Fixing foundations, Jacking up a house

[Renrel]

I am not really sure if this is an inside or outside the home post. Sorry.

We had an offer on a home accepted but the offer was contingent on the inspection not finding any serious issues. (otherwise it was "as is:). The inspection found serious issues with the foundation still settling. There were many cracks which were mended and recracked and remended. It appears therefore to still be moving. We are doing research now into what it would take to fix this problem. Over the phone quotes are indicating around $25,000 and that may or may not including jacking the home up. I was wondering if anyone else had done this type of a repair and could give us some advice. Things to make sure are covered, unexpected problems that arose, horror stories and easier then we expected stories. Anything that would help us to: determine if this is problem will make the house a nightmare rather than a dream home- short term and long term; how much it is likely to cost us; anything to help us negoatiate with the sellers; anything to concider or ask about as we hired people to give estimates and possibly do this work.

By the way we will not even bother getting an estimate unless the seller indicate a willingness to negoate significantly on the price. We were willing to accept as is the 50 yr old kitchen, the slopped floors, the old furnice, the roof in need of repair and other minor things that would turn up when we made a very safe offer against the 4 other bidders. This however is the foundation of all the rest of the house. We would not have bid anywhere near what we did if we had known about this problem before we bid. The sellers forces a quick bid by stating they would show the house Thursday night, accept offers Friday during the day and accept an offer Friday night, no counter offers. I think the house was on the market less than a week in what is usually a buyers market.

[amypooh]

We had to repair the foundation on our previous house. For about 11 piers it was $5500.

But shop around... prices really vary. We had one estimate for as high as $30,000. On our current house from a crazy company. We finally just spent the money and hired a structural engineer to come out (500 bucks). And he estimated what needed to be done to the house was much less. We're only going to have to adjust some of our exsisting piers and that will be less than $1000.

I would really recommend hiring a structural engineer to come out and give you a report before you commit to buy anything. And that way if you do, you will have something to keep the foundation companies from trying to nickel and dime you. They tend to try to overprice if you let them. Most of the foundation companies don't have a structural engineer come out to do the readings..and the structural engineer will be a licensed engineer.

[Renrel]

Thanks for the response Amypooh, we definately are not going through with the sale without having a structural engineer look at the damage and give an estimate, than there will need to be a core sample done to get a real idea of the cost. I have a feeling what is involved in doing this in Texas may be very different than in New England given the price you paid and what we were quoted. Probably different kind of soil issues which effect how buildings are built. DH and my realtor don't think the sellers will be willing to come down enough in the price to justify having the structural engineer come out, since they had 4 other bids besides ours. But those bidders did not know about the foundation issues either and will likely also decrease their bids. And the sellers are very motivated given a divorce. I think it could go either way. What ever happens will be for the best, though it may not feel like it at the time.

[Renrel]

We're bailing on the house. To much risk and to unlikely to get sufficient concessions from the sellers to make it worth our while. Sigh, back to hunting.