Oct 2007
Lost & Found-ation
Oct/28/07 11:09 PM
Randy
Johnson of Johnson Brothers foundation
specialists showed up today. And after having
spoken to him on the phone, I knew this guy
meant business. When, we spoke on the phone, he
said, “Lemme guess, it has a crawl space with
some standing room in parts of it and it’s got
too few girders sitting on top of rock and
mortar piers that have no footings and joists
that are rolling in the direction of the slope.”
I told him that if he’d said “cobwebs
everywhere” he would have hit the nail right on
the head.
When Randy showed up, 5 guys jumped out of the truck and took to measuring, drawing, and a whole lot of shouting in between. As soon as they’d walked through the door, they were pointing things out, that I wouldn’t have noticed if I’d lived in that house since it was built. Anyway, once Randy and the boys finished measuring and drawing and filling my ear full of country-boy common sense, they proceeded to the basement. The first ten minutes were spent criticizing how some jack-ass had tried to jerry-rig it all and fix it, that in my mind was the equivalent of using duct-tape to patch the Hover Dam. Well, at the end of the inspection, Randy told me that he’d be calling me with an estimate. He said that it wasn’t going to be cheap, that I shouldn’t expect a few thousand dollars, he was talking 10’s of thousands. That familiar lump in my throat returned.
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Inspector Gadget
Oct/27/07 11:06 PM
Mitch Erwin of JPM Inspection Services, Inc. showed
up to inspect the house. All I can say is, damn, this
guy is good. He showed up and set up a laptop and
went to work, snooping about the house and it’s crawl
spaces, taking loads of photos and and making notes.
He would then return to his laptop to upload photos
of problem areas and fill in bits of the report, then
he was back at it. He spent the better part of 3
hours inspecting the house. And although he told us
mostly what we already knew, he was very thorough. I
will try to post a link to the PDF for those of you
that want to see what a good inspection should look
like.
Mitch gave us a good idea of what it would cost to fix things and what needed to be done first. And he told us that we had some major foundation problems, and as any good inspector should, he scared the hell out of us. He suggested that to fix the foundation problem that it could cost us upwards of $40,000. Let me repeat that, FORTY THOUSAND dollars. After I came to, I very nervously began to call my wife and relay this info to her. I think she took it worse than I did. So, our buddy Mitch gave us a reco on a foundation specialist. We shall see how that goes...
Mitch gave us a good idea of what it would cost to fix things and what needed to be done first. And he told us that we had some major foundation problems, and as any good inspector should, he scared the hell out of us. He suggested that to fix the foundation problem that it could cost us upwards of $40,000. Let me repeat that, FORTY THOUSAND dollars. After I came to, I very nervously began to call my wife and relay this info to her. I think she took it worse than I did. So, our buddy Mitch gave us a reco on a foundation specialist. We shall see how that goes...
The Architect
Oct/24/07 11:05 PM
The guy I work for, recently renovated his house. It
was miraculous... He took it from a 70’s red brick
ranch home to a beautiful 2 story sage green
craftsman style home. The interior attested to it’s
style and it had all sorts of details that constantly
stimulated one’s aesthetic sense. I asked for the
architect’s name: Bret Park of
Park Company Architects.
The picture above is a sample of their work,
fantastic in my opinion.
Today Mr. Park and I spoke on the phone, honestly I haven’t spent that much time on a phone since gradeschool, but we had a lot of interesting things to talk about. He was very helpful and thorough. I am hopeful that this will work out as I like the work that I have seen.
Well, friday is the last day to finalize the contract and I am meeting the inspector, plumber, realtor, possibly the electrician, and even more scary is that my wife will be there among them. I shudder...
Today Mr. Park and I spoke on the phone, honestly I haven’t spent that much time on a phone since gradeschool, but we had a lot of interesting things to talk about. He was very helpful and thorough. I am hopeful that this will work out as I like the work that I have seen.
Well, friday is the last day to finalize the contract and I am meeting the inspector, plumber, realtor, possibly the electrician, and even more scary is that my wife will be there among them. I shudder...
Inspector Not To Inspect
Oct/22/07 11:04 PM
Ok, the first problem that I’ve encountered is the
inspector that we booked to inspect the house.
When I envision a house inspector I envision Ethan
Hunt dressed in black and suspended upside down with
head lamps and various high tech tools sneaking up
into the darkest depths of the house’s foundation
without alerting even the smallest of spiders.
Instead... a portly gentleman, who could barely fit through the door let alone the meager crawl-space, showed up. I could tell by his spotless wardrobe that he had no intention of crawling up under the house. In fact he spent most of his time convincing me that I didn’t need an inspector at all. My guess is that his specialty was new home construction, and that since he didn’t want to inspect my home that no one else should either. He said that he would do it if I absolutely wanted him to, but that parts of my house would not be able to be inspected, due to the small size of the crawl-space. Hmmm.
