Can You See It?

Can you see it?

Look closely.

Where the walls meet in the corner, in the brown area. See it now?

No?

The wood shingles for the siding have fish-mouthed. And, if you look above the shingles, you'll see the barge rafters at the edge of the roof have separated.

This, unfortunately, gets the home inspector excited and you don't want me excited - you want me bored, bored, bored. Boring houses are good houses.

The gaps above are signals and the place to trace that signal is back to the foundation.

That roof segment is connected to a column connected to a masonry wall that also supports the deck/wraparound veranda. That wall is moving.

I say 'is' because an attempt at repair was made made for the deck - and failed. Newer movement broke a part of the repair.

The mortar for the masonry wall that was cracked has been repaired - and re-cracked.

We have an ongoing, slow-moving problem. It won't fall down tomorrow, but the systems aren't working, they're failing.

What's the solution?

A good structural engineer. I know one and, for stuff like this, I refer him. That's what I did here.

All things are fixable. The only question is who gets to pay. Part of my job is for you to have that question answered up front.

There's nothing worse than you moving in and discovering a year later that you're the deep pocket that will fix a structural failure.