In this episode of the Structure Talk podcast, hosts Reuben Saltzman and Tessa Murry joined with RK Bob Brown, an expert in foundation repair, who shares insights from his extensive experience in the industry. He discusses the common pitfalls homeowners face when dealing with foundation issues, the importance of hiring qualified professionals, and the need for a thorough foundation investigation. Brown emphasizes the role of geotechnical engineers in accurately assessing foundation problems and introduces innovative solutions that can reduce costs for homeowners. The discussion also highlights the growing influence of private equity in the foundation repair market and the implications for consumers. In this conversation, the speakers delve into the complexities of foundation repair, discussing the costs associated with various methods, innovative solutions for common issues, and the importance of professional guidance in making informed decisions. They highlight key indicators for determining when repairs are necessary and address the challenges faced by the foundation repair industry, emphasizing the need for better education and training for professionals in the field.
Check this link for RK Bob Brown’s website:
https://foundationrepairsecrets.com/
Takeaways
Foundation repair often involves commissioned salespeople, not engineers.
Many foundation repair companies lack proper qualifications.
Geotechnical engineers are essential for accurate assessments.
Homeowners should be cautious of high-pressure sales tactics.
Monitoring foundation issues can often prevent costly repairs.
Private equity is consolidating the foundation repair industry.
A thorough foundation investigation involves multiple steps.
Innovative technology can reduce the cost of evaluations.
Understanding soil types is crucial for foundation stability.
Home inspectors should be trained in foundation evaluations. Foundation repair costs can vary significantly based on the method used.
Homeowners should seek multiple opinions to ensure accurate assessments.
Forensic engineers can provide valuable insights into foundation issues.
Tilt and deflection are critical measurements for assessing foundation integrity.
Proper drainage is essential for preventing foundation problems.
Innovative systems can address unique foundation challenges like heaving slabs.
Education and training are crucial for foundation repair specialists.
Lifetime warranties from contractors may not always be reliable.
A directory of trusted professionals can aid homeowners in finding help.
Continuous monitoring of foundation conditions can prevent costly repairs.
Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Foundation Repair Secrets
02:51 The Dirty Secrets of the Foundation Repair Industry
05:58 Understanding Foundation Investigations
08:51 The Role of Geotechnical Engineers
11:55 Innovations in Foundation Evaluation
15:00 Cost Considerations in Foundation Repair
18:54 Understanding Foundation Repair Costs
21:58 Innovative Solutions for Foundation Issues
25:03 Key Indicators for Foundation Repairs
27:56 The Importance of Professional Guidance
31:00 Challenges in the Foundation Repair Industry
33:53 Future Directions in Foundation Repair Education
TRANSCRIPTION
The following is an AI-generated transcription from an audio recording. Although the transcription is mostly accurate, it will contain some errors due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Reuben Saltzman: Welcome to my house. Welcome to the Structure Talk podcast, a production of Structure Tech Home Inspections. My name is Reuben Saltzman. I’m your host alongside building science geek, Tessa Murry. We help home inspectors up their game through education, and we help homeowners to be better stewards of their houses. We’ve been keeping it real on this podcast since 2019, and we are also the number one home inspection podcast in the world, according to my mom.
Reuben Saltzman
Welcome back to the show. Tessa, how you doing today? What’s new?
Tessa Murry (00:08.453)
Hey, good to see you, Ruben. Not much. How about you?
Reuben Saltzman (00:12.742)
not a whole lot. I, I’m still on the quest to figure out what’s going on with water heater and old rods, but that will be a topic we’ll probably cover again in several months after I got a lot more data. But today we’ve got a special guest on the show. We’ve got author RK Bob Brown. He, he has been in the foundation repair business for the last 35 years. He owned an engineering company, an architectural engineering company.
Reuben Saltzman (00:42.426)
And he’s based out of the Phoenix Tucson area. And he’s got a new book out there called Foundation Repair Secrets. Learn how to protect yourself and save thousands. And it looked fascinating. And I got to admit, I have not, I did not have time between the time we scheduled this podcast and today to read the entire book. I’m waiting for the audio book version because that’s how I plow through just about everything. But
There’s so much in here that I thought this looks fascinating. So wanted to get him on the show and get some insider information on some of these dirty secrets of the foundation repair industry. So it’s RK Bob Brown, is that correct?
RK Bob Brown (01:26.571)
There’s a bunch.
RK Bob Brown (01:31.573)
Yes, that’s how you find me, correct.
Reuben Saltzman (01:33.238)
Okay, all right, cool. So would you mind just telling me in your own words a little bit more about your history about how you got in the foundation repair business, what your company did and what prompted you to write this book?
