MONSON – It’s been nearly five years since homeowners Joseph and Michelle Loglisci noticed the telltale cracking and fissuring and water staining in their basem*nt.
The verdict: that their dream home, and their retirement savings, was built upon a foundation of pyrrhotite-contaminated concrete. It looked normal going in, but over time the pyrrhotite reacted with air and moisture and expands destroying itself in the process. Once it begins, there is no way to stop the reaction other than to tear it out and replace.
“In the beginning it was like your house got diagnosed with cancer,” Michelle Loglisci said. “It’s scary.”
Scary because repairing the damage can cost $200,000 or more and the value of the home evaporates making it hard to borrow money to finance the repairs. Insurers also deny the claims.
Back then, she could find only a half dozen other Massachusetts residents dealing with the problem. Today, there is a core active group of 20 in Massachusetts Residents Against Crumbling Concrete. But the Facebook page has 1,100 members.
“It’s hard to get people to come forward with this,” Michelle Loglisci said. “Everyone goes through stages of denial,”
The group had a table at the Massachusetts Democratic Convention Saturday in Worcester to lobby lawmakers. Next week, state House and Senate conference committees will take up budget amendments meant to offer some relief and other state legislation is pending.
Federal help for impacted homeowners was in the Build Back Better bill thanks to congressmen from Connecticut and U.S. Rep. Richard E. Neal, D-Springfield. But Build Back Better in its current form got bottled up in the Senate before it could hit President Joe Biden’s desk.
Neal was able to get relief for impacted homeowners through a tax deduction.
Lawmakers in both states would like to have the crumbling concrete issue classified as a natural disaster under FEMA rules.
Both Michelle Loglisci and state Sen. Anne M. Gobi, D-Spencer, fear that there will be more homeowners impacted in Central Massachusetts over the next few years.
She can’t make the name or location public yet, but Gobi said officials have identified a Massachusetts quarry as a source of aggregate stone for concrete that has pyrrhotite in it.
There has been a rash of discoveries in the towns of Rutland and Holden, Massachusetts. That’s too far away for a concrete truck to travel from the J.J. Mottes Concrete company and its Becker Quarry in Willington, Conn.
The quarry no longer provides concrete for residential foundations, according to the Connecticut Department of Housing.
Upwards of 35,000 homes in a radius of Stafford Springs, Connecticut, are facing the potential for a failed concrete foundation, according to Connecticut housing officials.
The now defunct J.J. Mottes Concrete used pyrrhotite-tainted stone in concrete it sold from 1983 until it was told to stop doing so by the state of Connecticut in 2015.
Gobi said the Central Massachusetts quarry stopped using the stone when it learned of the possibility of contamination.
“I give them credit,” she said.
But there is a vein of the material, geologists say, that runs underground from central Connecticut to near Framingham, Massachusetts.
And with residential growth of those areas and the fact that it takes decades for the reaction to occur and the cracking to start.
“We fear this is going to be huge in Central Massachusetts,” Gobi said.
Gobi, state Rep. Brian Ashe, D-Longmeadow, and state Sen. Eric P. Lesser, D-Longmeadow, have legislation that would require quarries in Massachusetts to test for the mineral.
That testing requirement and an extension of a state program that can reimburse homeowners for having their concrete tested are both in conference committee this week.
The Senate Ways and Means Committee is considering a measure that would help finance home repairs, But Gobi said this more ambitious bill might not be passed before the legislative session ends at the end of July.
She’s also meeting with realtors in western and central Massachusetts making sure they are educated about how the crumbling foundations issue can impact homes, homes that are selling fast in a hot market with some cash buyers waiving inspections to gain an upper hand in negotiations.
Denise Walker, a senior vice president at Country Bank the bank has a process in place where appraisers check for signs of crumbling foundations before Country Bank an OK a mortgage.
So far, its impacted just one customer, a Country Bank borrower who was trying to refinance a year and half ago when the appraiser found the cracking.
“We’ve been trying to work with them,” Walker said.
Gobi said she’s also working to bring the issue to the attention of lawmakers. But as more homeowners find out they have a problem, her lobbying gets easier.
“They are going to get a call from one of their constituents,” Gobi said.
Related content:
- US Rep. Richard Neal, state lawmakers tour foundations
- Massachusetts estimates $350M needed to fix 2,000 homes
- Homeowners with crumbling foundations could get tax break
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