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We’re looking to buy a 2-story rowhouse with a poured concrete basement and just had a home inspection done. Bad news, there looks like was extensive termite damage and three wood beams were removed and replaced along with a new steel post (poured into the concrete foundation.)

Now, structural post work like this, does this need to be signed an engineer, filed and inspected?

(I would guess this did not happen here as our home inspector says there were were no lag bolts sandwiching the beams together AND there was no plate to joint the beams where they were split right above the post plate.)

Anyway, we got 3 pieces of paper from the owner now as a disclosure. One is an inspection report date 5/19/08 with recommendations. One is a cost estimate for $10,000 from 5/22/08 which mentions removing ceiling tiles to get to certain rotted 3×8 beams. It lists treatment with Bora Care. AND ODDLY ENOUGH, it says “five year warranty on above structural repair work.” It does not elaborate anymore what the structural work is.

Does this sound super shady? Should a exterminator be doing structural work? To me the whole package reaks of trying to infer the right steps were taken to address what is/was a very serious problem.

Lastly, there is a section of the basement ceiling that still looks original – it’s a ugly wavy thing and hubby said its probably the old metal lath with plaster thrown up against it. My question is, how can a inspection report guareentee the treatment of all termites when in my opinion, they should have torn that old ceiling down and looked at the beams there too.

Thoughts?