RK Bob Brown (01:46.613)
So I graduated from Arizona State University with degrees in architecture and finance. And I started a foundation repair, well, I actually started a concrete repair company many, many years ago and kind of morphed into a foundation repair company over time. And I sold the company two years ago and I sold the Forensic Engineering Company as well.
And so I wrote the book because I’m kind of uniquely positioned owning both a forensic engineering company and a foundation repair company. You know, I kind of see what happens in the foundation repair world. And I also see the way it should be done, and there’s a huge difference. So I wanted to make it my mission in life to help people navigate that and help them figure out where they, what, you know, the basics of the business and where to go and how to help themselves.
Tessa Murry (02:48.419)
Hmm, that’s great. And very much needed.
Reuben Saltzman (02:51.31)
Yeah, yeah. So there’s a few things you had in your book that really piqued my interest. And, you know, you can probably guess the one I was most interested in was the title of one of your chapters. It was called The Dirty Little Secret of the Foundation Repair Industry. Can you elaborate on that?
RK Bob Brown (03:10.709)
Right.
RK Bob Brown (03:13.343)
Well, actually there’s more than one, but the fact of the matter is the foundation repair, when you call up somebody, when you call up a foundation repair company, ring, ring, come fix my, I got all these cracks in my house, come take a look at it. Come and tell me, how bad is it? Tell me, is my house gonna fall down? Tell me, is it gonna get worse? You have all these questions, right? Well.
They send out a commissioned salesperson. How do you think he’s gonna answer those questions? He’s gonna answer them. I mean, I’ve heard him say things like, yeah, on a scale of one to 10, your house is like an 8.5. And I’m thinking, wait, wait. First of all, what scale is that? I’ve never heard of engineers using a one to 10 scale. Is that like some sort of Richter scale? And then I think, well, how’d you arrive at 8.5?
Reuben Saltzman (03:44.138)
You need repair.
RK Bob Brown (04:09.083)
And the answer is like, well, you know, based on all the years of my experience and the fact that my kids need braces. I mean, that’s kind of what it comes down to. It’s a bunch of subjective BS that they go in and they pretend to do an analysis, but it’s a sales pitch disguised as, know, it’s masquerading as a analysis, but it’s really a sales pitch.
Reuben Saltzman (04:15.734)
Hahaha
Reuben Saltzman (04:35.158)
Okay. All right. now I, we recorded a podcast. I’m pretty sure we did a podcast on this. remember talking about it and getting whipped up about this. There was a foundation repair company in our area here in the twin cities where they get called out or not. It’s not foundation. It’s what basements, but they also do foundation repair.
Tessa Murry (04:35.953)
Mmm.
RK Bob Brown (04:55.797)
Well, a lot of basement repair are foundation repair in the northern parts of the country.
Reuben Saltzman (05:01.45)
Okay, okay, got it. Well, they they go out and they use a moisture meter meant for wood and they hold this moisture meter up against the concrete and it always says that there’s a high moisture level because they’re using it on concrete and they always tell people you got moisture problems and you need drain tile and it’s going to be $20,000 and they use this to sell stuff. What what is going on here?
RK Bob Brown (05:28.917)
Well, I mean, there’s a bunch of things, but part of the problem is that these guys that are doing the sales don’t really have like degrees in anything. They’re not engineers. not, you know, you know, they might be selling used cars a couple of years before, right? And so, you know, especially, especially when it comes to foundation work, it’s all very geotechnical, you know, it’s more geotechnical than structural. And so,
RK Bob Brown (05:58.667)
You know, that’s very complicated. A lot of people think soil is very simple, you know, just a brown mass below your house, but it’s not. It comes in layers and all those layers are different mineral contents with different moisture affinities and different densities. And water travels between those layers and does different things. Like if you have clay, it expands when it gets wet. If you have maybe sands or gravels, they might contract and each of them might be doing things all at the same time.
So it’s very complicated, which is why we have geotechnical engineers to help us understand it. And they’re the ones that can answer those kinds of questions that people have. And they’re the ones people should really call because yeah, it’s not gonna be free like it would be a foundation repair company. You’re gonna have to pay, but liken it to this. Think of it this way. If you were really sick, would you go to a pharmaceutical rep for free and see what kind of pills he had? Or would you pay money and go to a doctor?
Tessa Murry (06:53.873)
Great point. I have not read your book, Full Disclosure, although I want to now. I’ve read through some of your blogs. One of my takeaways from that was just I’m always someone who’s curious and wanting to learn new things. I think what struck me was that being in this industry and home inspections for a while.
