Question about concrete problems and builder liability
 

Hey guys, I have a question about builder liability/responsibility. My house built in (finished) Nov 2010 by a reputable local builder. The home had a 1 year home warranty which started when we closed on the house in May 2011, and ended May 2012. My concrete driveway and garage floor have since heaved up causing drainage issues. This has resulted in the concrete surface "spalling" off on the upper part of the driveway. I have had a respected concrete contractor look at it and was told it's because of poor workmanship when it was installed. Poor concrete mix and over-working of the concrete causing water to come to the top during setting.

Anyhow I am looking at having my driveway and garage floor removed, regraded, and redone. At this point is there any benefit in me contacting the builder about covering a portion of the costs? Or a waste of time? I assume at 4 years out they have no liability in it, but figured I'd ask the PPOT braintrust first.

If you don't have proper drainage, the concrete is not going to cure properly. How does the new guy know what the previous guy did?

He jacks it out.

You might find a bunch of wood in the concrete, left overs from the build, as filler. Who knows.

Nick. I'm no expert in the legalities, but I certainly would explore the potential for the original contractor shouldering at least part of the cost. First, you probably already know - Document, document, and document. If it were me, I might put together a letter/form of some kind and ask whoever gives you an opinion if they would answer the questions on paper and sign it. I expect lots may decline to become involved, but it could be more ammunition if/when the time comes. You could have the concrete tested and compare the results with what was represented to you in whatever paperwork you might have from when you purchased the house. Others with lots more & better advice will likely chime in.

Was it a custom home or purchased from the builder in a development? The contract for those guys is pretty air tight. But read it over to see how long they will stand behind things. Sadly poor workmanship seems to be the name of the game in many communities. The emphasis being on how fast they can build them, not how well. :(. Our house was built in 01 and has some nice cracks in the driveway and garage as well. They just don't give the full dirt time to properly settle before they start building.

This will be a tough one getting anything out of the original builder but its worth a try. Poor workmanship for sure imo. How long has it collected water like that? Are there any rebars in the driveway? How about trees that can uproot it?

David here is the expert on that subject. He's the concrete contractor. I forgot his screen name.

Many contractors are quick to fault the work of others. Get a few opinions. Cracks in concrete are normal. Heaving is not. And surface issues could be the fault of the company that supplied the concrete. I would talk to them also.

Can you post some pics?

Is it just the top peeling, or is the 'heaving' actually the concrete raised up from frost?

Doubt any recourse from the GC or the company who poured it. There's many factors of what might have caused it, but also the OP hasn't shown pics. No sense in outlining a problem list.

But for starters, he's in CO. Exactly when was the slab and then the drive poured? What season, what was the weather like during the pour and the following days? Did it cure too fast in heat? Not kept wet or moist enough during critical first week curing. Or did it freeze? No frost blankets? Did it rain heavily on it?

When did you first note of a potential problem?

What's the sub-base? Compacted + pea gravel, plastic laid? Fiber screened crete? Metal mesh used / rebar?

Drainage / sub and perimeter of any kind?

Long shot, but did you have a 40 footer moving truck parked on it? Believe me, have seen this more than once and trashed driveways because of. Homeowner then blames the contractor. Movers always reply with a 'screw you'.

Bottom line, you want it fixed. Bust it out, properly prep, confirm drainage, re-pour. Its going to cost big.

Almost no one understands that the strength of pavement is derived from compaction, and how to achieve 99% compaction. They also don't understand the importance of grade from finish floor height. I agree pics are needed before commenting. BTW concrete now days is egregiously bad. I mean really really bad.

1 year is a pathetic warranty for a home.

Here it's a mandatory 10 year, enforced by the Contractor License Board.

One year gets you through ONE season. Light rain/no hard freeze and problems might not appear at all.

Side point for extra credit:

I was aware of a tract home scam many years ago.
After inspection, the builder would move the rebar to the next property before pouring the concrete driveway.

Every driveway "passed" inspection, yet contained ZERO steel.

Colorado builder warranty seems to be a bit convoluted. There may be implied warranty beyond the 1 year the builder told you about.

Might be worth your time to do some research.

Warranty in California is one year only, construction defect is 10 years. Compaction is key for any concrete work. , 90 plus percent . Concrete raw materials are getting worse every year, " good" sand for example is hard to find. You should be able to get a compaction report from the builders soils engineer of record and concrete break tests from a deputy inspector on the job. If they don't have these for your areas in question then they probably didn't do them. The driveway may be considered hardscape and not covered. If the garage slab is not structural, then it could possibly be hardscape as well.

