On Oct 25, 6:51 am, "John Grabowski" wrote:
wrote in message

ups.com...



Looking at buying a house that has recently installed around the
entire basement the Reinforcer carbon fibre/Kevlar strips. The front
basement wall is bowed. The original homeowner says the bowing
occurred soon after building 18 years ago. It is only the front
(long) wall of the basement. All work was done by an authorized and
reputable company. The entire basement was also re-pointed.

The basement floor (slab separate from the cinder block wall) has
cracked as well. The cracks appear to be very old and there is no
displacement.

I've checked every window and door for being square and not binding.
Even the basement window is perfect. The lolly columns appear to be
in original position holding up 4 2x12 beams tied together. There is
no cracking at the base of the lolly columns nor any appearance of
movement where they meat the joist.

I've got a home inspector coming in next week. If he hints at any
movement of the structure I'll bring in a structural engineer. I can
still walk from the house if there are major problems.

Looking for comments on the Reinforcer system as well as any other
points you can suggest.

With a red flag on the foundation like that I would walk away. I wouldn't
care how good the repair patch was. You also need to think in terms of your
resale value and the perception this fix would have on future buyers. Tens
years from now it may turn out that this Kevlar system was not such a great
idea.

I don't think you should necessarily walk away from it. But you need
to be sure of two things: first, that the movement occured years ago
(like after backfill) and you aren't going to be hit with a 50000 bill
to fix it sometime down the road and second, that future buyers will
be looking for a price discount. Also, forget about adding a second
story sometime down the road. I myself bought a house with a cracked
foundation. But it was in the right location, my wife loved it, and
the price was right.

Don't know anything about the reinforcer system.