I am buying a house that is in mostly good shape. Except for the garage. The roof has a low slope and its ridge has sunk about a foot at the center. There is also dryrot in the wood cladding under the stucco walls on two sides.
I am trying to figure out a ballpark estimate for the cost of repairs. Contractors won’t come to the site to give me an estimate until after I buy it … understandable but I need to figure out how much to ask for repairs before closing!
Can anyone help? The roof has about a 20% pitch, is about 16′ x 20′ at the walls, and the dryrot in the walls seems to be limited to about 8′ width on each of two walls (or about 16′ wide total).
Oh by the way the house is located in the Central Valley of Northern California.
Thank you!
Replies
Hotcakes,
First of all, welcome to Breaktime!
Now, as for this garage. If you post some pictures it might help, but even then it will be impossible to get an accurate estimate online. You say contractors won't step foot on the property until after you buy. This could be a liability thing, or, more likely, they don't want to waste their time giving you a free proposal when, once you see what things might cost, you decide not to buy the house.
I've done this a few times for friends, and so far in every case once I pointed out all the deficiencies and what it would cost to fix, they decide not to buy. So, if they hadn't been friends, it would have been a huge time-waster for me.
You might have better luck getting a local guy to look at it if you make it clear you want to PAY for professional advice, and be prepared to spend anywhere from $50 to $250 to have a professional assessment of this little project.
Mike
Make an offer contingent on the garage being repaired.
SamT
Make an offer based on the subtraction of the cost of a new garage in your area.
Is the house stucco also? The reason I ask is if stucco is not applied correctly you will have MAJOR problems
Maybe the dryrot in the garage is trying to tell you something
Based on your other post about the badly cracked concrete garage floor, (I'm making an assumption) we have structurally unsound floor & roof and rotten walls so... I'm gonna make another assumption that the walls are bowed out, if the ridge has sagged a foot... Now we have structurally unsound walls too... My SWAG would be to figure the repair cost to be the same as it would be to build new garage, and that would be conservative since demo of the old garage may be a reality.
Hi Everyone!
Thanks so much for all your replies! You have been so helpful!
I like the suggestion of a replacement estimate, but I am not sure the seller will agree! Also, I did try to offer a fee for estimates, but the only contractor that was interested turned out to have an expired license so he could not actually bid on the work.
Regarding the walls, the damage appears limited to where the sagging roof has allowed runnoff to collect near the center 6 feet or so on each of two sides (there are no gutters or eaves).
The walls are not bowed, in fact they look remarkably good; the rot appears limited to where the wood cladding contacts the studs. Of course, the problem is that the walls are in effect poorly supported in those areas - the stucco is nailed to boards some of which are floating. On the other hand, this old stucco is as hard as rock.
The other factor is that the City won't allow me to rebuild without coming into code compliance for setbacks. That requires moving the gargage 5' in from the side and rear property lines. The tiny backyard would be gone!
So I am thinking, I need get someone to demo the roof, repair the walls, repair the roof framing (the original framing has a single 1 x 6 board on the ridge - should I install a ridge beam?), and replace the roof. I found an online calculator at contractors.com and after working it a bit got the following estimates:
Total - $8700
Does this sound about right? Thanks again!
Hotcakes
go with Zendo's idea and add 30% for demo...
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!
if the garage is rotted under the stucco...
what about the rest of the house????
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming
WOW!!! What a Ride!