Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Lipstick on a pig

I took a look at another house on Friday after work. The listing described it as "totally remodeled", and it was. New siding, new drywall, new floors, new carpeting, new kitchen cabinets, skylights (!), the works. Unfortunately, the remodel work was just covering up some pretty nasty stuff.

Most of the windows had been replaced, but I noticed that the original wood surrounding the new windows was awful punky. Then I went outside and checked out the areas of the framing that were not yet covered by the new siding being installed, and that wood was all rotted out as well. They were just covering up the damaged wood with siding, which doesn't seem like a real good idea to me.

The septic was shot, which immediately put it out of my price range. But the real deal-killer was the foundation. Oh, the foundation ...........
Don't open that access door ..............




Eeeeekkkk!
I have looked at more dismal/crappy/disintegrating foundations in the past few weeks than I care to remember. I swear, the house I finally buy is going to have a slab on grade. Screw the basement.

2 comments:

baseballmom said...

Yikes...thank goodness for home inspectors! Good thing you know what to look for.

rockygrace said...

Working for a structural engineer has its advantages. :)