How we bought a country house: part 2 - departure of the owner and a surprise with the foundation

Buying a home on the secondary market is a lottery: the new owner may face surprises that will have to be corrected, while investing a lot of money. Participant FORUMHOUSE under the nickname tvm191 told his story of buying a country house, where, in addition to the oddities of the seller, new unpleasant moments were revealed.

Owners without possession

So, on March 15, we became the documented owners of 12 acres with a house of 82 m2, a garage, an excellent garden and the prospect of a long renovation. At the same time, the feeling of happiness from the purchase did not come - the situation remained difficult.

The former owner, under all pretexts, did not want to leave his home. He is like the owner who loved his cat: he delayed leaving his native land, citing a bunch of far-fetched reasons. All this time we could not feel like full-fledged owners. But still, under pressure from realtors and the argumentation of the deal, the grandfather left the house. It happened at the end of April!

He drank a lot of blood and after that we lived for a couple of weeks in an alarming state: we were afraid that the old man would come back and start dripping on our brains. But that's it: the house is free and we could start work. After this news, we immediately made a call to old friends of the builders and appointed an hour for Ch.

How many thoughts and plans were born in our heads. As a result, we decided that we would leave only the first floor of the old building, attach three more aerated concrete walls to it and cover all this with a frame of the second floor.

Surprise with a foundation

On Sunday, April 29, 2018, at 8 a.m., a solemn meeting with the builders took place, the wishes were marked and the go-ahead was given to the start of work. Fortunately, the brigade has been familiar to us for a long time (more than 10 years), because with their help houses have already been built for parents on both sides, and they themselves have been attracted for more than one year to build a summer house.

The only problem was joining the two foundations. Having dug out the old one, it became clear that it was assembled from just about anything: somewhere there were rows of lamp posts, FBS-ki, the corners were filled with concrete. This came as an unpleasant surprise, which required finding a solution to the problem.

To do this, having shoveled the entire Internet, two options for joining the foundations were found:

• The two foundations are connected and tied together, i.e. become a monolith.
• Two foundations are placed side by side, through the jointing, and an expansion joint is made, allowing them to "walk" separately.

The first option suited me completely, since single walls were planned with subsequent insulation and wet plaster. There was only one scarecrow - the possible cracking of the interfaces due to the uneven subsidence of the foundations.

But, starting to dig the foundation, it became clear that the main rock at the base is sand. Almost ideal for our case. After consulting with all the professional builders we know, we decided to dig 1.6 m by drilling the reinforcement into the old one. Well, we started...

Live and learn

In addition to the fact that the owner drank blood for several months, he still did not tell what the foundation was made of. This was important for us, since we were going to make an annex. The prefab of concrete trash the construction of the foundation came as a surprise and a little upset. Grandfather said one thing - in fact, it turned out to be different. But nothing - since we bought it, we will put it in order! And for us, science is not everything that is sold easily to buy!

Have you had any surprises when buying a house or apartment? Write in the comments!

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