TERMITE damage, shady structural work?
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…
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?
Be careful with termites. They require special approach. We (me and my wife) almost lost our house because of those insects. Now we learned from trial and error that a termite inspection is crucial.
Jenny
Well NeoGrec your exterminators aren’t too familiar with the building code then. Yes, structural work requires filing and a signoff, whether it is one joist or all of them. The city isn’t set up for fine distinctions like that — in its view you are either working on structural elements (like the above described) or you’re not.
But that’s for proposed work that you’re going to undertake. Work done in the past isn’t necessarily something the DoB involves itself with. So it shouldn’t be an obstacle for Helpls that this was done in the past without a filing, other than how much that’s telling about the level of care and responsibility for the work (which the inspector seems to think is shoddy anyway). In other words, Helpls wouldn’t need to file this retroactively or anything, but it’s a warning sign that there is perhaps no legally responsible party around if there’s a future problem. That includes the seller if they are fully disclosing this information.
My recommendation to Helppls is to ask the seller to allow another inspection, more invasive, that allows an inspector to remove some sections of the ceiling to make sure there’s no further damage. From what’s described, a “wavy” ceiling sounds like there may have been moisture present to warp it, and moist wood is like catnip to termites.
We recently had a single beam in our cellar replaced because of termite damage. We had 3 different exterminators come and estimate. Two recommended replacing the beam. I asked both of them whether the work needed to be supervised or signed off on by a structural engineer and they said no. I also got the same response from a neighbor who is a GC which lots of experience working on brownstones. The exterminator didn’t do the repair but we hired a contractor he recommended. So there may be nothing shady going on other than less than full initial disclosure by the seller. I agree the exterminator probably should have removed the metal sheeting to check for further termite damage. I understand that this is especially important in the ceiling area above the furnace. But they all have different approaches. Look on the bright side: termite damage is very common in these houses but the work was done by the seller, not you. And now you have a nice new steel post holding up your house. Bottom line: has your home inspector ok-ed the repair or is he/she saying it’s insufficient? I can’t quite tell from your post but if the former then you should be good.