When I first looked at this house in February of 2007, the first thing the real estate agent did when we walked in was to set her lipstick tube on the floor so I could watch it quickly roll towards the stairs. The story from the selling Realtor was “there’s something wrong under the house” but the inspectors reports could only say that there wasn’t enough access to get under there and see what was going on. After looking at several other properties, we jumped in, knowing full well that there was “something” that we’d have to deal with.
Fast forward to today, almost 4 years later, and as of yesterday afternoon, you can set a lipstick tube anywhere on the floor in the house and it won’t roll in its own. Thanks to Terra Firma for their service in installing a new central beam and smart jacks; our house no longer slopes down to the center. Our celebration was confirmed last night as we read through the original inspector’s report and could say that we’ve tended to 15 out of the 18 things that were originally advised to be addressed. Not bad for a couple of novices. Crazy thing is, we weren’t using that as a checklist. We’ve been working off of what seems like the next most important thing to deal with.
What was the process for reaching this monumental occasion? Thanks for asking! It all started way back at the beginning when Jeremy and Wade dug out a decent crawl space under the house. Thanks to Angela for supplying us with her kid’s sled so that Wade could shovel dirt onto it, and Jeremy could pull it out with a rope and dump it. From there, the original jury rigged piers were cleaned up a bit, and it was time to start dealing with the water (see earlier post about water everywhere.) The solution for “water everywhere” was to install an automatically operating sump pump. Terra Firma tried to just install the jacks, but at some point, someone had covered dry rotted support boards with new boards. Makeup does not a good foundation make. Anyway, new beams = no more dry rot.
So even if I can’t do any big projects for the next year, we can at least not worry about the desk chair rolling across the room, or a spilled glass of water chasing after the rug. I think this might have been the best investment in home improvement yet!
