All Forum Posts by: Gregory Banks

To close the loop on this story, we hired Rick Dempsey (who was fantastic by the way, highly recommended if anyone needs a MA-base SE...Matt Kelly, we really appreciate that referral!). Who noted that we simply have a porous basement wall, like every other basement wall from that time period. He recommended we do some work to move the outflow from nearby downspouts further away and then clean/reseal the interior wall. Not sure what the final $$ will be, but certainly not $35K.

Thanks again to everyone for their thoughts on this!

Thank you, Lien, both for the advice and the referral - I will reach out!

-Greg

Jonathan, if you want some knob and tube wire for your electrical museum, it's got that too...I'm out of my depth in knowing whether they are marketers or giving sound advice. Looks like biting the bullet and getting an engineer may be my best bet. Ugh...

Thank you Nathan, I appreciate the input. 

Hi all, my LTR (Boston, built in the 1930's) has some cracks in the basement walls that I didn't think were too serious (owned for 10y, some water and flaking but mostly dry). A new owner in the condo building is worried about them and wants them repaired. Ok, fine. We got three estimates from masonry repair companies ranging from $7,500 (patch) to $35,000 ("do this repair now or you will need a major $80K repair"). They each have different stories about what is going on that are pretty different - how do I find out what is really going on in order to make this decision? Other BP threads seem to indicate a structural engineer could make the call, but that getting one is pricey. How would you approach this? Thanks for any advice you can offer...