Reuben Saltzman (06:56.568)
Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s a good analogy. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (07:23.409)
I always thought if there were foundation issues that we could see, there was bowing, there was shifting offsets, large cracks, that we would recommend a foundation repair specialist to the buyer. And it sounds like that’s maybe not the best recommendation for a lot of different reasons.
RK Bob Brown (07:42.431)
Right, especially if it’s a real estate situation. If you wanna blow apart your S-girl, that’s a good way to do it because they’re gonna show up and they’re gonna say, yeah, you need $40,000 worth of foundation peers. And they’ll tell you that almost every time, whether it really needs it or not. The guy that trained me originally said to me, he was from my supplier, of course, because all foundation repair contractors get trained by the supplier. And he said to me, I’ve never seen a house that doesn’t need peers.
Reuben Saltzman (08:12.631)
What?
RK Bob Brown (08:13.257)
That’s the attitude they have.
Tessa Murry (08:13.403)
Hahaha
Reuben Saltzman (08:15.47)
You
Tessa Murry (08:17.155)
And you said it, you quoted it best, but I think you said when you have a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail.
RK Bob Brown (08:24.735)
Well, if your only tool is a hammer, then everything start looking like a nail. That’s right. That’s a quote from Abram Maslov, the same guy that did Maslov’s Laws, I think. And it really is true because these suppliers, they find a good contractor and then they train him. And then they train him with the tools they have to offer. So if there’s a problem that they don’t offer,
Tessa Murry (08:28.035)
Yeah, exactly. Okay.
Okay.
RK Bob Brown (08:51.915)
solutions to, then it goes unaddressed. So basically what you’re doing is you’re just getting a sales pitch for that supplier’s tools. And if there’s a problem that can’t be fixed by anything that the supplier supplies, then it just basically goes unaddressed. I would say 90 % of the time you can monitor it, can…
You can fix the drainage. There’s a lot of things you can do to solve these problems without spending a huge sum of money.
Tessa Murry (09:25.047)
Interesting. Okay, so probably depends on which foundation repair specialist you’re going to and who they get their training from and what supplies that they’re using on what they’re going to recommend.
RK Bob Brown (09:37.961)
Right, and I’ll tell you one more recent thing that’s happening in the industry. Private equity is going around and buying up foundation repair companies because it’s a very lucrative business. before it was a very unconsolidated business with a bunch of mom and pops, right? Now, you know, it’s owned by people like KKR and some of those big boys, you know. Well, if you’re a homeowner and you have a disagreement and you’re gonna go to fight with them, good luck, you
Reuben Saltzman (09:47.886)
Hmm
Tessa Murry (09:48.674)
Wow.
Tessa Murry (09:55.739)
Okay, yeah.
RK Bob Brown (10:07.683)
trying to fight somebody that’s financed on the New York Stock Exchange, you are not going win that battle. I guarantee you.
Tessa Murry (10:13.361)
Wow, good point. Good point.
Reuben Saltzman (10:14.094)
Sure, And, you know, it kind of brings me to the next thing I wanted to ask you about. Another one of your chapters, you titled, What a Real Foundation Investigation Involves. And you’ve already said, geotechnical engineer, but can you elaborate on that a little bit and what is actually involved in that besides just for whom?
RK Bob Brown (10:33.099)
Sure, sure. And I go through on my book quite a few things and I’m actually gonna, I’m getting ready to put out an ebook that clarifies this and simplifies it a little bit, but there’s really about 17 things that really should be done if you’re gonna do it right. The main thing is to do a floor elevation survey. And I’ve seen a lot of times, not all engineers do a good job with these either, by the way.
Tessa Murry (10:58.737)
Hmm.
RK Bob Brown (10:58.857)
I’ve listed a bunch of forensic engineers on my website, foundationrepairsecrets.com. And you can go on there and there’s a directory for engineers for every state, at least every state that has them. but there, a lot of them just are not qualified, but to get back to your point, they should at least do a floor elevation survey. That’s taking an instrument called a manometer and about every five feet everywhere in the house, in every room.
you measure the levelness and you can put it into a computer program and it gives you a 3D colored map that shows you where it’s high and where it’s low. And then if you cross reference that with the damage, you can say, look, all the damages in this low area probably wasn’t poured that way because of all the damage that’s in that area. yeah, okay. The question is,
look, we got all this damage in the high area. What is that? You if you’re a foundation repair contractor, like, we’re not going to pay attention to that. We don’t know what that is. You know, it just means the rest of the house is extra low. You know, bullshit. You know, that’s not what it means. You know, and then you’ve got to look at all the signs of stress. You’ve got to do soil analysis. You need to know your rainfall. You know, if you’re in the wet part of the country, it’s a big difference between being in the dry part of the country.
