All Forum Posts by: Mark P Grimes

I 100% agree with @Scott M. get a public adjuster. My mother’s house was damaged by a tornado and our public adjuster got her almost triple the original amount. I would check that they are a member of NAPIA (National association of Public Insurance Adjusters) and also check references. Good luck!

I agree with @Dave E. and @Genny Li definitely do not pay to have your HVAC ducts relocated to the attic. In the summertime in South Carolina your outside humidity will be high. If you put a humidistat in your crawl space in August and measured the humidity levels they could easily be over 90%. This is what is causing the moisture damage and mold. Best solution is to encapsulate and insulate (the walls) of the crawl space. Then either use a dehumidifier especially for crawl spaces or dump some conditioned air from the ducts into the crawl space. This will dry out your crawl space. We had the same issue here in Tennessee and my humidity levels were at 99% in the summer before encapsulating the crawl space and dumping some conditioned air into the crawl space. Now it never exceeds 50%. One word of caution is to check the radon levels after encapsulation to make sure they are in an acceptable level.

If you want to get into the weeds of crawl spaces and their problems here is a good article:

https://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/article/new-vented-crawl-spaces-should-be-illegal

@Connor Cushman

Totally agree. We buy new builds and find great tenants. We forget we have rental properties most days.

I would highly recommend, “The Book on Managing Rental Properties” by Heather and Brandon Turner. This helped us find great tenants!

Water, water, water. Most foundation issues are caused by water.. As previously mentioned check all gutters and downspouts and any pipes they lead into are free flowing and not clogged. Also that the gutters and downspouts are properly sized. Make sure the water is draining at least 10 feet away from the house. Would probably be worth renting a snake camera if the downspouts are draining into underground pipes to make sure they are not clogged or crushed. If you do have pipes you can also rent a locator for the snake camera. This will let you know where the pipes are in the ground. Also check your French drains that they can drain properly. If French drains aren’t present then definitely install them. Lastly make sure the soil is gradually sloping away from the house for about 10 feet.

As a structural engineer told me when looking at a foundation issue we had. It is more important to fix what caused the problem than to fix the problem.

Good luck!

I would recommend an effluent filter on the outlet of the septic tank (like Polylok PL-122). This will protect the leach field from debris. They say it can double the life of your leach field. They are cheap to have installed and only need cleaning when the tank is pumped. I have found septic is much cheaper than sewer but run the numbers.

Don’t forget you will probably have a connection charge and/or installation cost of new sewer line from the city connection to your property if you decide to connect. Also make sure you won’t have to pay for the new sewer line whether you use it or not. This happen to another property. The city put a new sewer line in and everyone had to pay for sewer whether they used it or not (150% of water bill).

Good luck!!