One of the groups that I have participated with in the past
is the Foundation Performance Association. http://www.foundationperformance.org/
. This is an independent engineering group based in Houston Texas. This is an
extremely active group with membership that spans the globe, meets regularly
and hosts many papers. They share their information freely in an open source
format including many technical papers and consensus docs.
One of the open source style papers that the FPA makes
freely available on their website is the “Guidelines for the Evaluation of
Foundation Movement for Residential and Other Low Rise Buildings”. http://www.foundationperformance.org/projects/FPA-SC-13-1.pdf .
This document provides some consensus in this area of forensics. The only one
of its kind that I know of.
In my previous blogs I have pointed out some
problems inherent in the current foundation repair industry. To summarize they
are:
- Most of the diagnostic training for foundation repair contractors comes from their single source supplier. While this is not bad in and of itself, it can limit the diagnostics to only recognize and deliver solutions that utilize the products supplied by that supplier.
- Most investigations are done by commissioned salespeople. This presents several problems:
o
The inherent personalities of sales personnel are
not detail oriented and lead to oversimplification of the issues and a lack of
scientific detail needed for accurate analysis.
o
Because of the commissioned nature of the position
there is an inherent conflict of interest that conflicts directly with the
objectivity of the investigation. Sales personnel have vested interest to
perceive problems through the lens of their solutions. They also have a direct
conflict in objectively evaluating the severity of the problem.
- Most contractors in an attempt to keep from losing business to competitors attempt to evaluate, diagnose, offer solutions and close the contract all in a single visit. This leads inevitably to hasty solutions that lack scientific analysis and fundamental engineering causative support.
- Almost no oversight by engineering professionals in the investigative process. This in of itself could overcome many of the shortcomings noted above if it were done regularly.
- There are no standards to be followed by foundation repair contractors in their investigative and evaluative process leading to a wide disparity of methods and resulting in huge differences in recommendations that lack objectivity.
Because there have been in the past, almost no viable
solutions for heave, foundation contractors have not demonstrated the skills
nor the will to effectively and consistently tell the difference between heave
and settlement, resulting in misdiagnoses in a large majority of the cases.
The foundation repair industry across the United States and
Canada is more than a $50Billion Industry. If 50% of those repairs are spent on
solutions that are of no value, that is a huge economic waste.
The standards proposed by the FPA make at least a framework
that if adopted could reduce the wastes and bring order to the process.
Could we here in Arizona piggy back off all of the hard work
that the FPA in Texas has done? Could we adopt some of their consensus
standards bringing more legitimacy to them benefiting ourselves and help spread
the consensus nationwide?
I have discussed this with many of the active engineering
leaders in Arizona including the President of the local Geo Institute, Peter
Kandaris, who has asked me to present these thoughts at the June meeting.
I am inviting discussion here as input prior to that
meeting. Please share your thoughts, concerns questions or any other input.
Bob,
ReplyDeleteI visited a home last week where an engineer had recommended a fairly costly repair to the home. He had recommended piers along the entire side of a home. This was about a $15,000 repair, however, in my opinion, the engineer made several basic errors. First, there was no evidence on the inside of the home that soil movement had occurred. Second, the engineer did not perform a floor level survey and third; the engineer had totally missed a huge tree located within a few feet of the foundation and a root that had clearly migrated beneath the foundation. Because the true cause of the problem wasn't diagnosed, this repair would have been a complete waste of money. It seems like both the engineering community and repair contractors need to become better educated on diagnosing and providing repairs for these issues.
Curt that is precisely why I am pushing for standards that if adopted by a local group could at least give guidance to what are the minimum items to include in an investigation.
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