April 16, 2025 • 37 mins
Join us for a concise, informative discussion with Brett Hodgdon of Foster Foundation Repair. In this episode, we explore essential foundation and basement care, addressing maintenance, weather impacts, and effective solutions. Brett shares his expertise and practical advice for homeowners. Don't miss these valuable insights!
Contact Foster Foundation Repair:
Phone: (304) 776-6263
Address: 4226 Woodrum Ln, Charleston WV 25313
Website: www.fosterfoundationrepair.com
Contact Foster Foundation Repair:
Phone: (304) 776-6263
Address: 4226 Woodrum Ln, Charleston WV 25313
Website: www.fosterfoundationrepair.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Unlock your dream property with Meeks Realty Group, where Rich
the realtor makes real estate dreams a reality, whether it's
residential or commercial. We've got Charleston to Huntington covered. Your
key to exceptional real estate experience is start here Meeks
Realty Group. Contact us at Meeks dot us.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five AD WCCHS
it's employees or WVRC Media.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Andry Plus A good morning too. You're listening to ask
the expert you see HS the voice of charleson AM
del Cooper. Thanks so much for tuning in one of
this uh on this one two thream Wednesday morning. It's
a Wednesday morning in the state of West Virginia, the
city of Charles and Am Deel Cooper, and we have
a good show for you this morning. All better morning
that I expected waking up this morning. Kind of sunny outside,
kind of on the warm end of things, so I
(00:56):
don't have no complaints as far as UH as the
weather goes this morning. You can give us a call
this morning if you have any questions about foundation repairs.
Foundation repairs, we have in the studio with us this
morning is Brett Hashinen here. He is the owner of
Foster Foundation Repair. How you doing this morning, Brett doing
very good. Appreciate your time and coming in this morning
and the discussion that we're going to have lots of
stuff going on out there in the world and of
(01:17):
course in the Canall Valley here. We know about the
unusual issues that we sometimes have when it comes to
our foundations and our basements and things along those lines.
Brett is here this morning to help answer those questions.
If you have any questions about something that you're dealing with,
you and give us a call this morning. Threes are
A four three four five, fifty eight fifty eight three
zero four. It's our office line number. I'm sorry. Threes
are A four three four two eight one three one.
I think in a week we might actually be back
(01:37):
to our old number. By the way, threes are A
four three four two eight one three one. We'll get
you in to talk to Brett this morning if you
have any questions about your foundation. Foster Foundation Repair, of course,
is located here in Charleston on woodrom Lane, and their
phone numbers threes are A four seven, seven six, sixty
two sixty three, seven seven six sixty two sixty three.
I'll get you that contact information out one more time
(01:57):
before we leave the airwaves today. Or it's been on
the air with us several times, not only through Foster Construction,
but through some previous incarnations when asked the expert, but
I thought that, or you thought, one of the great
things that we can do today is not only talk
about the core services that Foster offers, but also just
remind folks of what makes it a little bit different
to come to Foster, because it really makes a difference
(02:18):
depend on hometown spend and also to have some extra
levels of expertise that's included there.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Yeah, so we are, of course, my wife and I
own the business. She is the president, I'm the VP.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
But we bought the.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Business, well, we actually bought the assets of the business.
We've we've been in we've owned this company for it'll
be four years in August, so about three and a
half years in at this point. But we bought the
business from Dave Foster, who I worked with quite a
bit over the years when I was back in my
home inspection in engineering days. We would we would refer
(02:57):
back and forth a lot of work to one another.
Speaker 6 (03:00):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
But we so we started about three and a half
years ago and it's it's been a whirlwind, but yeah,
we're we're a small, locally owned business. My wife and
I own it, owned the entire business. There's there's a
there's about five companies uh here in in the valley
that that are located in the valley that are that
I would that we compete with, and we're we're one
(03:23):
of only two that are actually owned locally, fully owned locally.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
The other ones are are either owned by a large
corporation or significantly by uh another individual that that is
not local.
Speaker 5 (03:37):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
And then one company is fully owned by an outside
uh individual. So we are we are one of the
two locally owned small businesses that in the Canal Valley
that really focus on this work that I compete with.
There there's I'm sure there's others that that dabble into
this work that are small and locally owned. But the
companies I have in mind are the ones that I
(03:59):
I typically seeing their estimates or you know, they've been
to the house before or after me to provide.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
In this moth.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
A couple things about that that I think is very important.
First thing that we realize and from doing this show.
One of the great connections that we make on this
show that I think that you're finding is that we
really cater to people exactly in your situation, whether it
be Larry Dawson or Harvey Payton or whoever that offers
their exemplary services. Also from a hyper local perspective, you know,
(04:26):
they are local companies. They celebrate their locality being in Charleston,
being born and bred and raised here and everything else.
And why that makes a difference. Of course, we want
to treat our own well. I mean, that's just neighborly,
you know. I mean, but also it matters because you
have a vested interest in the community. You know, when
you have somebody that and I don't. This isn't you
(04:47):
talking badly about your competition. This is just me observationally
making as a consumer of services, I know for a
fact that when you're dealing with a company that has
community ties, that has roots here, somebody that you're likely
to see at the grocery store or something else, and
that's run by upstanding people. Anyway, the level of service
that you're going to get, the buy in the communication
that you're going to get is a lot different than
(05:08):
when you're dealing with somebody that, ultimately the corporation doesn't
set foot on the ground here. You know, they don't
have a vested interest in the community and what happens there.
And there's a difference there. There's a difference in the
level of a buy in that you get not only
as you as a consumer, but also as the person
that's offering the service.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Absolutely, yeah, we are. My wife was born and raised
in Huntington. I was an import. My family moved here
when I was around eleven.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
We claim it.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
That's yeah, well I'm here long enough exactly.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
But yeah, I grew I was raised in Winfield, moved
around after after I went to Tech West Virginia Tech.
So I went to college locally and lived in the
valley ever since. South Charleston Saint Albans for a little
bit into Charleston, and we're back in Winfield now. Yeah,
if you call, you call our the main number that
you gave out a moment ago, you're gonna you're gonna
(05:58):
speak with Amber any any real dealings with you know,
a project is either going to be me Amber or
we do have an operations manager named Jacob who's with
us now, which is very helpful to me and and
also you know everybody, it helps everything goes more smoothly.
But yeah, we're we're we're sponsoring little league teams and
(06:21):
my daughters had an awesome volleyball league that I was
not unaware of for young girls that they played in
Winfield that we had. We sponsored a team there this year,
but a lot of girls from the valley. This was
elementary school age, like third, fourth, fifth graders, which that
was a lot of fun to watch that she's really enjoyed.
It was her first year. But yeah, that's that's usome.
(06:43):
The nutshells is it's great small local business.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, that's great stuff, and that's that's why we do
what we do. There is no question about that. And
the the level of other services that you can include
into what you do. We've talked about this on the
program before, but the fact that you're an actual engineer
and that you approach these job sites. You make a
note in some of the information game this morning, and
it's a great that's a great point. I don't think
(07:08):
that we bring up enough. You're the only company, but
you don't work on any sort of commission scale at all.
So when you were doing the scope of a project,
you're legitimately giving options to the client that you're providing
the service to. You're not trying to sneakly give them. Well,
you know, if you go this way, it's really going
to be better, if you know what I mean hahab
meaning that you get that's not what you do.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Yeah, no, I'm not commission commission based. Now, I'm not
blind to the fact that the more business we do,
the more.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Of course you're in business, it's okay, it's okay to
do that.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
But I mean, yesterday I spoke, I went to a
house and they were concerned about some humps in the floor,
and basically I told them, there's nothing to be overly
concerned about. No life altering issues would come of this,
and ultimately we're not going to do any work on
that project. We were going to discuss a deck, which
was not even in this you know, not even the
(07:56):
reason they called me. They're they're thinking about replacing their deck.
But yeah, oftentimes we we don't even have to do
a work, do a job, and there's there's you know,
I'm not a salesperson. I was not that's not my background.
My background was the engineering the home inspection UH aspect
of what we do, which is the identifying of a
(08:17):
problem or figuring out why something has occurred UH and
then coming up with a solution or solutions on how
to fix it, which which to me is the most
important step is is if you can't identify, excuse me,
if you can't identify the problem, you don't know why
a crack developed, or why the water's coming in, or
what what's causing the issue, how do you fix it?
