Come To Find Out
Welcome to Come To Find Out- your resource for all things real estate. You can come here to find out about the current market, terms that you see and hear during a transaction, things to do and not to do when you're in contract. The show will also feature interviews with industry partners and leading experts to help you choose who you want on your home buying journey with you. The home buying, selling and investing process can be so overwhelming, so this guide is meant to make it just "whelming."
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Come To Find Out
Understanding Foundation Repair: Expert Insights with RK Bob Brown on Soil and Structural Stability
Unlock the mysteries of foundation repair with RK Bob Brown, the mastermind behind "Foundation Repair Secrets." Bob takes us on a journey through his transformative career from architecture and finance student at Arizona State University to the founder of a successful concrete and foundation repair company. Discover why understanding foundation repair is crucial for homeowners and real estate professionals alike, and learn how to avoid falling prey to industry misconceptions. Bob emphasizes the pivotal role of soil in foundation movement and the importance of consulting a forensic geotechnical engineer for accurate assessments.
Our conversation doesn't stop at identifying problems; we explore the accountability of contractors and the indispensable role of engineers in home repair projects. Bob sheds light on the complexities of state contractor boards and how only engineers can provide the seal of approval necessary for trustworthy work. We tackle structural issues, such as horizontal cracks, and debate the pros and cons of metal beams versus carbon fiber strips. Bob also clears up the myths surrounding the permitting process, highlighting the need for proper diagnosis and verification beyond city or county permits.
The episode wraps up with a comprehensive look at regional soil conditions and their impact on foundation stability. From the challenging clay soils of Texas to the frost depths influencing construction in northern states, Bob shares invaluable insights and tips for maintaining soil health across the U.S. His passion for distributing engineer-backed knowledge shines through as he encourages listeners to share these insights, leave feedback, and stay connected for more expert content. Join us as we celebrate knowledge-sharing and empower you with the tools to ensure the safety and stability of your home.
To learn more about Bob and his soil secrets check his website and social media:
https://foundationrepairsecrets.com/
https://www.instagram.com/rkbobbrown/
Sarah Thress
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Hi and welcome to this week's episode of Come to Find Out. This week we have RK Bob Brown, who is the author of Foundation Repair Secrets, and I'm so excited because, you know, bob's publicist reached out and was so excited about, you know, getting him on this show and whenever he explained to me all the things that Bob is specialized in, I thought this would be such an amazing topic for everyone out there to hear. So, bob, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to meet with us.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I'm happy to be here.
Speaker 1:Yeah, excellent. So foundation repair secrets, like how did you, how'd you kind of come up with that, how did you, you know, go down this path, like have you always been in some sort of like engineering role, or you know, just kind of walk us through how you became the expert.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I guess we could start from the very beginning. I graduated from Arizona State University in 1984, which is like when dinosaurs were around and I graduated in architecture and finance, and then, a little bit later in my career, I started a concrete repair company that ended up morphing into a foundation repair company, and along the way, I built a forensic engineering company and I sold all of them about two years ago, and so I'm sort of retired, but not really and my main goal in life is to help homeowners and real estate professionals navigate the confusing world of foundation repair, because there's a lot of myths, there's a lot of smoke and mirrors and there's a lot of information that people need to know to protect themselves, and the truth of it is there is a lot of people being taken advantage of, so I want to help people protect themselves from being taken advantage of.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that because you are correct. There are so many people out there that want to take advantage of people and they make it seem like the sky is falling and that the house is about to crumble to the ground and it's like, well, no, it's not that serious. Yes, you need to look at it and do some sort of remedy, but the house is not going to crumble.
Speaker 2:In 35 years I've only seen two houses that were structurally deficient, and in one of those houses we had a meeting with like 15 engineers for like four hours and nobody was afraid the house was going to fall down on them.
