I’m in the midst of house hunting and I need some advice from people in the know about these things, because I’m getting conflicting opinions from the various people advising me. Tell me about basements. Around here in Upstate NY, it’s very wet and we have extremes of temperature. Water in the basement is fairly common, and lots of people have sump pumps.
What kind of basement is best/worst to have? I like full basements for storage; can I and should I expect them to be dry? My real estate agent says that’s unrealistic to expect around here, but my dad says no way should I buy a house with standing water in the basement. What about partial/mixed basements, which might have exposed soil or a gravel floor? Is that OK or will it turn really gross? I know slab basements are bad because without the basement as insulation, the house can get cold and energy costs will be higher.
Also, any other pithy advice you have that you wish you’d know when buying a house? Lies your realtor tells you? Things your inspector missed that you wish you’d looked at? I don’t need financial advice; I’ve got a very sweet mortgage deal lined up, so that’s all set. It’s just about finding the right house now. I’m not very handy so I can’t deal with something that will require lots of maintenance. Trying to eliminate problems with my house before they happen. Thanks in advance.
I would get my own inspector that I trust, rather than going with the realtor’s recommendation.
Even if you have a buyer agent, the inspector is the only one in the process who doesn’t make money off of you buying the house. If s/he’s beholden to your realtor, you don’t have anybody who doesn’t have a vested interest in talking sunshine and lollipops.
I don’t know much about basements; I took a course in home buying in Virginia where they told me to worry about that more than anything. Then I moved to Illinois where it’s hard to avoid (the water table in my area gets within 2 feet of the surface in the spring!). My house doesn’t have a basement.
But Illinois is flat. Upstate NY has hills - when you look at the property, ask yourself where the water flows when it rains - toward the house, or away?
My realtor threw in some kind of “insurance” - I forget what it’s called - for major appliance repair for a year. That was the biggest bunch of nothing I ever got - never worth it.
Go with your gut - if something seems funny about what the seller’s realtor is telling you, it probably is funny. There are always plenty more houses to buy.
OOOOH! I don’t have any advice, but I’m excitedly waiting to see what advice you get. I’m in a very similar position - starting to look for a house and also in Upstate NY - so whatever people tell you will be very relevant for me too. Good luck with your house-hunt.
It’s not unreasonable to hope for a full concrete poured foundation to be dry. But depending on the water table, you might need a sump pump to keep it that way.
Try to avoid the fieldstone or partial basements. They’re damp and they allow critters to get in.
Having relatively recently looked at homes (failing and having one built instead ) I only have this advice:
INSPECTION INSPECTION INSPECTION with a good (not always cheapest, inspector). Yup it’s pricey and hits the pocketbook but the $$$ and headache it can save you is much.
Trust me on this!
Look the basement over carefully. Any signs that water was ever in there then run. A good inspector can also tell you if he thinks this is a problem.
I have a small log home (or large cabin) in Sullivan County (upstate from me, downstate from you?) with a full basement. I use the basement for storage and mainly for my music studio and home office.
It was built a few years ago and here is my experience with the basement: When we first moved in I said yahoo and put a bunch of stuff in the basement. Weeks later a lot of it had grown hair and other very colorful interesting things. After that fiasco I put in a dehumidifier and all is well (~$270 plus the energy to run it). Still damp enough so the skin heads on my drums are slack, but not so damp that stuff grows. So far so good. So, by itself I’d say it’s too damp. With a dehumidifier it can work.
Back in July we had huge amounts of rain for hours and hours. The basement flooded through a drain that leads to a dry well that the DEP (environmental protection) made me put in to catch runoff from the roof because we were within 100 feet of an intermittent waterway on NYC watershed.
Anticipating such a thing I was able to get my important music things to safety. Good thing I was around. The carpet got soaked, though, so I had to take it out and let it dry for a few days. I borrowed a sump pump from a neighbor and pumped out the basement and bought one of my own a few weeks later. Haven’t had to use it yet.
My basement/foundation is poured, as opposed to something like a slab with cinder blocks. A cracked foundation isn’t good, obviously. If you can see spaces opening up between cinder blocks that can be a sign of a cracked foundation.
RS- That basement wouldn’t be to keep your girl Jenn from the Apprentice locked up in, would it? Just joking, I know it’s somewhat of a touchy subject nowadays.
Anyway, the realtor should be finding you what you want, not telling you that you are being unrealistic. There is no way that I would buy a home that I knew had a leaky basement, it’s asking for trouble, and is usually a sign of bigger problems from what I have seen. I have a slab ranch that does just fine for me, but then again southern Ohio does not get nearly as harsh as upstate NY, so the cold may not be as brutal. If the home is well insulated otherwise, I don’t think it will be a big deal.
If you are going to be limited to slab houses, look for one with a large outdoor shed for storage reasons if you need it.
Basements: The old rule was; If you see a french drain down in the basement - Don’t even bid on the place. That rule was alarmist
I don’t know about upstate - but downstate termites are a major problem. If your 1st inspector finds any signs of termite damage, make absolute certain the colony was eradicated.
I definitely plan to hire my own inspector, and I have the name of a guy who supposedly is very critical.
I’m using a buyer’s agent, but he does want to make a sale, so I take his advice with a grain of salt.
The thing is, I have looked at 10 houses, and only one of them had a dry basement. Yep, only one. I’ve seen the gamut: basements that seemed like holes in the ground, with exposed dirt; basements with concrete walls and round rocks the size of golf balls as a floor; poured concrete basements with puddles; and one I couldn’t even walk into because the floor was under an inch of water (and the washer/dryer was down there!).
My agent said that the exposed dirt is fine and not to worry about critters (I’d worry anyway though), the mixed rock floor is fine, and the one with the puddles was OK and just to be expected. My dad said buy a house with a full basement and no water, period.