(08:38):
And and that's that's my focus is always to to
identify the cause and if and if if I can't
do that, then then there's typically needs to be some
other investigation like a drain inspection, or maybe drywall has
to come down or something to to expose some other
aspect that's not visible.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
That just that level of honesty right there is is
something that that that someone looking for service is going
to require, because there's people out there that will sometimes
try to sell you a bill of goods of some
sort like I can repair at all, I can do this,
and and they just want to get their work done
and get out of there. They don't necessarily want to
make sure that the person follows the proper procedures in place,
because it might mean a delay in their work getting
(09:18):
started or something. So so having somebody that will that will,
that will stand up for the correct way to do
the job and not just necessarily looking out for well,
when can I get in here and how much can
I make at it? Having somebody that you can trust
to do that is really important.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
Yes, And you know the non salesperson issue or you know,
for me, you know, I'm the one providing the warranty.
If something doesn't work, I'm coming back in five years
at my cost an employee. And you know this is
not to you know, this is just how we operate,
but it's it's my warranty. I'm the one that has
(09:54):
to spend the money. Whereas if it's a salesperson, it's
you know, it's the company's absolutely truble. And you know,
five years, whether that salesperson is there or not, I'm
going to be here. I can't go anywhere unless unless
my employees buy me out or.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Something exactly, and really lean in on that, because that
is absolutely what we run into. Oh heck, we had
a situation in this expansive rebuild that we've been doing
around here. One of the issues that we've had over
the years. The silliest thing that it is, but it's
our cable for our televisions. And if you look at
the building and the way that it's laid out, you
would have no question. I mean, we've just had cable
ran so many different ways. We have cable going to
(10:30):
different rooms, and of course the cable company's trying to
keep that stuff regulated, so they're charging the proper amount
and doing their business right. I mean, I get all
of that. You want to make sure you're not getting
free cable to someone and everything else. We've had huge
issues here and we had a guy that came in
a few years ago that basically solved the entire thing.
He's spent for the company, for the cable company. He
(10:52):
spent like a week in here doing all the work,
doing all the jobs and stuff like that. He figured
out what was going on. He gave us the right
research and everything else. We were able to take the
proper notes. Now we're ready to take the next step
in it, and we needed to rely someone his expertise.
He's no longer with the company, he's no longer there
and Luckily he made some schematics and stuff, so our
engineers are able to go off of that and do
some work. But the bottom line is there that unless
(11:13):
you have a vested interest and if you're working for
a company that keeps that repository of knowledge, if you're
just cycling out employees one after another, you might lose
that connection that you had with someone, even if it
was somebody that worked from one of these slightly larger corporations.
Speaker 5 (11:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Yeah, another thing about about us. Over the last maybe
five to ten years in this industry, there's been a
lot of i'm gonna call them gimmicks that have come
into gimmick repair that.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
That have come out.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
One one that comes to mind is the spring loaded
ibeam that's going to straighten your wall over time. And
a spring has an equal and opposite reaction against the
against the foundation wall, but also against the house. And
I have seen situations with this type of install that
(12:05):
that actually further failures occur as a result of that
type of repair. The repair doesn't cause the failure, but
it prevents to. What it does is that actually changes
the weak point in the wall and causes a failure
at a different place, which is oftentimes near the base
of the wall, and it creates a more serious issue as.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
Well as more costly repair.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
But yeah, it goes back to the cause of you know,
identifying the cause and how to fix it. That that's
the kind of things that we're looking at as we're
looking at long term permanent solutions.
Speaker 5 (12:39):
I actually had a yesterday as well.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
I had a client that wanted me to do a
certain repair option that she was kind of dictating what
she wanted, and I just basically said, that's we can't
do that because my point, my repairs need to last
outlast me is the goal that when I'm when I'm gone,
they're still holding tight and doing what they need to do.
But the gimmick repairs is is big, and it's what
(13:03):
it's all about, the speed in which the installation can
occur to cut down labor and and and they do
they undercut. There's a lot of times that I get
beat out on a project with one of my estimates
with with what we're going to plan on doing versus
these other options. And I do my best to educate
(13:24):
my clients as to why we're going to do it
this way, but oftentimes sometimes they'll go with the less
expensive option. Unfortunately due to their the lack of knowledge
or the persuasiveness of the other individual who can sell
that product, and that's what they're doing.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
I'm understanding my understanding with this, and again this is
me speaking, but much like how there was a big
uproar years and years ago about pharmaceutical companies going into
doctor's offices and pushing off the newest medicines to do
things that older medicines work just fine at and in
some case didn't work as well, but doctors would sudden
start prescribing that over the older ones because you know,
maybe there was a conference in Morocco, whatever it might be.
(14:06):
But my understanding is that this this this type of
relationship works in places like construction space and stuff too,
where suddenly, you know, somebody comes in from a company
representing a spring loaded uh uh uh a spring loaded
uh uh ibeam or something like that, and uh that
becomes the new uh, the new, the new toy from
that larger company. You know, you get a national company,
(14:27):
you have a relationship with another national company who's bringing
in their spring loaded product uh product. Maybe there's other
relationships involved, and so the salespeople on the ground are
then Hey, you know, if you sell this item, maybe
there's a bonus that month or whatever. It is that
you see these types of incentives for the person, not
necessarily for the customer, not necessarily for this person seeking
the service, and those two things are incongruent from from
(14:49):
a service standpoint.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
And that's something I've never thought about that there could
be incentives like that within other companies.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
That's that's interesting I've heard about I've heard about that
and in different similar spaces to this. So I've started
when I equated it immediately with the old pharmaceutical thing
back in the in the doctor's office, and I think
that it's probably similar. Yeah, And as far as when
you identify problems, and that's part of the whole solve
of this is that when you go you're not going
to recommend something like a spree long beam. You're having
(15:15):
your notes here, something like a top of foot or drains.
This is something else that you've seen that that is
really not the best solution to problems. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Yeah, So this is another example of the quick fix.
If you have a basement and you're getting some water entry,
there are systems called into your foundation drain systems which
we install as well. We just do them differently. But
this top of foot or drain is essentially wherever the
(15:43):
water's coming in. Six inches of concrete is cut out
of the basement floor, a three inch by four inch
rectangular shaped drain, per freated drain is installed in that trench,
and then one inch of concrete is put back in
on top of the of the drain, and the drain
system works perfect the water well, I mean, it will
keep the basement interior dry if done correctly. We looked
(16:05):
at one the other day that wasn't working correctly. But
the concern there is the basement floor slab is a
critical structural component for the foundation wall. The foundation wall
is holding dirt back on the outside a basement, the
foundation walls holding soil back on the outside, and that
basement floor is acting to laterally pin or stabilize the
(16:26):
bottom of the wall. And when that drain, when that
concrete is cut out and replaced with a plastic drain,
you thereby eliminated that base pin in action of the slab,
and you risk lateral displacement at the.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
Bottom of the wall.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
The way we do it is we cut a larger
amount of concrete out. We put our drain down below
the slab next to the footer, and we put that
full slab back in place. So it's the original designed
intent of the foundation, how it was built, remains intact.
And that's the function of of the type of foundations
we have here. Residential construction typically is what is called
(17:05):
a restrained retaining wall, so it's it's not an engineered
rigid retaining wall like you might see out on an interstate.
Speaker 5 (17:12):
So that's that's why we do.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
It differently, and that's and it's a significantly less amount
of work to do that top of foot or drain
versus the way we do it. And but I will
not I will not do the top of foot or drain.
I'm not going to again. I'm not going back five
years and having to do a stabilization repair because of
some failed drain system that we put in.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
It seems like, I mean, in having you explain it
as an expert, it seems logical to me. But it
seems logical that you're you're keeping more of the original
intent of the structure and tact when you're doing it
the proper way as opposed to putting it above. So
it seems like, yeah, that makes sense that it would
that it would last longer and it would keep its
an original tent longer. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
So one engineer we work with quite a bit does
not when when he's involved in the project, does not
allow that top of foot or drain for the exact
same reasons I've picked his brain on why, and the
same reasons that I've I have always come up with
another thing about these about us we're local, about being
the local, and you know, my experience is all hyper local.
(18:15):
I mean, I've my when I was doing inspections, I
pretty much kept my radius about forty forty minutes. So
I'm very familiar with the different areas Tayese Valley versus
South Hills different. You know, there's different challenges there, and
there's a lot of these these again, these gimmicks products
that out there that that may work in other regions
(18:38):
might work perfectly fine in Virginia Beach where they've got
sandy soils, but we have some of the most severe
soil conditions there are that we're dealing with to try
to I mean, that's why we have a five companies
in this little region doing this this work is because
we have some severe conditions as well as we didn't have.
