Seriously... You want to do WHAT to our deck?

These are words I wish I had said to our foundation repair estimator on Friday. Since we moved into this house in March we have noticed a number of hairline cracks grow nasty and more aggressive. Since July they have been absolutely incredible and really had us scared.

The plan was for my mom and step-dad to take a look at them when they were in town to let us know if we would be able to fix all of them while they were here. (These cracks had clearly been here for a while, and looked as though the seller had simply patched them for sale... the Band-Aids have started to lose their stick and now we have gaping wounds on every wall in every room of the house).

After some discussion we decided that the cracks were far too many for us to properly correct while they were in town and it was decided that the best use of their time would be to help us with the deck -- besides, we had the wood standing in our front yard already!

We decided to call in the foundation company who had done the most recent foundation work on the house. We bought the home with a double lifetime warranty as you may remember... the house had had to separate lifts in it's life. Once at the back and once up front... each of these lifts has a lifetime warranty. We finally had our guy come over on Friday.

He was a great guy, and very sensitive to our first-time-home-buyer-low-cash-high-stress-freak-out situation. He explained that after the last lift he had advised the previous owner to have the plumbing pressure tested to make sure that the property shift had not displaced anything under the house. He stated that he had told the previous owner that the warranty would be voided if he did not take care of the pressure test, and repair any plumbing leaks that may have occurred. He told us yesterday that looking at the giant cracks in our walls, it would seem that the previous owner did NOT take care of this... the middle of the house is sinking and the edges are bobbing up....

You can see where we're going with this can't you...

We quickly asked if that would affect our warranty? I mean... the foundation was the biggest question in our minds when we looked at this house. I still have copies of numerous emails back and forth to our agent and the sellers agent discussing our fears, and asking questions. We were finally told that there was a warranty on the foundation, and we were put in touch with this company who assured us that whatever may come down the road, we were covered as far as the foundation was concerned... cosmetic repairs were our own problem. Fair enough right? Well after taking some time to think about it we decided "better the devil we know (and have a warranty for) than the devil we don't know"... this is Central Texas and foundation issues exist everywhere in our area... at least this way we would go in knowing that it would be a problem, but having the warranty to cover the $20-50K foundation repairs that could be incurred. In all we decided it was a safer bet for us.

Fast forward to yesterday. We stood dumbfounded as Isaac explained that the warranty COULD be voided if the previous owner did not make necessary repairs to the plumbing. He suggested that we get a pressure test done to the plumbing before calling him to come back. We turned white as sheets and I swear I thought I was going to have a heart attack.... when finally he said, "Well, I mean I know this is not your fault. I just needed to mention that this is in the contract so that you know... if you were not such a nice customer I wouldn't need to make the repairs if the plumbing hasn't been seen to, but since it's not your fault and had nothing to do with you, I can tell you that I WILL fix it as part of the warranty and if necessary I will just go after him myself." It was at this point that Peter added, "If he didn't make the repairs (repairs never mentioned in the sellers disclosure) WE will go after him too!"

OK. So enough doom and gloom right? Let's say he DID have the plumbing repaired. Let's say this is just a shift in the foundation and they need to repair it. How do we do that? What are our options?

"Well," began Isaac, "we have two options. First, we could go around the edges where everything is raised and remove shims so bring everything down back in alignment... but if there is an issue in the middle it would continue sinking and might not be the best option. Or, we could rip up all of your floors, go through the concrete foundation and reach all the piers under your house and make necessary adjustments to level them. Of course, this would require that you move out of the house for 2 weeks. I would recommend that we just do the edges... but oh... I don't think that deck was there when the warranty was written up... Uh, geez... the deck needs to come off. We need to access the piers down that side of the house, and certainly when we lift the house the deck (which is attached by bolts to the concrete foundation) will lift with it... Yes. The deck will need to go."

!!!!!!!



Isaac leaves... we sit down and begin to panic. Naturally we each call a parent to share the disturbing news. My mom is understandably hysterical about the impending death of the new deck... We beat around some ideas for alternatives and come up with something... Moving out for two weeks is the least of our problems, we would be happy to do that. The deck cost nearly $7,000 plus a week of labor in mid-July Central Texas summer... i.e. H-O-T!! The $6,000 doesn't include the 3 cases of water, hospital bills incurred from my foot accident nor any of the other incidentals we picked up... I think ultimately we were closer to $10k invested in that deck... no WAY were we giving it up.

I left our plans with Isaac on his voicemail and he called us back with another option. He says that since the corner where the deck is is on the high side, we COULD just bring everything else up to match that side of the house. ANd to avoid needing to access that side of the house, we could just pull up the carpet (YAYYYY!!) and go throught he floors. Perfect!

So where are we now? OK. We have to pay for a plumber to come out and do a hydro pressure test on the pipes. (Around $500). Once we have the results of this test we will decide on next steps. If there is a leak under there we will need to have that fixed once the foundation is lined up again... and we will have two VERY mad people trying to find a certain Mr and Mrs G. Martin of Austin for answers... Hopefully it is simply a matter of getting the piers sorted out and we're good to go again... oh... well after we get the drywall patched, taped and painted...

We're learning a LOT about this whole house buying thing. I know for sure that the next time we are trying to buy a house we have many more questions we want to ask... and honestly, I don't think we will buy anywhere near this area again. We asked Isaac if he has much business in the area. He told us that our street is one of the busiest as far as foundation repairs. We asked, "Where do you NEVER have to go?" He said North-West Austin where he lived is pretty solid. SInce AUstin is out of our price range and Peter starts a new job in the town of Leander soon I asked about Leander... Isaac says he rarely if ever has any calls out there... sounds like a solid place to buy! haha We'll see how it goes.

What we have discovered is that the previous owner here just had the foundation repaired, brought some cheap labor in here to slap patches over the cracks, spray in some paint and lay cheap carpet and then get this baby on the market. Peter keeps saying that we should just "put the lipstick back on the pig and get the hell outta here!" I still think we could make it work and really make this a nice place for the next person. Besides... we're not going anywhere until the market starts picking up again.