Browse Forums General Discussion 1 Sep 17, 2009 6:29 pm Hi! I've never renovated a house before let alone written on a forum - so please be understanding! My husband and i are in the process of purchasing a house that we plan to renovate - of course we've heard lots of stories - often scary and expensive - however the point of this is yesterday we had a building inspector check out the place and he talked about leveling the house because the floor is a little off in places - i've talked to a few people today about leveling and raising the house - i'm wondering if anyone out there has leveled the house first renovated upstairs and then raised it later - say a few years? Did you have major problems or did it go smoothly? Re: leveling then raising 2Sep 17, 2009 7:19 pm We levelled our house - that is to say we demolished it! It was cheaper and the end result is not a compromise. If you can do it instead of a major reno its worth thinking about. ('Just putting it out there') Re: leveling then raising 4Sep 18, 2009 10:41 am My house was very topsy turvy when I bought it 15 yrs or so ago. One of the first things I did was replace all the remaining wooden stumps. When they did that they levelled it in the places where they could. The places where they couldn't were places where previous owners had reno'd and put in tiling which would crack if they levelled. So definitely get it levelled before you start with your renos! Some places we ended up taking out the existing floorboards and packing on top of each bearer so when we replaced the floorboards the room was level again. Other places we've just put up with sloping floors and pens that roll off tables LOL! Eventually we've redone every room but also outgrown the house. We couldn't see any logical extensions that suited our needs so have decided to sell for removal. The house removalist who bought it said that most he bought were in much worse nick than ours! (Even with its sagging beams and ups and downs). At the end of the day, we estimate it would have cost us in the vicinity of $20k to knock down (still some asbestos) while we got around $10k by selling it - we're $30k in front. Someone else will benefit from our reno's instead of them being knocked down and smashed with demo. And we've had 15 years living in it. I feel like we've definitely maximised the house! After we sold it, I sat and wondered whether we would have been better raising it and extending that way, but it really didn't suit the house - by the time we changed it to something reasonable it would have been very expensive and we still would have had old wiring, and other old structural hangovers. We discovered enough "surprises" in our reno's along the way that I'm sure there would have been more associated with a lift. 15yrs ago, the surprises were part of the fun of doing reno's but we don't have the energy/cash to deal with them now! HTH Kylie Re: leveling then raising 5Sep 18, 2009 11:00 pm We're in Brisbane. It cost us $11000 to have our small two bedroom cottage demolished and removed, and it also had some asbestos. Plus the necessary approvals (we're in a demolition control precinct). We looked briefly at a renovation but the council has small lot regulations that are quite rigid, and between that and the existing (collection of small boxes) floor plan we couldn't see that working. We also thought about selling for removal, and decided not to - the companies we spoke to were flush with homes (so many resumptions in Brissie) and were touchy about the asbestos issue. We had also heard that they prefer to broker the house for removal from your land and wait for the buyer to emerge, moving it once to the new site. But that is a bit of hearsay rather than coming from the companies concerned. Re: leveling then raising 6Sep 19, 2009 6:20 pm Sort of need a little more info. If you are on stumps and have good access to these then leveling is not real expensive. If you are on stumps that are hard to get at then up goes the price. If you have a slab then up goes the price again. Horses for courses. If you mean leveling as in demolishing the whole house then just put up a sign " house breaking " and charge $5 and supply a sledge hammer lol. Remember those fund raisers where they had an old car you could bash up if you paid 20c. Alternatively surely you have a friend who knows a friend who has a match?? cough,insurance,cough. Did i say that? No more beer for me. Daryl ( c'mon the cats ) Can someone please offer some advice? Im DESPERATE. Because I'm completely and utterly exhausted. How long are variations taking with other companies at the moment? We… 0 18435 |