(19:00):
The greatest building practice is in the fifties through the
I mean even still today, there's there's some not great
building practice out there.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
And that makes another great point. There's not there's nothing
wrong with like a larger national or a large regional
company or something owning a business. There's nothing wrong with
that at all. It's just that they're not going to
know the specific situations beyond their professional ability in particular
regions when it comes to the soil makeup and the
different problems along those lines. They might be able to
(19:28):
get to it eventually, but they're not going to necessarily
have all of that stuff in inventory ready to deploy
having the right things, which might be why you have
mismatched repairs to projects. Sometimes if you want it done now,
well I have this stuff ready to go right now,
and we can go ahead and get it done, it
may not match up exactly right. Again, that's why going
local with somebody that really knows the area makes a
big difference. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Yeah, as far as you know, quality control goes, we
are we are pretty heavy on quality control. We've got myself.
I get out to jobs as often as I can.
We do have Jacob, he's our operations manager. He's been
with us for about about six months now, but he's
got fifteen years experience in the construction industry, used to
(20:09):
work on multimillion dollar projects before coming to join our
little team. But he's in charge of our quality control.
Our guys know there's no you know, they have no
incentive to hide things up.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
We're not.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
We're not you know, there's no incentive to cover something up,
and so we do have very good quality control, very
few callbacks.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
We do. We're imperfect, but we do go.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Back and fix it if if we've made a mistake.
But in a good portion of our business is going in,
going in and redoing stuff that was done previously, five ten,
fifteen years ago, two years ago by other contractors that
it didn't work for whatever reason, was the wrong repair plan.
(20:55):
I've seen plenty of times where houses have been stabilized
because of settlement, or at least that's what they thought
was going on, and they underpin or stabilized with vehical
piers or push peers the side of the house that's
the highest and the other end of.
Speaker 5 (21:12):
The house is the actually the issue.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
So I've seen where repairs have been done that were
not even necessary or were the completely wrong repair and
didn't address the issue.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
One last anecdote and then we'll get out of here
for a break. That reminds me of a car repair
that I was having done once that I took it
into a place, got the estimate on it, and then
other situations came up for I couldn't get my car
repair that weekend, and so I ended up pulling it out,
and then like a week later, they were super busy.
I couldn't get it back in, so I took it
somewhere else, and I took it back into the other
place and told them what the other place told me. Hey,
(21:43):
I'm expecting this work, this work, and this work. They
called me back later and said, fully, half of that
work that I was expecting to have done didn't need
to be done at all. That person could have easily
just did it. I was expecting it to be done,
and charged me for it, and I would have been happy.
I was like, this is what needs to be done.
He's like, you don't need to do this. Yeah, he
saved me three hundred bucks, But it made me think,
why was this other guy charging me for this for
(22:04):
this repair, you know, and it just goes to it.
And now I go to this other place all the time.
Now that's become my main place because I was like that,
well that's honest, and so if I go there all
the time.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
Now second opinions are worth it.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Now now I've learned that's absolutely true. More information when
we come back, we're gonna pick Brett's brain just a
little bit more about foundation repairs, the right way to
do things. If you have a specific question about something
that's ailing you, or maybe a loved one, a parent,
or a kid that has a problem with their home
and they don't have the opportunity to call this morning,
you can do that in their place. You can give
us a call three zero four three four two eight
(22:35):
one three one three zero four three four two eight
one three one. You can also text over your questions
A three zero four non three five five zero zero eight.
We'll ahead and take a break and be back right
after this in studio with us this morning. It is
Brett Haushton. He is the owner of Foster Construction of
Foundation Repair online Foster Foundation Repair dot com. That's Foster
Foundation Repair dot com. More information on them when we
come back. You're listening to ask the expert. WCHS the
(22:56):
Voice of Charleston.
Speaker 7 (22:57):
I'm John Carruthers, the owner of Best Virginia Head and Cooling.
I'm born and raised right here in West Virginia. I've
got three daughters, so I absolutely care who comes into
my home. Every technician we send to your home has
been drug tested and background check. I guarantee the best
client experience or your money back. We have the best
team and the best processes built around a five star experience.
(23:20):
Call Best Virginia today at six eight one six five
five one two one four.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
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Speaker 3 (24:12):
You're listening to, asked the expert w c HS, the
voice of Charleston talking about critters and cross spaces. That
was something that I wondered if bred had came across
in all of his travels, and of course he has
critters and cross spaces is pretty normal. I had a
possum last year that I had to it became an issue,
you know, as the man of the house. The first
time that I saw the possum, it was hanging from
(24:34):
the rafters and I looked up and there was just
a possum above my head and it kind of gave
me this and it scared me. I mean, I mean,
what am I going to do? I look up and
there's like a and it was a big possum. And
so of course, you know, my my my kid, of
all people, Like I was exwlaying with my wife. I
was like, there's a possum in the basement. It was
blah blah blah. She's like a possum. I was like, yeah,
she's like, you mean the things that played dead. I mean,
(24:57):
it didn't play dead at this at this point. It
anyway got the thing out of there. But that's got
to be a problem. Does that mean that you have
an issue somewhere else? If you're getting animals into your
crass space, that means you have an issue somewhere right.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Yeah, And again yesterday, yesterday it was an active day
for me. Somebody tore their deck off and they were
in the process of putting their decking back on. They're
just redoing their decking, is all, and they exposed a
hole next in the dirt next to their their house.
And it happened to be right where a full basement
and a crawl space attached together. And this is a
(25:29):
common problem where soil will water will we road the
soil into the crawl space, creating that opening, But a
rodent had got got in there, but we don't do rodents.
Yeah right, we'll certainly seal up a hole in the
foundation for someone. But oh yeah, that's uh yeah, if
I see an animal going the other way, yeah, yeah,
(25:49):
that's not my cry.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Right now. That you were telling me during the break
that snakes and addicts were actually kind of common, that
kind of put a chill on the spine.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Yeah, that's I've seen more snakes and addicts than crawl spaces.
I guess the heat and overhanging limbs. They'll climb a
tree and drop down onto a roof and find a
way in through something.
Speaker 5 (26:07):
But yeah, yeah, I don't see it a ton.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
I'm sure the snakes, if they're in the crawl space,
they probably just hide and sneak up in an insulated
area where I can't see them or something.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Yeah, and the ede zone will always be my spirit
animal when it comes with snakes. Just don't like snakes,
not for me, just like Indy. We were talking a
little bit about some of the quick fixes and sort
of scam fixes right before we went to the break
one of the ones that we left off the list,
and I was kind of interested in this because I've
sort of heard about things like this before. Secondary steel
wall that you pump water, pump foam in behind it.
What is this for?
Speaker 4 (26:38):
So I've never seen one personally. I've seen it in
advertising documents from local contractors. But yeah, essentially, they'll they'll
throw up some steel eyebeams, some steel some steel sheet
metal in front of the wall and then it's it's
the walls deformed, so it must be in pretty.
Speaker 5 (26:57):
Bad shape to go to this do this.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
But uh, then reportedly they'll they'll fill that void between
the foundation and the steel with foam. And maybe that
I mean at the at the end of the day,
at the foundations that damaged. Uh, again I touched on
it early. We have restrained retaining walls, so the walls
is restrained by the basement floor slab as well as
(27:20):
the floor diaphragm overhead. So that type of repair every
in fact, every type of repair except for one, relies
on the floor different floor floor diaphragm for the top
of the wall stabilization. So if if a wall is
that damaged, if there's that much pressure there's there, that
type of repair is still probably not gonna work because
(27:41):
you're still relying on the floor system.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
And that's a that's a you know, common.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Thing that that I'm well aware of that I'm looking
for when I'm looking at diagnosing a problem and coming
up with a solution, is is understanding that that floor
system's purpose and what what it serves. So in the
event that a wall is bode or deflected inward from
the lateral earth pressure, it can actually push the floor
(28:07):
system through the opposite side of the house, creating cracks
at the corners. And if that's ever occurred, then you
really only have two options. One is to reduce the
pressure and reinforce the wall so the floor diaphragm is
capable of resisting that pressure or using a helical soil
anchor to counteract the pressure. That's the soil anchor is
(28:29):
the only repair option that we have in our toolbox
that does not rely on the floor diaphragm for stabilization
is completely essentially, it's completely independent of all else to function.
