Quote:
Originally Posted by fa63
This is a tricky one. With the expansive soils in Austin (I am guessing that is why you had your foundation repaired in the first place), introducing water into the soil can trigger additional movement. So it is possible that a leaking pipe caused heaving, which eventually broke the pipe. Or if you have poor drainage (water not draining away from the house), that could have caused movement as well.
You could go ahead and hire a geotechnical engineer to do a forensic evaluation, but that is going to cost you a couple thousand dollars. Even if you did that, and found reason to open a case against the contractor, it is likely they will find an expert to dispute the opposite of whatever your engineer found, and it could drag on for a while. Not sure how much the cost to repair the broken pipe is, but it may not be worth the effort.
Good luck.
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Yes - we need more info. If this is a soil-related problem, is it the bentonitic black (high shrink-swell) clay? If so, take care of any drainage problem as fa said, and if the problem persists (and is due to soil/clay movement) you can swamp the foundation with powdered Na-carbonate to prevent some of the cracking. If it is not, well then.....nevermind!