Speaker 1:Wow, wow, yeah, well, that's interesting. And I have, you know, anytime I'm working with a buyer, you know, especially as in first time home buyers, but anytime I'm working with any buyer or seller for that matter. But you know, whenever we're walking through the house, you know, I'm always kind of just looking around at the foundation to see if there's anything that kind of stands out that you know I want to point out to them. But I always, always tell them that they need to get an inspector and then if the inspector, you know, recommends a structural engineer, you know, obviously we do that because I know I am not the expert, right?
Speaker 2:right, yeah, and let's just talk about engineers for a second. Yeah, structural engineer really isn't the right guy to call, believe it or not. Wow, the right guy to call is a geotechnical engineer. And the reason is is because if we're talking about foundation movement, it's always going to be from the soil. The soil is going to be what causes the foundation to move.
Speaker 2:I had a big friend a great friend worked in a road building business and he said you know, he said all roads are dirt roads. He says it doesn't matter whether you paint them with concrete or you paint them with asphalt. The road is actually made of dirt. And it's the same for a house. The dirt under it is going to determine the performance of the foundation. And so a lot of times, if you call a structural engineer, he'll come and write a letter and say, yeah, the house is not structurally efficient. And then if you say, well, could it get to be bad? Oh, yeah, maybe it could continue to get worse. Well, is it going to continue to get worse? Is the soil going to continue to move? Well, I can't really tell you that because I'm not a geotechnical engineer. You got to call a geotechnical engineer and so that's really the guys that you should just go to right away, cut to the chase. And you need to find a forensic geotech engineer, not just a regular geotech, because most engineers work in new construction, where they build dams and freeways and mines and buildings, and you need to find somebody that's a forensic guy, the guy that comes into existing structures and determines what the problem is, and it can't be just one of these things where it's like, well, yeah, we do forensics, you know, once in a while, no, that doesn't count. I mean, you really need to get somebody who does forensics regularly, almost daily, and then you'll get a good expert and you'll find them daily. And then you'll get a good expert and you'll find them. And if you go to my directory, foundationrepairsecretscom, I have a directory on there of forensic engineers. Now, they're not all geotechs I'm still trying to find more but I found at least forensic engineers that will work on residential structures, and those are the things that I usually try to help people with, because you really want to, you really want to, uh, get to the bottom of it now.
Speaker 2:Let's suppose. Let's suppose you're a, a seller and you want to sell your house, okay, and you're a little worried because you know, hey, there's a few cracks, and you know the last thing you want to do is get into an escrow and then have the inspector go. Oh, oh, yeah, there's problems here and you know we need to reach out to an expert. Now guess what happens. Who does everybody call when that happens? They almost always call a foundation repair company. And the foundation repair company. What are they going to do? They're going to send out a commissioned salesperson who makes somewhere between one hundred and three hundred thousand dollars a year, and if he's not making one100,000, they kick him to the curb and he makes his money based on sales. So what is he going to tell you? Yeah, you're going to need $40,000 in peers. Well, in the middle of an escrow, nobody's planned on that.
Speaker 2:The whole thing falls apart, right, everybody goes their separate ways and now you've got to start all over again as a seller. So a better path is to get a relationship. You know, find, hopefully, your realtor is has a relationship with a good forensic engineer. Call him up and bring him out before you list the house and he'll do one of two things. He'll either say number one it's good, you got no problem. And send you a letter, put a seal on it. Now, when the home inspector brings it up, you can just give him this letter and say we're good, you know, you can give it to the, to the buyer as well, right? Uh, that's now. That's one one scenario. Now if, if he says, well, you really should do some repairs now, chances are 90 percent of the time it's going to be fix the drainage or something very simple Right, in which case you can do that and and and. It's easy to do, and it's easy to do. Maybe 10% of the time, maybe 20% of the time, depending on your area. You might have to actually do some underpinning some piers.
Speaker 2:Well, now let's talk about how you navigate that as a homeowner. You call three foundation repair companies. One guy says, oh, you need 12 piers on this side of the house. The other guy says, oh, no, you need peers on this side of the house. The other guy says, oh, no, you need 13 on this side of the house. And the third guy says, no, you need 25 all the way around.