Everything’s almost opposite as a matter of fact. You wanna know the age of the home. There’s a lot of things that really need to be done correctly to do it right.
Reuben Saltzman (12:34.432)
Now, now you talk about doing, checking the level of all of this. And I know that there are here in Minnesota, we don’t have a whole lot of slab on grade foundations, almost everything. We’ve got the foundation walls and our slab is just a basement slab. It’s just loading concrete. So I’m assuming what you’re talking about wouldn’t apply to our homes, but in, is that right? Okay.
Tessa Murry (12:34.577)
Thank
RK Bob Brown (12:52.714)
Right.
RK Bob Brown (12:59.135)
Well, it can, I’ll tell you how it can. When you dig out a basement and you put a slab at the bottom of the basement, what you’ve done is you’ve removed 10 feet of overburdened soil. So the soil underneath that now is like, all that weight’s been removed. I wanna go up, you know, which may not do much, but if you have clay soils that get wet, they will go up and they’ll go up really easily with 10 feet of overburden removed.
Tessa Murry (13:18.309)
Thanks.
RK Bob Brown (13:26.815)
So, you know, if you’ve ever been in a basement floor and you see what I call a three point crack, a crack that runs, comes to a point and runs three different directions and it’s a little bit high right there, that’s from heave. That’s from clay soils pushing it up. And so a lot of this stuff does translate. You just have to figure out exactly how it translates.
Reuben Saltzman (13:35.468)
huh. Yeah. Okay. Sure. Sure, that makes sense.
Tessa Murry (13:38.961)
Thanks.
Reuben Saltzman (13:47.83)
Okay. Now for, for my inspectors in a lot of the Southern parts of the country, I know I’ve talked to a lot of home inspection company owners where they have their inspectors use these tools. They’ve got these leveling tools and not leveling tools, but they, check, they check the elevation of the basement floor all over the place. And they include that it’s just standard in their home inspection reports because I think it’s so important down there. Have you seen any of those reports come back from home inspectors?
RK Bob Brown (14:17.545)
Not yet, but I do a lot of the training for like the ASHE inspectors and a lot of big groups. come January, I’m going to start offering specialized online training and tools to help them offer this service because my goal is to have information on every transaction and that can be kept and
Reuben Saltzman (14:18.796)
Okay.
RK Bob Brown (14:47.217)
in five years in the next transaction, you can look back five years and say, okay, five years ago, it looked like this and now it looks like that. So during the intervening time, it changed this way. That’s very helpful, super helpful to have that information.
Tessa Murry (14:58.053)
Thank you.
Reuben Saltzman (15:00.728)
Sure.
Sure. So if someone were to hire someone to come out, mean, what would they want to look for? Is there some type of designation or certification other than geotechnical engineer? mean, is that just the one thing that you’d recommend someone look for?
RK Bob Brown (15:18.835)
Right now, it kinda is because a lot of times people wanna call structural engineers. structural engineers are great. mean, you I’ve had many that worked for me, but the problem is if they don’t have any geotechnical background, here’s what happens. They say to the customer, they write like a one page report. A lot of times a structural guy’s wanting to do a floor level and they’ll just say, well, your house is not structurally deficient.
Reuben Saltzman (15:24.11)
Uh-huh.
RK Bob Brown (15:46.409)
Well, okay, we knew that the house wasn’t ready to fall down right now. Okay, so then we say to them, well, could it get bad? yeah, if it continues to move, it could get real bad. Well, is it gonna continue to move? Well, that’s a dirt question. You gotta talk to a geotechnical engineer. So really they’re the only guys that can tell you if it’s done moving, if it’s gonna keep moving, you know, all that kind of stuff. They know the history of how the soils were deposited. They know that the…
Reuben Saltzman (16:02.584)
Hmm.
Tessa Murry (16:09.617)
Thanks
RK Bob Brown (16:16.939)
the geology of the area and how it evolved. And they do a lot of borings everywhere. So they’re very familiar with the layering of how it goes. I mean, it’s obviously highly variable, but it pays to know an area and a local geotech will know the area and be able to do that. And especially a forensic geotechnic, you don’t want to hire just a geotech that does new construction. That’s not gonna help you. They’re designing freeways and dams and buildings.
