I just did an inspection on the worst house I have ever been in. It was built in 1908 in an old mining town back when it was booming and there were no building codes at all. After we went into the basement we got the hell out of there in a hurry. The foundation is wood, yep wood, and it's rotting away. And to boot they had some steel posts holding up a beam in the basement that holds up pretty much the entire house. The posts are no lagged into the beam at all and had shims under them. If anything shifts at all in the basement the entire house is going to fall down. I won't even get into the electrical, plumbing, heating and roof problems. Here are some pics to horrify you guys:
That's the foundation that is rotting away. Have you ever heard that wood to soil contact is bad?? Here is an example of what will happen after 100 years or so.
Here is one of the steel beams holding up the beam that the entire house is resting on. Notice the shim?? How about the lack of mounting hardware or even a damn nail!!
Yep, they made an offer to the bank of $40k and they took it. After this inspection though I think they are running away. This was in an old mining town that has minor earthquakes all the time because of old mining shafts caving in and the such. If one of these little earthquakes happen and anything shifts one of those posts that whole house is gonna cave in in itself. Pretty scary thoughts.
That looks just a bit worse than the 1920 era house I lived in back in Calgary. At least it was cement foundation... cracked, shifting cement but cement none-the-less.
wow tibbs...thats a doozy... my dad's a contractor here in VT, I worked for him for years,,, we did a lot of remodeling in early 1900's homes and inspections like you did here....crazy what you find eh?? some sketch sketchy stuff for sure...I hate creepy, dirty old basements to begin with, so that creepy, dirty, incredibly unstable one would have me running out of there too....
Is this where Im supposed to write something catchy??
That is crazy, I am a carpenter and have worked in residential remodeling here in oregon for 15 years and have seen some bad stuff in my day...that is just scary...most gm's that I've worked under wouldn't let us work in any environment that hazardous here...let alone osha...be a fun weekend beer insprired demo job though!!!!