I fussed about it a bit, and he told me that he “wasn’t hurting for business.” That he had plenty of other inspections that he could be doing. So if you are in Fayetteville Arkansas and you are looking for an inspector then apparently Don Parham of Ozark Home Inspection, LLC is covered up with business, so you might want to consider someone else.
Since then I’ve gotten recommendations from both my lender and my appraiser. So the advice that I give, is don’t call an inspector from the phonebook. Ask for a recommendation from your lender, ESPECIALLY if this is your first home.
Instead... a portly gentleman, who could barely fit through the door let alone the meager crawl-space, showed up. I could tell by his spotless wardrobe that he had no intention of crawling up under the house. In fact he spent most of his time convincing me that I didn’t need an inspector at all. My guess is that his specialty was new home construction, and that since he didn’t want to inspect my home that no one else should either. He said that he would do it if I absolutely wanted him to, but that parts of my house would not be able to be inspected, due to the small size of the crawl-space. Hmmm.
I fussed about it a bit, and he told me that he “wasn’t hurting for business.” That he had plenty of other inspections that he could be doing. So if you are in Fayetteville Arkansas and you are looking for an inspector then apparently Don Parham of Ozark Home Inspection, LLC is covered up with business, so you might want to consider someone else.
Since then I’ve gotten recommendations from both my lender and my appraiser. So the advice that I give, is don’t call an inspector from the phonebook. Ask for a recommendation from your lender, ESPECIALLY if this is your first home.
Hidden Beauty
Oct/17/07 11:01 PM
Originally, the property was listed at $---,--- and
was presented as a “great lot to build condos”. My
wife and I live 4 doors down the street, and we saw
it go up for sale, and as with every house that goes
up for sale in your neighborhood you have to take a
look. We took it upon ourselves to save this doomed
bungalow from a fate worse than being torn down, we
saved it from being REPLACED BY CONDOS.
We toured the house and it was what I endearingly refer to as a $hithole. It had floors that sloped so badly that they should have had a black diamond sign. The plaster was only slightly less cracked than the San Andreas fault line, and a bathroom that was scarier than those at an East St. Louis gas station. It seems that there is a lot of work to do and probably over the next year or so we will see if indeed it IS too much, as my wife suggests.
The picture above is the first photo I have taken of the property, a wonderful shot in my opinion. I liken it to a seductive geisha hiding behind her fan and batting eyes at you. We shall see.
So, the house went up for sale on Friday, we toured it on Saturday, made an offer on Sunday, and they accepted it on Monday. Now we will close in November, and we are anxious to get started. Obviously one of the first steps will be removing this tree, at risk of insulting the cleverness of the one who planted it.
We toured the house and it was what I endearingly refer to as a $hithole. It had floors that sloped so badly that they should have had a black diamond sign. The plaster was only slightly less cracked than the San Andreas fault line, and a bathroom that was scarier than those at an East St. Louis gas station. It seems that there is a lot of work to do and probably over the next year or so we will see if indeed it IS too much, as my wife suggests.
The picture above is the first photo I have taken of the property, a wonderful shot in my opinion. I liken it to a seductive geisha hiding behind her fan and batting eyes at you. We shall see.
So, the house went up for sale on Friday, we toured it on Saturday, made an offer on Sunday, and they accepted it on Monday. Now we will close in November, and we are anxious to get started. Obviously one of the first steps will be removing this tree, at risk of insulting the cleverness of the one who planted it.
The Termite Situation
Oct/14/07 11:16 PM
Originally when we wrote up the contract, the seller disclosed that there was some termite activity, and that the termite policy had expired some time ago. Normally this isn’t a problem for a buyer, as the bank won’t actually lend you any money without a termite policy. Therefore it falls upon the seller to renew the policy, which can be in the thousands of dollars. In turn many termite companies won’t cover a house that has current activity or conditions that promote termite infestation. Well, for the seller to get a policy on the house they have to replace all the current termite damage, meaning they could end up spending several thousand in repairs and fixtures that allow proper ventilation in damp areas.
So now the ball has been put in our court. The seller has found a termite company that will cover the house on the promise that the house will be fixed. Thus they have offered us money in the amount of the least of the estimates obtained for the work (Ironically from the guy who owns the company that is going to cover the house with the termite policy). While it may not sound like a good deal for us and that we should just make them fix it, we however are fixing the foundation anyway. And since our foundation guy is going to be down there doing all that work, we are hoping that he might tack on just a little extra to go ahead and fix it. If that is the case then we could come out a couple thousand ahead. The seller won’t have the headache of fixing it, my foundation guy gets a little extra and the Termite guy still gets his policy. And we get to supervise and make sure it’s done right, instead of as quickly and cheaply as possible.
We set up a time this Friday to meet with the foundation guy AND the termite guy. Mainly because we aren’t EXACTLY sure what the problem is, we just know that there is apparently a lot of dirt to be moved. If it turns out that Randy is going to charge us more than the termite guy, then we will put the ball back into the seller’s court.