No, you gotta be a forensic guy. Can’t be, well, yeah, we’ve done a forensics once in a while. No, no, no, no. You gotta do it every day if you’re gonna be good at it.
Reuben Saltzman (16:58.23)
Okay. And so if you’re going to hire somebody to do a forensic, geotechnical evaluation of this, what would someone expect to pay for something like that? I mean, I have no idea.
RK Bob Brown (17:10.603)
I’m telling you, it goes all over the map. And part of the problem is that geotechnical engineers, engineers in general, but especially geotech engineers are way behind the times when it comes to technology, marketing, all that kind of stuff. And they feel like, and rightly so, I guess, well, if I want to put my seal to this, I got to go out to the house myself in person. Well, that makes it very expensive. You’re going to pay three or $4,000 for that.
I’ve developed some technology and some software and training for the technicians, which is kind of like the same thing we’re talking about for home inspectors, that offers a certification. And the tool that they use when they do the floor readings goes directly into the document that cannot be modified. So now, and the engineer sitting in his office can check in in real time with his guy that’s out in the field, kind of a lower paid technician.
maybe like one-tenth the cost of the engineer, right? And he can say, hey, I’m seeing your results right now because it’s all done on the internet, on the web. And I’m looking at this low area and there’s no damage. Go look for some damage in that area. Go look a little more closely. Or he might say, you get this one really high reading all by itself. I think that’s a mistake. Go back and check that. And what that does is that gives a lot of confidence to the engineer.
Reuben Saltzman (18:11.01)
Mm-hmm.
RK Bob Brown (18:37.227)
that he doesn’t have to go to the site. He can supervise remotely. And so then that brings the cost way down and they can usually offer something like this for eight or $900, which is quite a bit of savings from three to $4,000. And so we’re hoping that engineers, if they get to know our technology and start using trained certified technicians to go on the site, that
Reuben Saltzman (18:54.413)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (19:05.794)
on the side.
RK Bob Brown (19:07.307)
the costs can come down for people. mean, you gotta be somewhat competitive with free. $3,000 $4,000 just doesn’t even compute with three for free. But maybe 800 or 900, maybe that might, right?
Reuben Saltzman (19:10.955)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (19:17.782)
No, especially for real estate transactions. Yeah. And so if you have somebody come out.
and they say, okay, well, this is a problem and it’s going to need to be addressed. What does addressing these issues usually consist of? I mean, I know about all the most traditional foundation repair things, you you put in illical piers, you put in these straps and, put in steel beams and like all these different things. What, what do you typically recommend?
Tessa Murry (19:44.237)
I guess.
RK Bob Brown (19:51.349)
Well, so if you have settlement problems, so let’s qualify that. If you have settlement problems, most of the foundation repair companies offer pretty good products. Helical piers, push piers, know, those steel beams for straightening basement walls. Those are all really good systems and they do a good job of fixing settlement. Or in the case of Boeing walls, that’s actually kind of a heave of a lateral heave. But nobody offers anything for
heaving slabs. I developed a system to do that, but nobody’s using it because nobody does a good enough investigation to figure out that it’s needed. So it largely goes unused. Now let’s just talk about that for a second, because here’s one of the problems in the industry. So homeowner calls three contractors out. Guess what? One contractor says, you need 12 peers over here. The other contractor says, no, you need over here. The third one says, no, you need 25 all the way around. A homeowner’s like,
Now, what do I do? And they’re not experts. How are they gonna figure it out? They go with the guy that they’re most comfortable with, which is the best salesman, which is gonna be probably the least likely to design it right, because sales personalities are totally opposite of engineering personalities. And so it’s better to call a forensic engineer.
let him give you a design plan. If he thinks it really needs to be repaired, which chances are probably doesn’t, but if he does, then he’ll say, look, you know, I’m gonna design a plan. You go out and get three bids for exactly the same. So now you’re getting apples to apples bids, right? From contractors, guess what? They’re gonna sharpen their pencil and you’re gonna probably save every bit of money that you spent with the engineer. You’re probably gonna make that plus some back.
just because everybody knows they’re bidding and the engineer is gonna look over the bids and there’s gonna be no hanky panky games, there’s gonna be none of this. Come back to the site and while we’re doing the job, we need to add five peers. And the homeowner’s like, know. But the engineer’s like, may may hog breath, explain this to me. You’re gonna have to justify this and they’re gonna be like, well.
Tessa Murry (21:58.129)
you
Tessa Murry (22:04.753)
you
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (22:14.456)
Sure, so what does your system look like when it comes to repairing houses that have problems with thieves slabs?
