Editor, The Smithfield Times:

During the 2019 Board of Equalization meetings, I became aware that soil Type 23 presented foundation problems in Isle of Wight. 

It began with a failing corner of a brick house on Gayle Way identified by JES Foundation Repair as being underlaid by soil Type 23 and was followed by three more foundation failures on Sundown in Ashby. All were on crawl space and one story.    

Soil Type 23 is a wet soil. When it becomes too wet, it becomes plastic. Over, say, 20 years, foundations can sink, causing unleveled floors, cracks and jamming. Leveling can cost $40,000.

When I brought this problem to the late Supervisor William McCarty’s attention, he said he had to level his 10-year-old office building. We looked at the soil maps and sure enough he was on soil Type 23.  

A third of the two-story townhouses of Bridge Point’s present rezoning request and some three-story apartments of its 2008 zoning sit on Type 23 soil and represent double and triple loads when compared to my one-story problem houses. They need special foundations (expensive) and special inspection, which I worry will never be done as it has not been done with my problem houses of the past.  

The soil map indicated Type 23 soil for a 29-year-old house on White House Road, and I had planned to ask the owner if they had noticed any foundation problems. Unbelievably, they told me JES had been there the day before. The house was somewhat elevated, one-story framed on crawl space, no attached garage. They had done most of the right things. My board decreased their assessment $40,000. Possibly the site should not have been built on at all.  

At the least, houses on Type 23 soil should be on a slab to distribute their load more evenly and make the site well drained. For the rest of the design everything should be done to lighten the load, including detaching the garage.  

Isle of Wight should be leery of two- or three-story developments like Bridge Point on soil Type 23.

 

Thomas Finderson

Carrollton