Are sump pumps a pain in the ass? How often do they break down at inopportune times?
How much of a nightmare is a septic system? Anyone have one? What should I know about them? My dad, a city boy all the way, told me to avoid them like the plague, but around here, everything that’s not in the town itself has one.
I know squat about buying a home in the Northeast, but I can give you a little bit of information on basements from down South …
My parents’ house, which is 40 years old, has/had a dirt-floor basement. They finished part of it about 25 years ago, but some of it is still dirt-floor. It’s not really a basement per se; it’s a crawlspace. No problem with critters getting in there, as long as you keep the door leading to the crawlspace securely locked and make sure the vents are all properly secured.
The second and third houses I bought had a dirt-floor crawlspace. In each case, the builder covered the dirt floor with a plastic sheet to prevent moisture from seeping into the house. No worries on either one.
I’ve also been on a septic tank, and it was no problem, either. Once I year I flushed some stuff down the toilet that was supposed to help encourage decomposition, or something like that.
I would run like crazy from a house with standing water in the basement, though.
If the basement has a carpet and doesn’t stink of mildew, you’re probably onto something good.
My experience with sump pumps is that they’re inadequate to the task.
Septic systems should not be a problem if it’s been adequately maintained and the leach field has good permeability.
Pay attention to the roof, the plumbing, and the insulation (including storm windows). These things are really expensive to make right if they don’t start out that way.
It’s always best to go house hunting during or right after a good rain. Sunny days show off a house at its best; you want to see it at its worst.
Funny, not one of these places had a carpeted basement. I think this region is just really hard on basements.
Hmmm. Most places here have one. That makes me worry.
Is this something the inspector would pick up on, or what?
Is insulation really expensive to install? Are double pane windows a must have, or is a single pane with storm windows enough? A lot of the places I’ve seen have only single panes. Should that be a deal breaker?
On the day I saw 6 houses, it was pouring rain, which is why I saw a lot of wet basements. Now it’s well below freezing, but it will be warming up and raining tomorrow, when I go to see 5 houses. I guess that’s good but squishy for walking through yards.
You may need a new realtor. I would never buy a house with standing water in the basement.
When we bought our first house, we had to dump our first realtor. It seemed to us that since we were first-time home buyers, he was trying to unload all the houses that nobody else would look at, hoping we were too naive to realize we didn’t really want the house. And he did much the same thing your realtor seems to be doing - trying to talk us out of noticing all the problems with the dumps he was showing us.
I have a sump pump and a finished basement - drain tiling as well. If the house has a sump pump and standing water in the basement, the house may have major water problems that haven’t been addressed. In theory, you may be able to address water problems with a dry well, but fixing a wet basement is not what I consider a do-it-yourself project (unless you are Bob the Builder) and it can be very expensive. Very.
my house has some water problems in the basement. but the house is 90 years old, and with the rather flat topography of indiana, water just kind of stays where it rains. plus, my budget was pretty low.
most houses i looked at, and i looked at plenty (upwards of 100, i’m sure) had damp basements. if your basement is unfinished, i don’t see moisture as a huge deal. i’d rather have a dry basement, but who cares if you get a little puddle down there a couple times a year when you have concrete floors? and like i said, the place is 90 years old, and there are only minor craks in the floor and foundation, so i don’t think it’s going anywhere.
and speaking of foundation cracks, don’t get too caught up in random cracks. if the block foundation or brick is showing diagonal cracks, then it’s most likely a foundation problem. if the cracks are random, it’s most likely just cracks. any concrete or mortar is going to crack. that’s just its nature.
Shodan, I think you’re right and so is my dad-- if I can’t walk in the basement because of the water, that’s a no-go. To be fair to my realtor, he said that small puddles were OK and that sump pumps help, but we both ran the hell out of the house with the underground lake.
Well, it’s pouring rain again today and I’m seeing 5 houses, so I will scrutinize the basements and report back.
I’ll try to answer your questions, but I’m too lazy to use quotes.
If most places there have sump pumps, then you may have to roll with that. When I say they’re not adequate, it doesn’t mean the house is going to float away (usually); it’s just that if you’re pumping one place, water is still likely to be coming in somewhere else.
Regarding septic systems and inspectors, you know, I really don’t give a fig for inspectors. I’ve gotten ones that are licensed civil engineers and supposed to be tough, and once I’ve moved in I always find that they’ve missed a lot. I’m not saying don’t use one, just don’t rely on them.
Anyway, as I said, I don’t have personal experience with septic systems, but I’d think that’s an important enough thing that you might want to consider getting a specialist out. What I’m thinking is, if the drainage in your area is so bad that nearly everyone needs a sump pump, then it sort of follows that septic system drainage could be a real problem as well.
Insulation is fairly expensive to install. I’ve never figured out why, except maybe that it’s nasty work. It wouldn’t be a deal breaker, though.
IMO, double pane is a must have for a picture window, but anywhere else, single pane w/ storm is just fine.
What about if you just need it in the attic or basement? I think a lot of a house’s heat comes out in the part of the foundation that’s above ground and through an uninsulated roof. If I had a mask on, could I unroll the stuff myself? Or is there something special you have to do?
I don’t have any thoughts on basements, Rubystreak, but I will share a bit of general homebuying advice: don’t assume that the sellers or their realtor are good people. Assume that they will try to screw you over. I know it sucks to think that way about people, but do it anyway. When we bought our house, we assumed that the sellers were good people, and we got stuck with several thousand dollars worth of home repair that should have been taken care of by them. On a related note, make sure you have a good real estate lawyer to handle the paperwork, etc.
) I only have this advice: