

Our house in the Dallas area, the ground which was also that gumbo, would develop huge cracks in the summer. In fact so large that it was dangerous for the cattle and horses, they could get a leg drop into a large crack and break it.
My Great Danes had the same problem.
This is how big and deep they were, at one of our pool parties a friend dropped a soda can into a crack and it completely disappeared. It was notorious for swallowing up things.
Horrible ground. It had all, been farmed as corn fields prior to building on it.
Here in Houston we don't have the huge cracks in the soil, they are much smaller, but the soil still is a gumbo and still has the foundation issues. It is rare to see a concrete driveway that is not cracked up.