The first issue is the foundation was built too low to the ground. Many contractors don’t have enough vertical height to properly slope the soil and allow the minimum clearance between the soil and the bottom of the siding. This is a major problem on slab on grade foundations.
The second most common error is failing to provide a frost wall on the walkout side on a basement.
The third issue is some step-down foundations need to be designed like a retaining wall if they retain more than 4 feet of soil or the soil slopes towards the house.
Great info like usual… I’ve been ranting about this for years. When done wrong, a house is just doomed to have problems with grading, siding being buried under grade and other problems. AHJs (at least in my area) don’t pay nearly enough attention and once it’s “set in stone” no one is ever going to fix it.
I live in Florida…so everything other than manufactured homes is slab on grade for the most part. I am just curious how you are able to determine the way the slab is poured for an inspection as it is not visible. I do see a ton of grading issues. All of these homes are built right on top of each other. Every one is stuccoed to or below the ground/sod. Sometimes I can pull back the sod to see, but not often. Not that a builder would go back and fix it, just wondering so I can be more precise.
What you can do is look for signs of undermining on the lowest part of the grade that exposes the largest piece of the slab you can see. Next, examine the garage, driveway and walkways for signs of cracks and shifting and finally look for issues in the flooring and drywall.
If it’s raining heavily, look for signs of funny water movement, or like yesterday, I was called to two houses where the water is coming up through the floor because of poor site grading. All I was checking was to make sure it wasn’t coming from the windows/roof and was in fact, high water table.
