"Doug" wrote in message
news
On Jan 10, 4:18 am, wrote:
STEVEN DERSE, the owner of a corporate travel business in Nashville,
cannot feel his house move, but he can hear it. "It's an eerie creaking
sound," he said, and it echoes throughout his two-story Georgian-style
house.

COUNTER MEASURES The soil under the home of Psonya Wilson has required
some major work and repairs. The two-story garden style house in
Brandon, Miss., has required the installation of stabilization piers to
shore up the foundation.

It started two years ago when a severe drought contracted the soil
beneath the foundation, which caused it to crack and sink, pulling the
house down with it. The noise has continued intermittently, becoming
more insistent last year when flooding pushed the already compromised
foundation and house back upward.

This seesawing effect was noisy and expensive. Mr. Derse has spent more
than $10,000 to install subterranean piers to stabilize his foundation,
and he expects he will have to install more to prevent further cracking
and crumbling. "You lose your sense of security," he said. "You love
your home and then it literally turns on you."

(article continues on
website).....http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/ga...tml?pagewanted...

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Here are more links to similar related problems.

From KANSAS CITY, Mo.

http://www.kshb.com/dpp/news/extreme...me-foundations

http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/335...ith-drought-re...

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And an interesting article
"How to Spot Foundation Damage Caused by Drought"
from Allstate

http://blog.allstate.com/how-to-spot...caused-by-drou...

Common enough.
Caused by **** builders, foundations not deep enough.
Not necessarily. Happened a lot in and around Houston last year.

It's a common problem in many places no matter what the quality of the
builder or foundation if weather conditions move out of the historical
average range. In this great lakes area, shale is close to the surface and
buildings (including houses), some over 100 years old, move around
seasonally. My previous house had both a summer and winter state where
certain doors, windows and cracks would open and close. Trees have a lot to
do with it in summer as they can quickly draw a lot of water from the
ground. A commercial building nearby put in a ground watering system to
keep the shale in a stable condition.

Tomsic