Life Lesson for the day

[Flatlandcoug]

Life decided to teach me a lesson yesterday. I've lived in my current house for 19 years and in general, it's been a pretty good house. It was built by a first time builder and there were a few mistakes that he made, but in general, they've been easy to correct. One of the mistakes that he made was that he didn't make sure that his foundation subcontractor had compacted the soil around the house sufficiently and he didn't take the time to put water onto it to get it settled. Given that it was the first brand new house that I moved into, didn't realize that I needed to do it. After six months of living there, we saw that our gas meter was tilting precipitously (thank god for flex couplings). I noticed that there was some settlement around the foundation at that time and had the gas company reset the meter. Over the course of 20 years, that dirt around the foundation continued to settle until it finally reached the point where water would stand next to the foundation when it rained. Last fall, it all came to a head and water started leaking dramatically into my basement office. I saw that there was a hairline crack in the wall and figured that was the likely source of the infiltration.

When the weather got nice again this year, I brought in about 3 tons of dirt and placed it around the perimeter where the drainage problem was at. I sealed the crack as best as I could without digging to the bottom of my 8' foundation. I monitored the basement for water and it appeared that everything was fine. We had some pretty decent rain a couple weeks ago and when I checked, unfortunately, the problem had reappeared. It wasn't as bad, but the base plate of the exterior wall was damp again. I decided that given the previous problems, it was time to have a professional foundation repair company come in to evaluate the situation. The "expert" looks at the wall, the grading, the crack and announces that hydrostatic pressure had caused the crack in the wall and we needed to have him install his foundation drain system in our home at a cost between $5,200 and $23,000 depending on how far I wanted to go.

In the process of his evaluation, he opened up the small door that conceals the water shut off valve to the house. I said, "you won't see anything, there hasn't been water there any time that I've checked. His response? "Well, there's water there now!". I look, and sure enough, the batting on the insulation is wet. It turns out that the water showing up at the base of the wall had nothing to do with exterior drainage issues but from a very small pinhole leak in my water line coming into the house.

The moral of the story is that we tend to go through life looking at things through the filter of our own beliefs and take any evidence that we see as proof of those beliefs. The technical term for that habit is "confirmation bias". I saw water in my basement and interpreted the problem as the reappearance of my exterior drainage problem. The "expert" that I brought in wanted to believe that I needed to buy his product and he ignored the water leak evidence and proclaimed that I still needed to buy his system.

I don't want this to devolve into arguments about vaccines and Wuhan or other stuff. We all have our beliefs and theories and it's well established that we are never going to find common ground amongst all of us. My only point on this is that as you move on with your life, make sure that you don't automatically take every piece of evidence as proof that your beliefs and theories are correct. It could be something else all together. Every time we hear any new piece of information, we can't help but allow confirmation bias influence how we interpret that information. Just because an "expert" makes a claim, it doesn't mean that he's even dealing with the right problem.

I think we've beaten the COVID, Wuhan and vaccine stuff to death and again, I'm not trying to start another conversation on that. I'm just saying that each of us needs to be mindful of how our own beliefs and biases warp our views and that we should try to be as open minded as possible.

 

[95coug]

Don’t discount the possibility that it could be both. The fact that you get leakage after rain is pretty strong evidence of a compaction & drainage issue. Your leak from the water line may be keeping the soil nearly saturated, and then when it rains the excess water causes the leakage into the basement.

I used to work for a geotechnical engineering company, and feel pretty comfortable saying that most residential contractors put little to no effort into soil compaction. The loads are light enough that there most likely won’t be any issues until they’re well outside of warranty, so they cut that corner. They also don’t like to compact against a basement wall out of fear that they’ll damage the wall. What they really should do is backfill with a material that drains (sand or gravel) against the wall, instead of the native soil. If done properly (and with a foundation drain where necessary) that should prevent seepage into the wall.

