August 19, 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):
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the realtor makes real estate dreams a reality, whether it's
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Speaker 2 (00:15):
The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five eight WCCHS,
it's employees or WVRC Media.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Twenty two minutes past eight o'clock, Thank you so much
for tuning in on this Tuesday morning. My name is
Dale Cooper, and this is Ask the Expert on five ADWCHS,
the Voice of Charleston. Some dy's morning out there this morning,
if you're still heading into work, not too bad at all.
There's not much weather, not as cool as hopefully it's
going to be a little bit later on, but also
not that steaming humidity to start off the day to day.
(00:58):
Just a kind of normal August day as you're heading
into work or wherever you're going this morning. Thanks for
tuning in this morning. We have a great show in
line for you until nine o'clock this morning. In studio
with us today from Foster Foster Basement Foundation Repair. Let
me try to get that right. From Foster Foundation Repair
of Brett Hodgon is here. He is the owner and
he's with us this morning. Brett, good morning, and welcome
back to the studio.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Good morning to you as well.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Thanks for coming in and I really appreciate the discussion
we're going to have this morning because one of the
things that we talk about a lot on here, and
you're an engineer primarily by trade first originally, but you've
gotten into foundation repair, you've taken over Foster Foundation Repair,
and you still rely on engineers independently beyond yourself, and
we talk about that a lot in here, where you
(01:40):
talk about you'll even consult an engineer. What an engineer,
an independent engineer might say. So what you did this
morning is you brought us an independent engineer. Yes.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Yeah, I think it's having a third party engineer involved,
or generally an engineer to begin with, but having an
engineer involved in the project, to me is very important.
There's many times problems are misdiagnosed and and ultimately don't
the problem doesn't get fixed. But one of the one
(02:10):
of the things that that we bring Jared in from
time to time. Is that there's a good example of
a project that we're in the middle of right now,
where we were going to install a very simple, straightforward
interior foundation drain, but once we cut the concrete out,
things changed quite dramatically. We found out that the the
(02:30):
foundation was not built in a typical manner and and
essentially the project was going to change dramatically. So I'm
trying to explain this to a homeowner and and they're
looking at me. I'm not sure if they trust me
at this point.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
But at that point I suggest we bring in somebody
completely independent that doesn't have any skin in the game.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
And that's where when when we recommended her to that
we brought and we brought Jared Gray in.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
So that Jared Gray is our our other guest this morning.
He is from solid Ground Engineering. More information for for
Jared's company, Solid Ground Engineering at solid GROUNDWV dot com.
We'll give you all of Foster's information coming out here
in just a moment. Jared, good morning, welcome to the radio.
Speaker 6 (03:11):
Good morning, thanks.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
For coming on and I really appreciate talking to you
for just a moment. Thought I would give you a
couple of minutes, if you have anything you'd like to
introduce yourself. Are you from the area, from Charleston originally
or from West Virginia?
Speaker 7 (03:22):
Yeah, originally from West Virginia, Summersville area. Grew up in
Rails County, lived in Charleston since the early two thousand,
so Charleston's.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Home twenty five years. That's pretty close. And so you're
the owner of Solid Ground Engineering. So that means yet
another small business owner that's chosen to stay in the
Mountain State. So we appreciate that for sure, because we
like to keep our businesses home if we can.
Speaker 6 (03:41):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
So a couple of things I want to talk to
you about. Brett talked about just a moment ago, an
issue that you had with a drain, brought you in
as a consultation on something along these lines. What is
the role of a structural engineer when it comes to
home repairs, remodeling projects, and things like that. How can
you be of assistance? Sure?
Speaker 7 (03:57):
So, what I deal with very often is I show
up to a home and they've had two, three, four
different contractors out and they all have a little different
same neighborhood, just a little different strategy. So what I
like to tell them is I give them the roadmap.
We're going to diagnose exactly what they need, give them
not too much, not too little, solve their problems and
and that way, once I write the report, issue their
(04:19):
their standard of repair, all the contractors can then come
back and sort of bid apples to apples and they
can compare and see what they need.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
So what you're really doing is arming the homeowner. To
some degree, you're giving them and in some cases there
might be options, like you like a full repair, you
need to do this. What's going to get you, you know,
past a certain level or to get the spects or
you know, minimum amount you can do whatever it might
be to make it safe and that passes that passes mustard.
You're arming that homeowner with with I know that this
needs to be done. So if somebody comes in to
(04:47):
make a bed on a project or something like that,
they know they're at least getting their minimum amount of
work taken care of.
Speaker 7 (04:52):
Sure A it's a big education process. This is what's
going on. These are sort of bare minimum things that
you need. You know, ideally you may do these things
as well, but never going to hold a gun to
them and say no, you have to do this, you know,
either way.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
And and for our region. I talked to Brett about
this all the time when he comes on the program.
And when you said that you give folks that contact
you a roadmap, and our region, because of our our terrain,
the weather we get and things like that, the roadmap
really could be you could have a couple of different
directions to get to the same place.
Speaker 7 (05:20):
Absolutely, yeah, more than one white to skin a cat.
You know, there's there's high level, medium level, lower level,
you know, items that are maybe some work a little
better than others, but all can can sort of get
us at the end of the road to the same point.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
And uh, and Brett, maybe you have something to say
about this as well. But when it comes to a
homeowner that's trying to make the you know, a homewner
might say, well, I already have a contractor. A contractor
knows how to do all these things, so why would
I need an additional level of expertise on top of this.
I've already contracted a contractor. But really we're talking about
two different things. A contractor may not knows how to
do the construction work, but there's a lot of things
(05:53):
that goes into engineering that a general contractor may not
or may need a consultation for.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
Yeah, that's very true. One of the to me, one
of the biggest benefits of having an engineer, especially a
third party engineer involved, is is they're going to have
that documentation. They're going to have a report that's generated
before the work begins. As the project goes along, the
contractors doing the work, they can come in and document
the work. And then at the end of it they
(06:19):
can they can provide documentation. This is all critical information,
especially in the event you're putting the house on the
market to sell. These these documents can be used as
a disclosure of what what what happened. And I've seen
oftentimes that it's used as a selling feature where people
actually place these documents out on the on the counter
and and and and it helps them actually sell the
(06:43):
house because you know, home buyer goes through a lot
of houses before they select one, and oftentimes they've been
in houses that need repairs or have been repaired already,
so they're kind of getting exposure to this. So that's
you know, knowing that it's been done, it's been done correctly,
with some oversight to me is a critical thing.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
That's Brett Haston, owner of Foster Foundation Repair online Foster
Foundation Repair dot Com. That's Foster Is that right, Foster
Foundation Repair dot I thought, yeah, you don't have a
WV in. Here's okay, Foster Foundation Repair dot Com. They're
on a what a we're laying here in Charleston. I'll
give you the phone number and stuff as we go along.
I don't want to give you too much information at
one time because it's impossible for you to write it down,
so I'll let you know when I want to get
that information out to you. And Jared from Jared Gray
(07:26):
from Solid Ground Engineering. When somebody is doing you know,
whether they're remodel or they're getting some repairs done to
sell something, or they're just getting some repairs done at
their home, you know they've noticed some offso lessons that
they need to get repaired, or they're looking to make
an addition refinance and maybe you know they're trying to
sprew some things up or something like that. But you
notice an issue in your basement, you know, you're cleaning up,
(07:46):
you're doing whatever it might be, and there's you notice
a crack or a little moisture something along those lines,
when is it time that you need to maybe take
a pause on calling the contractor for the work, and
maybe we need to get an engineer in here to
look at this sure.
Speaker 7 (07:58):
So one of the taglines I use a lot is
Saggi floor is binding doors, cracks in your foundation wall,
West Virginia. This area, our soils are expansive, They're always
shifting and moving depending on season, moisture content. So there's
probably not a house out there that doesn't have some condition,
a little sag, a little crack somewhere, But definitely at
when it raises to that level that you really should
(08:19):
consult someone is if you've maybe patched cracks or patched
areas and they continue to reopen, or you have doors
that maybe don't want to close right or windows that
don't want to close right either certain seasons or at
certain times, probably.
Speaker 6 (08:32):
Time to take a closer look.
Speaker 7 (08:33):
Let's dig a little deeper, see what's going on, and
at least maybe start strategizing for what you need to do.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
As far as some of the common things that you
see in this area of folks that homeowners should just
kind of have a baseline be aware of it. If
you're a homeowner in our region. Here's some things that
you really just want to look look into over the
course of home ownership, ten, twenty fifteen years, whatever it
might be. What are some of the more common problems.
Speaker 7 (08:53):
So key for everything is water, you know, whether it's
a roof leak, a wall leak, a foundation leak. Water
is the big deteriorating element. So I mean, if we
keep a house dry, it would pretty much last forever.
So with that, keeping gutters clean, you know, keeping tree
limbs trimmed back to keep your gutters clean, down spouts,
making sure that they're flowing freely and directing that water
away from the house, and then your yard areas. Whenever
(09:14):
they build a house, the soils around the house are
soft and they tend to settle back and reverse that
slope and that grade back towards the foundation of the home.
So it's maintaining your landscaping, your bedding so that everything's
the house is sort of a high point and everything's
directed and running away from that.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Just things you
need to make sure that you're taking care of and Rrett.
