Anyone have expeience with MAJOR basement repairs???

Question

I'm in WI, where nearly every house has a basement. I've always kept away from anything needing any sort of major basement repairs, mainly because I know it can get VERY expensive VERY quickly.

I looked at a house today that's in a great area, above ground it needs basically the usual TLC work, new appliances, etc. the "usual flip candidate" house. The problem is in the basement, where one out of the four basement walls is badly bowed and needs IMMEDIATE repair, two other walls are moderately bowed and also need major repair in the very near future and the fourth wall is slightly bowed. Its an older 1920's house with the old brick basement and the badly bowed wall was already braced every 3 feet or so with the big metal vertical beams, which aren't helping at all. The listing realtor had a mason/basement guy come out and look at it and his report recommends shoring up the house and completely replacing the 3 bad walls with new block walls, tuckpointing and bracing the 4th wall, as well as replacing the entire basement floor, which is cracked in several spots and is apparently letting water seep in. He also would install drain tile and a crock and sump pump as well.

I know that the basement repair biz is often known for taking people for a ride and selling them on way more work than is really needed, but from looking at this place, I agree with his conclusions. I'd also consider replacing the 4th wall as well, it wouldn't be that much more work to do as long as they're already there and then you'd have basically a brand new basement, which would be a nice plus on an older home like this.

I'm wondering who here has had any experience with a basement in need of major repairs like this? How did your experience turn out? Anyone have any ballpark guesses as to what kind of $$$ I might be looking at here? If I stay interested in this one, I'd get a price from the guy that did the inspection, as well as contact several other companies/people qualified to do such work, I might have one old contact that might come in handy for this.

Or, is this just a can of worms to stay away from? Its been on the market for a while already and I'm guessing its not going anywhere soon because that basement is pretty scary! Just based on my own wild guesses as to what that basement work would cost (I'm guessing $40 to 50k but not sure at all) the place is somewhat overpriced right now, but assuming it keeps sitting and they know they have a real lemon on their hands, they'll let it go for a lot less.

Robert Taylor · Answer

Thanks John, J Scott and Ramon! I've been doing my due diligence on this place and the price would still have to come down quite a bit from what they're asking to make it a worthwhile project. Its been on the market just over a month, so I'm thinking it would need to sit a while longer before they're ready to come down to what I'm thinking of. I'm not in any huge rush to buy this particular place, but I'm contacting the listing broker again to see if the bank would be interested in my lowball offer right now. Its in a hot area, so its hard to say where they're at. Depending on their response, I might be coming through there next week with some basement guys for estimates. Thanks again!

Ramon Jenkins · Answer

My recommendations : ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 1. Contact American Foundation for free quote ( I also had decent experience with them in the past ) ( typically 3 - 4 days wait on appointments ) 2. J Scott suggestion 3. Ben your broker should have some foundation repair contacts Keep us posted and maybe upload some photos

J Scott · Answer

I've spent over $100K on foundation repairs this year alone, much of that on houses in Milwaukee. If you need any references for foundation contractors, shoot me an email or PM...

John Jobe · Answer

I had the walls repaired in my Moms house a few years back. They went on the inside and built new walls - 14" thick block with rebar and filled with concrete. They also filled the area between the old and new walls. The new wall was anchored to the existing slab and to the floor joist above. The total length of the walls was about 130 feet and the height was about 7'. The total for this was about 14,000.00

Robert Taylor · Answer

Thanks Kyle and Dawn, nice to hear from some fellow WI people! Kyle, the job that you stopped off at sounds like they were doing the basic thing as what they called for at this house, except for the basement floor as you mentioned. This house is around that size, maybe a little larger but not that much, its a 2 story house so the basement isn't that big. It sounds like the numbers you're talking about would come somewhere near the range I was guessing. Dawn, no they didn't give any prices with the inspection write up, which always makes me wonder why, because obviously if the guy came out and did his whole inspection, it wouldn't take that much more to write up an estimate. I've heard of the company you mentioned, I'm going to do a little looking and run some more comps at the same time and decide if its worth spending any more time on this one or if its a waste of time.

Dawn Anastasi · Answer

Did he give you an estimate with his report? Another company to look at is American Foundation Specialists. I had them come out for one property that had some minor foundation wall issues and they put up steel beams. But I stay away from anything that looks like it's crumbling or needs excavation.

Kyle Hipp · Answer

I am a little north of you in the fox cities. I was working on a place today and as I was driving saw a home that was having all the brick basement walls replaced from damage. I stopped back latter when the contractor owner was there and spoke with him for a bit. They braced up the building in place and dug around the perimeter. Then removed old block and built new cinder block basement walls. From my understanding they where not replacing the floor and foundation but just the walls. That job just to replace the walls was around $18,000. I would say this house was maybe 25' x 30'. Now on the place you are looking at. If the basement floor is cracked and bowing up or the footings have shifted then you might have to replace it but I think that would be rare but that is just my guess. I have had a couple quotes on my home that we just moved into this spring. My house has water coming through the crack in the floor of the basement and from my contractors and research I beliebe by installing interior drain tile and a sump pump that should fix that problem. The cost estimate for my house interior drain was in the $5,000 and the house is roughly 35' x 25'. So based on this you could be looking at $25,000 - $30,000. If however you do need to pour a new basement foundation I believe that would really complicate the lifting of the house and add significant cost and the foundation pour itself would prolly run $5,000 easy. I also think with the exterior dug out from replacing the walls you could just put in exterior drain tile and save some cost. These are just my thoughts so I would say you could be as low as $25,000 but with a couple issues or extra square footage also easily hit $50,000. For the right price it would be worth a look and worst case you have a couple guys take a look and give you qoutes and you learn a little more and have more opportunities down the road.