My basement renovation project progress: May 2009

Spring is officially here and yard work and family has been taking priority for me. One of the new things to happen is my Girlfriend’s sister has moved into our basement and will be living there for the next Month.

2 Projects came from this all in the same day. a.) Renovating the Basement’s ½ Bathroom and b.) Installing a temporary door to keep her cat downstairs (I’m allergic).

Like with any project around the home you have the helpful “check list” for projects

1.) Measure! If you don’t know how much space you have or are going to be dealing with you’re looking at a large percentage of material waste in your project. In today’s economy and with urgent need to help our environment, every little bit of scrap needs to be avoided.

2.) Draw it out. When you’re building anything that requires solid cuts, making a drawing and measuring it will help you do the math, make your cut list and keep waste down and your work time down.

3.) Clearing the work area: Making sure we had a clear work area, work surfaces, and a clear place to store things makes life so much simpler.

Our bathroom flooring was chosen because it’s an inorganic laminate flooring with a built in sub floor in it. This will have to go down first and cut outs made so that the toilet can be installed. The walls in the bathroom are going to be painted as well.

The Door will be installed on the walk in mud stones. Because it’s only temporary and the Homeowner didn’t want too much damage to the walls (which I’ll have to repair later anyway) we’re going with simple wood studs and a pre-framed door.

Next Projects on the list: Molding, More Painting, and a built in bookcase.

Hiring Unlicensed Home Improvement Contractors can hurt the community more than help.

Michael F. Sabitoni, President of the Rhode Island Building and Construction Trades Council, wrote a piece for the Providence Journal last year entitled “Contractors behaving badly: Secret economy cheats workers, state.”

It dealt more directly with a few local incidents in Rhode Island with contractors receiving kickbacks from their workers, who were under paid, and in some cases not national citizens. This basically, again, unearthed that this practice is rampant in the construction industry and that many workers, or laborers, are paid under the table. By doing this it allows the contractor and the laborers to skip out on many taxes.

If you’re doing a home improvement project at home and the contractor you hire isn’t licensed with the state you’re setting yourself up for a great deal of financial hurt.

Firstly: By not having a license they’re not recognized in the state as a proper HIC business. This also should shoot up a red flag of warning that they are also not properly insured. Many states link the two together, you must have insurance to get your HIC license for the state and before you can do ether, you must be locally registered and state registered as a business with the Chamber of C\ommerce.

Secondly: If something goes wrong in the project, damage, abandoning the work and contract, or not fulfilling obligations you have a few options. I always suggest trying to work something out directly with the contractor. Many things can be simply corrected just with straight forward. However, if things get bad and lawyers need to be called, the state can’t help you to locate, find, prosecute, or help you mediate with an unlicensed contractor.

Thirdly: The contractor, who isn’t licensed, doesn’t pay fees/dues every year to have their license renewed. This is essentially more tax money that the local government will have to find elsewhere. Combine this with the other money that’s not being paid in local, state, or federal taxes by paying workers under the table and you can see hundreds to thousands of dollars being withheld (depending on the size of the business it can be much more!).

Just last year $4.5 million was missing, in Illinois, based on the amount of money that wasn’t declared by license and unlicensed contractors. The licensed contractors can at least be reprimanded and forced to pay this money. But the unlicensed contractors get away with your cash to make their wallets fatter.

In my series or blogs that I’ve done with consumer protection issues I’ve strongly urged people to change the way they shop for contractors. Doing a little bit of research can not only help you get a better project done, but provide reassurance that you’re not hurting your town or state tax payers (your neighbors).

Be Aware: Offers that sound too good to be true (i.e. Basement Finishing for under $9k, or total bathroom remodeling for some small amount) often are. Contractors can be skipping out on both quality materials and on proper employee wages in order to cut costs and get more jobs. If something sounds too good, it probably is.

Do you research: HIC numbers are public knowledge and any company that is properly licensed should have evidence of it on their person, vehicles, or a wallet copy that can be verified online with your Department of Public Safety.

Don’t Sign Anything: If you’re not convinced or having double-checked the contractors’ credibility, don’t sign anything. Reschedule for a revisit; give yourself time to find the answers and the verification you’re looking for. But be upfront about it!

Companies would rather have you as a comfortable customer than an uncomfortable panicked whistle blower. If a company wants to do business the right way, they provide the customers will all the information they need to know that they’re covered and protected in their purchase. Unlicensed and uninsured contractors create more liability and won’t be able to provide proper information that would set you at ease.

Bottom Line: It’s better, overall, to do business with a licensed and insured contractor.



