We have signed a contract to purchase a house built on the side of a sand dune. (Beverly Shores, IN). The inspection is Sat. Any thoughts about what to look for in terms of structural stability? Our instructor is a civil engineer, w/ experience in the area, but I’d like to know if there are any questions I should ask.
It is essentially a 2-story with the garage, main entrance, and lower level on one level, and a second floor above. The front of the lower level structure is at grade level, with the rear dug into the dune. There is a deck supported on wooden piers looking out over lower ground. On the 2d floor, the back door opens at ground level with the dune continuing up further. The front of the main living area is pretty much a wall of windows, looking out across the National Lakeshore.
The house was built around 1990. Having never owned a home anywhere other than on the flatlands around Chicago, I want to do what I can (other than buying good insurance!) to avoid buying a hillside home today and having a valley home tomorrow.
Thanks for the response. We do have to check the elevation, as a good portion of the area is wetlands. It is septic, but city water. The dune is stable- well, as stable as a dune gets. There are mature oaks, maples, beeches above, below, and on either side of the house.
Our first couple of insurance quotes impress us as quite high. Makes us want to check into why. We hope to have the architectural drawings available during the inspection.
That’s it, man! It was like Dune fucked Beetlejuice and gave birth to Tremors!
Actually, walls and floors were tilting every which way. The trusses supporting the main living area were either overspanned, weak, or something - that floor was moving in several directions, with the walls Under the deck the main center support had dropped such that it wasn’t even in contact with the structure it was supposedly supporting.
Don’t know if the movement was ongoing or had occurred in the past, or whether it was fixable at what cost, but it certainly wasn’t what we thought we were offering to purchase at that price. Embarrasses us that we did not notice these things up front.
Bottomline, as with so many houses we’ve seen that were built over the past couple of decades, it appears as tho it was just pretty shoddily constructed. Which becomes even more obvious when built on a sandy slope.
This is the second home we have had a contract on which has failed inspection over the past year or so. Very disappointing, but glad to have found out before buying it. And I historically had poor opinions of inspectors, but we did research to get good ones, and they saved our bacon in these two instances.