When you're doing working a home, somebody contracts you and
if it's a foundation or a basement issue, something along
those lines. Again, you have a you have a level
of knowledge already from having an engineering degree where you
can take a look at these things, and sometimes you
do need an independent eye. What types of problems you
(09:50):
run into that you find that it's common that you
need to maybe call in an independent helpful. Is it
primarily just to alleviate a client's concern that that to
make to get another opinion, or are there really some
issues that you know, I need some help on this,
I need another set of eyes.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
So probably the most common time I'm going to really
push for for Jared to come in or another engineer
to come in, uh, is when when the client's telling
me they've had multiple estimates and and Jared brought this
up earlier about multiple a client who has had multiple
contractors with different plans. That was also one of my
most common calls to be brought in before I bought Foster.
(10:30):
So when when I start hearing that they've had a
lot of different estimates, generally I'm going to start talking
that you might want to get an independent individual because
typically one one one estimate might be fixed in the
back of the house. Well, it might be fixed in
the front of the house, and and normally there's some
It's like Jared said, it's a roadmap. It's a single direction,
(10:53):
uh for for the project to go. And so that's
that's what I one of the main reasons I would
bring him in.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Welcome to set us questions this morning. If you have
questions for either Jared or for Break, you can give
us a call three rough four three four five fifty
eight fifty eight and also text over questions to three
zero four nine three five five zeros er eight three
zero four nine three five five zero zero eighth And Jared,
when you're when you are calling into a home and
you're assessing some problems and since some breats here, we'll
talk about foundations and basements and things along those lines.
(11:20):
How do how do you assess the severity of that?
We've talked on this program before about you know, kind
of tracking cracks and you know if they continue to
expand in different problems along those lines. But what are
you looking for when you're looking at a house and
where are you advising of the homeowners?
Speaker 7 (11:35):
Yeah, so I do a pretty detailed assessment, not just
I like to look at your crack, like to see
your cracks, but I'm also going to measure those. I
do a diagnostic fairly simple movement diagram. I sketch out
the house, take elevations, take profiles, so we can sort
of see what are those cracks telling us. You know,
there's codes on how to build houses, how they should
be whenever they construct them. Once a house is existing,
(11:57):
once it starts shifting and moving, there's really no code.
There's no guideline, there's no baseline that says when do
we fix it? So we look at the environment, We
look at how much shifting there is, reoccurring movement, cracks
that have been passionate reopened. But at that I take
a lot of measurements, a lot of to diagnose the
cracks and see what's moving.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Ye, that makes a lot of sense. And right touched
on this a little bit earlier, but generally speaking, engineering
reports are used sometimes now as as a bolster for selling.
You know, you can get a report and show that
either something has been evaluated and not a problem, or
if it was a repair dning you had an engineered
that was consulting on that, you can provide that so
that is something for somebody that's looking to sell their
(12:34):
home that is a benefit that can help in the market,
especially in this competitive marketplace that we have now.
Speaker 7 (12:40):
Sure, it's definitely a tool well a lot of times,
either you know, at the listing phase or once they
get in the transaction and the praiser comes out and
sees a crack, it can be a really valuable tool
to help help grease the wheels and have that transaction proceed.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Let me flip that question just a little bit. If
and this is maybe something you would be called one
if somebody was trying to make their decision. But a
home owner that out there looking to make a purchase
right now, is there any like quick red flags that
you could give them when they're taking a look at
it around the house. You know, they're looking at the basement, foundation,
anything along those lines, even the homes are doorframes of
the house. Is there any red flags that they should
(13:13):
be aware of that maybe we should have somebody look
at this before we make an offer.
Speaker 6 (13:18):
Sure, rob, I mean the obvious ones.
Speaker 7 (13:19):
If they walk in and it's like a funhouse, if
you can feel elevation changes as you're walking through the home. Again,
the cracks along doorways, window openings, moisture stains, moisture, water damage,
materials in the basement or the lowest levels. Those are all,
you know, pretty obvious things that they would.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Key you on. And that's from somebody perspectively purchasing the home. Bret.
From your standpoint, if someone's looking to sell, or they're
looking at these problems, or they've just ran into these
problems in their family home over the course of time,
this is exactly the type of thing that you can
come in and assist with.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
Yes, yeah, this is.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
You know, we'll take either we'll do our own assessment
or take an assessment of somebody like Jared for another engineer,
and provide an estimate and go through there and fix
as it needs to be done.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
How do you determine the best solution when you run
into a problem, like if it's peers or waterproofing reinforcements
for a failing foundation, whatever it might be, how do
you kind of come to that assessment. I mean, there's
a lot of.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Factors to consider that. Our goal is to provide the cheapest,
the least expensive option that will resolve the issue permanently
or meet whatever the owner's expectations. Are Sometimes sometimes the
goal is not to make it perfectly correct, or it's
it's more or less to extend it a certain amount
(14:35):
of time. So essentially our goal is to fix it
as with the least cost involved and also meet the
owner's expectations. But you know, factors on the property such
as retaining walls and access, there's those All those things
are significant, significantly impact what what direction we would we
(14:55):
would select to go with the project, and I think
Jared would also has to take that into consideration.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I know he does.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
If we can't get an excavator out behind a house
where you know, that's going to limit our options and
would limit his recommendations to what we would do.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. If you have
a text that came in from the three rough four
nine nine three, this is basically what we just talked about.
But see if either of you have anything more to
say about this. I'm looking to sell my home in
the next year. Should I go ahead and get a
structural inspection before listing? I'll go ahead and let you
tackle that.
Speaker 7 (15:27):
Yes, definitely talk to a realtor in that situation. It's
sort of I'm always going to say yes if you've
got cracks and you've got concerns. I'd love to come
out and take a look at it again. It can
be very beneficial to know where you're standing. Are you
looking at a major problem? Are you looking at something
that just needs patched up and throw or for sale
sign in the yard.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
I mean, I think as a person that used to
do be in that line of work, it no longer
is I think it is proveent. I mean, I think
it would be wise. It again goes back to the
selling feature. Even if there is no problem, it's going
to set the house a part. If there is no issues,
it's going to give a buyer much more confidence to
even make that initial offer on the property.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Have you seen and this is bouncing around just a
little bit, but I was looking at environmental trends in
West Virginia, weather data, things along those lines. There's no
question that our seasons have changed, just in a relatively
short amount of time, last decade, fifteen years, something like that.
The length of our seasons have changed, the moisture content
of our seasons have changed. I mean, it's fairly obvious
when you look at the data. For whatever reason, it's
(16:29):
definitely getting different. Is that creating a different set of problems,
say now and in the next ten years, as opposed
to what we had seen up until maybe ten years
ago in the past.
Speaker 6 (16:42):
So historically I would say no.
Speaker 7 (16:45):
But those trends, like the season that we're in right now,
sort of dog days of summer rain sort of stops.
You've walking around your yard, you're seeing cracks in the
soil again. Our soils where they're expansive and they're sort
of influenced by moisture, they're going to start shrinking. So
it's this area from sort of now it' till November.
Foundation Settlement's really common. You know, even houses that have
(17:06):
not moved before a corner drops or a chimney starts
to rotate away because those soils under the house are
sort of shrinking and drawing up.
Speaker 6 (17:14):
At this point, you.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Bring up a good point here, and as Brendosa, oftentimes
we talk about things that makes me have to talk
about something that's going on in my house, and this
is one of those situations. I have such terrible soil erosion.
I have soil erosion. I have three giant trees in
my yard between the front and the back that they
need to go it's an ongoing thing between me and
my wife. Let's get rid of the trees. No, the
(17:35):
squirrels won't have anywhere to live anyway. But what I'm seeing,
I have roots that penetrate up from my ground. They're
encroaching towards the house, you know, because they're spreading out.
All of these things can play into some problems with
like how you retain moisture, where the moisture is, how
your foundation reacts to those things. I mean that those
(17:55):
create their own like sort of environment, right having so
many trees in your area.
Speaker 7 (17:58):
Oh, absolutely, absolutely, vegetation has a lot to do with
that's a lot of those tree roots. I'm no arborist,
but they're invasive. They're going to search out and find moisture.
So whenever we do foundation repairs and we dig up drains,
a lot of times those existing drains, it'll almost look
like a filter membrane or a just the root structure
that's through those those drain pipes. It looks like a
(18:20):
sponge where they've just gone in there and they're sucking
that moisture, which is a good thing. They're pulling moisture away,
but they're also clogging the drains and they're no longer
functioning properly.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
The may but there may be situations where somebody to
really treat their property correctly, they might have to get
rid of those trees or triming bike or something like
that that has to happen, I would assume.
Speaker 7 (18:39):
So huge generality, which is really dangerous, I would discuss.
But if you look at a tree branch bloom, you know,
the bloom of your branches is pretty close to your
root bloom. So if you've got tree branches that are
overhanging your roof, you probably have roots from that same
tree that are against your foundation and possibly in your
foundation drains, your sewer drains, or any any subsurface piping.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
So that's a great point and stuff something that people
need to be aware of.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Sure, so I tend I don't have any firm data
on this, but it seems like when I see when
I go out to a property and I'm in evaluating
and essentially I'm I'm observing drought related settlement, it always
seems like there's a large oak tree within ten to
fifteen feet of the house chair. Do you do you
have any do you see that as well?
Speaker 7 (19:23):
Absolutely? And so again huge generality. But what I tell
most folks, if the tree is bigger than your forearm,
you probably want that thing fifteen to twenty feet away from
your foundation wall.
Speaker 6 (19:32):
Get it out.
Speaker 7 (19:33):
If it's closer than that, unfortunately, you probably gott to
terminate that squirrell's residency.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
I need to record. Luckily we're on podcasts. If you
see it's just Network dot Com slash podcast. You can
find it on here. I need to play this back
for my wife when we get home tonight. Honey. It's
not my fault, the experts say it. I get rid
of the trees, man, because it's really bad. I mean,
the the amount of penetration we're getting from the roots
is pretty bad. And notinly that man, but I mean,
(20:00):
no matter how much we have them cut back, it
seems like they're growing back in no time to go
over a roof, and it's just too much trouble man.
The squirrels need to find another place.
Speaker 7 (20:08):
And so the shade from that creates moss on your shingles.
It creates shade around the home. All wood destroying insects, carpenterts, terminites,
they like damp, moist areas. So yeah, the trees close
to the house. Other than there's a little bit of
beneficial to you know, conditioning heat and cooling you.
Speaker 6 (20:24):
You've probably get a little shade.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
You believe me. One side of my yard is completely moss.
So yeah, we're getting real issues with moisture and with
not enough sunlight over there that I keep them pointing
these things out. It's like, honey, this is not healthy.
It's great I don't have to mow it, but that
doesn't mean that it's any good for us, you know
what I mean. Let's do this. Let's go ahead and
take a break. We still have plenty of things that
we're going to talk about. Plus I think I got
a couple more text questions in here. We're having a
great conversation this morning. If you have any questions at
(20:48):
all about your about your foundation repair, or about anything
like that when it comes to your home, you could
give us a call this morning and we can help
you out with that. We're gonna ahead and take a
break and we'll be back right after this. You're listening
to Ask the Expert on five eight WHS. The Voice
of Charleston.
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Sixteen minutes until the top of the hour you're listening
to not five eighty live. I did that last week,
and that's coming up next with Dave Allen. He's back
this week, as you probably know because you listened yesterday.
But I'm Del Cooper. You're listening to ask the Expert.
Having a great discussion this morning. I've been looking forward
to this since I knew we're going to have it.
Brett Hodgen is here for his regular Tuesday show and
he's from Foster Foundation Repair. You can find out more
(22:36):
information online. It's Foster Foundation Repair dot com. Their phone
number three zer a four seven seven six sixty two
sixty three. That's three zero four seven seven six sixty
two sixty three. Have a special guest this morning. The
owner of Solid Ground Engineering, Jared Gray, is with us
as well. You can find more information out about Solid
Ground Engineering online. That's solid GROUNDWV dot com, solid Ground
WV dot com and their phone number three zer a
four none four one three non none eight threes zero
(22:59):
four nine four one three nine eight. Taking your phone
calls at three zero four three four five fifty eight
fifty eight. He can send over text questions to three
zero four nine three five five zero zero eight from
the six eight one two zero seven. What are the
signs my cross space needs encapsulation and is it worth
the investment. Well, Brett, we've always heard you talk about
it encapsulation before. That's something that Foster does.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
Yes, I'd love to hear Jared's opinions on this, because
I know he recommends it from time to time and
I've never picked his brain as to why. Yeah, let's see,
there's certainly a great product.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
What do you think about it, Jared?
Speaker 7 (23:35):
Yeah, so I am a big fan of crawl space encapsulation.
Building codes require crawl spaces the area under your house
subgrade to be ventilated, and so really most of the
time what that's doing is letting hot, humid air come
into that cool crawl space, almost like a cave atmosphere.
So it's really common to have condensation, moisture, mildew, fungus
in those areas. So what necessitates that is if you
(23:59):
are seeing moisture stains, if you're seeing looks like a
biology lab little green, little black, little fuzzy stuff up
when you're wood framing, then that's definitely key up or
evidence of poor ventilation excess moisture in those areas.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Yeah, so that's something that you are curious about. That
something used to certainly follow up one. I wish that
I had a more accessible cross space because this is
I'd have to tear up my floor. As I thought
to Brett about this before, I don't think it's a
real accessible thing for me, but I know it would
help my house because I have those moisture issues. I
know that would help quite a bit.
Speaker 7 (24:29):
Yeah, that they help with bugs and critters, creepy crawleys
and then definitely those moisture odors, that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Boy, now this is something. Now I could get my
wife on this. I could get her on board of this.
She wasn't cut down the trees, but she would probably
do this. She's like, what less bugs? That would be
great her and my kid both. I'm like the designated
you know, bug squisher or whatever you know, and my
nights are busy these days. There's a whole lot of
creepy crawleys around.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Jared, would you mind giving it like a brief description
of what a cross space encapsulation system is?
Speaker 6 (24:58):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Sure?
Speaker 7 (24:59):
So with space encapsulation, what the goal there is is
to air seal. We want to keep any exterior sources
of moisture and air out of that cross spaced area.
So they're going to go through and have a barrier,
silicone foam, spray foam seilant any little cracks openings down
the side walls. They're going to use a thick liner
(25:21):
similar to what you might think of like a pool liner,
and they're going to coat the walls and all the
floors and any foundation piers in that area. And then
once it's sealed up, they're going to use either air
movers or a demdification system to help that area have
some some airflow.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
It sounds nice, I mean, honestly, it sounds pretty good.
And Brett, like we said, I don't want to leave
this of this is something that someone is interested in
that something Foster Foundation Repair can definitely help with.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
Yeah, feel free to reach out to our office number
and we can. We can come out and take a
look at it and tell you what it would take
to do on and you can reach us at three
or four seven, seven, six, six two sixty three.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
When when you see stand water when your property, is
it always a problem or when is it a problem?
We'll let Jered take that one.
Speaker 7 (26:07):
Well, if there's fishing out of this lot of problem, yeah,
good point, just bate up. Yeah, So again the big
thing is the proximity to your residence. Generalities again are dangerous,
but by and large, moisture is going to perk through
those soils. That's sort of a one to one ratio.
Speaker 6 (26:23):
So if your.
Speaker 7 (26:24):
Basement's eight ten feet deep, we want any big drainage areas,
any moisture areas ten fifteen feet away from the house,
so that moisture doesn't want to perk back to your
under house, basement or cross based areas.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Now, that makes a lot of sense. You mentioned earlier
about that you have a method of tracking separation cracks
and different things along those lines. What progression are you
looking for it for it to be a problem, and
when does that become a problem when there is a
crack that is expanding to some degree.
Speaker 7 (26:49):
Sure, so it's very unique and there's not a case
by case answer. Some homes, I'll go and take elevations.
I use a self leveling laser level, so I don't
do surveying like off GPS coordinates to figure out your
elevation on sea level. I do a local elevation change.
Some houses there'll be two three four inches diagonally across
(27:09):
the house.
Speaker 6 (27:10):
No crack.
Speaker 7 (27:10):
Maybe it was built that way. Maybe it's always been
that way, maybe it's settled a little. But if it's
not affecting your service ability, your occupancy, then it's sort.
Speaker 6 (27:17):
Of not a problem.
Speaker 7 (27:18):
When it becomes an issue is when it is affecting serviceability.
Doors aren't opening, windows aren't opening. It can even affect
your drain slopes, your your sewage drains may not want
to flow properly. That's when we start, you know, looking
at red repair methods.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Yeah, that also makes a lot of sense because you
have to you have to be aware of, cognisant of
all those things as you're going along. There's no doubt
having a great conversation this morning. If you want to
get in on it, you're more than welcome to. We
have a few minutes left in the program, about ten
minutes or so. You can give us a call three
zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight. You
can text three zero four nine three five five Zeroser eighth.
The owner of Foster Foundation affair of freet Hodgson is here.
(27:55):
You can find out more information online. It's Foster Foundation
Repair dot com. And we have a special guest this morning.
The owner of Solid Ground Engineering, Jared Gray, is with
us as well solid GROUNDWV dot com. Solid GROUNDWV dot com.
You're welcome to get ahold of us on the text
line the last few minutes that we have three zero
four nine three five five zero resure eight, or you
can give us a call three zer a four three
four five fifty eight fifty eight. Threes are a four
three four five fifty eight fifty eight when you're have
(28:19):
you found a two part question? Do you find, generally speaking,
that people are surprised at the I guess condition of
their house and foundation after an assessment? Is there usually
surprises I guess involved?
Speaker 7 (28:34):
Oh yeah, I would say half the time.
Speaker 6 (28:38):
Most of the time.
Speaker 7 (28:39):
Most most folks realize that, and they know that it's
sort of they're avoiding it. You know, it's the dark,
creepy corner. We don't want to go there, We don't
want to look at it. Husbands especially, I'm guilty. So
a lot of the clients are the wives that are
concerned about, you know, things that keep reoccurring or keep changing.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Man, that makes a lot of sense, hits me right
in the soft spot. I have to admit. My follow
up to that then would also be that that I
kind of equate this with preventative maintenance or preventative healthcare,
like going to a doctor and seeing and getting your
yearly check up and things and what's wrong. It wouldn't
(29:14):
be a bad idea for a homeowner. I don't think
to get a relatively regular inspection as far as from
an engineer goes. If you're really wanting to keep your
home and tiptop shape, keep track of any problems that
might be happening. It seems like to me that that
would be a good investment.
Speaker 7 (29:31):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, it would be a perfect honeydoo list.
Speaker 6 (29:34):
You know, these are the things to be aware of
to watch for.
Speaker 7 (29:37):
You can make these minor improvements and the definitely try
to avoid costly repairs down the road.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Yeah, it seems like if you can avoid the foundation
issues or avoid the water penetration or even delay. I mean,
you know, if you do something in your home that's
going to help, anything like that's going to help, and
home repairs can get expensive and and they're always inconvenient,
So I mean anything that we could do to prevent
some of those things is probably a good thing. However,
you know, when prevention doesn't work or if you need help,
(30:02):
you know a lot of times it's it's both things,
right Brett, where you have to address the problem that
has already been created, but also prevent the problem from
happening more in the future. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
Yeah, most of our repairs involve addressing not only the
symptoms but the source. So fixing down spout drains or
whatever the drainage issues out front. We don't get into
the gutters and the down spouts once they're above ground.
That's that's that would be a different contractor.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
But yeah, we're.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Definitely gonna hit both both the source and the problem.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
And so if somebody were interested in getting for example,
they know that they have issues, and they don't know
if they if they necessarily need an engineer to look
at it. They just know that they have an issue
with their basement, they have some sort of leakach or
something like that. That's just as easy as a phone
call then, right that you come out to take a
look see what's going on.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
Yes, so we'll come out. We can do a free estimate.
If it's you know, a fairly straightforward problem, well we'll
provide the estimate. If it requires a three hour inspection,
then that's something we would refer to someone like Jared
because we're doing free estimates. So it's you know, there
are time limitations. I have other things that but I
(31:10):
just don't have time to do those detailed inspections like
that anymore.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
So, yeah, they can call us.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
They could certainly call an engineer, a third party engineer
to set up an inspection and get a plan of
action on paper that we would then just provide the
estimate for.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
And then again specifically about yourself. The layer of a
service that you specifically can provide is the fact that
you having that background in engineering. Of someone like Jared
does issue or report, you're able to talk to them
on sort of a cohort basis that you understand the language,
you understand what's being asked for, and you could almost
on behalf of the home owner in some cases, Hey,
(31:46):
this is what we're trying to do, and translate that
as well as possible.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Yeah, I can certainly interpret what the goals are of
the repair, help people understand that. I mean, obviously Jared's
still there to consult with for them the owner. But yeah,
a good example, I'm going to a house later that
that I went out to initially, and this is another
(32:09):
situation where where I would defer or bring in recommend
to the owner that Jared or another engineer be involved.
But I want to I went out to a house.
Uh it had already been repaired and been repaired recently.
Uh and and and the repair was failing. Uh So
at that point, uh, it's best as if an independent engineer,
I'm a contractor, I stand to make money or profit
(32:31):
off of off of the project. So that's another situation
where bringing in a third party engineers is prudent who
doesn't have any skin in the game like I would
if I were to do the project. So uh And
of course it you know, whoever did the work, would
I guess quote unquote be my competition. Uh So there
would be an appearance of impropriety there that I was
(32:52):
going after my competition. So that that's another good example
of of why Jared would be is a valuable member.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Of the community. Jared, let me ask you this. We're
wrapping up the program here, just a couple of minutes left.
But I thought that if you had this one crazy trick,
if you had if you had to tell people the
one thing or maybe a couple of things, that that
this is as a home owner, these are the things
that you should do that has the greatest impact with
the least amount of you know, investment, Like just a
(33:20):
simple thing that everybody should do to keep their their
house in best shape. Do you have any anything that
you would recommend.
Speaker 7 (33:25):
Yes, So we sort of touched one of the really
high value, easiest concept than something most homeowners can do
is gutters and down spouts. If you walk around your
house and your down spouts discharging right beside your foundation,
that's a problem that's going to find its way back
underneath of your home at some point. So putting an extension.
You can go to Low's or a big box store,
home depot wherever you choose, buy an extension and extend
(33:47):
that further away. Yeah, you may have to move it
when you're mowing the grass, but you want to get
that water diverted away from the home.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
And so literally you don't have to I mean, you
probably don't want to go uphill because it might come
back down. But other than just it's like common sense
stuff like that. Just you want to get it ten
feet away from the foundation.
Speaker 7 (34:04):
Yeah, and they don't even have to be buried ideally
they would aesthetically you might want that buried, but but
out to tell folks all the time, if it's cold
outside and it's going to freeze in your gutters, it's
going to freeze in the yard drain, so water is
going to run through that pass out and run away
from the home. So yeah, it's just just sort of
again the key element keeping your your home is as
dry and the soils around your house as dry as
(34:25):
stable as possible.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
So when you talk about burying it, that's nothing more
than just digging a trench and burying it, right. I
mean generally you don't need any special equipment or anything
to do that, right.
Speaker 6 (34:33):
Just to call them miss utilities and make sure you're
not going to dig.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
In an area I guess that sure's.
Speaker 6 (34:36):
Some complication there, but no otherwise.
Speaker 7 (34:39):
It can be just below the surface you have six
eight ten inches deep and slope it away from the house.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
That kind of reminded me. I'm glad I saw this
from the threes or of four six eight one. Do
you need a permit or engineering plan or structural for
structure repairs on a home or an addition?
Speaker 4 (34:54):
So for a permit, it depends on where the house
is located. If it's if it's within a minnicipa that
has permit requirements, then yes, you have to pull permit.
And that means Charleston, South Charleston, Dunbar, Winfield, all the
little towns, all the towns in the area for the
most part, do require permit be pulled. There's not a
(35:19):
requirement to my knowledge that that requires an engineering report
for a foundation repair. I think there should be, because
we're talking twenties thirties, you know, big expensive projects that
sometimes have to get done twice if they're not done
right the first time. So South Charleston's pretty good. They're
they're probably the most strict about engineerings being involved. I
(35:41):
don't know if your what your experience is with that,
but generally when we're working in South Charleston, they're they're
wanting a report or a document, a drawing for me
with my engineering seal on it to say this is
what we're going to do.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Do you have anything to
add to that character is that?
Speaker 2 (35:59):
No?
Speaker 6 (35:59):
I'm never involved that aspect.
Speaker 7 (36:00):
So I have worked in unis about in Charleston and
Nitro South Charleston that have required that, But I think
a lot of It depends on how the permit's pulled
and the language that's used, and and what you know,
the scope of the repair in general.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
That's good stuff. Let me get our contact information out
to you one more time. We o it, I got
a better a benut left in the program. So we want
to make sure that you have all the contact information.
Anything in here that kind of kind of rang your
conscience this morning, and you need to make a phone call.
First of all, Foster Foundation Repair Brett Haston was here
with us this morning. Their phone numbers three zero four
seven seven six sixty two sixty three. Three zero four,
seven seven six sixty two sixty three is where you
can find Foster Foundation Repair online. It's Foster Foundation Repair
(36:35):
dot com. Foster Foundation Repair dot com located at forty
two twenty six Woodrom Lane here in Charleston. And then
our special guest this morning was the owner of Solid
Ground Engineering and his name is Jared Gray. You can
find out more information online. It's solid Ground WV dot com.
Solid Ground WV dot com. His phone number three zero
four none four one three nine nine eight. Is that right, Jared?
(36:57):
I didn't check that with you. Is that correct? Okay? Good. OK.
These are a four nine four one three non non
eight for Solid Ground Engineering. Had a great discussion today
talking about all the different aspects from both the Foster
Foundation repair perspective and from the engineer Jared Grade from
Solid Ground Engineering on various home repairs things you should
be aware of, and hopefully a massively educational program for
you if you missed any portion of it. If you
(37:18):
want to go back and listen to at WCHS network
dot com slash podcasts, all of our shows get archived there.
Thank you so much for coming in today, Brett. Thank
you for coming in as always, appreciate your time.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
YEP, thank you, Jared, Thank you for giving us a
different perspective than.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Money and Jared, it was a nice to meet you.
Thanks so much for coming.
Speaker 6 (37:34):
In as a wonderful Appreciate the in by Brett.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Coming up next to five eighty Live with Dave Allen.
I'll be back this afternoon at three or six with
Dave weekly on hotline. Have a great day everyone on
five ADWHS.
Speaker 9 (37:43):
Finding Ewchsam ninety six point five's Charles one oh four.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Point five Cross Lanes, WVRC Media Station.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
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 eight WCCHS,
it's employees or WVRC Media.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
Twenty two minutes past eight o'clock, Thank you so much
for tuning in on this Tuesday morning. My name is
Dale Cooper, and this is Ask the Expert on five ADWCHS,
the Voice of Charleston. Some dy's morning out there this morning,
if you're still heading into work, not too bad at all.
There's not much weather, not as cool as hopefully it's
going to be a little bit later on, but also
not that steaming humidity to start off the day to day.
