Underneath All . . . The Water!
April 23rd, 2008 . by Jon ModeneI was not blogging, just absent.
In Colorado.
With #1 son. Who was determined to try on the U. S. Air Force Academey for size.
And there is no water there.
There is water in Perrysburg however.
There is not, to my knowledge, a single dry hole in Wood County.
We have deep wells, shallow wells, ponds that serve as wells, water tanks that are water sources, water systems – both private and public, and even something called a “point well” which is where you take a metal rod and jam it in the ground with your own strength and water gushes up from the ground with it.
All in all – we have no shortage of water here. Out west? They are often operating under severe water rationing or water restrictions. Here we actually have too much fresh, pure water.
Which is a blessing.
So – what are the real estate concerns about water?
1. If you have a basement, and most homes do – you ought to have a sump pump. It is now part of the building code to have one. But some rare older homes do not.
2. If you have a crawl space you ought to have it properly vented, drained, and have water from the foundation run away from it.
3. In my experience over 90% of the basement problems that I see are the result of the downspouts not being long enough or not being attached. That leads to . . . water getting into the foundation. And with a typical Winter/Spring freeze-thaw cycle on a cloudy/sunny day of hundreds of freezes and thaws, you can imagine the hydrostatic pressures that the water is creating on your poor walls.
4. If you have a basement and you are going to or have added carpeting and trim and “stuff” to it, then you need 2 sump pumps and 2 electric circuits and something more than a 1 hour battery backup. The Great Ice Storm of c. 2000 shut the power off for 6 hours in many homes. The 12v car batteries gave up the ghost long before the power was restored. The Great Blizzard of 1978? Don’t ask.
At the very least a water powered back up, if you have city of Perrysburg water (which will last as long as the city has water in the water towers) is advised. If you have a $35,000 basement? You ought to be looking into a backup generator.
In my opinion, relying on your insurance company to “claim up” after your water mess is foolish. They will clean up. And they may raise your rates. They may cut your coverage. And they will tag your home with a CLUE report – that many smart buyers are accessing and then using to pass on houses that have had water damage in the past.
Sure. They have mountains in Colorado.
But we have water.
Underneath every single house and farm and lot.
Seeping out.
Soaking out.
Heading to the ditches and then the Maumee and then Lake Erie.
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