Some years ago, when we were looking at the possibility of buying our first house, we toured a house in a community near ours. It was one of the oldest houses in the community and the price was in our price range. But it had a big draw back; some particularly difficult and expensive repairs would need to be done by the buyer. The house had been built on some land that had been cleared of some big trees. Instead of building a foundation of rock, brick or cement, the builders chose to use the stumps of the cleared trees as the foundation. You might already suspect what happened over the years! As the stumps began to decay and crumble, parts of the house began to sink. Floors slanted. Walls went out of plumb. Ceilings cracked. The difficult and expensive repairs would include raising the house in order to put a new foundation under it. Once that was done, then the house would go thro...