We had a similar problem in a house I grew up in. The basement walls were cinder block, and over time the mortar cracked out. If we left the sprinklers on for too long, we got water in the basement. When I was 8 or 9, my dad dug to the bottom of the wall on 3 sides of the house (never had issues in the front, for some reason). He sealed and wrapped the whole thing, backfilled with sand and drain rock, and we never had a problem again. Spent the whole summer with the yard dug up and not using the back door though.

 

[Cougsocal]

You failed to mention that in the Mid-west and South, there are a ton of commercials on the airwaves for foundation repair businesses for settling/water table problems with homes, we generally don't face out West.

For many a year, Einstein's, Hawking's theories were the gold standard, as evidence piled up supporting them. Then evidence began to appear undermining their conclusions, demonstrating that large scale/planetary physics is more complex than their simple and elegant analysis. Now the physics community accepts that their theories are at best a starting point, but incomplete. In science you follow the evidence and the theories that best explain that evidence, until they don't. It is only when you won't accept the evidence, and the direction it points, you aren't being a scientist or intellectually honest. It is what differentiates science from religion. If the evidence pointed to the new earth/creationism claims of the Bible, scientists would drop evolution like a bad habit.

I glad that there a simple and less expensive fix to your home and your initial theory proved wrong. I'm sure you were losing sleep over it.

 

[COCoug]

wow- lots of good intel here!
Our house is about 80 years old, and there is always stuff to fix, of course.
My wife envies new houses, because she thinks they are free of maintenance problems.
I like these older houses- nice to have a bit of a track record and some really solid construction!

 

[95coug]

wow- lots of good intel here!
Our house is about 80 years old, and there is always stuff to fix, of course.
My wife envies new houses, because she thinks they are free of maintenance problems.
I like these older houses- nice to have a bit of a track record and some really solid construction!

I'm not sure where the sweet spot is. New houses are generally lower quality construction and materials, and quicker builds. They have the little things that come up in every build - windows that leak, landscaping that doesn't quite work, settlement, etc. Older houses have things wearing out, or an accumulation of little things and deferred maintenance that starts adding up. HVAC issues, roof replacement, etc. They're generally better constructed (thinking pre-1980s builds), but might have asbestos, lead paint, and are usually less energy efficient and tougher to heat/cool.

Maintenance and upkeep is also a big variable, but I think the bigger problem is that builders are putting in lower-end components.

 

[425cougfan]

Great advice generally.

 

[Flatlandcoug]

I'm not sure where the sweet spot is. New houses are generally lower quality construction and materials, and quicker builds. They have the little things that come up in every build - windows that leak, landscaping that doesn't quite work, settlement, etc. Older houses have things wearing out, or an accumulation of little things and deferred maintenance that starts adding up. HVAC issues, roof replacement, etc. They're generally better constructed (thinking pre-1980s builds), but might have asbestos, lead paint, and are usually less energy efficient and tougher to heat/cool.

Maintenance and upkeep is also a big variable, but I think the bigger problem is that builders are putting in lower-end components.

My son lives in a house that was built in 1930 that we bought for him to live in while he was in college and I've got to say that owning a house that was built 91 years ago isn't great. It's a very cool house with a lot of character but between the lath and plaster walls, the ancient wiring, and the very leaky basement, you have to really want to own one. There's probably a sweet spot when it comes to homes that are easier to own.

 

[79COUG]

My son lives in a house that was built in 1930 that we bought for him to live in while he was in college and I've got to say that owning a house that was built 91 years ago isn't great. It's a very cool house with a lot of character but between the lath and plaster walls, the ancient wiring, and the very leaky basement, you have to really want to own one. There's probably a sweet spot when it comes to homes that are easier to own.

Character = knob and tube wiring

 

[M-I-Coug]

NFM

 

[95coug]

My son lives in a house that was built in 1930 that we bought for him to live in while he was in college and I've got to say that owning a house that was built 91 years ago isn't great. It's a very cool house with a lot of character but between the lath and plaster walls, the ancient wiring, and the very leaky basement, you have to really want to own one. There's probably a sweet spot when it comes to homes that are easier to own.