It relies on the soil that's ten twelve to fifteen
twenty feet away from the house, that is dense and
very stable to counteract the act of pressure on the foundation.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
May kind of brings me to another question, then, when
we're talking about some of these things that are questionable
as far as repairs go, are there situations where you
could have like one of these quick fix type things
put in, and if you're a homeowner, that then turns
into a seller that an engineer somewhere down the line
is want to take a look at one of these
repairs and be like, Nah, that's not gonna that's not
(29:12):
gonna work.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Certainly, I mean there's certainly been you know, plenty of
times I've seen you know, before I don't do the
inspections anymore, but back when I was just doing inspections,
plenty of times I'd see repairs that showed signs of
the ongoing movement or I knew, or inadequate for one
reason or another. Yes, that is certainly possible, and that's
(29:35):
that's another you know, kind of leads me down a
different road. About the engineering aspect of this is, I mean,
eventually every house is going to get sold, and having
an engineer, whether it's myself or or another engineer, which
I've got referrals if somebody wants their own independent, third
party engineer, which I fully support and think is a
(29:55):
wise decision, but they will come up with a plan
and they'll document the repairs that's being done, and then
they'll they'll you know, provide documentation when it's all said,
one of the repairs complete that can be used as
a selling feature. I've had I had clients that would
take all my paperwork late right out next for sure,
to the realtors. You know, the house costs X, and
(30:17):
they'd have my stuff there and they'd use it as
a selling feature, not as a negative that that it's
been fixed.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
I mean, honestly, can.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Unfortunately, there's a lot of neighborhoods that the houses have
been fixed or need to be fixed, and it's you know,
their streets that way.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
Unfortunately.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
I'll give this insight as well. I've done shows. I've
done many shows with realators in the past before too,
all from all different all different places. But one thing
that I found interesting is there's some realtors that love
engineers and some realators that don't love engineers. Yes, and
from at least again from my perspective as a consumer,
I sort of lean towards the ones that like engineers,
(30:56):
you know, because it seems like that if you if
you're if you're hesitant to to bring on an engineer
to take a look at the property, it means that
you're maybe trying to hide something. I mean, I don't
know that for sure. Maybe the excuse that I hear
on the other side is well, you know, engineers just
make it way too complicated to get this done, and
they raised way too many red flags in order to
get this out. But on the other side of things,
like what you just talked about, from the buyer perspective,
(31:16):
there's two parts to this equation. From the buyer perspective,
you're waiting to get into that house that has a
solid engineering recommendation on it. I mean that you feel
much better.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
Yeah, I used to have a couple handful of realtors
that I doubt I was exclusively recommended, but we did
a lot of work. I did a lot of work
for their buyers. Obviously, when they're the seller's agent, unless
they know they have a problem that they needs to
be addressed up front, they're not typically referring the inspection community.
But yeah, there's certain realtors I would work with more often,
(31:48):
and I wouldn't work with them necessarily, but I would
be on their referral list more often. And then some
that we just didn't.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Literally talking about the same engineer. One time I had
a realder in here who can plan to no end
about the engineer. And then the very next time that
I had a real estate show, which may have been
a couple of years later, but they were talking about
the same engineer and how much they loved them, Yeah,
loved them. And I was like, Wow, this is a
completely different experience than uh, than than well, you know,
you can learn a lot when you just keep your
ears open and you're doing doing a show like this,
(32:16):
sometimes you can learn a lot of things, but then
that and that kind of boils us down to because
of uh, the overall experience with going through Foster construction
as in your in your incarnation of it, Brett, is
that the the holistic experience that you get from this
is you get someone who is a hometown person who
is an engineer, although that's not primarily what you do,
but you can't help but to look at every job
(32:37):
from that perspective. So when you're coming out and you're
looking at job, and you're there and you're the person
who's the uh, the quality control, that's that stops at you.
So you you oversee these jobs, you take a look
at them, even though you have employees and stuff that
work at it, that that that work on them, you
can your perspective is always going to be from that
engineering perspective, to look at things from all of the
different angles, just that nature upon itself. If somebody is
(33:00):
for example, we talked about people who might be a
little cost shy on certain things, and I think sometimes
that's the opportunity for people to come in with some
of these these bad repair ideas of somebody that's a
little bit concerned about the cost a little too much. Well,
if you call Foster Construction, you'll give options, and all
of the options will be good. So if you're a
little cost hesitant on some of these things, you're not
in the perfect situation right now, or something at least
(33:22):
make the cost. See what the spectrum is on repairs
that you can have done.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
Yeah, and there's you know, speaking about the cost, there's
sometimes there's options we can do that aren't necessarily going
to stabilize the foundation if the budget doesn't allow at
that time. But there are things that we can do
replace down spouts or something that reduces the rate of
movement or in some cases can actually prevent the movement. Well,
(33:48):
the movement ceases, it stabilizes on its own. So there
are certainly different different options there. One thing I do
want to mention is we are hiring.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Oh way, if the job creator, it's always good.
Speaker 5 (33:59):
We're always hiring.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
So if there's anybody out there in the construction industry,
I'd be love to talk with you.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
General construction, just pretty much any skill set or.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Uh yeah yeah, operators, concrete finishers, yeah, just willing willing
to work.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Will to show up, that's the Believe me. I know
that's the important part. And we love making a love
connection on the show. When it comes to defining employment,
we've done that many times in the past. So Foster
Construction if that sounds like something not only to make
you have a job to do, but also if maybe
you're looking for a job, you can get Foster Construction
a call their number three er A four seven seven
six sixty two sixty three, three zer A four seven
(34:36):
seven six sixty two sixty three someone with construction background
that may be able to help out with that. I
know that that's always the thing. As a business owner,
you want to be a job creator as much as possible.
Sometimes you need the people to come to you to
hire though.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
Yeah, it's tough out there. It's tough.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Yeah, I understand, especially when you're dealing with something like
you are that's not necessarily an easy job all the
time and requires for folks to show up, Tom Lee
run equipment things like that. Yeah, you have, you have
some barriers there. Yeah, good luck on Thatt. I hope
that everything works out.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
Now we've actually got we've got a very good crew
right now. I'm very pleased with with our group of guys.
We just need more and we we have a very
good really do they seem to all get along and
you know it's it's a good group.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
And that's that's a great information. As always the Brett
Foster from Foster Construction. Just a couple of minutes left
in the program before we wrap things up here today,
and a few more things that we can cover before
we get out of here. First of all, let me
remind you that we do put all these shows on podcasts,
So if you want to check out any previous show
that we have, Bred always comes in here with a
laundry list of items that we can talk about. Every
show is a little bit different, So if you want
(35:44):
to rest in the space of of kind of foundation
repairs and construction, you can go to w CHS network
dot com slash expert and you can find all of
our expert shows that are on there, including this one,
which will be up in about an hour or so
after the show concludes today, and each of the shows
that we have up there a lot of a lot
of good information. And Brett Show is on here every
(36:05):
month on Wednesday. What Are We Won? The second Wednesday,
Third Wednesday, Third Wednesday, I don't know where we are. Third,
I should know that, but I obviously didn't pay attention
before I came out. Yeah, okay, So on the third
Wednesday of every month, Brett Hoston is here from Foster
Construction and you can tune into that program. So once again,
let me get all the information out for you. Foster
Construction and Foundation Repair located at forty two to twenty
(36:28):
six Woodram Lane in Charleston, West Virginia. That's two five
three one three. Their phone number three zero four seven
seven six sixty two sixty three. Three zero four seven
seven six sixty two sixty three is a number you
can call to get a hold of Foster Foundation Repair
and the website is Foster Foundation Repair dot com. Foster
Foundation Repair dot com. It doesn't get much easier than that. Brett,
(36:49):
thanks so much for your information today. I think we
covered a large piece of information hopefully made folks so
familiar with your work. Once again, yep, thank you.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
Yet, if you go to the website and click the
contact us, that email now will come directly to me
and Amber, so one of us will get back to
you directly.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
That's the best way to do it. So that once
again is Foster Foundation Repair dot com. You can click
the contact button and get a hold of Brett in
any way that you need to there. That's going to
do it for us today. Thanks once again to Brett
Hoston from Foster Foundation Repair for being our expert this morning.
Coming up next, it's going to be Dave Allen with
five ad Love, Dave Wilson and TJ after that on
talk Line, and then Dave Allen is back with Amanda
(37:25):
Barron on Metro News Midday, and I'll be back this
afternoon at three oh six with Hotline with Dave Weekly.
Have a great day everyone On five eight w c HS,
the Voice of Charleston.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
W HS A W two four three d r f
M Charleston W two A three a Q Cross Lanes
at WVRC Media Station. We're proud to live here too.
Unlock your dream property with Meeks Realty Group, where Rich
the realtor makes real estate dreams a reality, whether it's
residential or commercial. We've got Charleston to Huntington covered. Your
key to exceptional real estate experience is start here Meeks
Realty Group. Contact us at Meeks dot us.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five AD WCCHS
it's employees or WVRC Media.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Andry Plus A good morning too. You're listening to ask
the expert you see HS the voice of charleson AM
del Cooper. Thanks so much for tuning in one of
this uh on this one two thream Wednesday morning. It's
a Wednesday morning in the state of West Virginia, the
city of Charles and Am Deel Cooper, and we have
a good show for you this morning. All better morning
that I expected waking up this morning. Kind of sunny outside,
kind of on the warm end of things, so I
(00:56):
don't have no complaints as far as UH as the
weather goes this morning. You can give us a call
this morning if you have any questions about foundation repairs.
