DIL is always watching for ‘deals’ – asked my opinion on a deal for a 7 YO 4 bdrm, 4500 sq ft house house on 2 acres nearby (typical selling price this summer on similar houses, Issaquah WA, is $600 K and up).
The catch – driveway and part of street in front of house slid 50 ft down the hill, house is red-tagged by the city, no damage to house but there is now a vertical 30 ft. cliff 10 ft from the garage doors.
I told her she could end up with a $500K pasture, after at least $100 K of test borings and soil analysis, a few hundred K of pilings, etc. all possibly to no avail. and that I wouldn’t touch it.
Pilings and doing borings are not the type of thing I want to spend doing DIY, although would be possible, but low payoff and a gamble. Cousin is a geologist/soil engineer and could probably tell me after an hour on-site but he is in St. Louis.
Any horror stories or experience with similar matters? Dave Thomas probably has some experience in similar matters but have not seen him on the board for awhile.
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Did a design for a branch college of Kent State university about 5-6 years ago. It was a multi-purpose classroom building to be located on a high sloping site.
Turns out that some of the 'slope' was the fill from the last time a building had been built at that site some 20 years ago. None of it was engineered fill. It would've cost an extra million to use that site, so we had to locate elsewhere on flat ground.
i'm kind of surprised a bank didn't require more soil borings here. Somebody's going to end up eating it. i wouldn't touch it either. Maybe someone can salvage what they can from the inside?
About 5-10 years ago in Overland Park (KC area) there was a new developement and the developer moved the creek bed to get more space for lots.IIRC the houses where not build on the fill. But rather it affected the drainage from existing land until it was saturated. Then the fill, exsiting land, and houses all started to move.That was also the begining of the one first of the bad homes website.
My parents' house is a few miles south of the Portuguese Bend landslide, so I drive thru there sometimes. The slide is 260 arces, so it might be a good idea for your DIL to look at a much larger area than just the two acres in question.
http://seis.natsci.csulb.edu/VIRTUAL_FIELD/Palos_Verdes/pvportuguese.htm
-- J.S.
Cool site John.
Thanks.
Dave