Home Improvements

[Tomahawk]

You should burn it down, collect the insurance, then buy a not-piece-of-shtein-house

[Sgt PSN]

Looks like im gonna be doing some digging soon

:diobatsignal

In all seriousness though, I hope the damage wasn't too severe. 

[Rome]

Please tell me you bought flood insurance. 

[SD]

Not even a couple months in to home ownership and this flash flood storm cell that just moved through might have given us our first water damage. The wall facing the neighbors house def had water leaking into it, was very clear to hear. that side of the house facing a slight downward slope towards a very shallow man made ditch that runs between the two properties and down to the sidewalk, and the house next to us/property sits up on a hill from our place. The ditch running down the middle just couldn't handle all the water coming from their property and our rain gutters and it flooded up against the house.

Looks like im gonna be doing some digging soon, and looks like that money for the fence is gonna go towards repairing some walls...possibly....

About 20 years ago my buddy had puddles of water coming through the sliding glass door leading to his backyard every time it rained or when the snow melted. During a really bad winter he was sopping up water daily. The ground was hard as shtein but he couldn't take water coming into his house every day. So we got a pick axe and shovels and dug a drainage from his backyard, around the side of his house, and out to the front where the water could drain. We used PVC pipes and a level. Because the ground was so hard it took us about two days to finish, but it worked like a charm.

[Munson]

A day later and it doesn't seem like anything got to the drywall...makes me wonder if it's leaking down and under the floor. It's rug on top of something else on top of cement, but not sure. Nothing visibly showing anywhere. The sound that was being made sounded like an entire stream in the wall, so prob gonna lift the rug and the baseboard of the wall and see what I can see

[SD]

A day later and it doesn't seem like anything got to the drywall...makes me wonder if it's leaking down and under the floor. It's rug on top of something else on top of cement, but not sure. Nothing visibly showing anywhere. The sound that was being made sounded like an entire stream in the wall, so prob gonna lift the rug and the baseboard of the wall and see what I can see

I'm assuming since you said on top of cement, your foundation is a solid slab...or do you have a crawlspace or basement to deal with?

[Diomedes]

Is this the same place we've talked about before, the one that you suspected had grading/run-off issues before you bought it?

[Munson]

It's a raised ranch where you enter the home and can immediately go up a half flight of
stairs or down. so the "basement" is finished, have a family room, a full bath, a bedroom and a laundry room down stairs.

Dio it is not that place. Between all the things I read here and elsehweere on the web and a friend's dad who's a structural engineer came to look at that place, it just seemed like too much trouble.

[Diomedes]

Good.

[Tomahawk]

That's called a split-level, bro-fessor

[Sgt PSN]

Indeed. A raised ranch is basically a traditional ranch + basement but the basement is built completely above ground.

[Munson]

Not a true split, and the lower level is half above/half below. Ground line comes up to about halfway up the wall of the lower level

[Tomahawk]

When you open the front door, if you have to immediately  choose between going up some stairs or down some stairs, it's a split level

[Sgt PSN]

Not a true split, and the lower level is half above/half below. Ground line comes up to about halfway up the wall of the lower level

That is a split level. Your "basement" area probably has half windows since the bottom half of the room is beneath ground level.  Split levels typically have no true basement though. What you're calling a basement is actually just more living space.

Ranch homes are single story and have no interior stairs between living levels. Basements are not considered living levels, even if finished, and are not included in sqft measurements. They can be built with or without a basement. Basements under ranch homes typically match the exterior dimensions of the home.  If it's a raised ranch, the basement is built almost completely above ground.



Top = Raised ranch
Bottom = Split level

Which does yours look like?

[Munson]

Not sure if they just call them differently around here or if they're just lazy with their terms but ours is the bottom and was listed on both the realtor's site and the sellers report as a raised ranch.

The ones that get called split levels around here are the ones that look like these guys:




A quick google says split level is defined as a home having at least 3 levels, but then also has a "split-level ranch" as a mixture of the two styles, so I guess that's what you'd call mine. I had heard of split level, and heard of raised ranch, don't think I'd ever heard the term 'split level ranch' before. And here I thought I had heard way too many house terms while we were searching.

Either way, you guys get the idea. The ground level is pretty much identical to that pic sarge, comes up about half way from the right front of the house all the way around back, but then where the garage is it's mostly all above ground on that side of the home.