Dan Karasek is weary of living in a house divided and wants a Lawrence home builder to right the wrong.

The school teacher’s 3-year-old house in southeast Lawrence has a half-inch crack in the concrete foundation running from the front door, through the living room and underneath the fireplace on the house’s back side.

Stick a piece of wire into the rift and it will come up coated with dirt.

Evidence of the slab’s failure surfaced eight months after Karasek moved into the house built by Coffman Construction Inc.

“The irony is that I saved money for a long time because, being a new home, I was thinking I wouldn’t have to think about upkeep for a few years,” Karasek said.

Karasek said builder Mike Coffman had declined to do more than minor cosmetic repair to the home and had refused to buy back the house.

Coffman, who also built other homes near Karasek’s on 26th Street, said he didn’t want to talk to the Journal-World about the conflict.

“I’ve been told not to comment on it,” he said.

A half-inch crack runs through the foundation of Dan Karasek's southeast Lawrence home, which is only 3 years old. An analysis shows that settling of the structure is linked to faulty construction of its foundation. Karasek has filed a lawsuit against the home's builder, Coffman Construction Inc., which will not comment on the case.

Engineers who inspected the home told Karasek the crack was caused by settling of soft soil the house was built upon. Concrete pilings weren’t set deep enough into the ground to prevent one end of the home from tipping nearly 2 inches from center, Karasek said.

All that movement created long cracks in interior drywall throughout the home. Only one door in the house closes properly, and that leads to a laundry room.

“Getting in and out of my house is kind of a problem,” Karasek said.

The front door would blow open if not secured with a dead bolt, he said.

Other than covering about 10 feet of the crack next to the front door with wood flooring in 2001, Karasek said Coffman had rebuffed all proposals for resolving the situation.

“I don’t understand why he’s shying away from responsibility,” Karasek said.

He said one estimate put the cost to repair the foundation and interior damage at more than $55,000.

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Karasek’s lawyer, Chris Burger of Lawrence, filed a lawsuit against Coffman that is pending in Douglas County District Court. Karasek sought a legal remedy after Coffman’s two insurance companies — United Fire & Casualty Co. of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and Hawkeye-Security Insurance Co. of Boston — denied responsibility for structural problems at the house.

Hawkeye-Security paid for an engineering analysis that confirmed settling of the building was linked to faulty construction of the foundation, Karasek said.

In addition to not discussing that finding, Coffman said he wouldn’t divulge his lawyer’s identity.

“Why don’t you do the investigation?” Coffman said.

Tracked down in Wichita, Coffman’s attorney, Dustin DeVaughn, said he too would prefer not to discuss the case.

Karasek said he was disappointed but not surprised by the lack of response from DeVaughn and Coffman. Karasek said he hadn’t had any personal contact with Coffman in 18 months.

Karasek, a fifth-grade teacher at nearby Prairie Park School, said stress from the case had been building. It has placed his life in limbo. Should he paint interior walls? Invest in landscaping? Can he afford to replace his aging car? Take a vacation?

Moving isn’t a viable option, he said, because nobody would buy the house in its current condition.

“Somebody is responsible for this house. He’s had plenty of chances to make this right,” Karasek said.

Meanwhile, Coffman continues to build residential housing in Douglas County.

“I think my case should be a warning to other people buying homes,” Karasek said. “They should know what I’ve had to go through.”