Speaker 2:A homeowner is supposed to navigate that and know who's right. How does that work? No, it doesn't work. It's not good. The homeowner usually goes with the one that they feel most comfortable with, which is probably the best sales guy, which is probably the least qualified to act as an engineer. And, by the way, these guys are practicing engineering without a license, which they really shouldn't be doing, but somehow the loopholes and the laws allow people to get away with it.
Speaker 2:But but the fact of the matter is you're better off calling a forensic engineer and let him design the plan and he says, ok, go on and get three bids for 14 peers in this area here and here's a drawing. And you start here and you stop here. You space them this way. Now you can go get apples to apples bids and you'll probably pay for the engineering fees. You'll probably save money overall, because the contractors know, hey, I got to sharpen my pencil here. You know I'm bidding against somebody who knows exactly what it is. You know I can't really like kind of baffle them with bullshit. I have to just like be right and, and you know, sharpen my pencil and do a good job. And oh, by the way, there's an engineer that's going to look it over. I better make sure it's right, you know. Uh, I'm not going to try to fudge something in and try to hornswoggle and tell him no, you need 25 years. No, you're going to have to go run that by the engineer you know, and convince him uh, they're going to think twice about doing that. And and then, and then, guess what you get halfway through the job. Now what? Well, there's a thing called a change order. Are you familiar with the change order? No, what is that? A change order? You're going to love this part.
Speaker 2:The change order is when the contractor comes to you when the job's already started and they're underneath working and they've got the whole place all tore up, and he says oh, yeah, uh, we're gonna need to add five more peers, you're gonna need another ten thousand dollars. Well, as a homeowner, it's like uh, yeah, I guess, go ahead, or. Or if the homeowner decides to push back a little and go no, I don't think I want to do that, you know then then the contractor says well, then we can't warranty the job. Oh, can't do that. Okay, put in, the put in. You know, I'll pay the $10,000. Well, guess what If you have an engineer who's overseeing the job and he's the special inspector on the job? Now they got to come to him and say we need to add five more peers and he's going to say OK, I'm the one that will not look at this thing. You're going to have to explain to me why we need five more peers. You might be right, but you better, you know, better make sense, you know, because I'm not putting up with any BS here, you know, and the contractor is going to think twice about doing that Because they know that the engineer has far more knowledge than they do, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, while we're on, I talked about special inspectors. So city inspectors, they're worthless for this kind of stuff. I mean, they would come out to the job and go, oh, this is really cool. Can you send me some information about it? Right? Oh, thanks for that inspection, you know. So what most cities do is they use, they sub it out to, like a special inspector, a specialist who has knowledge in that area.
Speaker 2:Well, the problem is that the cities are lazy, they don't know people, they don't trust people. So they tell the contractor you get a special inspector. And you know. Well, now the special inspector is working for the contractor. That's not good, you know. No, that's the fox guarding the hen house. That's not good. What you want is the guy who designed the plan to be the special inspector and for him to be in control of the contractor, not the other way around. And then at the end of the job he'll stamp that and say it was done for my recommendations. Now you can bring that to the seller and say, yep, we had a problem. But the engineer says that everything was taken care of and it's good to go Now. Is that better than a lifetime warranty? Now all these contractors give a lifetime warranty. What is a lifetime warranty?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wondered about that, because does that mean like the life of the house, the life of being in the house.
Speaker 2:It's very vague. Yeah, to different contractors it means different things, and it's this you know it could be life of the structure. Well, crap, the structure could already be near the end of his life anyway. That doesn't really help you. That's kind of dumb, right? No? And those lifetime warranties are not worth the paper they're written on.
Speaker 2:Let me explain to you a scenario that happens. So you get a homeowner that has work done, maybe five years ago, okay, and all of a sudden he starts to see more cracks. Well, he calls the contractor up on the phone and says hey, get over here, you know, honor your lifetime warranty. So what does it do? The contractor sends out their really experienced guy and says he says to the homeowner oh yeah, well, you know, these cracks, they're not from settlement, they're from upheaval. You know they're from clays that are expanding and heaving up. And it says right here in our contract that our peers can't stop that and we don't guarantee for it. And you know, have a nice life.
