Friend's Online Basement Inspection - My reaction, part2

Here are the rest of the images from the foreclosed home in NJ that my friend was looking at.

From the pictures I was able to draft up a "rough" (aka, not anywhere close to scale) of the the basement floor plan:

Because of the wood floor, my initial reaction was that that area was an addition with no concrete slab poured. I came to this conclusion A.) With the wood floor, b.) the akward end to the interior concrete block wall (see oil tank shot), and C.) from the mold appearing to discolor the wood floor.

All the images above can been enlarged by clicking on them.

I sent a reply email too him with the following information:

img_4577: Slight efflorencense left on walls
img_4578 - Furnece vent/chimney ash box - def' water damage, all that white power on the floor is evedence of direct water contact and evaporation.
img_4580- Pull that rug out ASAP!, the color changes in the image should be a red flag
Img_4584-4586: Mold coloring to wooden floors. Tear down walls and flooring. This basement has had water damage.

Telling by the akward paint job of only the first 2-3 feet of the walls, that tells me they a.) tried to dry lock only the areas that might have "been the problem" or b.) they're trying to cover up past water damage spots on the walls (see same color change in the Weight Room on all the finished walls). I wouldn't be surprised if that wood floor covered up and area of just soil. It seems to be an "addition" area because of how the wall suddenly ends at the start of the doorway.

1.) Past water damange
2.) Oil line from oil tank to furnace needs to be upgraded to above floor flex pipe with oil pump at tank. This line should also be insulated. This is a code issue.
3.) Remove any an all organic material: Rugs, wood, wood walls.

Demo might range anywhere from $400-$2000 depending on square footage.
Updating the fuel line should fall in the $300-$400 range
Depending on the linear footage of the basement properly waterproofing it could range from $6,000-$10,000

My Friend's Reply:

Yeah we have looked at everything. the main bathroom needs all the titles in the shower/tub wall replaced. and the roof is slate, looks good from what we can see in the attic, we had heavy rain the past few days and we went back to look at it today. it handled the rain well and there might be some leaking in the roof, but it didn't look horrible. kitchen is new.

the problem is that if we can't take a second mortgage then we will have no money to fix the place up, but we might try and negotiate with the bank and have them pick up the cost of fixing it and we'll tack that on to our asking price.

We discovered that this was an addition that they made to the house THROUGH the main wall of the house, so you were right that its probably dirt underneath the plywood floor.

Related Reading and Links

Read about the Top 6 Basement Mistakes that contractors and homeowners make.

Ask Jacob A question Directly on Pioneer Basement's Help Forums!

Friend's Basement Inspection - My take on the images part1

So as I promised I'm posting up the images of some of the foreclosed home's basement. There are some minor cosmetic problems upstairs, but the basement is what drew a "red flag" for the couple.

Read about the Top 6 Most common Basement Mistakes.

He sent me the images through email and it was pretty fair to say that the basement had a very clear history of water damage. This was the first image that put up my "basement waterproofing inspection alarm!"

Now you might ask yourself "why such the fuss? It’s a water heater and a furnace. So what? I've marked the key factors in this next image to give you an idea of what I saw:

Noteable Basement Water Factors
This basement had some glaring issues the majority of them can be summed up in this one image.


Thin Yellow: Floor discoloration, efflorescence


Pink: Water run off marks from the chimney ash box, possible cause of regional floor markings.



Green: The entire basement (as you'll see in the next post) has this 2-3 foot painted section along the base of the concrete block foundation. Drylock doesn't typically come in white (all I’ve seen has been the retro florescent 70's green color), and most people who use drylock typically cover the whole of the walls with it, not just small sections. My initial reaction was that this was a cosmetic fix to hide past water damage levels on the walls.

The rest of the basement has an oil tank and a small "finished" room, done with dry wall and wood. And as you all know by now, wood and dry wall aren't good things to have in your basement because they're mold food! yum. The weight room even has a rug in it...seriously?



Basement Gym Room:
Red circle-upper left: They seemed the drywall ceiling with duct tape..different. Looking on the floor there is also indications that the ceilings and walls have been "played" with recently..aka drywall dust.

Red Rectangle, back wall - two holes in the foundation with evidence of water run off.

Green Rectangle- Paint is pealing off the bottom row of concrete block, evidence of direct moisture/water contact.

Green Squiggly and Red Squiggly: Discoloration in the rugs at various points. The red has more of a darker tone to it, which might indicate it as being soaked/recent; the Green area has a definite square pattern, which might indicate floor cracks. However, that question of "floor cracks or not" is answered by this next photo taken of the corner to the left of the camera.


Underbelly of the Basement Gym Floor
So...loe and behold! The underside of that rug is PLYWOOD! It explains the pattern found on the rug and we also find the possible source of the problem. Why? How? Well we'd have to lift that wood up to see what's going on underneath, but $10 says that there is a mold film or colonies living under that wood.

Visual discoloration at the bottom 1"-1.5" on the bottom of the wood pannels covering the walls.

Next blog will be the responce to my friend in an email form.


Related Reading and Links

Read about the Top 6 Basement Mistakes that contractors and homeowners make.

Ask Jacob A question Directly on Pioneer Basement's Help Forums!