HARTFORD — U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson will visit a home with a crumbling foundation Monday along with U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal and U.S. Representative Joe Courtney.
The group will visit the home of Maggie and Vincent Perracchio, which has severe cracks in the foundation in Willington.
In April, Murphy invited Carson to visit the state to see the problem first hand.
In May, the legislature passed a bill that would add a fee to homeowners insurance bills that would go into a fund to help defray the costs, which are not covered by insurance. A lawsuit is making its way through the court system that would
Foundations in homes in the Northeast part of the state are crumbling as a result of the reaction of a naturally occurring mineral, pyrrhotite, to oxygen and water. According to the state, Pyrrhotite is an iron sulfide mineral, and it is exposed to oxygen and water, a chemical reaction results in deterioration of home foundations. Pyrrhotite may be present in the concrete, but the state said it does not necessarily cause it. A visual inspection will determine it’s presence for some homes. Sometimes, if a home has an existing deterioration, the existence of pyrrhotite can be determined by visual inspection alone, because of a unique cracking pattern.
The issue impacts homes built since 1983 and that are within a 20-mile radius of the J.J. Mottes Concrete Company in Stafford Springs. More than 220 people have filed complaints, but possibly thousands of homeowners are dealing with cracking, crumbling concrete foundations. Most of the homes with this damage were built in the ’80s and ’90s, but the problem took years to become noticeable.