Speaker 2:Wow, if the homeowner is smart, he might say well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. If it's heaving, then you probably diagnosed it wrong in the first place. If it's heating, then you probably diagnosed it wrong in the first place. And then the contractor says what do we know? We're not engineers, we're just dumb contractors. You know, wow, and of course that's not what they tell you at the very beginning. The salesman comes in there I'm smarter than an engineer, I'm better. I've been doing this for all these many years. Of course, that's all verbal stuff that can't be verified, right, right, five years later then they're telling you a different story oh, we're not engineers, we're just dumb contractors. You know, you can't hold us responsible for designs.
Speaker 2:Who holds contractors responsible for their designs? Well, the state contractors boards only regulate workmanship, they don't regulate designs. And the state boards that oversee engineers for designs have no jurisdiction over contractors. So the designs of contractors go completely unregulated. There's nobody that oversees them. You can't, you can't, oh, you, I guess you could sue them. Good luck on that. I mean, their contracts are like 10 pages long and they're filled with all kinds of get out jail free scenarios for them, right, and they got a lot of money and you're going to be fighting for four or five years and spending three or four hundred thousand dollars in attorney's fees.
Speaker 2:You know, not a great plan, right? Um, so the the? I tell people right away a lifetime warranty has got so many get out of jail free cards in their contract. It's worthless, it doesn't mean anything. What does mean something is an engineer seal that it was done properly. Per my inspection and per my, per my intent, that means something because guess what? The engineer, he he is overseen by the Board of Technical Registration for his state and he can be turned in for unethical behavior for lots of things working outside of his area of expertise, not designing things right. You can hold engineers accountable and, trust me, they know that and they're going to get it right. That's their job and that means something that is worth the money that you pay for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is worth, you know the money that you pay for it. Yeah, now, you've mentioned a few different times about like the, the pillars, or you know, like different things that you would see if you see a structural deficiency. You know like there's a horizontal crack and maybe the foundation is coming in and you know you need to keep it from moving and straighten it back out. And I've seen some. You know some people will say, oh, every four feet you need to have that metal beam. Others love the strips, the carbon fiber strips. What in your you know, in your opinion, what do you think is better the pillars, like the metal posts or the carbon fiber? And I guess, what would you recommend? If someone was coming to you and asking that question, what would you say?
Speaker 2:Sure, well, first of all, it depends what the problem is, because most of the problems in this industry are from improper diagnosis.
Speaker 2:The pillars, the posts that you're talking about, the piers, the helical pier, push pier they're very common in the industry. You drive them down till refusal, till they get into hard rock, and then you can use that to lift and stabilize the house. Those are very good products and most contractors install them competently and do a good job with it. So that's not the problem. The problem is how do you diagnose it? You know, does it really need it? You know, uh, you know. And, uh, you can put in peers and you would typically put those either six to eight feet on center, and that depends on, uh, that depends on the weight of the house and the strength of the beam between the peers and several other factors. Now, the carbon fiber strips, uh, would not be solved, would not be used to solve for a house that's sinking. They would be used for, like a basement wall that's buckling in, or maybe some cracks in the concrete that you want to keep together, that you don't want them to spread, and that kind of stuff. Different application, okay, but let's talk about permits for a minute. Yeah, uh, salespeople tell homeowners and realtors all the time oh, don't worry, you know there's no engineer on the front end, but when we get permits, the engineer is going to look over everything because he has to submit a plan that has to be approved by the city or county and that engineer is going to look over everything and make sure it's okay. That is absolutely 100, not true. That is not true. Yeah, and I'll tell you why. Because, uh, engineers can get in trouble if they rely on somebody that's not, that does not work for them, an employee. If they rely on somebody else from another company to give them data and they use that data to make recommendations and those recommendations are wrong, that engineer can be held liable for that and he could be sanctioned by the board. So so engineers will not if they don't gather the data in the first place, they will not. They will not opine or comment or anything else about it.