RK Bob Brown (22:23.563)
So the moisture level system is basically an aeration system. It runs, it’s similar to a radon system. I’m sure you’re familiar with radon systems. It’s modified. So there’s intakes and there’s some controls that normally aren’t there, but runs air through the gravel layer underneath the slab. And what that does is it allows dry air to come in, which radon systems don’t do. And the idea is as the air moves across the soil,
Tessa Murry (22:30.833)
Yeah.
RK Bob Brown (22:51.987)
It dries out the very surface of those clays. Well, when it does that, the moisture wants to wick up to that dry area again. And then of course it gets removed by the air traveling over it again. So it continues to do this over and over and the dry area goes down and down and down as a result of that. And it eventually stops the heaving. In some cases it actually lowers it, but it’s complicated and we don’t usually promise that it’s lowered. Some people don’t want it lowered because that means they’re going to have to fix everything again.
because it might take a year or two. So we just try to say, look, we’re trying to keep it even and the controls in it, when it reaches a certain moisture content, certain dryness, it drops the fan down to a lower speed. So it’s a kind of a maintenance speed that doesn’t try to be as aggressive as it was before. Because we don’t, I mean, I’ve had houses where we put the system in and it’s dropped two inches and everybody’s pulling their hair out. We try not to do that too much.
Reuben Saltzman (23:20.91)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (23:22.673)
you
Tessa Murry (23:49.361)
Do you have any side interrupt? you I was just wondering, do you have any benchmarks for determining like, yes, this foundation or this lab is going to need repairs? Like, if you see a crack that is wider than an inch or, you know, an offset that’s bigger than whatever, what what are those benchmarks for you?
Reuben Saltzman (23:49.966)
Sure.
RK Bob Brown (24:07.081)
Right, so I talk about this on some of my blogs and also in my book. And by the way, if anybody wants to sign up for my newsletter, you can get the 15 myths of the foundation repair industry and the 10 most common mistakes of the foundation of real estate people in foundation work. You get those for free. because there’s no way you’re gonna learn everything today. It’s like drinking from a water hose. so the engineers have two…
Reuben Saltzman (24:32.664)
Yeah, well, absolutely.
Tessa Murry (24:33.265)
Fire hydrant.
RK Bob Brown (24:35.819)
two measurements that they typically use. And foundation repair guys don’t have a clue about these by the way. They don’t even know what they are. But it’s called tilt and deflection. So tilt is very easy, tilt, right? If it tilts more than 1%, that fails to meet minimum standards. And if you have deflection, now deflection is defined as L over 360. L is the length over 360. And that’s…
Deflection is like a hump or a dip, right? A deviation from a straight line. And that’s what does more damage than tilt. Tilt doesn’t really damage the house that much. It’s breaking it that causes all the stress problems. So you want to look at tilt and deflection. L over 360 and 1%. Those are the benchmarks that engineers use.
Tessa Murry (25:09.553)
Hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (25:26.123)
Okay.
Tessa Murry (25:26.193)
So when you talk about deflection, I’m picturing like a foundation wall that has a big bow in the middle and we’ve got these horizontal cracks that are running across. Would that be considered deflection if you’re thinking about that plane?
RK Bob Brown (25:37.673)
Yeah, that would be, although typically they’re thinking of it in terms of slabs on a grade. But if you have a Boeing wall and it’s deflected like that, absolutely, that’s a problem.
Tessa Murry (25:50.115)
Okay. And you’re saying if it’s more than 1%, now is that just for a slab on grade or could that be applied to a foundation wall, vertical foundation wall too?
Reuben Saltzman (25:50.199)
Okay.
RK Bob Brown (25:59.275)
I’ve never heard of applied to a wall, but it probably makes sense. If you have a 50 foot slab on grade or a basement slab or whatever, and it’s out of level six inches over that 50 feet, that’s more than 1%. So for a wall over 10 feet, it gets a pretty small amount.
Reuben Saltzman (25:59.31)
Good question.
Tessa Murry (26:19.921)
Mm-hmm.
Tessa Murry (26:29.061)
Yeah.
RK Bob Brown (26:29.845)
You know, for basement walls, you’re gonna look at, did you lose, know, has it come loose from its structural connections? Are those loose, you know? You wanna look at those kinds of things. That’s probably more of a structural activity than it, although, you you wanna know if the wall’s gonna keep bowing, the geotech will tell you that, right?
Reuben Saltzman (26:48.696)
Yeah.
Tessa Murry (26:48.997)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And like you said, a lot of times it seems like it’s something that can be monitored over time, doesn’t need immediate fix. A lot of it can be addressed with proper water management on the exterior.
