New Homeowner Maintenance Tips:

Now that you have spent a small fortune on your new home, don't expect it to be problem-free. Hopefully you've bought from a reputable builder (see my article on this) and when legitimate breaks do occur they have a reliable warranty department that addresses them quickly and gets it done right the first time. But what do you do about non-covered items during the warranty period or when your warranty expires? If you ignore your responsibilities here, it can cost you in re-sale value and repair costs.

As someone who has spent the last twenty years servicing new home warranties I can share with you the wisdom of that experience. I have been a front line observer of many quality products and their proper installation as well as their inferior counterparts. My approach will be to break down these tasks in a fashion that sets priorities to prevent latent problems that can result from neglecting first order maintenance.

To begin with, your attention needs to focus on the exterior of your home. Time and the elements are it's worst enemies. The first and perhaps the most critical area of your home's exterior that needs attention is the foundation upon which it stands. Some simple steps here can go a long way in preventing more costly repairs later.

Foundation Maintenance: It All Starts at the Bottom
New homes sit on top of what I call "virgin soils", that is, soils that have not had the weight of a human-made construction on them before. The compaction of foundation soils by your builder that occurs prior to setting the foundation will still allow some settling once the home is complete. This new weight along with gravity will insure this. It takes a full year for the soils that your home sits on to fully settle. If this settlement is uniform you will notice almost nothing of its effects.

Soil testing is now a requirement by most city codes. The results of this testing should have been included in your paperwork you received at closing. Depending on where you live you will also have to contend with the effects of expanding clay soils year end and year out. It is the unequal movement from this expansion and contraction of such soils that creates headaches.

Once the house has completely settled the single most important thing you can do as a homeowner is to make sure you maintain a balanced moisture content in the soils around the foundation. Soils expand and contract in relationship to moisture and temperature. When soil moisture content varies around your foundation it too will create an unequal movement that puts stress on one section of your home, thus effecting cracks in drywall inside and brick veneer outside. Think of it as a dry sponge that expands as it gets wet and shrinks when it drys out.

Concrete foundations, or slabs, have greater tensile strength today as a result of a series of 1" diameter, sleeved cables that run in a criss-cross fashion within the concrete slab, a process known as post-tensioning (details and pictures here). The ends of these cables protrude from sides of your foundation so that after the concrete hardens and cures, the cable technicians return and with special tools actually tighten the cable within the concrete working against steel anchors embedded in the perimeter to enable the entire slab to hold together better. Yet this added measure still cannot defeat nature if certain measures are not taken by an attendant homeowner.In areas where extreme heat and scant moisture occur the soils will shrink dramatically. Any home that resides in these areas will require manual watering periodically to insure that excessive shrinking doesn't occur. No amount of technology employed with foundations today can supersede climate conditions when they become severe enough.

Clearly when it is warmer you will have to be an active participant in providing a proper moisture balance in soils around the foundation. Your focus should be on the area approximately 18 to 24 inches from the base of the foundation. It is recommended that you purchase a soaker hose to help you maintain this moisture balance in the summer. A soaker hose is different from a regular hose in that it is capped at the opposite end from the one you attach to the faucet. When you turn the water on, water oozes out of tiny perforations in the hose.

The rate of flow is intentionally very slow so the water can be absorbed into the soils, where you want it. Rushing water runs over the top of the soils and fails to stay where it's needed. Depending on the dryness of the soils and the daily temperature, you may have to allow the soaker hose to run for 4-5 hours or more, to do its job properly. If you have a little extra to spend in these hard times there are foundation drip lines that can be installed under the surface around the foundation to replace soaker hoses you lay on top. They can be connected to an existing sprinkler system or run independently off of the water meter. They are less of a visual distraction and can be set with a timer much like your lawn sprinkler system.

Perhaps the best visual I can give you regarding uneven moisture around you foundation and how it can negatively affect your home is to use a "house of cards" for illustration purposes. When you carefully stack cards on a level platform, the cards will remain in position as long as the platform remains level. If you were to slightly tilt one corner of that platform, the whole house of cards would collapse. Obviously your house is not going to collapse if it moves slightly but it will develop cracks due to the stress created at one point.

To determine if the moisture in the soils is relatively similar around the foundation, use a probing tool, like a screw driver, that will penetrate to a depth of about 9 inches. Using no more than arm strength the probing tool should go in all the way with slight resistance. If you have to lean on the tool to get it to go in then the soils are too dry; if it goes in the soil like melted butter, the soils are too wet. Adjust your watering habits to create a balance where the probing tool will go in smoothly at the same rate all around the house. Soils should always be moist, NOT damp.

Part II - Leaks: Keep Water Outside Where it Belongs.