"I think my house may have shifted a little"

[DEVO]

Pictures are of a house I looked at on Martha's Vineyard yesterday. The General Contractor hired a house moving company to move the house back and up onto a new foundation, which they did. The GC then put in his own supports and told the mover to come take his stuff out. Well, the GC never fastened the house to the foundation in any way and what you see in the photos happened during the storm we had last April. Apparently the house was more or less just supported on a number of steel and make-shift wood columns and just barely sitting on the foundation. So when the wind started blowing it just fell forward 8-10 feet and DOWN 8-10 feet!!

[flatNshallow]

So how much are you out?

[RootSkier]

hahahaha

[mcsquared]

Kind of weird how the footprint of the foundation is bigger than the house? Looks odd to me. Like there is a foundation wall missing on the left side of the picture. Is that another house in the background that did the exact same thing?

[Cliff Huckable]

Mike Holmes is gonna be pissed.

[stayalert]

buy it. The chances of that ever happening again are on par with having a plane fly into it for sure.

[Core Shot]

what took so long? April storm and it still looks like that?

[Tourette Dude]

Looking at houses in Martha's Vineyard, huh? You should come out west and ski up at Mt. Baker. You'll fit right in.

[DEVO]

When I say I was "looking at it", I meant for work. I have to put a value on what it would hypothetically cost to put it back to the way it was before it fell. It has taken so long because first the owners sued the GC's insurance company whose policy maxed out at $500K, now they are suing the home movers insurance company to try and get more money. I am working for the attorney representing the home mover and his insurnace.

This job does not pay anywhere near enough to buy a house on the Vineyard.....

Also, an interesting note, the house was owned by Henry Kloss the stereo and speaker inventor. Apparently he started to have the house renovated in 2001, then died in 2002 before it was finished. The house sat empty (tied up in probate) until the the new owners somehow ended up with it and decided to have it moved.

[powder11]

how would you go about repairing that, isnt the framing all buckled?

[Tourette Dude]

When I say I was "looking at it", I meant for work. I have to put a value on what it would hypothetically cost to put it back to the way it was before it fell. It has taken so long because first the owners sued the GC's insurance company whose policy maxed out at $500K, now they are suing the home movers insurance company to try and get more money. I am working for the attorney representing the home mover and his insurnace.

This job does not pay anywhere near enough to buy a house on the Vineyard.....

Also, an interesting note, the house was owned by Henry Kloss the stereo and speaker inventor. Apparently he started to have the house renovated in 2001, then died in 2002 before it was finished. The house sat empty (tied up in probate) until the the new owners somehow ended up with it and decided to have it moved.

Sorry about that . I thought you were somebody bitching about the fact they wouln't have a place to park their Rolls Royce.

[G]

I grew up on a beach not too far from there. Had the ocean right out my back door. Our neighbor's had a small cabin about 100 yards over from us, and up on a slight hill. We had a big storm roll through one winter, and everyone left for higher ground. the waves came right up to the edge of the houses and washed away the ground on the ocean facing side. Our back porch drifted off to sea. The house next door had all the sand around it and beneath the foundation undercut by the waves.

Their house rolled, intact, down the hill and onto it's roof. It just stuck there on the beach, all in one piece, with it's roof jammed in the sand.

[DEVO]

how would you go about repairing that, isnt the framing all buckled?

You wouldn't repair it. It is scheduled to be demolished any day. I have to put a value on what it would cost to HYPOTHETICALLY replicate the building as it stood the day it fell. So in other words what would it cost to tear down that structure, and build a new one back up on the new foundation. If a judge (or jury) finds that the home moving company is somehow also responsible for this happening, then they will use our figures to determine how much more money they get.

We don't work for lawyers very often, 99% of our work is for insurance companies. We inspect all kinds of damaged buildings, fires, storm damages, vehicle collisions, etc, pretty much everything but flood losses (separate insurance coverage and companies for flood). I spent a lot of time in Florida/Louisiana/Mississippi after those hurricanes. We also did a lot of work in and around "ground zero" in NY after 9/11. I was part of a team that developed what the cost would be to replace the two towers for the insurance companies side. One day I could be looking at a $100M loss and the next day looking at someone's house for a small kitchen fire, etc.

[Big E]

You wouldn't repair it. It is scheduled to be demolished any day. I have to put a value on what it would cost to HYPOTHETICALLY replicate the building as it stood the day it fell. So in other words what would it cost to tear down that structure, and build a new one back up on the new foundation.

So would you include the cost to, you know, actually attach the house to its foundation in the estimate? Because technically, if you wanted to build it back up just to the point that it was before it fell, well, you wouldn't need to bother attaching it.

[DEVO]

So would you include the cost to, you know, actually attach the house to its foundation in the estimate? Because technically, if you wanted to build it back up just to the point that it was before it fell, well, you wouldn't need to bother attaching it.

Good question. Because this is a third party case, technically I believe the insurance company only owes them for what they had at the time of the loss, so no I probably will not carry any cost to attach it to the foundation.