Jan 10, 2025 08:15 PM
https://daily.jstor.org/home-foundations...-to-blame/
EXCERPTS: Through core testing, scientists and engineers had determined the culprit behind fissures like those in their neighbors’ homes was pyrrhotite, a mineral made up of sulfur and iron found in some concrete aggregates. When exposed to air and water, pyrrhotite can break down into secondary minerals that cause foundations to fracture, structural integrity to erode, and home values to tank.
“It’s like your house was diagnosed with cancer,” said Michelle Loglisci, a founder of Massachusetts Residents Against Crumbling Foundations, a grassroots organization of homeowners fighting for legislation and financial relief in their state.
[...] For years, public officials in the US associated this real estate nightmare with Connecticut, where investigators attributed one quarry’s pyrrhotite-contaminated aggregate to as many as 35,000 faulty foundations in the state. But the increasingly sprawling reports of crumbling foundations in Massachusetts have heightened concern among scientists and homeowner advocates that defective concrete is a more widespread problem—one with little current or historical oversight—than previously understood. Recently, a condo complex with a cracking foundation in Dracut, Massachusetts, just south of the New Hampshire border, tested positive for pyrrhotite. Beyond New England, pyrrhotite from two known quarries in Canada has damaged thousands of homes since the 1990s, and studies over the past two years revealed its deteriorative effects as far as Ireland.
The discoveries in these regions have undergirded a nascent area of scientific inquiry. Last May, the first International Conference on Iron Sulfide Reactions in Concrete included presentations on testing for pyrrhotite, understanding its reactivity, and mapping the mineral.
The conference, too, revealed a quarry in Massachusetts that had tested positive for pyrrhotite. Some researchers think there may be more: “There have to be other quarries,” said Kay Wille, principal investigator of the University of Connecticut’s Crumbling Concrete Research and Testing team.
Without widespread enforced testing for pyrrhotite, scientists can’t determine the extent of defective concrete, or how to contain its spread. “It may happen everywhere if you don’t have the regulation to ensure it doesn’t happen,” said Pierre-Luc Fecteau, a researcher at Université Laval who helped organize the conference in Canada... (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPTS: Through core testing, scientists and engineers had determined the culprit behind fissures like those in their neighbors’ homes was pyrrhotite, a mineral made up of sulfur and iron found in some concrete aggregates. When exposed to air and water, pyrrhotite can break down into secondary minerals that cause foundations to fracture, structural integrity to erode, and home values to tank.
“It’s like your house was diagnosed with cancer,” said Michelle Loglisci, a founder of Massachusetts Residents Against Crumbling Foundations, a grassroots organization of homeowners fighting for legislation and financial relief in their state.
[...] For years, public officials in the US associated this real estate nightmare with Connecticut, where investigators attributed one quarry’s pyrrhotite-contaminated aggregate to as many as 35,000 faulty foundations in the state. But the increasingly sprawling reports of crumbling foundations in Massachusetts have heightened concern among scientists and homeowner advocates that defective concrete is a more widespread problem—one with little current or historical oversight—than previously understood. Recently, a condo complex with a cracking foundation in Dracut, Massachusetts, just south of the New Hampshire border, tested positive for pyrrhotite. Beyond New England, pyrrhotite from two known quarries in Canada has damaged thousands of homes since the 1990s, and studies over the past two years revealed its deteriorative effects as far as Ireland.
The discoveries in these regions have undergirded a nascent area of scientific inquiry. Last May, the first International Conference on Iron Sulfide Reactions in Concrete included presentations on testing for pyrrhotite, understanding its reactivity, and mapping the mineral.
The conference, too, revealed a quarry in Massachusetts that had tested positive for pyrrhotite. Some researchers think there may be more: “There have to be other quarries,” said Kay Wille, principal investigator of the University of Connecticut’s Crumbling Concrete Research and Testing team.
Without widespread enforced testing for pyrrhotite, scientists can’t determine the extent of defective concrete, or how to contain its spread. “It may happen everywhere if you don’t have the regulation to ensure it doesn’t happen,” said Pierre-Luc Fecteau, a researcher at Université Laval who helped organize the conference in Canada... (MORE - missing details)