porous mindless: Desirable Location

Houses and relationships both start basically the same way, with a good foundation. The one other factor that only applies to the house is location. With houses or more accurately in real estate it is all about the location. Anything near the water is usually quite desirable, near a freeway not so much. Sometimes these desirable locations do not lend themselves to building a house. Sure that hillside with a view is charming, the view gorgeous, however building on it may present some extreme challenges.

Pier and beam foundation

Difficulty in construction is going to equate to hard times on the wallet. Simply the more difficult or elaborate the build, the more cash it will cost. Desire can often lead to short cuts or ignoring reality in the quest to have what one wants.

On a recent walk through inspection of a bank foreclosure, it became glaring apparent that this particular house had been doomed from ground breaking over 70 years ago. After looking over the exterior my guess was the little house had begun life as a cabin. It had been added on to several times over the years and now was a two bedroom house. Judging from the basic, original foot print, things would have been okay for the little cabin if it had been left a little cabin.

Door and window The house was built into the side of a steep rocky hill. Hills and house do not usually mix well. The problem of course is drainage. The other issue is the lack of a level area.

Being this was originally a cabin, the foundation and structure were minimal. The foundation consisted of "piers" made of rocks, no surprise, there were plenty around the site, supporting wood beams. The additions were similarly supported, some of the newer piers were made of wood or concrete block. Some of the wood piers were decaying. The underside of the cabin / house was also wide open. Clearly there had been, were, many critters residing under the house.

Soil over house framing

As the additions were built over the years, they each ran up against the hill. At the corner of one addition the soil was over the framing. Exacerbating the issue, the down spout was placed at this point. Moving along towards the front, the framing gradually became higher than the soil, but not by more than one or two inches max.

A double French door in this side wall here told the story of how this structure was doomed to fail. As will happen with all wood that is continually wet and in contact with the ground, it was rotten. The sill plate along the side of the house was so decayed, the door and floor were noticeable sinking. The thresh hold instead of pitching away from the door had changed direction, now pouring more water onto the sill plate. A large hole was present in the corner of the door frame inside the house. The door no longer would close.

Hole in floor Someone had purchased this property with the intent of fixing it up. The new kitchen was about two thirds complete. It's impossible to know what bankrupted the owner. It could have been merely a small budget and too much repair. Perhaps reality reared its ugly head, shining a light on the enormity of the project and he/she walked away.