 | Husbands, WivesA Cracking FoundationPosted Thursday, September 4th, 2008 and visited 167 times, 1 so far today by MInTheGap |
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No, not in our relationship, in our cellar walls!
For some time now we’ve known that our basement as a mold/mildew problem. We’ve actually had a couple different people come in to take a look at it. The first one was a guy that wanted to drill holes in the bottom concrete blocks of my house’s foundation and then run a new drainage system around the outside.
And that was only protecting me against the basement floor from getting wet, which is wasn’t.
Tuesday, a different man came to my house. His company injects some Balsam clay into the ground around my house to seal my house’s foundation and make it waterproof. The clay enlarges when in contact with water, and fills in the cracks in my foundation.
He’s the first guy that actually showed me where my concrete block wall was starting to show signs of strain.
And he’ll fix it all for $6,900—what a deal! Wish I carried that around in my pocket.
So, now I’m in a pickle. I’ve gotten out of debt, and I really want to stick to an all cash way of living, but I’m not sure how I fund this repair (now’s a good season to do it) without getting one of those Home Equity Loans or a Home Equity Line of Credit.
I mean, Mortgage Interest Rates seem to be cooperating, and it would be something that I could pay a bulk of in cash (emergency fund?), but I’m just not sure that I want to go back into debt. I like not being in debt!
What would you do?
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September 4th, 2008 at 9:03 pm
You can not build a home, or allow it to be on a bad foundation. Isn’t there some other way to fix this or to off-set the cost?
September 8th, 2008 at 9:25 am
@Carol: Still looking at all the options. The guy selling the sealing thinks that I can prevent the water from coming in– that it’s not too late. I’m not so sure.
September 11th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
How bad is the damage? Is this something that needs to be fixed ASAP? If it is an emergency you might want to look for a HELOC or something like that if delaying will cause further damage to your home. After all, HELOC ARE for home repairs (despite how the banks will tell you they are for vacations, spending sprees, tuitions, etc.)
If it’s not an immediate threat, perhaps you could start an aggressive saving plan so that way you would have to borrow as little as possible.
If you end up getting the HELOC, then be sure to instruct the banker that you ONLY want what it will need to fix the repairs. Because the charlatans will try to get you maximum loan-to-value, sometimes even going about 80%. This increases temptation to borrow against it and can also damage your credit because of the debt-to-equity ratio it would adjust.
The (only) good thing about HELOCs are the lower interest rates and sometimes they will even give you a sub-prime rate for the first 3 months. If you could work out a plan where you could pay this off in 3 months, it could cut back on interest you would have to pay.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
@Rachel: I’m not sure how much was being a good salesman and how much was actually true. We’re going to get a second opinion. But thanks for the advice– I might end up going with some kind of loan or saving until my Emergency Fund is bigger.