Better yet, run.
Of course, anything is “fixable” if you pour enough money into it.
He’s got water welling up through his slab now. A new house on the old site won’t help.
I’m suggesting rip out the slab, rip out all the utilities, regrade all the land, do the necessary underground drainage to handle the underground water, then put the new slab and new house on the properly drained and regraded high spot that’s someplace else on the lot.
tldr: Buy a different lot & house; this one’s both a money swamp and a literal swamp.
I’m usually the one who says you can fix anything. I love horrible disasters of houses. But I wouldn’t even think about taking this one on unless it was just as a tear down for the value of the land.
Former builder, currnent home inspector here. My advice is run. Water issues are always worse than they appear. Don’t buy other people’s problems at any price. There will be other houses and it never pays to get emotionally invested. Remember that no one involved in this deal has your best interests as their only motivation but you.
Get on your knees and praise Someone that you found this water stuff before you bought and not after.
My friends bought a house with a finished basement and within 6 months of moving in they found out that when it rains enough the creek behind the house comes IN TO THE HOUSE and fills up the entire basement. Somehow the previous owners had managed to cover up the buckling walls and water damage with studs and drywall between events. The home inspector never saw it. The previous owners said “Huh, didn’t know that!” and the court couldn’t prove otherwise.
It’s been about 10 years of fighting the previous owners, the real estate company and now the city about this house, plus over $20k in repairs. Rose Red indeed.
I agree with those who say run away. Anything can be fixed with enough money, but I’m pretty sure you’re not prepared to spend what is required to fix this. Even minor water issues are a pain in the patoot, and it sounds like this house is way beyond minor.
Find some place dry.
Chessic, I grew up in a house in Northern Virginia that backed onto a hill, and it had constant water problems. The window wells would fill up with water in big storms, and it was the kids’ job to start the siphon to keep them from flooding. Yuck.
Walk away.
Without a contractor with a plan-this isn’t fixable in my experience. Every time people come up with a “fix” for rainwater, nature comes up with a bigger rainfall. Sealing the edges of the slab-never heard of that idea. Doesn’t sound useful.
As I understand the OP, water has infiltrated the house from standing water in the yard. The only way to fix that is to regrade the yard. You can’t stop water from getting in to the house with a barrier. You think it will work-never does. The only way to avoid water in the house is to be able to direct the water away from the house. Unless you are willing to raise the house, that is the only choice in my opinion. And that requires a contractor and plan. That will also tell you how much the fix will cost.
It’s probably all surface run-off and grading can solve that issue. But as I said, the foundation needs to be inspected, and it has to go to if it’s damaged. It’s not a swamp, he’s 15’ above the street level. Still, I wouldn’t pay much for that property, too much can go wrong, it may need a whole new foundation. You don’t buy a property like that unless it’s a still a great deal after including the cost of all the potential work to be done.
I totally agree with that.
Update: Yielding to the advice of my counsel (you guys), we walked away from the house, only losing the $250 bucks for the inspection. It was a heartbreak, but we got back out there, hit the streets, bumped up the price range and found a house can really fall in love with. Got an accepted offer at a fair price, and we’re jazzed to get in there.
Thanks for talking us out of a probably-big mistake, guys. Seriously.
I’m so pleased things are working out for you and thanks for letting us know. You weren’t the first to find a place to fall in love with only to find out it was going to be a nightmare. It is easy to get caught up and thinking “How can we make this work?”.
The thing about homes, is there is always going to be another one available. I wish you and your family joy and success in your new place.
So glad I read to the end and saw you walked away. I was going to add to the DON’T!!! chorus, because I lived in a similar situation for 10 years and it sucked. We fixed (or thought we fixed) the problem early on, but it was never a permanent fix and it always needed an eye kept on it and reworking every couple of years. When we mis-timed repairs is was uuuuugg-ly. There are enough major maintenance chores with owning a house, you don’t want to add one of this magnitude to them!
Congratulations on the new house. I hope you have many happy (dry) years there.
Regards,
Shodan
Congrats.
And mixed with that, a lot of sympathy for whoever owns the first house. I can’t imagine the heartbreak of having potentially a lifetime’s worth of assets tied up in a house that’s basically worthless because of the water problems that many (most) folks wouldn’t be able to afford to fix.
YAY for finding a better place!
Congrats also. I have a feeling you never could have purchased that problem house for the price that would make it worthwhile.
Yeah, his money has gone down the drain. He either has to sell to someone who doesn’t understand the depth of the problem, or take a bath on the sale.
I’m glad you walked away from it.
Interestingly, I saw this article just today on the Washington Post - very similar situation. It’s fixable, but would be a big pain - and why haven’t the current owners made that repair???
We have water issues where we are (also NoVA). The backyard has no good drainage outlets - and we found last year that the sump pump simply terminated underground about 12 feet from the house. Those didn’t cause water in the basement as far as we could tell - BUT the house has an outside stairwell with a too-small drain that would get clogged with leaves and didn’t keep up with heavy rain, especially if we didn’t keep the gutters clear enough (they would dump additional water right there). It had at least 2 feet of water in it at one point judging by the leaf litter stuck to the door. Other neighbors had similar tales with their outdoor stairs. I will never again own a house with such stairs without a roof extension over them.
It soaked the basement carpet a few times. We had one waterproofing company come out and give a 5K estimate for adding a second sump just for that drain (involving jackhammering inside the house). We got a second estimate for 2K less, involving installing a larger drain in the stairwell, and running the current sump’s output out the side of the house, underground, and forward to the curb as our neighbors had already done (the first people insisted the county wouldn’t allow that).
Needless to say, we went with the second estimate. Cheaper, more in line with what others had done, the county had zero issues with the approach, AND it let us continue to benefit from the water-powered backup sump we installed after Hurricane Sandy.
excellent. good news and congrats on the new house!
May I ask, what is a water-powered backup sump pump?