(00:58):
Just a kind of normal August day as you're heading
into work or wherever you're going this morning. Thanks for
tuning in this morning. We have a great show in
line for you until nine o'clock this morning. In studio
with us today from Foster Foster Basement Foundation Repair. Let
me try to get that right. From Foster Foundation Repair
of Brett Hodgon is here. He is the owner and
he's with us this morning. Brett, good morning, and welcome
back to the studio.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Good morning to you as well.
Speaker 3 (01:19):
Thanks for coming in and I really appreciate the discussion
we're going to have this morning because one of the
things that we talk about a lot on here, and
you're an engineer primarily by trade first originally, but you've
gotten into foundation repair, you've taken over Foster Foundation Repair,
and you still rely on engineers independently beyond yourself, and
we talk about that a lot in here, where you
(01:40):
talk about you'll even consult an engineer. What an engineer,
an independent engineer might say. So what you did this
morning is you brought us an independent engineer. Yes.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Yeah, I think it's having a third party engineer involved,
or generally an engineer to begin with, but having an
engineer involved in the project, to me is very important.
There's many times problems are misdiagnosed and and ultimately don't
the problem doesn't get fixed. But one of the one
(02:10):
of the things that that we bring Jared in from
time to time. Is that there's a good example of
a project that we're in the middle of right now,
where we were going to install a very simple, straightforward
interior foundation drain, but once we cut the concrete out,
things changed quite dramatically. We found out that the the
(02:30):
foundation was not built in a typical manner and and
essentially the project was going to change dramatically. So I'm
trying to explain this to a homeowner and and they're
looking at me. I'm not sure if they trust me
at this point.
Speaker 5 (02:46):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
But at that point I suggest we bring in somebody
completely independent that doesn't have any skin in the game.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Uh.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
And that's where when when we recommended her to that
we brought and we brought Jared Gray in.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
So that Jared Gray is our our other guest this morning.
He is from solid Ground Engineering. More information for for
Jared's company, Solid Ground Engineering at solid GROUNDWV dot com.
We'll give you all of Foster's information coming out here
in just a moment. Jared, good morning, welcome to the radio.
Speaker 6 (03:11):
Good morning, thanks.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
For coming on and I really appreciate talking to you
for just a moment. Thought I would give you a
couple of minutes, if you have anything you'd like to
introduce yourself. Are you from the area, from Charleston originally
or from West Virginia?
Speaker 7 (03:22):
Yeah, originally from West Virginia, Summersville area. Grew up in
Rails County, lived in Charleston since the early two thousand,
so Charleston's.
Speaker 3 (03:29):
Home twenty five years. That's pretty close. And so you're
the owner of Solid Ground Engineering. So that means yet
another small business owner that's chosen to stay in the
Mountain State. So we appreciate that for sure, because we
like to keep our businesses home if we can.
Speaker 6 (03:41):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
So a couple of things I want to talk to
you about. Brett talked about just a moment ago, an
issue that you had with a drain, brought you in
as a consultation on something along these lines. What is
the role of a structural engineer when it comes to
home repairs, remodeling projects, and things like that. How can
you be of assistance? Sure?
Speaker 7 (03:57):
So, what I deal with very often is I show
up to a home and they've had two, three, four
different contractors out and they all have a little different
same neighborhood, just a little different strategy. So what I
like to tell them is I give them the roadmap.
We're going to diagnose exactly what they need, give them
not too much, not too little, solve their problems and
and that way, once I write the report, issue their
(04:19):
their standard of repair, all the contractors can then come
back and sort of bid apples to apples and they
can compare and see what they need.
Speaker 3 (04:26):
So what you're really doing is arming the homeowner. To
some degree, you're giving them and in some cases there
might be options, like you like a full repair, you
need to do this. What's going to get you, you know,
past a certain level or to get the spects or
you know, minimum amount you can do whatever it might
be to make it safe and that passes that passes mustard.
You're arming that homeowner with with I know that this
needs to be done. So if somebody comes in to
(04:47):
make a bed on a project or something like that,
they know they're at least getting their minimum amount of
work taken care of.
Speaker 7 (04:52):
Sure A it's a big education process. This is what's
going on. These are sort of bare minimum things that
you need. You know, ideally you may do these things
as well, but never going to hold a gun to
them and say no, you have to do this, you know,
either way.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
And and for our region. I talked to Brett about
this all the time when he comes on the program.
And when you said that you give folks that contact
you a roadmap, and our region, because of our our terrain,
the weather we get and things like that, the roadmap
really could be you could have a couple of different
directions to get to the same place.
Speaker 7 (05:20):
Absolutely, yeah, more than one white to skin a cat.
You know, there's there's high level, medium level, lower level,
you know, items that are maybe some work a little
better than others, but all can can sort of get
us at the end of the road to the same point.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
And uh, and Brett, maybe you have something to say
about this as well. But when it comes to a
homeowner that's trying to make the you know, a homewner
might say, well, I already have a contractor. A contractor
knows how to do all these things, so why would
I need an additional level of expertise on top of this.
I've already contracted a contractor. But really we're talking about
two different things. A contractor may not knows how to
do the construction work, but there's a lot of things
(05:53):
that goes into engineering that a general contractor may not
or may need a consultation for.
Speaker 4 (05:59):
Yeah, that's very true. One of the to me, one
of the biggest benefits of having an engineer, especially a
third party engineer involved, is is they're going to have
that documentation. They're going to have a report that's generated
before the work begins. As the project goes along, the
contractors doing the work, they can come in and document
the work. And then at the end of it they
(06:19):
can they can provide documentation. This is all critical information,
especially in the event you're putting the house on the
market to sell. These these documents can be used as
a disclosure of what what what happened. And I've seen
oftentimes that it's used as a selling feature where people
actually place these documents out on the on the counter
and and and and it helps them actually sell the
(06:43):
house because you know, home buyer goes through a lot
of houses before they select one, and oftentimes they've been
in houses that need repairs or have been repaired already,
so they're kind of getting exposure to this. So that's
you know, knowing that it's been done, it's been done correctly,
with some oversight to me is a critical thing.
Speaker 3 (07:03):
That's Brett Haston, owner of Foster Foundation Repair online Foster
Foundation Repair dot Com. That's Foster Is that right, Foster
Foundation Repair dot I thought, yeah, you don't have a
WV in. Here's okay, Foster Foundation Repair dot Com. They're
on a what a we're laying here in Charleston. I'll
give you the phone number and stuff as we go along.
I don't want to give you too much information at
one time because it's impossible for you to write it down,
so I'll let you know when I want to get
that information out to you. And Jared from Jared Gray
(07:26):
from Solid Ground Engineering. When somebody is doing you know,
whether they're remodel or they're getting some repairs done to
sell something, or they're just getting some repairs done at
their home, you know they've noticed some offso lessons that
they need to get repaired, or they're looking to make
an addition refinance and maybe you know they're trying to
sprew some things up or something like that. But you
notice an issue in your basement, you know, you're cleaning up,
(07:46):
you're doing whatever it might be, and there's you notice
a crack or a little moisture something along those lines,
when is it time that you need to maybe take
a pause on calling the contractor for the work, and
maybe we need to get an engineer in here to
look at this sure.
Speaker 7 (07:58):
So one of the taglines I use a lot is
Saggi floor is binding doors, cracks in your foundation wall,
West Virginia. This area, our soils are expansive, They're always
shifting and moving depending on season, moisture content. So there's
probably not a house out there that doesn't have some condition,
a little sag, a little crack somewhere, But definitely at
when it raises to that level that you really should
(08:19):
consult someone is if you've maybe patched cracks or patched
areas and they continue to reopen, or you have doors
that maybe don't want to close right or windows that
don't want to close right either certain seasons or at
certain times, probably.
Speaker 6 (08:32):
Time to take a closer look.
Speaker 7 (08:33):
Let's dig a little deeper, see what's going on, and
at least maybe start strategizing for what you need to do.
Speaker 3 (08:38):
As far as some of the common things that you
see in this area of folks that homeowners should just
kind of have a baseline be aware of it. If
you're a homeowner in our region. Here's some things that
you really just want to look look into over the
course of home ownership, ten, twenty fifteen years, whatever it
might be. What are some of the more common problems.
Speaker 7 (08:53):
So key for everything is water, you know, whether it's
a roof leak, a wall leak, a foundation leak. Water
is the big deteriorating element. So I mean, if we
keep a house dry, it would pretty much last forever.
So with that, keeping gutters clean, you know, keeping tree
limbs trimmed back to keep your gutters clean, down spouts,
making sure that they're flowing freely and directing that water
away from the house, and then your yard areas. Whenever
(09:14):
they build a house, the soils around the house are
soft and they tend to settle back and reverse that
slope and that grade back towards the foundation of the home.
So it's maintaining your landscaping, your bedding so that everything's
the house is sort of a high point and everything's
directed and running away from that.
Speaker 3 (09:29):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Just things you
need to make sure that you're taking care of and Rrett.
When you're doing working a home, somebody contracts you and
if it's a foundation or a basement issue, something along
those lines. Again, you have a you have a level
of knowledge already from having an engineering degree where you
can take a look at these things, and sometimes you
do need an independent eye. What types of problems you
(09:50):
run into that you find that it's common that you
need to maybe call in an independent helpful. Is it
primarily just to alleviate a client's concern that that to
make to get another opinion, or are there really some
issues that you know, I need some help on this,
I need another set of eyes.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
So probably the most common time I'm going to really
push for for Jared to come in or another engineer
to come in, uh, is when when the client's telling
me they've had multiple estimates and and Jared brought this
up earlier about multiple a client who has had multiple
contractors with different plans. That was also one of my
most common calls to be brought in before I bought Foster.
(10:30):
So when when I start hearing that they've had a
lot of different estimates, generally I'm going to start talking
that you might want to get an independent individual because
typically one one one estimate might be fixed in the
back of the house. Well, it might be fixed in
the front of the house, and and normally there's some
It's like Jared said, it's a roadmap. It's a single direction,
(10:53):
uh for for the project to go. And so that's
that's what I one of the main reasons I would
bring him in.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
Welcome to set us questions this morning. If you have
questions for either Jared or for Break, you can give
us a call three rough four three four five fifty
eight fifty eight and also text over questions to three
zero four nine three five five zeros er eight three
zero four nine three five five zero zero eighth And Jared,
when you're when you are calling into a home and
you're assessing some problems and since some breats here, we'll
talk about foundations and basements and things along those lines.
(11:20):
How do how do you assess the severity of that?
We've talked on this program before about you know, kind
of tracking cracks and you know if they continue to
expand in different problems along those lines. But what are
you looking for when you're looking at a house and
where are you advising of the homeowners?
Speaker 7 (11:35):
Yeah, so I do a pretty detailed assessment, not just
I like to look at your crack, like to see
your cracks, but I'm also going to measure those. I
do a diagnostic fairly simple movement diagram. I sketch out
the house, take elevations, take profiles, so we can sort
of see what are those cracks telling us. You know,
there's codes on how to build houses, how they should
be whenever they construct them. Once a house is existing,
(11:57):
once it starts shifting and moving, there's really no code.
There's no guideline, there's no baseline that says when do
we fix it? So we look at the environment, We
look at how much shifting there is, reoccurring movement, cracks
that have been passionate reopened. But at that I take
a lot of measurements, a lot of to diagnose the
cracks and see what's moving.
Speaker 3 (12:14):
Ye, that makes a lot of sense. And right touched
on this a little bit earlier, but generally speaking, engineering
reports are used sometimes now as as a bolster for selling.
You know, you can get a report and show that
either something has been evaluated and not a problem, or
if it was a repair dning you had an engineered
that was consulting on that, you can provide that so
that is something for somebody that's looking to sell their
(12:34):
home that is a benefit that can help in the market,
especially in this competitive marketplace that we have now.
Speaker 7 (12:40):
Sure, it's definitely a tool well a lot of times,
either you know, at the listing phase or once they
get in the transaction and the praiser comes out and
sees a crack, it can be a really valuable tool
to help help grease the wheels and have that transaction proceed.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
Let me flip that question just a little bit. If
and this is maybe something you would be called one
if somebody was trying to make their decision. But a
home owner that out there looking to make a purchase
right now, is there any like quick red flags that
you could give them when they're taking a look at
it around the house. You know, they're looking at the basement, foundation,
anything along those lines, even the homes are doorframes of
the house. Is there any red flags that they should
(13:13):
be aware of that maybe we should have somebody look
at this before we make an offer.
Speaker 6 (13:18):
Sure, rob, I mean the obvious ones.
Speaker 7 (13:19):
If they walk in and it's like a funhouse, if
you can feel elevation changes as you're walking through the home. Again,
the cracks along doorways, window openings, moisture stains, moisture, water damage,
materials in the basement or the lowest levels. Those are all,
you know, pretty obvious things that they would.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
Key you on. And that's from somebody perspectively purchasing the home. Bret.
From your standpoint, if someone's looking to sell, or they're
looking at these problems, or they've just ran into these
problems in their family home over the course of time,
this is exactly the type of thing that you can
come in and assist with.
Speaker 6 (13:49):
Yes, yeah, this is.
Speaker 4 (13:50):
You know, we'll take either we'll do our own assessment
or take an assessment of somebody like Jared for another engineer,
and provide an estimate and go through there and fix
as it needs to be done.
Speaker 3 (14:02):
How do you determine the best solution when you run
into a problem, like if it's peers or waterproofing reinforcements
for a failing foundation, whatever it might be, how do
you kind of come to that assessment. I mean, there's
a lot of.
Speaker 4 (14:13):
Factors to consider that. Our goal is to provide the cheapest,
the least expensive option that will resolve the issue permanently
or meet whatever the owner's expectations. Are Sometimes sometimes the
goal is not to make it perfectly correct, or it's
it's more or less to extend it a certain amount
(14:35):
of time. So essentially our goal is to fix it
as with the least cost involved and also meet the
owner's expectations. But you know, factors on the property such
as retaining walls and access, there's those All those things
are significant, significantly impact what what direction we would we
(14:55):
would select to go with the project, and I think
Jared would also has to take that into consideration.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I know he does.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
If we can't get an excavator out behind a house
where you know, that's going to limit our options and
would limit his recommendations to what we would do.
Speaker 3 (15:11):
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. If you have
a text that came in from the three rough four
nine nine three, this is basically what we just talked about.
But see if either of you have anything more to
say about this. I'm looking to sell my home in
the next year. Should I go ahead and get a
structural inspection before listing? I'll go ahead and let you
tackle that.
Speaker 7 (15:27):
Yes, definitely talk to a realtor in that situation. It's
sort of I'm always going to say yes if you've
got cracks and you've got concerns. I'd love to come
out and take a look at it again. It can
be very beneficial to know where you're standing. Are you
looking at a major problem? Are you looking at something
that just needs patched up and throw or for sale
sign in the yard.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
I mean, I think as a person that used to
do be in that line of work, it no longer
is I think it is proveent. I mean, I think
it would be wise. It again goes back to the
selling feature. Even if there is no problem, it's going
to set the house a part. If there is no issues,
it's going to give a buyer much more confidence to
even make that initial offer on the property.
Speaker 3 (16:08):
Have you seen and this is bouncing around just a
little bit, but I was looking at environmental trends in
West Virginia, weather data, things along those lines. There's no
question that our seasons have changed, just in a relatively
short amount of time, last decade, fifteen years, something like that.
The length of our seasons have changed, the moisture content
of our seasons have changed. I mean, it's fairly obvious
when you look at the data. For whatever reason, it's
(16:29):
definitely getting different. Is that creating a different set of problems,
say now and in the next ten years, as opposed
to what we had seen up until maybe ten years
ago in the past.
Speaker 6 (16:42):
So historically I would say no.
Speaker 7 (16:45):
But those trends, like the season that we're in right now,
sort of dog days of summer rain sort of stops.
You've walking around your yard, you're seeing cracks in the
soil again. Our soils where they're expansive and they're sort
of influenced by moisture, they're going to start shrinking. So
it's this area from sort of now it' till November.
Foundation Settlement's really common. You know, even houses that have
(17:06):
not moved before a corner drops or a chimney starts
to rotate away because those soils under the house are
sort of shrinking and drawing up.
Speaker 6 (17:14):
At this point, you.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Bring up a good point here, and as Brendosa, oftentimes
we talk about things that makes me have to talk
about something that's going on in my house, and this
is one of those situations. I have such terrible soil erosion.
I have soil erosion. I have three giant trees in
my yard between the front and the back that they
need to go it's an ongoing thing between me and
my wife. Let's get rid of the trees. No, the
(17:35):
squirrels won't have anywhere to live anyway. But what I'm seeing,
I have roots that penetrate up from my ground. They're
encroaching towards the house, you know, because they're spreading out.
All of these things can play into some problems with
like how you retain moisture, where the moisture is, how
your foundation reacts to those things. I mean that those
(17:55):
create their own like sort of environment, right having so
many trees in your area.
Speaker 7 (17:58):
Oh, absolutely, absolutely, vegetation has a lot to do with
that's a lot of those tree roots. I'm no arborist,
but they're invasive. They're going to search out and find moisture.
So whenever we do foundation repairs and we dig up drains,
a lot of times those existing drains, it'll almost look
like a filter membrane or a just the root structure
that's through those those drain pipes. It looks like a
(18:20):
sponge where they've just gone in there and they're sucking
that moisture, which is a good thing. They're pulling moisture away,
but they're also clogging the drains and they're no longer
functioning properly.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
The may but there may be situations where somebody to
really treat their property correctly, they might have to get
rid of those trees or triming bike or something like
that that has to happen, I would assume.
Speaker 7 (18:39):
So huge generality, which is really dangerous, I would discuss.
But if you look at a tree branch bloom, you know,
the bloom of your branches is pretty close to your
root bloom. So if you've got tree branches that are
overhanging your roof, you probably have roots from that same
tree that are against your foundation and possibly in your
foundation drains, your sewer drains, or any any subsurface piping.
Speaker 3 (19:00):
So that's a great point and stuff something that people
need to be aware of.
Speaker 4 (19:04):
Sure, so I tend I don't have any firm data
on this, but it seems like when I see when
I go out to a property and I'm in evaluating
and essentially I'm I'm observing drought related settlement, it always
seems like there's a large oak tree within ten to
fifteen feet of the house chair. Do you do you
have any do you see that as well?
