so were looking at buy our first house from my wife's coworker. its a good deal for the amount of space but after we hired a home inspector he said the foundation needed to be looked at. so we hired a structural engineer and they came and had a look. this is were it gets interesting. he tells us the house has not moved more then an inch which is good for 40 year old house i guess, but there is a part of the foundation wall that measures 11x4 and is made of cinder block that moves with a push of your hand in the crawl space. so my wife ask how much he thinks the repair will be and he says oh about 1000.00. now his company does not do the repairs. at this point i want out of the deal. my wife on the other hand thinks it will be a cheap fix. she will be in for a shock tomorrow when they come to give us an estimate. the damage was cause by moisture so that will have to be addressed as well. you guys ever seen a 1000.00 quote for foundation repair? probably not.

I've never seen a $1,000 quote for anything that involves the word "house", let alone "foundation" or "moisture".

You're doing the right thing - get a qualified quote and see how that plays. And share here!

Run.

I would check it out. Remeber, in the re market it is location, location, location.
I would not pull the plug just yet.
I am in your wife's camp to this point.
Get it checked your

Maybe the engineer is right, maybe he’s not.

Maybe the estimate is right, maybe it isn’t.

Maybe the outfit giving the estimate is able to do the job properly, maybe it isn’t.

Maybe the work estimated will be a complete fix, maybe not.

Is it worth it?

It may be a great bargain. It may be the worst headache of your life.

Do you have the resources, time and money to deal with the unexpected?

quote:

Originally posted by Georgeair:
I've never seen a $1,000 quote for anything that involves the word "house", let alone "foundation" or "moisture".

You're doing the right thing - get a qualified quote and see how that plays. And share here!

yeah me either. she is living in a fantasy world. she is going to be crushed and i hate that. she really loves the house. the sellers have no interest in paying for the repair so this is on us. i will let you know how it goes tomorrow

quote:

Originally posted by gambit123:
part of the foundation wall that measures 11x4 and is made of cinder block that moves with a push of your hand

I don't know a lot about houses But those 2 phrases are in conflict.

This is business- Get a second opinion. Personally the $1000 is to find out your screwed.

quote:

Originally posted by braillediver:

quote:

Originally posted by gambit123:
part of the foundation wall that measures 11x4 and is made of cinder block that moves with a push of your hand

I don't know a lot about houses But those 2 phrases are in conflict.

This is business- Get a second opinion. Personally the $1000 is to find out your screwed.

i will just wait and see what they say. we have a few different companies coming to give quotes. but the seller is pretty dumb. he said i could sell it for more even with the issues. yeah i want to see that.

If that is the only thing that is holding you back from buying the house get a second opinion on that wall area and get an actual estimate for the repair. As far as moisture it could be as simple as getting extension for a downspout.

Good luck!

here is part of the wall in question. its a bad photo but its the best i have for now.

quote:

Originally posted by gambit123:
the sellers have no interest in paying for the repair so this is on us.

So I would assume the asking price has been adjusted accordingly?? If not, pull the cord and watch the canopy...

quote:

Originally posted by grumpy1:
If that is the only thing that is holding you back from buying the house get a second opinion on that wall area and get an actual estimate for the repair. As far as moisture it could be as simple as getting extension for a downspout.

Good luck!

there is a big valley on the other side of the house were water comes in. the engineer said we probably need a sump pump and a french drain installed which adds a lot more to the wall fix as well.

quote:

Originally posted by erj_pilot:

quote:

Originally posted by gambit123:
the sellers have no interest in paying for the repair so this is on us.

So I would assume the asking price has been adjusted accordingly?? If not, pull the cord and watch the canopy...

they would come off about 5,000.00

quote:

Originally posted by Gustofer:
Run.

Yup!

If you buy this house, this could become your headache when you sell it years down the road.

i will update you fellows tomorrow. i have the best rated companies in my state coming to look to give a quote.

I would be cautious about buying this house. Especially if you intend to sell it in the near future. Because you will have to disclose things like foundation repairs, water intrusion, etc. Lots of times those words will scare away buyers. We just sold a house which had some water intrusion issues. We fixed the problem, but we still had to disclose the problem. I wonder how many people saw that and said "No way." I'll never buy another house with a major known issue like that unless I intend to live in it forever.

quote:

Originally posted by gambit123:
here is part of the wall in question. its a bad photo but its the best i have for now.

Yikes!

Disclaimer: I am not an expert in such things. Simply have an engineer's mindset and did a lot of studying when I was in home buying mode 27 years ago.

It is my understanding that horizontal and diagonal cracks in basement walls are very bad news.

You want to get at least three estimates from experienced, local contractors that specialize in this kind of thing and get good reviews or come recommended from known, trustworthy sources.

If this was put in without a drain tile system on the perimeter of the foundation, that's probably why it's failing. (Hydrostatic pressure.) Which means it'll fail further/again--no matter what you do.

I believe the correct remediation for this kind of failure involves excavation around the outside of the wall and tie-backs into the surrounding soil, to pull the wall back into place and secure it. I highly doubt that'd be a $1,000 correction. (See my comment to zipriderperson, below.)

Then there's the installation of drain tiles around the foundation, which is a good number of feet below that failure, along with a place for the water to go.

I wouldn't buy that place on a bet, the way it is.

quote:

Originally posted by zipriderson:
If you buy this house, this could become your headache when you sell it years down the road.

Depends.

We have (had?) a couple vertical cracks in our (poured concrete) basement walls we recently had remediated. The repairs have a transferable, unconditional lifetime warranty by a company that's been in the business for a couple decades or more. Cost $1500, but it was well worth it. (Required no excavation, tie-backs, etc. Was all done from the inside.)

If this is remediated correctly, it shouldn't be a problem.

I’d say you’re looking at closer to $10k if not more. Foundation work is far from cheap, throw in sump pumps, French drains, liners and on and on. Things add up real fast under a house.

quote:

Originally posted by MattW:
I’d say you’re looking at closer to $10k if not more. Foundation work is far from cheap, throw in sump pumps, French drains, liners and on and on. Things add up real fast under a house.

this is what i am thinking, and the thing that really pisses me off is that we passed on a house that was great with no issues like this that was 40,000 cheaper.