Wasted $4,200 on a foundation before checking the dirt
Bought 3 acres outside El Paso for a container build. Hired a local guy to pour a slab without doing a soil test first. Turns out the ground shifts like crazy in that area. Cracks showed up in 2 months, had to rip it all out and start over with helical piers. Anyone else skip the geotech report and regret it?
Ugh, that hurts. I did the same thing on a tiny shed slab and got lucky but the cracks still showed. $4,200 is a brutal lesson. Always worth the few hundred bucks for the dirt test, even if it feels like a waste. Hope the piers sort it out for good.