Speaker 7 (19:23):
Absolutely? And so again huge generality. But what I tell
most folks, if the tree is bigger than your forearm,
you probably want that thing fifteen to twenty feet away from
your foundation wall.
Speaker 6 (19:32):
Get it out.
Speaker 7 (19:33):
If it's closer than that, unfortunately, you probably gott to
terminate that squirrell's residency.
Speaker 3 (19:39):
I need to record. Luckily we're on podcasts. If you
see it's just Network dot Com slash podcast. You can
find it on here. I need to play this back
for my wife when we get home tonight. Honey. It's
not my fault, the experts say it. I get rid
of the trees, man, because it's really bad. I mean,
the the amount of penetration we're getting from the roots
is pretty bad. And notinly that man, but I mean,
(20:00):
no matter how much we have them cut back, it
seems like they're growing back in no time to go
over a roof, and it's just too much trouble man.
The squirrels need to find another place.
Speaker 7 (20:08):
And so the shade from that creates moss on your shingles.
It creates shade around the home. All wood destroying insects, carpenterts, terminites,
they like damp, moist areas. So yeah, the trees close
to the house. Other than there's a little bit of
beneficial to you know, conditioning heat and cooling you.
Speaker 6 (20:24):
You've probably get a little shade.
Speaker 3 (20:26):
You believe me. One side of my yard is completely moss.
So yeah, we're getting real issues with moisture and with
not enough sunlight over there that I keep them pointing
these things out. It's like, honey, this is not healthy.
It's great I don't have to mow it, but that
doesn't mean that it's any good for us, you know
what I mean. Let's do this. Let's go ahead and
take a break. We still have plenty of things that
we're going to talk about. Plus I think I got
a couple more text questions in here. We're having a
great conversation this morning. If you have any questions at
(20:48):
all about your about your foundation repair, or about anything
like that when it comes to your home, you could
give us a call this morning and we can help
you out with that. We're gonna ahead and take a
break and we'll be back right after this. You're listening
to Ask the Expert on five eight WHS. The Voice
of Charleston.
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Sixteen minutes until the top of the hour you're listening
to not five eighty live. I did that last week,
and that's coming up next with Dave Allen. He's back
this week, as you probably know because you listened yesterday.
But I'm Del Cooper. You're listening to ask the Expert.
Having a great discussion this morning. I've been looking forward
to this since I knew we're going to have it.
Brett Hodgen is here for his regular Tuesday show and
he's from Foster Foundation Repair. You can find out more
(22:36):
information online. It's Foster Foundation Repair dot com. Their phone
number three zer a four seven seven six sixty two
sixty three. That's three zero four seven seven six sixty
two sixty three. Have a special guest this morning. The
owner of Solid Ground Engineering, Jared Gray, is with us
as well. You can find more information out about Solid
Ground Engineering online. That's solid GROUNDWV dot com, solid Ground
WV dot com and their phone number three zer a
four none four one three non none eight threes zero
(22:59):
four nine four one three nine eight. Taking your phone
calls at three zero four three four five fifty eight
fifty eight. He can send over text questions to three
zero four nine three five five zero zero eight from
the six eight one two zero seven. What are the
signs my cross space needs encapsulation and is it worth
the investment. Well, Brett, we've always heard you talk about
it encapsulation before. That's something that Foster does.
Speaker 4 (23:20):
Yes, I'd love to hear Jared's opinions on this, because
I know he recommends it from time to time and
I've never picked his brain as to why. Yeah, let's see,
there's certainly a great product.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
What do you think about it, Jared?
Speaker 7 (23:35):
Yeah, so I am a big fan of crawl space encapsulation.
Building codes require crawl spaces the area under your house
subgrade to be ventilated, and so really most of the
time what that's doing is letting hot, humid air come
into that cool crawl space, almost like a cave atmosphere.
So it's really common to have condensation, moisture, mildew, fungus
in those areas. So what necessitates that is if you
(23:59):
are seeing moisture stains, if you're seeing looks like a
biology lab little green, little black, little fuzzy stuff up
when you're wood framing, then that's definitely key up or
evidence of poor ventilation excess moisture in those areas.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Yeah, so that's something that you are curious about. That
something used to certainly follow up one. I wish that
I had a more accessible cross space because this is
I'd have to tear up my floor. As I thought
to Brett about this before, I don't think it's a
real accessible thing for me, but I know it would
help my house because I have those moisture issues. I
know that would help quite a bit.
Speaker 7 (24:29):
Yeah, that they help with bugs and critters, creepy crawleys
and then definitely those moisture odors, that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Boy, now this is something. Now I could get my
wife on this. I could get her on board of this.
She wasn't cut down the trees, but she would probably
do this. She's like, what less bugs? That would be
great her and my kid both. I'm like the designated
you know, bug squisher or whatever you know, and my
nights are busy these days. There's a whole lot of
creepy crawleys around.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
Jared, would you mind giving it like a brief description
of what a cross space encapsulation system is?
Speaker 6 (24:58):
Sure?
Speaker 3 (24:58):
Sure?
Speaker 7 (24:59):
So with space encapsulation, what the goal there is is
to air seal. We want to keep any exterior sources
of moisture and air out of that cross spaced area.
So they're going to go through and have a barrier,
silicone foam, spray foam seilant any little cracks openings down
the side walls. They're going to use a thick liner
(25:21):
similar to what you might think of like a pool liner,
and they're going to coat the walls and all the
floors and any foundation piers in that area. And then
once it's sealed up, they're going to use either air
movers or a demdification system to help that area have
some some airflow.
Speaker 3 (25:36):
It sounds nice, I mean, honestly, it sounds pretty good.
And Brett, like we said, I don't want to leave
this of this is something that someone is interested in
that something Foster Foundation Repair can definitely help with.
Speaker 4 (25:45):
Yeah, feel free to reach out to our office number
and we can. We can come out and take a
look at it and tell you what it would take
to do on and you can reach us at three
or four seven, seven, six, six two sixty three.
Speaker 3 (25:58):
When when you see stand water when your property, is
it always a problem or when is it a problem?
We'll let Jered take that one.
Speaker 7 (26:07):
Well, if there's fishing out of this lot of problem, yeah,
good point, just bate up. Yeah, So again the big
thing is the proximity to your residence. Generalities again are dangerous,
but by and large, moisture is going to perk through
those soils. That's sort of a one to one ratio.
Speaker 6 (26:23):
So if your.
Speaker 7 (26:24):
Basement's eight ten feet deep, we want any big drainage areas,
any moisture areas ten fifteen feet away from the house,
so that moisture doesn't want to perk back to your
under house, basement or cross based areas.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
Now, that makes a lot of sense. You mentioned earlier
about that you have a method of tracking separation cracks
and different things along those lines. What progression are you
looking for it for it to be a problem, and
when does that become a problem when there is a
crack that is expanding to some degree.
Speaker 7 (26:49):
Sure, so it's very unique and there's not a case
by case answer. Some homes, I'll go and take elevations.
I use a self leveling laser level, so I don't
do surveying like off GPS coordinates to figure out your
elevation on sea level. I do a local elevation change.
Some houses there'll be two three four inches diagonally across
(27:09):
the house.
Speaker 6 (27:10):
No crack.
Speaker 7 (27:10):
Maybe it was built that way. Maybe it's always been
that way, maybe it's settled a little. But if it's
not affecting your service ability, your occupancy, then it's sort.
Speaker 6 (27:17):
Of not a problem.
Speaker 7 (27:18):
When it becomes an issue is when it is affecting serviceability.
Doors aren't opening, windows aren't opening. It can even affect
your drain slopes, your your sewage drains may not want
to flow properly. That's when we start, you know, looking
at red repair methods.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Yeah, that also makes a lot of sense because you
have to you have to be aware of, cognisant of
all those things as you're going along. There's no doubt
having a great conversation this morning. If you want to
get in on it, you're more than welcome to. We
have a few minutes left in the program, about ten
minutes or so. You can give us a call three
zero four three four five fifty eight fifty eight. You
can text three zero four nine three five five Zeroser eighth.
The owner of Foster Foundation affair of freet Hodgson is here.
(27:55):
You can find out more information online. It's Foster Foundation
Repair dot com. And we have a special guest this morning.
The owner of Solid Ground Engineering, Jared Gray, is with
us as well solid GROUNDWV dot com. Solid GROUNDWV dot com.
You're welcome to get ahold of us on the text
line the last few minutes that we have three zero
four nine three five five zero resure eight, or you
can give us a call three zer a four three
four five fifty eight fifty eight. Threes are a four
three four five fifty eight fifty eight when you're have
(28:19):
you found a two part question? Do you find, generally speaking,
that people are surprised at the I guess condition of
their house and foundation after an assessment? Is there usually
surprises I guess involved?
Speaker 7 (28:34):
Oh yeah, I would say half the time.
Speaker 6 (28:38):
Most of the time.
Speaker 7 (28:39):
Most most folks realize that, and they know that it's
sort of they're avoiding it. You know, it's the dark,
creepy corner. We don't want to go there, We don't
want to look at it. Husbands especially, I'm guilty. So
a lot of the clients are the wives that are
concerned about, you know, things that keep reoccurring or keep changing.