RK Bob Brown (27:00.885)
That’s right. You hit it right on the head. Get the drainage going right. You want to slope everything away, six inches over 10 feet away from the house. Yeah, mean, we can do the floor level six months from now or a year from now and see how much it’s moved. We do what we call a subtractive manometer and it prints out a colored 3D map of the change over time, which is really cool to look at because it tells you exactly how it’s moved.
Tessa Murry (27:29.553)
Okay,
Reuben Saltzman (27:34.552)
So I want to circle back on a couple of things you said before we wrap up. know we’re getting to the end for time here, but one of them you said earlier on in the podcast is that you’ve got a directory of all these professionals in all the different states. And I think I found it. If I go to your website, it’s foundationrepairsecrets.com. You’ve got…
RK Bob Brown (27:54.837)
That’s it.
Reuben Saltzman (27:56.822)
bunch of links right at the top of your page and one of them says directory you’ve made it really easy to find you didn’t hide it here I love that and you’ve got a list of people in every state unfortunately there’s only one in Minnesota listed here but maybe that will change in the future maybe somebody will reach out
RK Bob Brown (28:13.855)
Well, I’m always asking people, hey, if you find a good one, let me know because, you know, it doesn’t cost any money to be in my directory. I’m just trying to help. I wanna add them if there’s somebody good, I wanna add them.
Reuben Saltzman (28:21.122)
Yeah, yeah, I love that.
Yeah, I will surely be reaching out to this this one company that you’ve got listed from Minnesota. Just have a conversation with them. See if it’s people we like and we want to send them business. Just just refer them. then and then another.
RK Bob Brown (28:31.669)
Yeah, absolutely.
Right.
You know, if you’re a real estate person, you wanna get to know these guys. You know, if you’re a listing agent and you see these kinds of damages, you should already have in your back pocket a good professional like this and call them up and say, hey, come do a survey on here and tell me, you know, if it’s no big deal, then tell me it’s no big deal. It might be. And then when the home inspector says, hey, I see something, you can whip out the stamp letter from the engineer that says this is no big deal. goes away, right away. On the other hand, if it’s a problem,
Reuben Saltzman (29:05.25)
Sure.
RK Bob Brown (29:06.867)
Okay, let’s get it fixed. And now the engineer can supervise the job, make sure it’s done right, put a seal at the end of it. And now you can say to the buyer, hey, I have an engineer seal. And trust me that the repairs were done right. That’s a lot more than this lifetime guarantee that these contractors add because that thing is not worth the paper it’s written on. That’s a whole nother subject we could go into.
Reuben Saltzman (29:29.998)
Sure, Well, and another thing I just want to throw out there is you talked about subscribing to your newsletter and it looks like if I scroll down to the bottom of any page on your site, again, that was foundationrepairsecrets.com. If I scroll down to the bottom of any page, I see there’s a subscribe to our newsletter thing where you’re just popping your name and email. Looks like that’s super easy to do too. So I will put a link to your website in the show notes.
Tessa Murry (29:30.767)
Mm-hmm.
Reuben Saltzman (29:59.418)
And just on the last point you were just talking about, can you elaborate on that a little bit more about getting this wrong? Yeah.
RK Bob Brown (30:09.163)
to lifetime warranties. Well, okay, so here’s what happens. Work was done five years ago. You call up the contractor and you say, hey, you know, I got all these cracks. You know, you need to come out and warranty your work. You you gave me a lifetime warranty. So then they sent out their really experienced guy and he says to the homeowner, hey, you know, this is from Heave. And it says right here in our contract that, you know, our peers don’t solve Heave, they can’t solve, which is true.
And you know, it’s a heave problem and we can’t do anything about that. So have a nice life. And then the homeowner says, wait, wait, wait, if it’s a heave problem, then didn’t you misdiagnose it? Didn’t you diagnose it wrong? And the contractor says, well, hey, we’re not engineers. We’re just dumb contractors, you know? Of course, at the very beginning.
You know, they’re telling the homeowner, wow, we’re smarter than engineers, you know, or we’re like, you know, we’re the greatest, you know. And then at that point, they’re saying, no, no, no, we’re not engineers. We’re just contractors. So like, we can’t help it. You know, we’re stupid, you know. And so that’s one of many strategies. You know, these contracts that they use sign. They’re like 10 pages long. There’s all kinds of get out of fridge, free jail clauses in there. I mean, it’s just, you know, yeah, it’s, it’s not good.