Foundation repairs, we have in the studio with us this
morning is Brett Hashinen here. He is the owner of
Foster Foundation Repair. How you doing this morning, Brett doing
very good. Appreciate your time and coming in this morning
and the discussion that we're going to have lots of
stuff going on out there in the world and of
(01:17):
course in the Canall Valley here. We know about the
unusual issues that we sometimes have when it comes to
our foundations and our basements and things along those lines.
Brett is here this morning to help answer those questions.
If you have any questions about something that you're dealing with,
you and give us a call this morning. Threes are
A four three four five, fifty eight fifty eight three
zero four. It's our office line number. I'm sorry. Threes
are A four three four two eight one three one.
I think in a week we might actually be back
(01:37):
to our old number. By the way, threes are A
four three four two eight one three one. We'll get
you in to talk to Brett this morning if you
have any questions about your foundation. Foster Foundation Repair, of course,
is located here in Charleston on woodrom Lane, and their
phone numbers threes are A four seven, seven six, sixty
two sixty three, seven seven six sixty two sixty three.
I'll get you that contact information out one more time
(01:57):
before we leave the airwaves today. Or it's been on
the air with us several times, not only through Foster Construction,
but through some previous incarnations when asked the expert, but
I thought that, or you thought, one of the great
things that we can do today is not only talk
about the core services that Foster offers, but also just
remind folks of what makes it a little bit different
to come to Foster, because it really makes a difference
(02:18):
depend on hometown spend and also to have some extra
levels of expertise that's included there.
Speaker 4 (02:25):
Yeah, so we are, of course, my wife and I
own the business. She is the president, I'm the VP.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
But we bought the.
Speaker 4 (02:34):
Business, well, we actually bought the assets of the business.
We've we've been in we've owned this company for it'll
be four years in August, so about three and a
half years in at this point. But we bought the
business from Dave Foster, who I worked with quite a
bit over the years when I was back in my
home inspection in engineering days. We would we would refer
(02:57):
back and forth a lot of work to one another.
Speaker 6 (03:00):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
But we so we started about three and a half
years ago and it's it's been a whirlwind, but yeah,
we're we're a small, locally owned business. My wife and
I own it, owned the entire business. There's there's a
there's about five companies uh here in in the valley
that that are located in the valley that are that
I would that we compete with, and we're we're one
(03:23):
of only two that are actually owned locally, fully owned locally.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
The other ones are are either owned by a large
corporation or significantly by uh another individual that that is
not local.
Speaker 5 (03:37):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (03:37):
And then one company is fully owned by an outside
uh individual. So we are we are one of the
two locally owned small businesses that in the Canal Valley
that really focus on this work that I compete with.
There there's I'm sure there's others that that dabble into
this work that are small and locally owned. But the
companies I have in mind are the ones that I
(03:59):
I typically seeing their estimates or you know, they've been
to the house before or after me to provide.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
In this moth.
Speaker 3 (04:06):
A couple things about that that I think is very important.
First thing that we realize and from doing this show.
One of the great connections that we make on this
show that I think that you're finding is that we
really cater to people exactly in your situation, whether it
be Larry Dawson or Harvey Payton or whoever that offers
their exemplary services. Also from a hyper local perspective, you know,
(04:26):
they are local companies. They celebrate their locality being in Charleston,
being born and bred and raised here and everything else.
And why that makes a difference. Of course, we want
to treat our own well. I mean, that's just neighborly,
you know. I mean, but also it matters because you
have a vested interest in the community. You know, when
you have somebody that and I don't. This isn't you
(04:47):
talking badly about your competition. This is just me observationally
making as a consumer of services, I know for a
fact that when you're dealing with a company that has
community ties, that has roots here, somebody that you're likely
to see at the grocery store or something else, and
that's run by upstanding people. Anyway, the level of service
that you're going to get, the buy in the communication
that you're going to get is a lot different than
(05:08):
when you're dealing with somebody that, ultimately the corporation doesn't
set foot on the ground here. You know, they don't
have a vested interest in the community and what happens there.
And there's a difference there. There's a difference in the
level of a buy in that you get not only
as you as a consumer, but also as the person
that's offering the service.
Speaker 4 (05:23):
Absolutely, yeah, we are. My wife was born and raised
in Huntington. I was an import. My family moved here
when I was around eleven.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
We claim it.
Speaker 5 (05:32):
That's yeah, well I'm here long enough exactly.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
But yeah, I grew I was raised in Winfield, moved
around after after I went to Tech West Virginia Tech.
So I went to college locally and lived in the
valley ever since. South Charleston Saint Albans for a little
bit into Charleston, and we're back in Winfield now. Yeah,
if you call, you call our the main number that
you gave out a moment ago, you're gonna you're gonna
(05:58):
speak with Amber any any real dealings with you know,
a project is either going to be me Amber or
we do have an operations manager named Jacob who's with
us now, which is very helpful to me and and
also you know everybody, it helps everything goes more smoothly.
But yeah, we're we're we're sponsoring little league teams and
(06:21):
my daughters had an awesome volleyball league that I was
not unaware of for young girls that they played in
Winfield that we had. We sponsored a team there this year,
but a lot of girls from the valley. This was
elementary school age, like third, fourth, fifth graders, which that
was a lot of fun to watch that she's really enjoyed.
It was her first year. But yeah, that's that's usome.
(06:43):
The nutshells is it's great small local business.
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Yeah, that's great stuff, and that's that's why we do
what we do. There is no question about that. And
the the level of other services that you can include
into what you do. We've talked about this on the
program before, but the fact that you're an actual engineer
and that you approach these job sites. You make a
note in some of the information game this morning, and
it's a great that's a great point. I don't think
(07:08):
that we bring up enough. You're the only company, but
you don't work on any sort of commission scale at all.
So when you were doing the scope of a project,
you're legitimately giving options to the client that you're providing
the service to. You're not trying to sneakly give them. Well,
you know, if you go this way, it's really going
to be better, if you know what I mean hahab
meaning that you get that's not what you do.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Yeah, no, I'm not commission commission based. Now, I'm not
blind to the fact that the more business we do,
the more.
Speaker 3 (07:32):
Of course you're in business, it's okay, it's okay to
do that.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
But I mean, yesterday I spoke, I went to a
house and they were concerned about some humps in the floor,
and basically I told them, there's nothing to be overly
concerned about. No life altering issues would come of this,
and ultimately we're not going to do any work on
that project. We were going to discuss a deck, which
was not even in this you know, not even the
(07:56):
reason they called me. They're they're thinking about replacing their deck.
But yeah, oftentimes we we don't even have to do
a work, do a job, and there's there's you know,
I'm not a salesperson. I was not that's not my background.
My background was the engineering the home inspection UH aspect
of what we do, which is the identifying of a
(08:17):
problem or figuring out why something has occurred UH and
then coming up with a solution or solutions on how
to fix it, which which to me is the most
important step is is if you can't identify, excuse me,
if you can't identify the problem, you don't know why
a crack developed, or why the water's coming in, or
what what's causing the issue, how do you fix it?
(08:38):
And and that's that's my focus is always to to
identify the cause and if and if if I can't
do that, then then there's typically needs to be some
other investigation like a drain inspection, or maybe drywall has
to come down or something to to expose some other
aspect that's not visible.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
That just that level of honesty right there is is
something that that that someone looking for service is going
to require, because there's people out there that will sometimes
try to sell you a bill of goods of some
sort like I can repair at all, I can do this,
and and they just want to get their work done
and get out of there. They don't necessarily want to
make sure that the person follows the proper procedures in place,
because it might mean a delay in their work getting
(09:18):
started or something. So so having somebody that will that will,
that will stand up for the correct way to do
the job and not just necessarily looking out for well,
when can I get in here and how much can
I make at it? Having somebody that you can trust
to do that is really important.
Speaker 4 (09:32):
Yes, And you know the non salesperson issue or you know,
for me, you know, I'm the one providing the warranty.
If something doesn't work, I'm coming back in five years
at my cost an employee. And you know this is
not to you know, this is just how we operate,
but it's it's my warranty. I'm the one that has
(09:54):
to spend the money. Whereas if it's a salesperson, it's
you know, it's the company's absolutely truble. And you know,
five years, whether that salesperson is there or not, I'm
going to be here. I can't go anywhere unless unless
my employees buy me out or.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
Something exactly, and really lean in on that, because that
is absolutely what we run into. Oh heck, we had
a situation in this expansive rebuild that we've been doing
around here. One of the issues that we've had over
the years. The silliest thing that it is, but it's
our cable for our televisions. And if you look at
the building and the way that it's laid out, you
would have no question. I mean, we've just had cable
ran so many different ways. We have cable going to
(10:30):
different rooms, and of course the cable company's trying to
keep that stuff regulated, so they're charging the proper amount
and doing their business right. I mean, I get all
of that. You want to make sure you're not getting
free cable to someone and everything else. We've had huge
issues here and we had a guy that came in
a few years ago that basically solved the entire thing.
He's spent for the company, for the cable company. He
(10:52):
spent like a week in here doing all the work,
doing all the jobs and stuff like that. He figured
out what was going on. He gave us the right
research and everything else. We were able to take the
proper notes. Now we're ready to take the next step
in it, and we needed to rely someone his expertise.
He's no longer with the company, he's no longer there
and Luckily he made some schematics and stuff, so our
engineers are able to go off of that and do
some work. But the bottom line is there that unless
(11:13):
you have a vested interest and if you're working for
a company that keeps that repository of knowledge, if you're
just cycling out employees one after another, you might lose
that connection that you had with someone, even if it
was somebody that worked from one of these slightly larger corporations.
Speaker 5 (11:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (11:28):
Yeah, another thing about about us. Over the last maybe
five to ten years in this industry, there's been a
lot of i'm gonna call them gimmicks that have come
into gimmick repair that.
Speaker 5 (11:40):
That have come out.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
One one that comes to mind is the spring loaded
ibeam that's going to straighten your wall over time. And
a spring has an equal and opposite reaction against the
against the foundation wall, but also against the house. And
I have seen situations with this type of install that
(12:05):
that actually further failures occur as a result of that
type of repair. The repair doesn't cause the failure, but
it prevents to. What it does is that actually changes
the weak point in the wall and causes a failure
at a different place, which is oftentimes near the base
of the wall, and it creates a more serious issue as.
Speaker 5 (12:23):
Well as more costly repair.
Speaker 4 (12:25):
But yeah, it goes back to the cause of you know,
identifying the cause and how to fix it. That that's
the kind of things that we're looking at as we're
looking at long term permanent solutions.
Speaker 5 (12:39):
I actually had a yesterday as well.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
I had a client that wanted me to do a
certain repair option that she was kind of dictating what
she wanted, and I just basically said, that's we can't
do that because my point, my repairs need to last
outlast me is the goal that when I'm when I'm gone,
they're still holding tight and doing what they need to do.
But the gimmick repairs is is big, and it's what
(13:03):
it's all about, the speed in which the installation can
occur to cut down labor and and and they do
they undercut. There's a lot of times that I get
beat out on a project with one of my estimates
with with what we're going to plan on doing versus
these other options. And I do my best to educate
(13:24):
my clients as to why we're going to do it
this way, but oftentimes sometimes they'll go with the less
expensive option. Unfortunately due to their the lack of knowledge
or the persuasiveness of the other individual who can sell
that product, and that's what they're doing.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
I'm understanding my understanding with this, and again this is
me speaking, but much like how there was a big
uproar years and years ago about pharmaceutical companies going into
doctor's offices and pushing off the newest medicines to do
things that older medicines work just fine at and in
some case didn't work as well, but doctors would sudden
start prescribing that over the older ones because you know,
maybe there was a conference in Morocco, whatever it might be.
(14:06):
But my understanding is that this this this type of
relationship works in places like construction space and stuff too,
where suddenly, you know, somebody comes in from a company
representing a spring loaded uh uh uh a spring loaded
uh uh ibeam or something like that, and uh that
becomes the new uh, the new, the new toy from
that larger company. You know, you get a national company,
(14:27):
you have a relationship with another national company who's bringing
in their spring loaded product uh product. Maybe there's other
relationships involved, and so the salespeople on the ground are
then Hey, you know, if you sell this item, maybe
there's a bonus that month or whatever. It is that
you see these types of incentives for the person, not
necessarily for the customer, not necessarily for this person seeking
the service, and those two things are incongruent from from
(14:49):
a service standpoint.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
And that's something I've never thought about that there could
be incentives like that within other companies.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
That's that's interesting I've heard about I've heard about that
and in different similar spaces to this. So I've started
when I equated it immediately with the old pharmaceutical thing
back in the in the doctor's office, and I think
that it's probably similar. Yeah, And as far as when
you identify problems, and that's part of the whole solve
of this is that when you go you're not going
to recommend something like a spree long beam. You're having
(15:15):
your notes here, something like a top of foot or drains.
This is something else that you've seen that that is
really not the best solution to problems. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:22):
Yeah, So this is another example of the quick fix.
If you have a basement and you're getting some water entry,
there are systems called into your foundation drain systems which
we install as well. We just do them differently. But
this top of foot or drain is essentially wherever the
(15:43):
water's coming in. Six inches of concrete is cut out
of the basement floor, a three inch by four inch
rectangular shaped drain, per freated drain is installed in that trench,
and then one inch of concrete is put back in
on top of the of the drain, and the drain
system works perfect the water well, I mean, it will
keep the basement interior dry if done correctly. We looked
(16:05):
at one the other day that wasn't working correctly. But
the concern there is the basement floor slab is a
critical structural component for the foundation wall. The foundation wall
is holding dirt back on the outside a basement, the
foundation walls holding soil back on the outside, and that
basement floor is acting to laterally pin or stabilize the
(16:26):
bottom of the wall. And when that drain, when that
concrete is cut out and replaced with a plastic drain,
you thereby eliminated that base pin in action of the slab,
and you risk lateral displacement at the.
Speaker 5 (16:40):
Bottom of the wall.
Speaker 4 (16:42):
The way we do it is we cut a larger
amount of concrete out. We put our drain down below
the slab next to the footer, and we put that
full slab back in place. So it's the original designed
intent of the foundation, how it was built, remains intact.
And that's the function of of the type of foundations
we have here. Residential construction typically is what is called
(17:05):
a restrained retaining wall, so it's it's not an engineered
rigid retaining wall like you might see out on an interstate.
Speaker 5 (17:12):
So that's that's why we do.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
It differently, and that's and it's a significantly less amount
of work to do that top of foot or drain
versus the way we do it. And but I will
not I will not do the top of foot or drain.
I'm not going to again. I'm not going back five
years and having to do a stabilization repair because of
some failed drain system that we put in.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
It seems like, I mean, in having you explain it
as an expert, it seems logical to me. But it
seems logical that you're you're keeping more of the original
intent of the structure and tact when you're doing it
the proper way as opposed to putting it above. So
it seems like, yeah, that makes sense that it would
that it would last longer and it would keep its
an original tent longer. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
So one engineer we work with quite a bit does
not when when he's involved in the project, does not
allow that top of foot or drain for the exact
same reasons I've picked his brain on why, and the
same reasons that I've I have always come up with
another thing about these about us we're local, about being
the local, and you know, my experience is all hyper local.
(18:15):
I mean, I've my when I was doing inspections, I
pretty much kept my radius about forty forty minutes. So
I'm very familiar with the different areas Tayese Valley versus
South Hills different. You know, there's different challenges there, and
there's a lot of these these again, these gimmicks products
that out there that that may work in other regions
(18:38):
might work perfectly fine in Virginia Beach where they've got
sandy soils, but we have some of the most severe
soil conditions there are that we're dealing with to try
to I mean, that's why we have a five companies
in this little region doing this this work is because
we have some severe conditions as well as we didn't have.
(19:00):
The greatest building practice is in the fifties through the
I mean even still today, there's there's some not great
building practice out there.
Speaker 3 (19:08):
And that makes another great point. There's not there's nothing
wrong with like a larger national or a large regional
company or something owning a business. There's nothing wrong with
that at all. It's just that they're not going to
know the specific situations beyond their professional ability in particular
regions when it comes to the soil makeup and the
different problems along those lines. They might be able to
(19:28):
get to it eventually, but they're not going to necessarily
have all of that stuff in inventory ready to deploy
having the right things, which might be why you have
mismatched repairs to projects. Sometimes if you want it done now,
well I have this stuff ready to go right now,
and we can go ahead and get it done, it
may not match up exactly right. Again, that's why going
local with somebody that really knows the area makes a
big difference. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
Yeah, as far as you know, quality control goes, we
are we are pretty heavy on quality control. We've got myself.
I get out to jobs as often as I can.
