How To Tell If A Home Has Foundation Problems
If you’re buying a home (or even looking to put yours up on the market), it’s important to see if the house suffers from foundation issues. Fortunately for prospective home buyers, foundation issues are fairly easy to identify with the naked eye when touring properties or viewing homes online.
Below are a few potential things to look out for when searching for foundation issues:
Doors That Are Difficult To Open And Close
As foundation damage progresses, door frames can shift. These shifts are insignificant at first, but over time doors (and windows too!) can become difficult to open and close. In the kitchen, cabinet doors may simply hang open all the time in a home with foundation problems.
While many older homes in humid climates have door and window frames that swell when it rains, doors that are generally difficult to open and close – no matter the weather – are an indication of foundation problems.
Sloping Floors
Sloping floors can indicate the foundation is cracking and settling in different places. Often, older homes have uneven flooring from minor foundation settlement over time. This isn’t a cause for concern, but any significant shifts in the foundation can cause major cracks. Sometimes, these slopes are so subtle they can be missed, particularly if a buyer only tours a home once or twice or gets caught up in other details during the walk through.
This is why it is important for buyers to pay particular attention to floors throughout the house as they tour properties. Fortunately, there are a handful of quick and easy ways to check for sloping:
- Bring a level and placing it on the floor
- Bring a marble and seeing if it rolls or stays in place
- Watch for feelings of vertigo or lack of balance
- Check for cracks in the garage floor. Garage floors are often poured concrete and not obscured by flooring like the interior, which makes it easy to look for major cracks.
Excess Moisture In The Home
Higher moisture levels in homes can be caused by many different problems, but they’re often an early warning sign of foundation damage. Foundations settle because the ground underneath the foundation is moist so as a buyer, you’ll want to check for:
- Staining along baseboards
- Musty smells in rooms on the ground level
- Cracks in the sheetrock
- Visible water damage in basem*nts and crawl spaces
- Any signs of past water intrusion in a basem*nt or crawl space such as sediment build up
Cracks Or Warps In The Interior Walls or Exterior Siding
If there are cracks running from the floor up the wall on the interior of the home, this is likely an indication of foundation issues.
Shifting or damaged foundations can also cause the exterior siding on homes to shift and warp. Most often this type of foundation issue shows up as cracks in exterior stucco, brick mortar and warping or bending in vinyl, wood and aluminum siding materials.