Recent Construction Industry News in Rhode Island:
New partnership to provide training to contractors and enhance safety during construction of new Warwick Intermodal Station

Home Improvement in this current Economy

Continued Weaknesses in Housing and the Overall Economy Result in Two Years of Market Declines
The home improvement market hadn’t seen a decline since 1991. In the HIRI/Global Insight home improvement products market forecast update of August 2008, we now have revised estimated declines of both 0.7% in 2007 and 3.1% in 2008. The estimate for 2008 sales was lowered by $5.3 billion from the previous forecast (February 2008) to $296.8 billion. The updated 2007 forecast for the market came in at $306.2 billion, a downward revision of just $0.5 billion. The continued downturn in the housing market coupled with..
Full story: http://www.hiri.org/inside.asp?id=21

NJ.com Article : Correct Basement Answer, not found.

Another article with slightly poor advice.
http://www.nj.com/homegarden/homeimprovement/index.ssf/2008/10/q_we_are_planning_on.html

Q. I have a basement with standard masonry walls. There's a little "bump out" workshop that was put in sometime after the original house was completed. The owner cut through the original foundation to create a door and built an underground workshop there. An enclosed sun porch rests atop the workshop. The workshop is the dampest part of the basement. We keep finding puddles in one corner, sometimes up to a half-inch deep. This happens every few weeks, regardless of the weather. We have to take out the shop vac and vacuum it up.

That dries things out for a little while, but, inevitably, the water returns, and a portable dehumidifier doesn't seem to help. There are no visible cracks or condensation on the walls, and the water appears to either be bubbling up through the floor or through microscopic cracks at the base of the wall. (The floor is covered in 50-year-old asphalt tile and mastic, so we can't see whether there are any obvious cracks on the slab below.)

The rest of the basement is bone dry, including the other side of the workshop. We spoke with a few different basement waterproofing companies, all of whom told us that the only solution was to put in a sump pump. But that seems like overkill if the problem is only in one corner of this little part of the basement. What would you recommend? Short of digging out the foundation and resealing it from the outside, or repouring the floor, we're flummoxed!

-- Union

A. If the puddles appear during any season and you don't see any wetness on the walls indicating condensation, it is likely that the water is coming through the walls. If it were coming through cracks in the floor, you would likely see white efflorescence in the joints between the old asphalt tiles. Check the grade around the entire foundation, as water can travel considerable distances before it finds a weak point. Make sure that the grade flows away from the foundation and correct any low or flat areas.

It is also possible that, when the "bump out" was built, a dirt ball fell on the footings before the walls were erected and, over time, water pooling at the base of the foundation has found its way inside at that point; I have seen this before, where the top of the footing was not thoroughly cleaned before the wall forms were set up or the concrete blocks were laid. If the walls are made of poured concrete, you may want to try to waterproof them with one of the coatings available in hardware and building supply stores. However, if the walls are concrete or cinder blocks, do not waterproof them from inside, as their cores may fill with water and cause worse problems. If the condition is so small, as you say, you may just have to live with it.

I'll say this again in responce to this statement:
"If the walls are made of poured concrete, you may want to try to waterproof them with one of the coatings available in hardware and building supply stores"

Coatings don't work for long periods of time. They should only be used as a temperary solution if used at all.

The man, Henri de Marne is a little rough with the person asking for help. No one has to "live with" a wet basement. In fact no one SHOULD live with it because over long term not only is it damaging to your house but damaging to your health.

This is clearly a problem that's caused by both the land grade and something that's wrong with the footing/wall cold joint. I'm guessing there's not exterior drain system to speak of and it sounds like the area actually needs a bit of work.

Dinggy looking wood furtinure can be fixed with coatings and paints, not foundation walls.

Info on FHA 203K for Home Improvement needs

Everyone I've met in the past few months have asked about financing, do I do it, can I do it, who do I use and etc. That's all well and good but even financing can't cover everything.

I give all the resources that I can and now I've been looking into government backings.

This lady Jane Anne (I admit I just started reading) posted throughly about the FHA203K home improvement Loans.

It's very informative, non-biased look at this loan is a very important additive to your Arsenal. It covers basement waterproofing and other home improvement needs.

here's a sample of what it could help you cover!:

1. New freestanding appliances
2. Bathroom remodels
3. Master bedroom remodel
4. Upgrading HVAC
5. Adding energy efficient improvements
6. Wells and septic repair and upgrades
7. New siding
8. Interior painting
9. Exterior painting
10. Attic build-outs
11. Waterproofing the basement
12. Creating a media room
13. Adding a 2nd floor

Some of these improvements can of course be built into the basement, after the basement was waterproofed. So theoretically you can use this loan to totally finish your basement off. Hope!

Give it a read, take it into consideration.