I have never owned a house. So maybe this is a stupid question. But with this kind of a problem what could possibly make this house worth looking at twice? There must be dozens of homes available whose foundation is not fubarred. I always though that accepted wisdom was that at the very least a fixer-upper needs to have a solid foundation. Other stuff can be fixed up, but the foundation needs to be solid.
How long have you been looking for a house? I know before we bought our house we looked for about 3 months but it felt like an eternity. Every house we saw was either grand and perfect and just out of our price range or torn apart and covered in fire and water damage and very affordable. Until we found the house we ended up buying. It is a little small, though certainly big enough for our needs, and we are having some work done (we just had the bathroom floor replaced and we are having a second bathroom put in as well) but it was 50k less than we had planned to spend so we have no complaints. We reached a point where we thought we were going to be renters forever because there was obviously nothing out there for us and then the house that would be ours went on the market. It was for sale for 36 hours before we saw it and made an offer. The perfect house is out there, I promise, and you don’t have to buy a house with obvious shoddy and illegal construction because it seems like the only liveable option in your price range.
Besides all the code, insurance, and financing issues already raised …
Wood-in-dirt is also known as a “termite nursery”.
The rot issue is part of the deal, but the main issue is that ‘dirt’ is poor bearing. Bearing points require a footing, in the case of a post this typically consists of a 4x4’ concrete pad 6-8" thick. Your municipality’s building permits department will tell you what you need or to get an engineers letter that does so.
It is a hassle but it is not that big a deal to fix. The worst part is that it is a crawl space so it is difficult to work in. Temporary supports (this could be as simple as a braced 4x4) are installed. The old post is removed, the pad is cribbed and poured and the shortened post is re-installed. It is simple really.
This also may be an opportunity to install an up-rated beam and eliminate some or all of the posts.
I was actually having no problem getting contractors to set a date to come out and look, but my realtor told me that the sellers should be getting estimates themselves, based on our inspection response, so that’s how we’re doing it.
It should be. Frylock should run, not walk, away from this house. Every counter he makes to the objections made by others shows him justifying his commitment to buying this dump, but he must be more objective.
Which counters are those you are referring to? I had forgotten I had made any counters to objections in this thread. Could you remind me what those might have been?
This. Given they did work so far below the reasonable standard in a place where such shoddy practice is easily seen, who knows what else they did where you can’t see it!? For all you know the whole house is spackled with Crest™ toothpaste instead of joint compound.
I don’t care if the crawlspace is bone dry, the floor supports are one slow-dripping pipe away from rotting out from under you. If you think getting it fixed now is expensive, imagine what it will cost you once the floor has started to buckle and its patently unsafe for your children.
Re: flippers and the stupid shit they do: I saw this terror of a “Holmes Inspection” – the family had bought a house that was renovated and flipped; they were the second buyer since the renovation. They called in the show to for a reinspection, I think they had noted some new cracks. Come to find out, the genius flipper CUT THE MAIN SUPPORT BEAM in order to “open up” the living room. The whole second floor was being held up only by the sidewalls and IIRC one off-center 4x4. They, and the crew, were ordered out immediately for their own safety. The building was in danger of collapse. The only reason it wasn’t condemned is because the show stripped it down and rebuilt it almost from scratch.
Just because the previous family didn’t have a problem, doesn’t mean there is no problem.
I had assumed it was the home inspector’s job to spot things like that. What kind of serious amateur-flipper problems might turn up that the home inspector wouldn’t have noticed?
Frylock, it might just be my perception of the posts above, but you sound like you’ve fallen in love with this house.
If you have, you’re screwed.
Was the entire house built directly on the ground? (The term sometimes used is “mud sill”).
If it was the entire house - write it off.
If it was one idiot doing a Home Depot addition, the addition can possibly be ripped out and done properly for less than the cost of installing a foundation under it.
I found a house in San Francisco on a mud sill. Marvelous old house. Too bad it was pure junk.
I saw a listing for a pre-fab in the cheap part of Sacramento which stated “THIS HOUSE HAS NO FOUNDATION”. It was a modern rancher - incredible to believe somebody put up an entire (even if pre-fab) house without a building inspector.
