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slab on grade convert to basement

brodyl05 | Posted in General Discussion on March 23, 2020 01:47am

looking for some logical advice. Our home is a 1400 sq ft ranch style on a slab on grade foundation. It has some bad settling issues and the only contractor that does foundation repair that we need done has quoted us 60K for the repair. We wanted to build an addition at some point for more space but obviously would need to fix the foundation. Just thinking of ideas, but i know its possible but expensive to add a basement to a slab on grade and most info i can find would be building a basement next to the house and sliding the house on top of that. Just looking for others advice. We live in clay country. have 10 acres out in the county, so we do have a well and septic tank. Not sure what to do. fix foundation, build basement and slide house, sell the place and take our losses which might be the cheapest option. We like the area and how close we are to the city but far away enough to be in the woods.

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  1. jlyda | Mar 23, 2020 08:19am | #1

    It’s hard to say. The decision to stay or leave is not always dollars and cents. Often the remodels I do for clients don’t make a lot of fiscal sense, but is done b/c people don’t want to move. It sounds like you have only received one quote for foundation repair? Might be wise to widen your search and get more quotes. Is the settling concentrated in one area? If you are planning an addition, can possible do it in the settled area which will make it more easy and affordable to make the repair as you’ll be excavating for new addition and will expose the repair. Definitely get a soil test done for addition. It’s not much $. You may have bad dirt for building. You don’t want settlement issues with your new addition.

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