Need house advice!

[Lord Warlock]

credit wise, the stigma that used to be associated with letting a house get foreclosed on isn't as bad as it used to be, lenders are willing to take into account that sometimes the economic conditions may force someone to lose a house.  A lot of people have walked away in the last couple years.  If you let it go back to the bank, there will be repercussions, and it may take a few years to overcome the situation and be able to buy another house should you want to.  The credit situation will affect both you and your wive's credit if you both are on the house note. 

As far as repairs go, have you contacted your homeowners insurance company yet?  homeowners should cover major structural repairs such as this, thats one of the reasons why you pay for HO insurance.  I saw a renovation show on tv where they did something similar (holmes on homes), and yes they spent well over 10k to fix it, another show they actually lifted the entire house up to build a new foundation at a cost of about 10k.  This looks like they'd just have to support the structure and rebuild the wall  with a problem, could be less than 10k. 

 

[Mytur Binsdirti]

I saw a renovation show on tv where they did something similar (holmes on homes), and yes they spent well over 10k to fix it, another show they actually lifted the entire house up to build a new foundation at a cost of about 10k.  This looks like they'd just have to support the structure and rebuild the wall  with a problem, could be less than 10k. 

 

I'd bank on  more than 10K.

[Cooter]

It would be very convenient if an electrical fire were to happen and the house was a totaL loss.

Be vewry, vewry careful Turbin....Folks here are hunting Fraudulent actions. You are now branded.

[mauve66]

checked on homeowners insurance yet? some policies don't cover sewer backup or flood but may cover drainage from foundation??

[mpdlawdog]

checked on homeowners insurance yet? some policies don't cover sewer backup or flood but may cover drainage from foundation??

Insurance company (all state) said nothing the can do..I'm going to dig alittle further to see about that....the guys I had out thinks the title backed up causing a bunch of water to gather...the weather here has been up and down causing alot of thawing and freezing

[Paul G]

Another idea here. Are you handy with the tools? Can you manage this job yourself? It is not that hard to fix this if you know how. You could dig out the foundation by hand, it is possible and free if you do it yourself or with a couple real good friends.

If that is a support wall the floor joists above that wall need to be supported about 3' in from the wall on the inside of the basement. That will hold up the floor above and give the bricklayers room to work. Knock down the damaged wall and lay new block. Seal the wall on the outside. Clean out or repair the drain tile, if there are any, and then backfill. It is a simple job. You could do the manual labor and just hire a bricklayer, and be his laborer if he will let you.

Get lots of contractors to come in and take a look. Ask them if there is any way to do some work yourself to keep costs down. They may have ideas that work for you.

[Supercharged Riot]

dig a big hole next to the basement to unload the pressure caused by the dirt that might be a cheap temp solution 

i would sell one the cars and us the funds to fix it.
then sell the house.
Minimize your costs while fixing the solution and saving your credit from adversity by giving it back to the bank.
because 7 years of bad credit is a long time for me. 

[PocketThunder]

renting the house out is not an option....neither one of us want it....I have not considered a short sale...would they even do it with the house like this?  No I dont have the funds to buy a house before the current one went to the bank...but I dont care about owning a house....I have a place to go...my parents have two houses and an apartment above one of their barns so I could hide out until I got my credit back together...

just found this...this is the wall in the front of the house that is next to the worse wall...

Move into your parents second house with your sweetie and save up money to fix your house and sell it.  Then during this time maybe you and the Mrs will re-kindle the fire you once had and you can move into the apartment above the barn together and make sweet love down by the fire again...

[4cruzin]

dig a big hole next to the basement to unload the pressure caused by the dirt that might be a cheap temp solution 

i would sell one the cars and us the funds to fix it.
then sell the house.
Minimize your costs while fixing the solution and saving your credit from adversity by giving it back to the bank.
because 7 years of bad credit is a long time for me. 

I think the first thing you need to do is get an idea what the home is worth in the current condition and what it is worth in a repaired condition . . . then figure the cost and see if it is worth the effort to repair the home depending how much you owe. 

[mpdlawdog]

Thanks guys for all the advise....have had alot going on...in the process of moving out of the house...well I have been doing a lot of thinking and I am going to fix it myself...at least get it dug out and the demo....never laid block before so might hire that part out....waiting on my taxes to come back so I can start digging it out and go from there...we both have perfect credit and I don't want to flush it down the toliet....I think I can manage it without selling either vehicle if I do most of it myself....will keep you all posted!  Thanks again for all the advise

[mopar_man]

I'm in the excavation and construction business . That is not a difficult fix . First you need a small backhoe to come in and excavate the dirt away from that wall .
It shouldn't take no more than 3 hrs to do a clean tidy excavation and that would be a very slow operator . 1/2 an hr for me .
You diffinately need to support your floor joist on the inside with a temporary wall as its a good chance that the backhoe will knock it in .
Backhoe    .....3 hrs ...@$50. hr =    $150.00   give or take .
backhoe to backfill after wall is fixed....3 hrs....@$50.00/hr=$150.00

Now you need maybe 3 pallets of concrete block , count how many you are going to remove and add 10%
10 pieces of  5/8 rebar
50-60 ft of block lock
cement and sand
shouldn't cost anymore than $1000.00

After all the old concrete blocks are removed , it shouldn't take any decent mason no more than two days to fix that wall .
So, you pay him $1000.00 a day.

Total      $300.00         backhoe
           $1000.00         materials
           $2000.00         labour
           $1000.00         building materials for support wall

I really can't see how its a $10k fix without you being gouged .
get lump sum price on labour and get it on paper, phone around a get prices of backhoes , get price of materials . you know how many block have to come out and most masonary stores can tell you how much materials (cement mortar , sand  rebar and block lock you need for that fix .
Best of luck with it . 

[Mytur Binsdirti]

It would be very convenient if an electrical fire were to happen and the house was a totaL loss.

Be vewry, vewry careful Turbin....Folks here are hunting Fraudulent actions. You are now branded.

Who's talking fraud? I'm just saying that it would be convenient if such an occurance happened. The same holds true for a gas explosion.

[Old Moparz]

Thanks guys for all the advise....have had alot going on...in the process of moving out of the house...well I have been doing a lot of thinking and I am going to fix it myself...at least get it dug out and the demo....never laid block before so might hire that part out....waiting on my taxes to come back so I can start digging it out and go from there...we both have perfect credit and I don't want to flush it down the toliet....I think I can manage it without selling either vehicle if I do most of it myself....will keep you all posted!  Thanks again for all the advise

When it comes time to build the supporting structure, (temporary wall or beam) which will be first, consider what the base under it will be. What I mean is, if the foundation wall that is failing is the same wall that supports the ends of the floor joists, the temporary wall or beam will need to be supported by a solid footing. If you build directly on your basement floor, chances are the floor is only 4 inches of concrete & not designed to carry the weight or load of the entire house.

Being short on money to tackle a big project sucks, but I think you need to seriously consider estimates before you actually start the work yourself. When I did the temporary support at my Dad's place it was simple. The floor was dirt so I scarified the ground where I was working & removed loose material. I then put down a layer of crushed stone & placed two layers of 2x6's flat on top of each other & built a 2x6 stud wall above it. On top of the stud wall was a triple, 2x8 beam directly below the 1st floor joists.

This wall was not for the actual support during the foundation repair, it was only to prevent movement of the house if some of the foundation collapsed. The company that did the actual repair ended up not having to build anything additional to support the house during the repair. That wasn't the intent, but at least I know what I built worked out fine. You may be able to build a temporary "spread footing" on top of your basement floor to spread out the load. I'm sure there are others who have done it but you really need to be careful.


Good luck.