When inspecting a house, take a flashlight and a pocket knife and find the sill plates (bottoms of the walls). If they are touching earth or if the knife can penetrate the wood, you thank the people and move on.
If you really want to pursue this: find out if you can get HO insurance with that note on the report.
I’m guessing you can’t.
No, it seems to solve a lot of problems, but if it causes more (or more important) problems than the ones it solves, then we shouldn’t move in, obviously.
I mean to an extent we’re locked in–a purchase price has been accepted. The deal’s signed. But this is the home inspection phase. We basically gave it back to the seller and said “fix all this,” which it is doubtful they’ll do in every detail. (If they do, well then, that sounds good…)
Even if that doesn’t end up in an event which ends the deal, there’ll then be the appraisal, and who knows, maybe the insurance quote we got will be way off the mark, etc. So we’re not in any sense counting on owning this house any time soon. We like it a lot, but if it’s not to be, it’s not to be.
At what point in the process will the HO insurance provider ask to see the report? It never came up when getting a quote, but of course they’re trying to sell a policy at that point so it figures they wouldn’t ask every single necessary question at that point.
ETA: Above someone asked how old the house is. It was built in 1890.
So like, are there inspection offices we can call about this house and tell them we suspect it’s not up to code or something? What government agencies inspect houses, and when do they do it?
1890, as in a century and a quarter ago? You could be looking at a whole range of interesting and non-standard building techniques. It may well be old enough that no permit or inspection was ever required.
On the other hand, wood in contact with dirt for a century would have rotted away long ago, so you are most likely dealing with some fairly recent rework or additions. Find the government office responsible (if in the city of Indianapolis, it’s the Dept of Code Enforcement – (317) 327-8700) and have a chat.
Normally, that office would inspect new construction or substantive additions / remodeling at several points during the process, before they sign off as complete (when the footer is complete, when the framing is done, when electrical/plumbing has been roughed in, etc.), but requirements have changed a lot over the decades, and many older places have never been inspected.
If the main portion of the house is fine, and it’s maybe a rebuilt porch resting directly on dirt, that’s a whole different ballgame than if the main body of the house lacks proper footings. You’ll need more details.
I’m surprised to hear so many of you saying this will be time consuming and expensive. When we bought our house (pier and post foundation) we had the same problem. Some wood touching the ground. This appears to have been because of shoddy repairs from a previous homeowner as the house shifted and settled over many years (earthquakes, rain, old house)
There were several unorthodox adjustments to the underside of the house that looked as if they would be a problem. For example, there were wooden blocks placed between the post and the beams under the house.
The house inspector, and later the insurance inspector both said that the unorthodox adjustments were surprisingly safe because of exactly how the blocks were placed.
But of course wood on the ground was not safe.
We spent a few hundred dollars on a few piers/posts. Measured carefully, cut to size and replaced the existing bad posts. We just dug out a little earth underneath, put it in place and replaced the earth.
It wasn’t easy. It was heavy, dark, damp and precise work. But it was just fine and rendered safe by all inspectors, even when we told them it was a do-it-yoursf job.
So I don’t know if you should just go running away from the house just yet. Maybe take photos down to the inspector’s office and ask them what a safe foundation would look like, and maybe some hypothetical questions (I doubt they will tell you how to fix it).
Your answer to your question is going to have to do with the local codes and the conditions surrounding the house. (For example, we don’t get much frost)
check the heating costs.
heat from the dwelling along with distance from the perimeter might keep frost heave from happening under the columns. so maybe no damage but an expensive code violation to fix.
Where do you live? Because if it’s anywhere cold, that should not have passed inspection.
In any case, Frylock, I wouldn’t pay much heed to the doomsayers in this thread. It all depends on how much of the structure is resting on bare ground, whether it’s just an addition/porch or the whole house, etc. And it’s unlikely to be the whole house; they certainly knew how to build foundations well in 1890. It’ll depend on getting a detailed analysis of the problem and some good estimates for fixing it. If the place hasn’t fallen down already it’s unlikely to in the near future, but rotting structural elements will have to be addressed sooner rather than later.
…
Termites.
If said wood were Cypress there would be no problem