Speaker 3 (28:54):
Man, that makes a lot of sense, hits me right
in the soft spot. I have to admit. My follow
up to that then would also be that that I
kind of equate this with preventative maintenance or preventative healthcare,
like going to a doctor and seeing and getting your
yearly check up and things and what's wrong. It wouldn't
(29:14):
be a bad idea for a homeowner. I don't think
to get a relatively regular inspection as far as from
an engineer goes. If you're really wanting to keep your
home and tiptop shape, keep track of any problems that
might be happening. It seems like to me that that
would be a good investment.
Speaker 7 (29:31):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely, it would be a perfect honeydoo list.
Speaker 6 (29:34):
You know, these are the things to be aware of
to watch for.
Speaker 7 (29:37):
You can make these minor improvements and the definitely try
to avoid costly repairs down the road.
Speaker 3 (29:41):
Yeah, it seems like if you can avoid the foundation
issues or avoid the water penetration or even delay. I mean,
you know, if you do something in your home that's
going to help, anything like that's going to help, and
home repairs can get expensive and and they're always inconvenient,
So I mean anything that we could do to prevent
some of those things is probably a good thing. However,
you know, when prevention doesn't work or if you need help,
(30:02):
you know a lot of times it's it's both things,
right Brett, where you have to address the problem that
has already been created, but also prevent the problem from
happening more in the future. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
Yeah, most of our repairs involve addressing not only the
symptoms but the source. So fixing down spout drains or
whatever the drainage issues out front. We don't get into
the gutters and the down spouts once they're above ground.
That's that's that would be a different contractor.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
But yeah, we're.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
Definitely gonna hit both both the source and the problem.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
And so if somebody were interested in getting for example,
they know that they have issues, and they don't know
if they if they necessarily need an engineer to look
at it. They just know that they have an issue
with their basement, they have some sort of leakach or
something like that. That's just as easy as a phone
call then, right that you come out to take a
look see what's going on.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
Yes, so we'll come out. We can do a free estimate.
If it's you know, a fairly straightforward problem, well we'll
provide the estimate. If it requires a three hour inspection,
then that's something we would refer to someone like Jared
because we're doing free estimates. So it's you know, there
are time limitations. I have other things that but I
(31:10):
just don't have time to do those detailed inspections like
that anymore.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
So, yeah, they can call us.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
They could certainly call an engineer, a third party engineer
to set up an inspection and get a plan of
action on paper that we would then just provide the
estimate for.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
And then again specifically about yourself. The layer of a
service that you specifically can provide is the fact that
you having that background in engineering. Of someone like Jared
does issue or report, you're able to talk to them
on sort of a cohort basis that you understand the language,
you understand what's being asked for, and you could almost
on behalf of the home owner in some cases, Hey,
(31:46):
this is what we're trying to do, and translate that
as well as possible.
Speaker 4 (31:49):
Yeah, I can certainly interpret what the goals are of
the repair, help people understand that. I mean, obviously Jared's
still there to consult with for them the owner. But yeah,
a good example, I'm going to a house later that
that I went out to initially, and this is another
(32:09):
situation where where I would defer or bring in recommend
to the owner that Jared or another engineer be involved.
But I want to I went out to a house.
Uh it had already been repaired and been repaired recently.
Uh and and and the repair was failing. Uh So
at that point, uh, it's best as if an independent engineer,
I'm a contractor, I stand to make money or profit
(32:31):
off of off of the project. So that's another situation
where bringing in a third party engineers is prudent who
doesn't have any skin in the game like I would
if I were to do the project. So uh And
of course it you know, whoever did the work, would
I guess quote unquote be my competition. Uh So there
would be an appearance of impropriety there that I was
(32:52):
going after my competition. So that that's another good example
of of why Jared would be is a valuable member.
Speaker 3 (32:59):
Of the community. Jared, let me ask you this. We're
wrapping up the program here, just a couple of minutes left.
But I thought that if you had this one crazy trick,
if you had if you had to tell people the
one thing or maybe a couple of things, that that
this is as a home owner, these are the things
that you should do that has the greatest impact with
the least amount of you know, investment, Like just a
(33:20):
simple thing that everybody should do to keep their their
house in best shape. Do you have any anything that
you would recommend.
Speaker 7 (33:25):
Yes, So we sort of touched one of the really
high value, easiest concept than something most homeowners can do
is gutters and down spouts. If you walk around your
house and your down spouts discharging right beside your foundation,
that's a problem that's going to find its way back
underneath of your home at some point. So putting an extension.
You can go to Low's or a big box store,
home depot wherever you choose, buy an extension and extend
(33:47):
that further away. Yeah, you may have to move it
when you're mowing the grass, but you want to get
that water diverted away from the home.
Speaker 3 (33:54):
And so literally you don't have to I mean, you
probably don't want to go uphill because it might come
back down. But other than just it's like common sense
stuff like that. Just you want to get it ten
feet away from the foundation.
Speaker 7 (34:04):
Yeah, and they don't even have to be buried ideally
they would aesthetically you might want that buried, but but
out to tell folks all the time, if it's cold
outside and it's going to freeze in your gutters, it's
going to freeze in the yard drain, so water is
going to run through that pass out and run away
from the home. So yeah, it's just just sort of
again the key element keeping your your home is as
dry and the soils around your house as dry as
(34:25):
stable as possible.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
So when you talk about burying it, that's nothing more
than just digging a trench and burying it, right. I
mean generally you don't need any special equipment or anything
to do that, right.
Speaker 6 (34:33):
Just to call them miss utilities and make sure you're
not going to dig.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
In an area I guess that sure's.
Speaker 6 (34:36):
Some complication there, but no otherwise.
Speaker 7 (34:39):
It can be just below the surface you have six
eight ten inches deep and slope it away from the house.
Speaker 3 (34:43):
That kind of reminded me. I'm glad I saw this
from the threes or of four six eight one. Do
you need a permit or engineering plan or structural for
structure repairs on a home or an addition?
Speaker 4 (34:54):
So for a permit, it depends on where the house
is located. If it's if it's within a minnicipa that
has permit requirements, then yes, you have to pull permit.
And that means Charleston, South Charleston, Dunbar, Winfield, all the
little towns, all the towns in the area for the
most part, do require permit be pulled. There's not a
(35:19):
requirement to my knowledge that that requires an engineering report
for a foundation repair. I think there should be, because
we're talking twenties thirties, you know, big expensive projects that
sometimes have to get done twice if they're not done
right the first time. So South Charleston's pretty good. They're
they're probably the most strict about engineerings being involved. I
(35:41):
don't know if your what your experience is with that,
but generally when we're working in South Charleston, they're they're
wanting a report or a document, a drawing for me
with my engineering seal on it to say this is
what we're going to do.
Speaker 3 (35:55):
Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Do you have anything to
add to that character is that?
Speaker 2 (35:59):
No?
Speaker 6 (35:59):
I'm never involved that aspect.
Speaker 7 (36:00):
So I have worked in unis about in Charleston and
Nitro South Charleston that have required that, But I think
a lot of It depends on how the permit's pulled
and the language that's used, and and what you know,
the scope of the repair in general.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
That's good stuff. Let me get our contact information out
to you one more time. We o it, I got
a better a benut left in the program. So we want
to make sure that you have all the contact information.
Anything in here that kind of kind of rang your
conscience this morning, and you need to make a phone call.
First of all, Foster Foundation Repair Brett Haston was here
with us this morning. Their phone numbers three zero four
seven seven six sixty two sixty three. Three zero four,
seven seven six sixty two sixty three is where you
can find Foster Foundation Repair online. It's Foster Foundation Repair
(36:35):
dot com. Foster Foundation Repair dot com located at forty
two twenty six Woodrom Lane here in Charleston. And then
our special guest this morning was the owner of Solid
Ground Engineering and his name is Jared Gray. You can
find out more information online. It's solid Ground WV dot com.
Solid Ground WV dot com. His phone number three zero
four none four one three nine nine eight. Is that right, Jared?
(36:57):
I didn't check that with you. Is that correct? Okay? Good. OK.
These are a four nine four one three non non
eight for Solid Ground Engineering. Had a great discussion today
talking about all the different aspects from both the Foster
Foundation repair perspective and from the engineer Jared Grade from
Solid Ground Engineering on various home repairs things you should
be aware of, and hopefully a massively educational program for
you if you missed any portion of it. If you
(37:18):
want to go back and listen to at WCHS network
dot com slash podcasts, all of our shows get archived there.
Thank you so much for coming in today, Brett. Thank
you for coming in as always, appreciate your time.
Speaker 4 (37:28):
YEP, thank you, Jared, Thank you for giving us a
different perspective than.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
Money and Jared, it was a nice to meet you.
Thanks so much for coming.
Speaker 6 (37:34):
In as a wonderful Appreciate the in by Brett.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Coming up next to five eighty Live with Dave Allen.
I'll be back this afternoon at three or six with
Dave weekly on hotline. Have a great day everyone on
five ADWHS.
Speaker 9 (37:43):
Finding Ewchsam ninety six point five's Charles one oh four.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Point five Cross Lanes, WVRC Media Station.
Speaker 3 (37:51):
We're proud to live here too
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