I can not speak to Colorado law but here in New Jersey we have what is know as a 2-10 warranty for all new construction. It covers construction defects.

The first two years are covered by the contractor, The eight year balance is ether covered through the state or an independent insurer. The cost of the waarnaty is pad for by the contractor.

I would look to see if Colorado has a similar warranty.

I am a Builder in NJ. I believe the warranty coverage is similar, nationwide. The first year typically covers everything, the second year Plumbing, Electrical, and HVAC, years 3-10 are strictly structural issues. It really isn't a warranty, but a guideline of when the homeowner takes over basic maintenance. The 'warranty companies' never fix anything, they arbitrate claims between builder & homeowner. Kind of a silly system, of hundreds of homes, only one claim and it went to arbitration. Arbitrator agreed with me and our method of repair, but in addition to paying for warranty, we had to pay the arbitrator.

OP should have received warranty book at closing outlining coverage.

Hey guys so photos above. It was a custom home but we were not involved with the build. Original prospective owners bailed out and the builder finished the house then put it on the market. My guess is that the driveway was poured in September or October 2010.

Garage door photo shows how it heaved. Note center of door hits the concrete and sides are open by about 3/4". Tough to get a good photo sorry. End result is water in the garage runs to the sides also pools at the areas noted in the scaling off areas.

That the concrete heaved is not the fault of the concrete, it caused by poor preparation of sub-base.. there maybe inadequate drainage of the sub-base which can cause heaving when cold,, and settling when warm,

The first two pictures you posted are classic photos of poor workmanship finishing the concrete.. masons often like to "bless" the concrete by taking a brush and broadcasting extra water onto the surface, to make it easier for them to close and finish the surface.. The term "bless" comes from the similarity to what a Priest does with the holy water during blessings...

The extra water added changes the water/cement ratio at the surface.... sure is looks nice... nice brushed texture.... in reality is is a weak layer that offers poor durability, as shown so perfectly in these photos...

At a minimum there are two causations for your problems, well actually one... poor preparation of the sub-base, poor work manship with concrete of questionable quality ( slump, air content)

Me just a nobody, ACI certified since 1982.. P.E. and all that crap...

Also hate to break this to you... the concrete slab might be fine... (except for the poor surface finish).... the house might be settling and upsetting the driveway at the garage entrance.... stranger things have happened...

+1
Chech your steps and any other areas where concrete may come in contact with your foundation for relative movement. I've seen this a lot. The house sinks and the steps/slabs float.

I don't think you will get any relief from the builder. Maybe if this happened in the first year....

House is on 52 cassons with a floating basement floor, Unfortunately garage was on sand. We are on bentonite for sure, as is most of our town. There is no where else I see any evidence the house is moving. Front/back porch, steps, etc show no evidence of heaving.

My thought would be to discuss the situation with someone that grinds concrete floors/slabs, should be a relatively inexpensive repair compared to tearing everything out and replacing.

Check out the video in this link:

Floor Grinding and Shaving - Ohio Concrete Serving Toledo | Columbus | Cleveland | Dayton | Cincinnati.

So you paid to build a custom home - did you bother to have anyone oversee construction or did you just hand everything over to the General Contractor?

If it's the latter (and it sounds like it is) you kind of deserve what you're getting, sorry to say. Any time you're spending money for construction you really ought to have somebody who knows the industry advocating on your behalf. This is why on bigger jobs owners pay to have Clerks of the Works, Construcuon Managers, testing agencies and / or architects and engineers out there regularly to see what's going on.

I realize residential is a different animal but in my experience the GCs that "specialize" in residential construction are bottom-of-the-barrel anyway - particularly the subs. There are some great ones and some real craftsmen but the residential construction industry is chock-full-o guys who think they walk on water (and whose work sucks in actuality) or that are flat-out scheisters. Be wary. This is one reason I won't touch residential work (no fee in it, fickle / cheap owners and the worst the contracting world has to offer - no thanks).

Anyway (as has been said) there is very little recourse that you're going to have past the standard one-year labor and materials warranty. Even if you were to put in a claim with the manufacturer of the product they're going to point to "improper installation" and the onus would be on you to prove it was installed properly (good luck with that).

These guys know how to play the game and frankly they get away with it so often it makes it worth their while to keep doing it this way.

