Home Under Contract Flagged By Home Inspector, Bedford, NH

Monday, January 23rd, 2023 by Travis Kellogg

Challenge

A home in Bedford, New Hampshire, was placed on the market. The homeowners had lived in their 1950's home for the past 6 years. Since purchasing the home 6 years ago they had noticed the front left of their home had sunk. The sellers were never worried about the sinking of the home but ultimately wanted to move into a bigger home. When a bid came in to purchase the home the sellers were excited to accept the offer of the potential buyers. During the pre-purchase inspection, the inspector noted the front left of the home had sunk which sparked a conversation with the sellers. The potential buyers were very concerned about the sinking of the home. They were very weary and weren't confident in purchasing the home anymore. The sellers decided they would strike up a deal with the potential buyers. They offered to go in together with the buyers to repair the foundation. Both the seller and buyer reached out to EFS for a free inspection.

Our Design Specialist Victor inspected the basement and recommended installing:

Helical Piers - around the perimeter of the home
Helical Piers - stabilize the chimney (the chimney started separating from the home)
PolyLevel - permanently support slab

Solution

The homeowners decided that they didn't need to have Helical Piers installed around the entire perimeter of the home or the PolyLevel under the slab. With that Victor created a second proposal which included Helical Piers across the front and the left side of the home to lift and stabilize the home. Helical Piers will also be installed on the chimney to secure it.

Both parties agreed to the second proposal and the next step was to schedule the project.

Our production team arrived onsite and began removing dirt and obstructions from the foundation at the front and left side of the home by using an excavator. Once they exposed the footing of the foundation the team then attached 12 brackets to the foundation wall using long bolts and set them into the concrete. The brackets were spaced evenly apart around the foundation to be able to lift and stabilize it. The team set 9 brackets on the front of the home, 1 on the left corner of the home, and then one on either side of the chimney. Once all of the brackets were installed the team then change out the bucket on the excavator and swapped it with our hydraulic drive head. The hydraulic drive head will allow us to screw our Helical Piers into the ground until we reach sufficient pressure. To make sure we reach sufficient pressure the team will screw in the Helical Piers until the PSI meter reached a certain predetermined number. To reach this predetermined number the team could use anywhere from 1 helical pier extension to 5 extensions (or even more depending on the soil conditions). The number that the team was looking to set each pier to was around 4000 PSI. The depth that the team was reaching 4000 PSI was around 13' down. Once 4000 PSI was reached for each of the 12 Helical Piers, the team then cut each pier so they could cap each of them in the bracket. Once all of the piers were capped, the team then began backfilling the dirt. The team tamped the dirt as they were backfilling to make sure a depression in the dirt doesn't occur after the team left. Any excess dirt will be loaded into the bed of our truck and disposed of at the shop.

The team finished the project in just over 6 days. In those 6 days, they were able to

Excavated and backfilled the entire front and half of the left side of the home.
Installed 12 Helical Piers to the correct pressure to stabilize the foundation of the home.
Instilled confidence in the buyer of a home.
Left both parties happy after a hiccup in the sale of the home.