I was called on a problem house down in Lumberton last week, house built in 1945. Granny is in her 80's, let the house go after her husband died and has dementia. She stopped making tax payments and the city threatened to evict her. Grandson stepped up, paid the taxes and now has himself as joint owner. He hires a day nurse to keep her clean and fed, but he lives in Raleigh, two hours north.
Tax value is $50k, slow economy down there. Homes on the street are higher values and maintained. House has 5 small additions, plus a 6th- brick veneer. Floor plan is terrible, 8' wide x 20' long 2nd bedroom, probably an old porch, and the second bathroom through the main living area on the extreme other side of the house. Ceilings 6'-10", don't even make the Code minimum of 7'. On a crawl space that is inaccessible if you follow OSHA regs, which I do. It's 18" high at the highest point, and quickly dives down to much less. All I could do was stick my camera through the opening and snap some pictures in a scan pattern.
The brick veneer is perfect, indicating that the perimeter footings are good.
Granny is in her 80's, let the house go after her husband died and has dementia. She stopped making tax payments and the city threatened to evict her. Grandson stepped up, paid the taxes and now has himself as joint owner. He hires a day nurse to keep her clean and fed, but he lives in Raleigh, two hours north.
I've never seen termite infestation this bad. The door to the bathroom from the master bedroom just fell off the frame. The jack studs behind it look like swollen styrofoam. The floors throughout are like a roller coaster. The place stinks, probably dead animals in the crawl space below the floor, plus a disaster of plumbing leaks that can't be fixed because the space below is inaccessible. "A hot mess", as my client warned me.
Normally in a situation like this we move everything out of the house and take the floors out, leaving the walls hanging. We have a termite guy come in and treat everything left over. Then rebuild the floor structure with pressure treated lumber. Encapsulate the crawl space and dehumidify it. Then we build trap doors everywhere to access the space to service the plumbing.
However I always try to think outside the box and in this case I may have a way to help the grandson out and make his investment work for him.
I spent most of the day designing a new floor plan, expanding the second bedroom, putting a bathroom in it, enlarging the master closet into the common bath and making it a powder room. Getting rid of the non-working central HVAC for modern split systems, and making that space into a cozy office. I dropped the floor down and made it a slab on grade, so ceiling height goes to 8'-3". Completely new exterior studs set inside the old walls to make a 9" super-insulated envelope.
I hope he goes for this design. Cost should be about the same as the "normal", and he creates a much more modern, desirable home.
Tax value is $50k, slow economy down there. Homes on the street are higher values and maintained. House has 5 small additions, plus a 6th- brick veneer. Floor plan is terrible, 8' wide x 20' long 2nd bedroom, probably an old porch, and the second bathroom through the main living area on the extreme other side of the house. Ceilings 6'-10", don't even make the Code minimum of 7'. On a crawl space that is inaccessible if you follow OSHA regs, which I do. It's 18" high at the highest point, and quickly dives down to much less. All I could do was stick my camera through the opening and snap some pictures in a scan pattern.
The brick veneer is perfect, indicating that the perimeter footings are good.
Granny is in her 80's, let the house go after her husband died and has dementia. She stopped making tax payments and the city threatened to evict her. Grandson stepped up, paid the taxes and now has himself as joint owner. He hires a day nurse to keep her clean and fed, but he lives in Raleigh, two hours north.
I've never seen termite infestation this bad. The door to the bathroom from the master bedroom just fell off the frame. The jack studs behind it look like swollen styrofoam. The floors throughout are like a roller coaster. The place stinks, probably dead animals in the crawl space below the floor, plus a disaster of plumbing leaks that can't be fixed because the space below is inaccessible. "A hot mess", as my client warned me.
Normally in a situation like this we move everything out of the house and take the floors out, leaving the walls hanging. We have a termite guy come in and treat everything left over. Then rebuild the floor structure with pressure treated lumber. Encapsulate the crawl space and dehumidify it. Then we build trap doors everywhere to access the space to service the plumbing.
However I always try to think outside the box and in this case I may have a way to help the grandson out and make his investment work for him.
I spent most of the day designing a new floor plan, expanding the second bedroom, putting a bathroom in it, enlarging the master closet into the common bath and making it a powder room. Getting rid of the non-working central HVAC for modern split systems, and making that space into a cozy office. I dropped the floor down and made it a slab on grade, so ceiling height goes to 8'-3". Completely new exterior studs set inside the old walls to make a 9" super-insulated envelope.
I hope he goes for this design. Cost should be about the same as the "normal", and he creates a much more modern, desirable home.
