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What if there were a pond under this house? If we had failures under the entire house, a more thorough investigation would be justified. One house I investigated in particular, we had to do this. The house was settling in a very odd way, basically everywhere in the structure. We cored into the concrete floor, and hand augered into the ground under the house. Several feet down, we found a trash pit. We had to map this one out, and we took more borings around the house to see what was going on. The trash pit was everywhere. Unfortunately, we found that repairing the house would cost almost as much as the house was worth.
The builder attempted to salvage the structure by filling the trash pit with grout, which was not our recommendation ( we recommended demolition – there was no fix possible). Some months later, the house continued to settle, and the builder tore the house down. He called us, and we went over to see what was underneath the house, and it was a huge pit full of trees, stumps, and various other junk. There was no solution, unfortunately, and the house had to come down. It was very expensive for the builder because his insurance didn’t cover it. He had no recourse with the developer, since the developer claimed the trash pit pre-dated his ownership of the property.
Generally, when we investigate a foundation failure, we don’t need to do an extensive investigation. There are exceptions, and it can be expensive if it gets to that point.
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