Tessa Murry (31:28.305)
you
Reuben Saltzman (31:31.254)
Sure, sure. Okay.
Tessa Murry (31:31.601)
Would you say that most foundation repair specialists out there do know that there’s all these other methods and all these other potential problems that they may not be educated on or that they don’t have the supplies to fix, so they’re just going to ignore that intentionally? Or would you say that give them the benefit of the doubt and they just haven’t been trained in these other issues and these other methods and they just don’t know and they have no clue and they’re just ignorant to it?
What would you say the majority of these foundation repair specialists fall into?
RK Bob Brown (32:08.885)
I would say it’s probably, you know, half and half and in some it’s a little bit of one and a little bit of the other and most of this and not less of that, you know, they’re just not real concerned about it because they don’t, you know, hey, it could be a little bit of heave, but you know, we’re just gonna underpin it to make sure, you know, that kind of thinking.
Tessa Murry (32:30.523)
Sounds like we need better education out in that industry too, just to teach these foundation repair companies that there’s all these other potential problems and there’s other solutions to them.
RK Bob Brown (32:33.749)
Yeah.
Well.
RK Bob Brown (32:41.333)
So I also do training for the foundation repair industry and I’m trying to get them up to speed so they do this properly. And I have some takers on it. I have about 20 companies that are learning how to do it properly. you know, my mission is to try to make the foundation repair world a better place. You know, I got plenty of money when I sold my company and I’ve invested lots during the meantime, over the years, I got more than enough money. I don’t need the money. I’m just.
Reuben Saltzman (32:41.442)
Yeah.
RK Bob Brown (33:10.687)
doing this because I can see there’s huge problems that need to be addressed and I’m hoping I can find ways to do it. I’ll do it any way we can. I’ll go with the engineers, I’ll do it with the home inspectors, I’ll do it with the foundation repair con. All of it together will make the marketplace better for homeowners and that’s what I’m really aiming for.
Tessa Murry (33:24.334)
Okay.
Reuben Saltzman (33:30.188)
I love it. love it. Well, if people want to get your book and or get more information about you, I think you can get it all through your website. I already mentioned foundation repair secrets dot com and there’s there’s contact you all that stuff on the website here. So don’t think I need to throw out anything else. We don’t need to complicate it. But thank you so much for coming on the show. Really appreciate it. This is a very helpful.
RK Bob Brown (33:38.901)
Correct. Yep.
RK Bob Brown (33:52.383)
Yeah, absolutely. It was great being here. Yeah.
Tessa Murry (33:53.381)
Thank you. Hey, Ruben, is StructureTech going to change your report writing suggestions when you come across potentially concerning foundation issues?
Reuben Saltzman (34:07.106)
You know, the one thing, I mean, it’s like when we, when we see problems and we know it’s a problem, you know, if I see a one inch crack in a foundation and we got shifting, you need repair. I don’t need an engineer to come out and confirm it or deny it. We’re pretty good with that. The time when we recommend engineers is when we see something we’re not sure. And the only person I’ve had in my pocket to recommend.
are structural engineers. know, I know a handful of them and they do they do a pretty good job. But it sounds like a geotechnical engineer might be a good person to recommend. And
RK Bob Brown (34:40.393)
Right, well, just to point out that one inch crack could be from heave and not from settlement.
Tessa Murry (34:40.836)
Thank you.
Reuben Saltzman (34:46.794)
Yeah, I don’t ever try to figure out which one it is.
RK Bob Brown (34:49.333)
Well, engineers are the only ones that are probably going to be able to tell you the difference.
Reuben Saltzman (34:53.526)
Okay, all right. So yeah, I will probably be reaching out to this one person that you’ve got listed on your website and see if they’re a good fit. And if not, maybe look for another.
RK Bob Brown (35:05.589)
Hey, if not, let me know because I’m like everybody else out there. I’m trying to provide this and you know, I only looked them up and checked their website and you know, a few other things. I don’t really know that much about them and maybe if you find a better one, let me know, you know.
Reuben Saltzman (35:23.374)
I definitely will. All right. Well, Tess, great, great question and the show. And for our listeners, if you have any thoughts, please reach out to us. Our email is podcast at structuretech.com. And we have got a great series where we’re going to be interviewing home inspectors in other parts of the country, part two. All right. Well, thanks again for coming on the show. All right. Have a good one. Take care.
RK Bob Brown (35:44.779)
Nice.
Tessa Murry (35:46.417)
Stay tuned for that.
RK Bob Brown (35:49.365)
You bet, absolutely. Okay, thanks.
Tessa Murry (35:53.179)
Thank you.