It does sound like a nightmare. Too bad. It also sounds like the builder's problem, That’s what bonding and insurance is for. I guess something like that would really mess up the builder's weekend and reluctance to make a return phone call would be understandable. Maybe a call will come today. I don't have building expertise and if it were me I'd get a second opinion about acceptable remedies. The situation sounds a little tricky, and maybe neither the builder nor you is in a position of identifying a 'good as original' remedy. Questions like ‘How do I know the drain isn’t really broken or might break ‘or’ how do I know the slab won’t crack after a year of frost heave’ would plague my mind. Other problems might be that a homeowner may accept a drain with a low spot but a building inspector might not. It's tough call, but I'd want to be sure that a proposed remedy is adequate and avoid getting sucked into some naive patch-up scheme. It is the builder's problem and a nightmare, but that's the price of doing business. Cooperation is good, but it's not a customer's role to make a vender feel good. For sources of second opinions, we once got an opinion at not too great a cost--good thing too. We contacted an engineering firm for an inspection of abandoned commercial buildings on a property. The PEng said we actually didn't need his expertise (or hourly rate). The company used a guy with good knowledge but no PEng for a lot of their fieldwork. The PEng said this guy's opinions seldom differed from his anyway. The price was right, and the only drawback was that the engineering company said they wouldn't warrant the evaluation. The report wasn't on company letterhead and the company wouldn't accept liability for the recommendations. Sounded fair enough to me.

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