We do have Jacob, he's our operations manager. He's been
with us for about about six months now, but he's
got fifteen years experience in the construction industry, used to
(20:09):
work on multimillion dollar projects before coming to join our
little team. But he's in charge of our quality control.
Our guys know there's no you know, they have no
incentive to hide things up.
Speaker 5 (20:21):
We're not.
Speaker 4 (20:22):
We're not you know, there's no incentive to cover something up,
and so we do have very good quality control, very
few callbacks.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
We do. We're imperfect, but we do go.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
Back and fix it if if we've made a mistake.
But in a good portion of our business is going in,
going in and redoing stuff that was done previously, five ten,
fifteen years ago, two years ago by other contractors that
it didn't work for whatever reason, was the wrong repair plan.
(20:55):
I've seen plenty of times where houses have been stabilized
because of settlement, or at least that's what they thought
was going on, and they underpin or stabilized with vehical
piers or push peers the side of the house that's
the highest and the other end of.
Speaker 5 (21:12):
The house is the actually the issue.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
So I've seen where repairs have been done that were
not even necessary or were the completely wrong repair and
didn't address the issue.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
One last anecdote and then we'll get out of here
for a break. That reminds me of a car repair
that I was having done once that I took it
into a place, got the estimate on it, and then
other situations came up for I couldn't get my car
repair that weekend, and so I ended up pulling it out,
and then like a week later, they were super busy.
I couldn't get it back in, so I took it
somewhere else, and I took it back into the other
place and told them what the other place told me. Hey,
(21:43):
I'm expecting this work, this work, and this work. They
called me back later and said, fully, half of that
work that I was expecting to have done didn't need
to be done at all. That person could have easily
just did it. I was expecting it to be done,
and charged me for it, and I would have been happy.
I was like, this is what needs to be done.
He's like, you don't need to do this. Yeah, he
saved me three hundred bucks, But it made me think,
why was this other guy charging me for this for
(22:04):
this repair, you know, and it just goes to it.
And now I go to this other place all the time.
Now that's become my main place because I was like that,
well that's honest, and so if I go there all
the time.
Speaker 5 (22:12):
Now second opinions are worth it.
Speaker 3 (22:14):
Now now I've learned that's absolutely true. More information when
we come back, we're gonna pick Brett's brain just a
little bit more about foundation repairs, the right way to
do things. If you have a specific question about something
that's ailing you, or maybe a loved one, a parent,
or a kid that has a problem with their home
and they don't have the opportunity to call this morning,
you can do that in their place. You can give
us a call three zero four three four two eight
(22:35):
one three one three zero four three four two eight
one three one. You can also text over your questions
A three zero four non three five five zero zero eight.
We'll ahead and take a break and be back right
after this in studio with us this morning. It is
Brett Haushton. He is the owner of Foster Construction of
Foundation Repair online Foster Foundation Repair dot com. That's Foster
Foundation Repair dot com. More information on them when we
come back. You're listening to ask the expert. WCHS the
(22:56):
Voice of Charleston.
Speaker 7 (22:57):
I'm John Carruthers, the owner of Best Virginia Head and Cooling.
I'm born and raised right here in West Virginia. I've
got three daughters, so I absolutely care who comes into
my home. Every technician we send to your home has
been drug tested and background check. I guarantee the best
client experience or your money back. We have the best
team and the best processes built around a five star experience.
(23:20):
Call Best Virginia today at six eight one six five
five one two one four.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
Life is full of challenges. Finding out your teenage daughter
got a full arm tattoo, or your next door neighbor
took up the drums. One challenge you shouldn't face being
delinquent with your property taxes. The Kanawuk County Sheriff's Department
reminds you that the deadline is May first. After May first,
you'll pay penalties and pay to have your name published
in a big newspaper ad so everyone will know.
Speaker 3 (23:47):
Talk about a challenge.
Speaker 6 (23:48):
Call three zero four three five seven zero two ten
before May first and pay your taxes three zero four
three five seven zero two ten.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
You're listening to, asked the expert w c HS, the
voice of Charleston talking about critters and cross spaces. That
was something that I wondered if bred had came across
in all of his travels, and of course he has
critters and cross spaces is pretty normal. I had a
possum last year that I had to it became an issue,
you know, as the man of the house. The first
time that I saw the possum, it was hanging from
(24:34):
the rafters and I looked up and there was just
a possum above my head and it kind of gave
me this and it scared me. I mean, I mean,
what am I going to do? I look up and
there's like a and it was a big possum. And
so of course, you know, my my my kid, of
all people, Like I was exwlaying with my wife. I
was like, there's a possum in the basement. It was
blah blah blah. She's like a possum. I was like, yeah,
she's like, you mean the things that played dead. I mean,
(24:57):
it didn't play dead at this at this point. It
anyway got the thing out of there. But that's got
to be a problem. Does that mean that you have
an issue somewhere else? If you're getting animals into your
crass space, that means you have an issue somewhere right.
Speaker 4 (25:07):
Yeah, And again yesterday, yesterday it was an active day
for me. Somebody tore their deck off and they were
in the process of putting their decking back on. They're
just redoing their decking, is all, and they exposed a
hole next in the dirt next to their their house.
And it happened to be right where a full basement
and a crawl space attached together. And this is a
(25:29):
common problem where soil will water will we road the
soil into the crawl space, creating that opening, But a
rodent had got got in there, but we don't do rodents.
Yeah right, we'll certainly seal up a hole in the
foundation for someone. But oh yeah, that's uh yeah, if
I see an animal going the other way, yeah, yeah,
(25:49):
that's not my cry.
Speaker 3 (25:50):
Right now. That you were telling me during the break
that snakes and addicts were actually kind of common, that
kind of put a chill on the spine.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Yeah, that's I've seen more snakes and addicts than crawl spaces.
I guess the heat and overhanging limbs. They'll climb a
tree and drop down onto a roof and find a
way in through something.
Speaker 5 (26:07):
But yeah, yeah, I don't see it a ton.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
I'm sure the snakes, if they're in the crawl space,
they probably just hide and sneak up in an insulated
area where I can't see them or something.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Yeah, and the ede zone will always be my spirit
animal when it comes with snakes. Just don't like snakes,
not for me, just like Indy. We were talking a
little bit about some of the quick fixes and sort
of scam fixes right before we went to the break
one of the ones that we left off the list,
and I was kind of interested in this because I've
sort of heard about things like this before. Secondary steel
wall that you pump water, pump foam in behind it.
What is this for?
Speaker 4 (26:38):
So I've never seen one personally. I've seen it in
advertising documents from local contractors. But yeah, essentially, they'll they'll
throw up some steel eyebeams, some steel some steel sheet
metal in front of the wall and then it's it's
the walls deformed, so it must be in pretty.
Speaker 5 (26:57):
Bad shape to go to this do this.
Speaker 4 (26:59):
But uh, then reportedly they'll they'll fill that void between
the foundation and the steel with foam. And maybe that
I mean at the at the end of the day,
at the foundations that damaged. Uh, again I touched on
it early. We have restrained retaining walls, so the walls
is restrained by the basement floor slab as well as
(27:20):
the floor diaphragm overhead. So that type of repair every
in fact, every type of repair except for one, relies
on the floor different floor floor diaphragm for the top
of the wall stabilization. So if if a wall is
that damaged, if there's that much pressure there's there, that
type of repair is still probably not gonna work because
(27:41):
you're still relying on the floor system.
Speaker 5 (27:43):
And that's a that's a you know, common.
Speaker 4 (27:45):
Thing that that I'm well aware of that I'm looking
for when I'm looking at diagnosing a problem and coming
up with a solution, is is understanding that that floor
system's purpose and what what it serves. So in the
event that a wall is bode or deflected inward from
the lateral earth pressure, it can actually push the floor
(28:07):
system through the opposite side of the house, creating cracks
at the corners. And if that's ever occurred, then you
really only have two options. One is to reduce the
pressure and reinforce the wall so the floor diaphragm is
capable of resisting that pressure or using a helical soil
anchor to counteract the pressure. That's the soil anchor is
(28:29):
the only repair option that we have in our toolbox
that does not rely on the floor diaphragm for stabilization
is completely essentially, it's completely independent of all else to function.
It relies on the soil that's ten twelve to fifteen
twenty feet away from the house, that is dense and
very stable to counteract the act of pressure on the foundation.
Speaker 3 (28:52):
May kind of brings me to another question, then, when
we're talking about some of these things that are questionable
as far as repairs go, are there situations where you
could have like one of these quick fix type things
put in, and if you're a homeowner, that then turns
into a seller that an engineer somewhere down the line
is want to take a look at one of these
repairs and be like, Nah, that's not gonna that's not
(29:12):
gonna work.