Speaker 2:And now let's talk about when you get the permit, because you got to put your engineer seal on there, right? What does that mean? Well, that means that. Well, first of all, what? What does the city require? The city? The only requirement to putting in these piers?
Speaker 2:The city wants to see is a spacing calculation of, as you mentioned, how far apart are the piers. Are they four feet, are they six feet, are they eight feet? The city doesn't want it to be too far apart so that it droops between the piers, and so that's the only thing that they check for. That's the only thing. So check for that's the only thing. So you could have the peers on the wrong side of the house, you could have too many, you could have too little, you might not even need peers at all, and the permit process does not correct for any of those problems. The only thing they're going to check for is are they spaced right? That's it is. Are they spaced right? That's it.
Speaker 2:And for the salesman to say oh, don't worry, the engineer is going to check everything. No, the engineer is not going to check that the peers are on the right side of the house. They're not going to check that they're too many or too little or that they're even needed at all. They're not going to do that. All they're going to do is a spacing calculation and that's it. So don't buy that business about. Oh, don't worry, the engineer is going to check it over, not true? Yeah, the only way to get the engineer to check it over is to make sure he's the first one on the job and he diagnoses the problem and he develops the solution for that diagnosis. Then you know you're, then you know you're golden for that diagnosis, then you know you're golden.
Speaker 1:I love that. So do you recommend that every person buying a house get one of these specialized engineers involved every time before they make an offer or during the offer period? Or, you know, is there something that you know would make you like if someone was looking at a house, something that would trigger them into thinking that, you know, maybe they should get someone like that involved?
Speaker 2:Right, good question. So the question is, first of all, what should I be looking for? Because really, I mean, you don't want to have an engineer come out every time. You might never have a problem in your whole life of a house. That'd be a waste of money. What you want to do is, if you have Society of Home Inspectors, how to recognize these things.
Speaker 2:So, very simple, cracks. Cracks in walls is probably the easiest thing to see. If you have cracks in your walls and you have more than one crack, people come to me all the time and say, hey, I have a crack. I'm like a crack, you, you know, unless it's a really big crack, I'm not gonna be too worried by a crack, you know. Uh, usually I'm looking for a pattern of cracks, a pattern of distress, and this is more than cracks. But let's talk about cracks on the inside are probably the most easiest to see. Cracks on the outside, they're a little more difficult. If you have brick and block, then that's pretty easy. You have snuggle over frame. It's going to be pretty hard to see. You have siding. It's not going to show up on the outside at all.
Speaker 2:Okay, so cracks, doors out of square, like if you're looking at a door and it's like an inch high on one side and on the other side it's pinched. Yeah, that's a door that's out of square. Okay, at windows, same thing vertically. You go to close it and the top is, you know, wide, the bottom is skinny, or vice versa. That window's out of square. Uh, cracks in your floor. Now, the cracks in the almost. I can guarantee you almost every floor has cracks in it. But if those cracks in the floor are in an area that there's cracks in the wall, ok, now you have a pattern right. If you have slopes in your floors, like if you got a high spot and you can noticeably see it's dropping down, you know, in an area, by itself maybe I wouldn't get too worried about it. But if there's damage that goes along with it, now you got a pattern right. That's what I want to look for is pattern. If you see any of those patterns, yeah then, and you're getting ready to sell.
