[ckissick]

This kind of story drives me crazy. I'm a geotechncial engineer, and I just got back to the office from a site visit to a house being built on highly expansive soil. I had the builder dig a 3-foot deep hole under the footprint of the house and backfill it with base rock, then put a 16-inch concrete mat slab on top of that.

Tabs, did the builder even read the soils report? They usually don't, but then I catch their design errors and fix it before it's built.

As for moving, I really can't speak for you. It sounds like your house should be OK after they repair it. Keep good documentation, for re-sell.

As a point of reference, there's a neighborhood near here that sounds just like yours. They built hundreds of houses in the '50s and '60s, and dozens had to be torn down soon afterwards because of expansive soil. Now, many of the old ranch-style housese are being bought for about $1.5 mil, and promptly torn down and replaced with grand estates. So the people who stayed got big money, in the end.