Speaker 4 (29:13):
Certainly, I mean there's certainly been you know, plenty of
times I've seen you know, before I don't do the
inspections anymore, but back when I was just doing inspections,
plenty of times I'd see repairs that showed signs of
the ongoing movement or I knew, or inadequate for one
reason or another. Yes, that is certainly possible, and that's
(29:35):
that's another you know, kind of leads me down a
different road. About the engineering aspect of this is, I mean,
eventually every house is going to get sold, and having
an engineer, whether it's myself or or another engineer, which
I've got referrals if somebody wants their own independent, third
party engineer, which I fully support and think is a
(29:55):
wise decision, but they will come up with a plan
and they'll document the repairs that's being done, and then
they'll they'll you know, provide documentation when it's all said,
one of the repairs complete that can be used as
a selling feature. I've had I had clients that would
take all my paperwork late right out next for sure,
to the realtors. You know, the house costs X, and
(30:17):
they'd have my stuff there and they'd use it as
a selling feature, not as a negative that that it's
been fixed.
Speaker 5 (30:23):
I mean, honestly, can.
Speaker 4 (30:25):
Unfortunately, there's a lot of neighborhoods that the houses have
been fixed or need to be fixed, and it's you know,
their streets that way.
Speaker 5 (30:34):
Unfortunately.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
I'll give this insight as well. I've done shows. I've
done many shows with realators in the past before too,
all from all different all different places. But one thing
that I found interesting is there's some realtors that love
engineers and some realators that don't love engineers. Yes, and
from at least again from my perspective as a consumer,
I sort of lean towards the ones that like engineers,
(30:56):
you know, because it seems like that if you if
you're if you're hesitant to to bring on an engineer
to take a look at the property, it means that
you're maybe trying to hide something. I mean, I don't
know that for sure. Maybe the excuse that I hear
on the other side is well, you know, engineers just
make it way too complicated to get this done, and
they raised way too many red flags in order to
get this out. But on the other side of things,
like what you just talked about, from the buyer perspective,
(31:16):
there's two parts to this equation. From the buyer perspective,
you're waiting to get into that house that has a
solid engineering recommendation on it. I mean that you feel
much better.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
Yeah, I used to have a couple handful of realtors
that I doubt I was exclusively recommended, but we did
a lot of work. I did a lot of work
for their buyers. Obviously, when they're the seller's agent, unless
they know they have a problem that they needs to
be addressed up front, they're not typically referring the inspection community.
But yeah, there's certain realtors I would work with more often,
(31:48):
and I wouldn't work with them necessarily, but I would
be on their referral list more often. And then some
that we just didn't.
Speaker 3 (31:55):
Literally talking about the same engineer. One time I had
a realder in here who can plan to no end
about the engineer. And then the very next time that
I had a real estate show, which may have been
a couple of years later, but they were talking about
the same engineer and how much they loved them, Yeah,
loved them. And I was like, Wow, this is a
completely different experience than uh, than than well, you know,
you can learn a lot when you just keep your
ears open and you're doing doing a show like this,
(32:16):
sometimes you can learn a lot of things, but then
that and that kind of boils us down to because
of uh, the overall experience with going through Foster construction
as in your in your incarnation of it, Brett, is
that the the holistic experience that you get from this
is you get someone who is a hometown person who
is an engineer, although that's not primarily what you do,
but you can't help but to look at every job
(32:37):
from that perspective. So when you're coming out and you're
looking at job, and you're there and you're the person
who's the uh, the quality control, that's that stops at you.
So you you oversee these jobs, you take a look
at them, even though you have employees and stuff that
work at it, that that that work on them, you
can your perspective is always going to be from that
engineering perspective, to look at things from all of the
different angles, just that nature upon itself. If somebody is
(33:00):
for example, we talked about people who might be a
little cost shy on certain things, and I think sometimes
that's the opportunity for people to come in with some
of these these bad repair ideas of somebody that's a
little bit concerned about the cost a little too much. Well,
if you call Foster Construction, you'll give options, and all
of the options will be good. So if you're a
little cost hesitant on some of these things, you're not
in the perfect situation right now, or something at least
(33:22):
make the cost. See what the spectrum is on repairs
that you can have done.
Speaker 4 (33:26):
Yeah, and there's you know, speaking about the cost, there's
sometimes there's options we can do that aren't necessarily going
to stabilize the foundation if the budget doesn't allow at
that time. But there are things that we can do
replace down spouts or something that reduces the rate of
movement or in some cases can actually prevent the movement. Well,
(33:48):
the movement ceases, it stabilizes on its own. So there
are certainly different different options there. One thing I do
want to mention is we are hiring.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
Oh way, if the job creator, it's always good.
Speaker 5 (33:59):
We're always hiring.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
So if there's anybody out there in the construction industry,
I'd be love to talk with you.
Speaker 3 (34:06):
General construction, just pretty much any skill set or.
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Uh yeah yeah, operators, concrete finishers, yeah, just willing willing
to work.
Speaker 3 (34:15):
Will to show up, that's the Believe me. I know
that's the important part. And we love making a love
connection on the show. When it comes to defining employment,
we've done that many times in the past. So Foster
Construction if that sounds like something not only to make
you have a job to do, but also if maybe
you're looking for a job, you can get Foster Construction
a call their number three er A four seven seven
six sixty two sixty three, three zer A four seven
(34:36):
seven six sixty two sixty three someone with construction background
that may be able to help out with that. I
know that that's always the thing. As a business owner,
you want to be a job creator as much as possible.
Sometimes you need the people to come to you to
hire though.
Speaker 5 (34:49):
Yeah, it's tough out there. It's tough.
Speaker 3 (34:52):
Yeah, I understand, especially when you're dealing with something like
you are that's not necessarily an easy job all the
time and requires for folks to show up, Tom Lee
run equipment things like that. Yeah, you have, you have
some barriers there. Yeah, good luck on Thatt. I hope
that everything works out.
Speaker 4 (35:08):
Now we've actually got we've got a very good crew
right now. I'm very pleased with with our group of guys.
We just need more and we we have a very
good really do they seem to all get along and
you know it's it's a good group.
Speaker 3 (35:22):
And that's that's a great information. As always the Brett
Foster from Foster Construction. Just a couple of minutes left
in the program before we wrap things up here today,
and a few more things that we can cover before
we get out of here. First of all, let me
remind you that we do put all these shows on podcasts,
So if you want to check out any previous show
that we have, Bred always comes in here with a
laundry list of items that we can talk about. Every
show is a little bit different, So if you want
(35:44):
to rest in the space of of kind of foundation
repairs and construction, you can go to w CHS network
dot com slash expert and you can find all of
our expert shows that are on there, including this one,
which will be up in about an hour or so
after the show concludes today, and each of the shows
that we have up there a lot of a lot
of good information. And Brett Show is on here every
(36:05):
month on Wednesday. What Are We Won? The second Wednesday,
Third Wednesday, Third Wednesday, I don't know where we are. Third,
I should know that, but I obviously didn't pay attention
before I came out. Yeah, okay, So on the third
Wednesday of every month, Brett Hoston is here from Foster
Construction and you can tune into that program. So once again,
let me get all the information out for you. Foster
Construction and Foundation Repair located at forty two to twenty
(36:28):
six Woodram Lane in Charleston, West Virginia. That's two five
three one three. Their phone number three zero four seven
seven six sixty two sixty three. Three zero four seven
seven six sixty two sixty three is a number you
can call to get a hold of Foster Foundation Repair
and the website is Foster Foundation Repair dot com. Foster
Foundation Repair dot com. It doesn't get much easier than that. Brett,
(36:49):
thanks so much for your information today. I think we
covered a large piece of information hopefully made folks so
familiar with your work. Once again, yep, thank you.
Speaker 4 (36:57):
Yet, if you go to the website and click the
contact us, that email now will come directly to me
and Amber, so one of us will get back to
you directly.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
That's the best way to do it. So that once
again is Foster Foundation Repair dot com. You can click
the contact button and get a hold of Brett in
any way that you need to there. That's going to
do it for us today. Thanks once again to Brett
Hoston from Foster Foundation Repair for being our expert this morning.
Coming up next, it's going to be Dave Allen with
five ad Love, Dave Wilson and TJ after that on
talk Line, and then Dave Allen is back with Amanda
(37:25):
Barron on Metro News Midday, and I'll be back this
afternoon at three oh six with Hotline with Dave Weekly.
Have a great day everyone On five eight w c HS,
the Voice of Charleston.
Speaker 2 (37:43):
W HS A W two four three d r f
M Charleston W two A three a Q Cross Lanes
at WVRC Media Station. We're proud to live here too.
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