Speaker 2:I would call a forensic, geotechnical engineer to have him come out and say, okay, here's the deal, and he might say it's no big deal. Or he might say, well, you know, could be a problem, let's monitor it. We'll come back in six months and see what the difference is, and they'll do what they call a floor level survey. And that's where you take an instrument called a manometer and about every five feet on center in every room of the house, you take an elevation reading which tells you how high or how low it is compared to everything else in the house. And then you put that into a computer program and it plots out a nice colored 3D visual that tells you where it's high. You can see it really easily where it's high and where it's low. And then if you've got a big low spot over here and there's a bunch of damage, well you probably can say, yeah, it's probably moved. But maybe in six months from now, if we do it again, it hasn't moved much. Okay, well, that means it's not really doing much. Patch up the cracks, you know, and be fine, right, uh. And the engineer will say that. Or he might say fix the drainage. Or you know and be fine, right, and the engineer will say that. Or he might say fix the drainage. Or, you know, is a number of things that he might say. He might say, okay, yeah, after six months, yeah, it's continuing to move. We better underpin it, you know, stabilize it, you know, level it a little bit, you know, and those are the kind of some of the options that the engineer might bring to the table.
Speaker 2:Now, one more thing that we haven't talked about, yeah, and that is soil. Right, this is all about soil. A lot of people think that soil is just, you know, very simple one big brown mass underneath the house, right? No, it's many, many layers underneath the house, right? No, it's. It's many, many layers, and each layer is a different density, a different mineral content, different affinity to water, different reactions to water, and and water travels between all these layers and it does different things to these, all at different times. And these layers are not exactly straight, some are slanted, some disappear. You know, then, the rocks, and, and it's very, very complicated, and engineers understand the geology, uh, geotechnical engineers understand that the, the geology, how, how those layers were deposited over many millions of years, and they do borings all the time. They're familiar in an area, kind of the pattern, and, and so they understand that.
Speaker 2:And, uh, then you start to understand that one of the types of clay soils that can be very problematic is clay soil. Okay, clay, uh, is very unique because it's a very, very tiny particle. It's so small that in order to look at an individual particle you need a scanning tunneling microscope, uh, and it has a slight negative charge and water has a slight positive charge and they're attracted to each other and so it pulls the water over. My favorite saying is clay sucks because it sucks the water right to it and, and when it does that, it it, it distributes the water particle, it tries to distribute it between each one of those clay particles. Well, they're so tiny that it blows up when it does that. So clay swells when it gets wet and when it dries it shrinks back down. Well, that's problematic. If you have a house, that's on top of it, okay, and uh, so, uh, if you have wet seasons and dry seasons, you might go through cyclical, you know, shrink and swell. Right, you want to understand those, those behaviors. Now, the reason that's important is because a lot of foundation repair, uh, suppliers, the guys that make the peers that the contractors put in, they train the contractors how to recognize the problem and how to you know, basically put in peers right For everything.
Speaker 2:Well, if it's heave, if you've got a heat, you know if you've got part of the house that's heaved up and the other parts lower. You know well, they're probably going to say, yeah, let's raise the lower part up. Well, the lower part didn't go down, it's the other part that went up. You shouldn't be trying to level it that way. That doesn't make any sense. You could do damage to the house, and it's not a good idea. You want to deal with the heaving problem. You want to deal with the right problem. After all, you could put the piers in, you might level it out, and then the heave continues. Well, then you're going to be right back in that same scenario that we talked about earlier where the contractor says you know, it's not my fault, you know you didn't help yourself.
Speaker 1:So a good engineer will understand heave versus settlement and make sure they understand the problem to give you the right solution for the right problem. Yeah, now, have you ever heard? Because I've seen some inspectors that obviously are not geoengineers, you know, and they're not. They're not the specialists that you're talking about, but sometimes they'll throw out there like oh, it's just the grading around the house that's causing that. If you just change the grading, like make the soil go away from the house so that water flows down instead of like that, is that something? Does that make sense? Is that a true thing? Or is that just something that people just kind of say know a true thing? Or is that just something that people just kind of say I?
Speaker 2:I say it's good advice. I mean, every house should have proper grading, and the code for for for residential code says that there needs to be six inches of drop for 10 feet away on the house, and if you don't have that, then you have poor drainage. Now you might be in soil that has doesn't make any difference, you know it's not going to ever move. Then you have poor drainage. Now you might be in soil that doesn't make any difference. You know it's not going to ever move and you know whatever. But if you have problematic soils, you're going to know it and the grading is going to be one of the things that is going to be a problem for you, and so it's a good idea to make sure that grading and drainage is properly done.
