Thanks everyone. Even if this issue is corrected or the house is heavily discounted it most likely has other corners cut.

David/James, I'd love for you guys to swing by and eyeball it but it's quite a drive from y'all. We will most likely be walking on this one anyways but thank you for the help.

Jim, that's the SO and ten years my elder. I did well.

Wow, I cannot keep to your experience but I can speak. As a concrete contractor pouring 2500+ residential foundations a year in Southern California I can say that a tremendous amount of engineering goes into the slab and foundation designs. A tract home from the likes of Lennar et al. are seriously OVER built.

who built country walk that ANDREW blew away

''90% of the 1,700 homes in Country Walk were destroyed. Following the hurricane, property owners filed lawsuits against the developer of Country Walk, Arvida for shoddy construction.'' wiki

a buddy watched them pull the rebar BEFORE the pour after the inspector left
[and move the rebar to the next house and repeat]
he quit

As we say in the renovation industry; run Forest run.

Around here, they're typically designed to the code minimums. As a commercial contractor, I have never built a foundation that wasn't engineered by a structural engineer. We always start with a geotechnical report based on a number of test holes that are drilled.

I doubt even 1 in 100 houses in my part of the country ever have any sort of soil testing.

The other mistake made by almost every residential builder that I see is they don't properly grade the sites, and what grading they do perform is usually done after the house is nearly finished. They don't replace poor soils with suitable ones, they don't do any substantial compaction, they don't do any compaction testing.

Interesting.

Like I said my experience is limited to only So Cal, but here geo-technical and soils engineers are involved in every project and are along for all initial phases of construction. They don’t always sample/core every lot, but they take representative samples and we live and die by their reports.

And as for overbuilding, I have always suspected it. But a few years back several of our foundations were undermined by a a creek that swelled beyond belief, and I actually stood under the underlined corner of a two story foundation where slab and house were cantilevered at least ten feet out into midair. Anecdotal I know, but a good foundation with steel or cables is a mighty strong structure.

Hey guys, we terminated the contract this morning after a visit with the structural engineer. We didn't want to have to deal with any future issues. Thank you everyone for the help. There is plenty on the market here and we will get a good one.

Just as some quick help though. What would you attribute this too? This was in the garage directly below the window. While there was no obvious staining this still look ominous.http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1538840017.jpg

It is difficult to see but the paint appears to have dimples.

Water trapped between paint and sheetrock. Paint fill is probably detached from rock, and will peel if touched.

Engineer find anything else?

Fwiw, my BIL had a similar issue. Owner was moving to FL and had to sell. Took major $$$ off the price to do the deal. BIL Had it fixed up, reinforced, etc... good to go for over 10 years now.