The title of this post should have a subtitle that reads “How building inspectors give us heart failure.”     Don’t get me wrong, I love the inspectors I usually work with.  They save buyers a lot of remorse and future headaches by uncovering or pointing out issues with a home that can be safety, health or huge maintenance issues.   They also do a good job of letting buyers (especially first timers) know what needs to be monitored and maintained on a regular basis.   I’ve learned a lot from these professionals.  HOWEVER, I just had one of them come into my own home after the recent rains/leaks caused us to take a closer look at our basement in anticipation of finishing it.

A little back story…when we bought our villa almost three years ago, there was a roughly finished workout room in the mostly unfinished basement.   Until this year, we had not one drop of water in the basement.   Then the Christmas flood of 2015 came and the foundation – like so many others in our area- sprung leaks.   As we had the various contractors out to fix/plug and trench drains for us we pulled out the rough paneling in this one work out area because we would be starting to rewire and drywall  as we proceeded with our finish.   Well, well, well…behind one wall was a nice big HORIZONTAL crack in the foundation that had some displacement.  Not good.  This needed inspection by an engineer.   Mike and I collectively held our breath.

So I called one of the inspectors I regularly use who happens to be an engineer and asked him to take a look.   An hour later and $300 poorer, Mike and I as well as our contractor Max listened in stunned disbelief as we were told that the fix for this foundation issue would be in the 10’s of thousands of dollars.  My neighbor’s yard would need to be dug up and all sorts of feats of engineering would have to take place in order to make this wall stable once again.   I don’t know about you guys, but our whole budget for this basement finish is maybe $25,000.  And we were just informed that all of that would probably need to be spent on a wall that no one would ever see.  After the inspector gave us the name of a structural engineering outfit for us to call and left, Max to his credit stated that he wasn’t sure such lengths needed to be gone to in order to stabilize this wall…that it had been there for 40 years and only needed to be kept from moving any further.   We decided to wait and see what the foundation experts had to say.  Max also referred one of his go to companies to us so we would have a second opinion.   At this point the only thing Mike and I could do was have a few drinks to drown our sorrows.

It was with great trepidation I called both of the foundation experts and the following day the one my inspector recommended came out to take a look.   Within 30 seconds of looking at the wall, he determined that one vertical steel beam and some epoxy would be all we would need.   Total cost $1538.00.   He explained that it was not as displaced as the inspector first thought and for something like this, just stopping further movement was the goal.  The second company came out and said basically the same thing.  They suggested more than one vertical beam but even that price was something that we could swallow…not even $5000.  Basically both contractors agreed with our contractor Max in his evaluation when the inspection took place.  Mike and I had more drinks that day but this time to celebrate.   Basement remodel was back on!

The moral of this story?   Don’t start drinking till you have all the facts and opinions.  And know that while an inspector may find something in question,  he/she is not the expert and further evaluation may be needed.   Luckily for us it was not as bad as first thought and an easy (relatively) fix.   But even more important, fixing something correctly and not covering up a major flaw is the right thing to do!    Too bad the original owner of the villa (who we think did the cover up) didn’t live by this.  I hope where ever he is,  Karma has caught up to him.