Speaker 2:Now, that's harder than it seems because, like, well, now you have this sidewalk that runs along the side of the house and you know you've got a foot of planter between it and the house. Well, that traps the water. You've got planters in front. What do you do with those? You have to kind of think it through. It's not as easy as it seems. It's good advice, though.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, no, that's good to know, because I always mean, I think, when I was in the forensic engineering business.
Speaker 2:every report we recommended that the grading and drainage be improved. You know we recommend put gutters on the house and have the downspouts and then have the downspouts piped 20 feet away. It doesn't do any good to put a gutter on and have it dump right at the corner of the house. Now you've got all the the whole roof concentrated in one area. That's that's not a great scenario. You want to get it away? Yeah, we recommended that. Almost every house we looked at.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it sounds like, you know, if we were going to summarize kind of like some top tips, you know, if someone was listening to this and maybe they're, uh, you know, a seller, um, and they're thinking about, uh, putting their house on the market, um, or they've, you know, just purchased it and they just want to, you know, be proactive instead of reactive, what would be like some top things, you know, obviously, like the, the drainage, making sure that that's correct, and and things like that. But are there like some top things that like, if someone came to you and just said, hey, what can I do to avoid having any of these issues and having you know to go through this process, what tips would you give people?
Speaker 2:Well, it's a little more complicated than that, because we were talking in generalities about, like, proper drainage, right? Yeah, well, part of it, part of it depends on, well, what's been the soil conditions for the last two or 300,000 years. You know, you know, are you in Louisiana, where it's been wet for two or 300,000 years, maybe Texas, maybe Florida, right? Uh well, in that case you don't want it to dry out. If it dries out and it's clays, now Florida, there's not a lot of clays. But, uh, you don't want it to dry out. If it dries out and it's clays, now in Florida there's not a lot of clays. But if there are clays in your soil and it dries out, it's going to shrink, right. And if you're on the edge and it shrinks, that's going to be settlement on the edge.
Speaker 2:They got a lot of problems with that in Texas. So what do they do, texas, louisiana? What they do is they tell people put a soaker around your perimeter of your house with a timer that turns on every day, or maybe twice a day, to keeps that soil nice and wet. Now, you would be like insane to do that in Arizona, where I'm at, you know, it's very, very dry and we get eight inches of rain a year in a good year, you know you just don't want to do that. So part of it is you have to know what the recommendations are for your area, and it does change regionally a lot.
Speaker 1:Huh, that's really good to know. So if someone you know wanted to know specifically, they should go to a geo engineer to be able to know what their soil is and what the best plan of action is for them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really good question. I mean, in Texas you can get that information pretty readily because Texas is kind of like the epicenter of foundation problems. But in other areas it may not be quite so easy. I know there's a lot of really good engineers in Kansas, uh, and there's some good ones kind of uh, along the mid Atlantic area, um, but other than that there, I mean they're out there, they're on my directory, but, uh, you know, like Texas, you could probably Google what should I do for my soils, and it'll probably, you know, come up for Texas, you know, put a soaker around your house, you know. Now again, maybe not in San Antonio, that's a little drier, right. So you know, houston, yeah for sure. But you know you might be able to get that information by Google, googling it, you might.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, that's such good advice though, and I love that Cause I would have never even thought about. I mean, I grew up in Oklahoma, um, but I live in Ohio now and you know, obviously, total different um you know weather and um, you know in in Oklahoma different you know weather and you know in Oklahoma it's ironic that there are no basements because of you know the soil and the clay and all of the stuff that's underneath it, so hard. And then here in Ohio, like it's rare to have a house, not have a basement.