My parents' house was 30s construction too. 1932, I think. It's a study in durability of materials. The brick starter flaking and concrete started spelling, but the plaster with the asbestos binder is like new. It was really the retrofits and updates that caused the most issues, the fit & finish on them never met the standard of the original construction. It provided a good case study for my early days in property assessments though. If something reminded me of my parents' house, it needed to be reported.

 

[COCoug]

Yes- my current house was built in the early 1940s- very unusual to find houses built during the war years. Its solid as a rock and water in the basement isn't really much of an issue in Colorado.

Previously I had a house built around 1920. It was near the UC Medical School with LOTs of students and renters over the years. Many very poorly done repairs, little insulation, original windows that were barely functional, tree roots collapsing the sewer lines, all that good stuff....

Its all about having a real quality inspection, and going on the inspection with the guy. And NOT someone recommended by the Realtor! And BTW, I bought my first crappy little house for $97K and the Realtor told me that was all it would ever bring. I sold it 5 years later for $157K- it increased in value $1000 a month for the 60 months I owned it. A few years ago I saw it listed for a quarter mil. I wouldn't be surprised if it was double that now....

Houses are a pain, but really the only way for middle class people to accumulate wealth.

 

[cr8zyncalif]

First, the pinhole leak issue.

There have been a couple of examples of widespread batches of copper tubing produced over my career that resulted in significant pinhole problems. Some were water pipe; some were refrigerant pipe; some were soft copper and some were hard. The common denominator was an absolutely unacceptable (and repetitively expensive) repair problem. That is compounded when copper piping is buried without wrap or coating in alkaline soil. So yes, that is the sort of problem that, once it happens a couple of times, might trigger complete replacement of the pipe.

Asbestos was mentioned. Don't normally find that in construction after 1972. Pre-'70 it was common.

95 is completely correct that, just because one problem has been found, that does not mean that there might not be another that is masked by the more obvious issue.

Finally, confirmation bias. That is the techie term for prejudice. A classic subset of prejudice which I've always felt was clearly confirmation bias at work is profiling. Bear in mind that both confirmation bias and profiling exist for a reason, and are not utterly without cause. However...both do not have clear lines of demarcation, beyond which it has gone too far. For that reason, both tend to run unchecked in high emotion situations.

 

[95coug]

Asbestos was mentioned. Don't normally find that in construction after 1972. Pre-'70 it was common.

I've done a lot of asbestos inspections, and basically found that it moved after 1972. Before that, it's in everything - walls, siding, popcorn ceiling, wiring, thermal panels, insulation, etc. After '72, it got more selective, especially in residential. It's in joint compound, but not drywall. In mastic, but not flooring, etc. Some of that was probably vendors and contractors using old stock they had on the shelf.

My experience has been that construction between about 1982-1998 is unlikely to have any. After that, it started popping up more in some materials, particularly imported material (and it never really disappeared in roofing material) . You can't imagine how upset property owners get when they find out that they have to do an abatement before a remodel in a building built in 2003.

 

[Flatlandcoug]

Finally, confirmation bias. That is the techie term for prejudice. A classic subset of prejudice which I've always felt was clearly confirmation bias at work is profiling. Bear in mind that both confirmation bias and profiling exist for a reason, and are not utterly without cause. However...both do not have clear lines of demarcation, beyond which it has gone too far. For that reason, both tend to run unchecked in high emotion situations.

I think confirmation bias is different than prejudice, although there is a clear intersection of the two. I wasn't prejudiced against my basement foundation, but I was clearly blaming it for the water that showed up this week. I don't feel that basements are inherently leak prone and that I should automatically assume that all water is from a foundation leak (although maybe I should?).

Prejudice is where someone has beliefs, opinions or theories that are generally not be based on personal experience or knowledge.

Confirmation bias is where someone observes something and applies it to their preconceived notions or beliefs.

They can certainly be the same thing in many instances. In normal usage, prejudice implies an intent to harm, injure or deny the rights of another. Confirmation bias is less "personal" than that and applies to things that aren't personal. After typing this out though.......I would say that regardless of the verbal and grammatical gymnastics, being open minded and thoughtful about our prejudices is just as important.