Home Purchase Basement Inspection

[kw1969]

We are currently looking at homes to purchase. We are very interested in a doublewide that is placed on a poured concrete foundation with a full basement. However, when we looked at the basement, there are some cracks in the foundation walls (mostly under the basement windows) and some water on the floors. The owner says it only happens during heavy rains. Not sure whether this water is coming from the cracks, the outside basement doors (which are not closed all the way), or what. Prior to putting an offer in, or paying for a full home inspection, (which we will do later of course), is there anyone who will come look at this basement to tell us if there is structural damage at these cracks, where the water might be coming from, & if the repairs needed are costly, so we can make a fair offer (if any). By the way, we need to do this asap, we are very interested in the home (everything else is great). We live in Greene County, New York (about 30 miles south of Albany).

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[richard]

Basement Systems dealers offer Free inspections and estimates.

Fill out the form at the link below or call us at 1-800-638-7048 to contact your local dealer. The local dealer will need to get into the home to perform the inspection.

http://www.basementsystems.com/forms/contact.php

Thanks for your question.

[chumpchange]

Your basement space is unusable for anything other than storing tires right now and will create a mold problem that will affect the atmosphere of this house for as long as you own it.

You need to get a competent house inspector to look at the basement and determine if the wall cracks are shrinkage cracks or serious structural cracks. Then get a BSystems guy to look at it also, and get an estimate for fixing the water problem.

Once you have an estimate, take it right off the top of the house price. If the owners balk, then you don't want the house. I know you have passion around this purchase, but this crack and water situation will haunt you now, and when you go to try to sell the house later.

Tough love. The seller pays or you find another house.