Speaker 2:So you know, part of that is just what they call the freeze frost depth, because you know, the farther north you go and the higher the elevations you go, you know, the more it freezes, and so what you have is the water that's in the soil below the house. If it freezes, it actually swells also, and so what you want to do is build the footings down below that frost steps. And so you know, when you're in Ohio you might have to go down three feet, maybe four feet, you know, and in some places you know you got to go down eight feet. You know, maybe not in Ohio, but some parts of the United States you got to go down eight feet. Well, if you're going to dig down that far, you might as well just put in a basement while you're at it. Right, I mean, not that much more work, and that's part of what it is. I typically see a lot of basements up North and a lot of slabs down South.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. So obviously this is something that you're you know that you're passionate about and very, very knowledgeable about it. So is that kind of what led you down the path to writing this book and, you know, creating this directory? You know, I guess just kind of walk me through, like what, what made you think that you know, hey, I should write this book, hey, I should create this directory? You know, was it just that you had multiple like people that you know kept giving the wrong advice and you thought, oh my gosh, I need to help people?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I mean, I'm uniquely qualified to opine on this subject because I was one of the few contractors that had engineers work on the front end and I had a foundation repair company and I could see, I mean, I didn't start out with engineers, I started out with just a foundation repair company and I knew a lot of engineers and pretty soon I you know, I, when I first got in, I didn't know anything and I, my supplier, taught me everything, like they do with every contractor. But then I started. You know, I had a lot of, because of my degree in architecture, I had a lot of engineering friends and forensic engineering friends. And pretty soon I started talking to them and I'm thinking, wait, wait, I think we're doing this wrong. I got sales guys that are selling things and they're not really engineers and they're not really qualified and they're getting it wrong most of the time. I think we need a better mousetrap. And so I eventually hired an engineer and built a forensic engineering company and I'd go to conferences and I'd see people in the network and I'd talk to them.
Speaker 2:Contractors, they're all friends, you know. They're all doing it wrong. Yeah, I, I tried to help them. They're just not interested, they're just not. They just want to make money and you know, kind of feel good that they're helping people, which is fine, but really the industry is not doing it the right way. They're more focused on the bottom line and there's some consolidation, some changing happening in the industry. There's private equity companies that are going around and buying up foundation repair companies and rolling them up into big, big companies that are traded on the New York stock exchange and it's all about the numbers you know, and uh.
Speaker 2:So it's going to become more difficult for homeowners because you're going to be up against some, some bigger players that are more sophisticated and uh are a little more difficult to push back with.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. I love that. Well, bob, thank you so much for taking time out of your day coming on here sharing all of your vast knowledge. Um, obviously, I will have all the links in the show notes. Um, you know, are you on social media or do you have a website? Okay, perfect, yeah.
Speaker 2:My website is the same for my book foundation repair secrets and you can get my book on my website or you can get it from Amazon. Uh, you can uh look me up, uh, as the dirt whisperer uh, on Facebook and you know Instagram and LinkedIn, and you know, I think I'm, I think I'm on uh uh X and and uh, uh, I think I'm, I'm even on Tik TOK, I think I don't know. I have a social media team that does all that stuff, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love that. Yeah, that's amazing, I love that. And so, like we said in the beginning, it's RK Bob Brown. Right, if you're looking for stuff, because obviously, if you Google Bob Brown, a lot of different things come up.
Speaker 2:Right, You'll get some sports jockey in Texas or something you know, some radio personality.
Speaker 1:Right, I love it. I love it. Yes, well, thank you again, truly appreciate it. Like I said, I will have all the links in the show notes. So definitely, you know, make sure that you know anyone that's listening. Please make sure that you share this with anyone that you think could really use this information. That is the greatest compliment that you can give Bob and myself. Make sure that you're leaving a review, because feedback is a gift, and make sure that you're following the show so you never miss an episode and you don't miss out on great information like Bob just shared with us.
Speaker 2:Right, and, by the way, if you share with me when you're going to publish this, my social media team will pump it up for you as well.
Speaker 1:Oh, perfect, perfect, yeah, absolutely, I will do that. Well, thank you so much and we will see you next time. On Come to Find Out.
Speaker 2:Very good.