Most houses are built to flip or end up being sold within 3 to 5 years anyway so tell me - where is the incentive for them to use 10, 15, 20 or longer year products and workmanship quality? This is why for residential in particular you really need an owners advocate during construction but (like I've said before) the nature of residential ("el cheapo") makes it the least likely construction project type where you'll get an owner who understands this and is willing to spend money on CA (Construction Administration) services, so you get what we've got - lots of piss-poor residential construction and lots of sleazebag, fly-by-night contractors willing to take advantage.

Sorry to hear of your trouble. As has been suggested it sounds like you're probably looking at a full demo, re-prep and compaction of the top couple of feet underneath, followed by a new slab. If you're going to stay in the house it might well be worth it.

Kind of harsh, there, Mr. P-O-P. If you actually read what he wrote, he had nothing to do with the build. It was finished before he came along.

I'd wait and see if the spalding gets worse and occurs in other areas, before addressing it. If it is limited to the one area, you could just cut that out and replace it. Not a big deal.

The other problem is more serious. It could be settlement or heaving. Hard to say without seeing it in person. You might want to get an engineer out there to look at it in person, before deciding what to do.

Doubt you'll get anything out of the builder but it doesn't hurt to ask him.

JR

Thanks Java, I agree a bit harsh. Like I said in the original post, I am 100% planning to stomach the cost of removing and replacing all this concrete. I was just asking the question about the builder/contractor b/c it's in the back of my mind before I shell out the $20 Grand for this job.

I'd figure out the cause of the heaving before fixing it. If it has to do with expansion of the subgrade from moisture, you want to address that first. If you don't, the problem may come back.

JR

A bit harsh yea (and sorry for that) but I deal with this kind of stuff daily and I guess I'm just pretty jaded at this point - same BS over and over. Contractors are (for the most part) all the same - lots of bravado, tough talk and machismo (which they try to pass off as "expert knowledge", which actually works on some people), coupled with a distinct willingness to screw over their own mothers for a buck. There are some great ones who truly embody the term "craftsman" or "tradesman" and who are genuine gentlemen and who care about their long-term reputations but they're outnumbered 10-to-1 (maybe more like 50-to-1 for some trades) by the unscrupulous doofuses. It gets tiresome after a while.

Anyhow I hope you get good resolution to the issue at hand - in the absence of actual testing data I'd say your best bet is to plan on a full replacement. It's possible that's overkill but for a small-ish installation the cost of professional testing and analysis (at least $3k-$4k I'd think) might bring you right to the cost of a full replacement anyway, even if it were to find that a less invasive method might work.

I hope it works out well and it's the end of your problems. Truly. Sorry for my start-of-week, pre-coffee cantankerous tone before. :p

Of course I see the other side of it POP, arrogant architects with incomplete designs that do not work with the structural drawings, charge exorbitant fees with little help after the project starts, think they walk on water, etc. I guess you never worked with a good contractor, must be some pretty low budget projects.

Quite the opposite actually - like I said, I stay away from residential work for a number of reasons. Mostly I'm involved in big civic, institutional and commercial stuff. Used to do retail but frankly a lot of that isn't much better (glorified residential Type 5 stuff, same lousy contractors and same cheap-ass owner mentality). Glad I'm out of that scene and involved in higher-profile work.

Like I said, there are a fair number of good trades but they're unfortunately outnumbered by schlubs and scheisters - that goes for GCs and for subs.

And FWIW I agree - can't stand dealing with "ivory tower" architects. I much prefer dealing with those who excel at CA - my favorite part of the job actually! That's where stuff actually happens (and where you see all the screw-ups and cover-ups first hand!)

is that happening at the neighbor's? same builder?

i'd vote bad curing job. once you get micro cracks, you get water intrustion, and you living in a cold climate..when that water freezes, it does those spalls.

i dont know off the top of my head, but there are certain admixtures you can use if you live in a frost zone..

sucks!!! cuz your driveway still looks better than mine! :(

Outside concrete can also erode by the use of salt to melt snow and ice. Had that happen on my poorly poured front stoop of my older home.

-Z

+1

And for comments by P.O.P., many, many overrun construction and disasters for civic and commercial structures. Taxpayer thieves galore. Slacker's, take their damn time, whiners, complainers, bid scams and on. The ego's and finger pointing are to die for. Big city structures of Chicago is a classic example.

Back to the OP. Hope he doesn't have the structure and foundation settling. That's a huge difference and if the case, much larger problems in the future. Hope it all checks OK for him.

All things considered, if the flatwork needs rework, so be it. Replacing a garage slab and driveway might seem messy and quite a project, but better than the above. Expect some nasty vibration, pounding and possible interior finished walls to take a beating.

Nick, where in CO did you end up? Who is the builder?

Bill