Wednesday 26 March 2008

Do you want the good news, or the bad?

My insurance company phoned me this morning to let me know that the builder had inspected the further damage to our rental property. As I'd been expecting the worst, I wasn't surprised to hear that the broken brace amongst the steel support beams under the house was deemed to be due to old age, rust and bad welding when the house was originally constructed more than fifty years ago, rather than being due to the tree that fell on the house in a storm last year. As normal 'wear and tear' isn't covered by our landlord insurance policy (unlike storm damage), this means the cost of making any repairs to the steel foundations will be coming out of my pocket. I phoned the structural engineer I'd initially contacted last week(before the insurance company was consulted), and he quoted 4-5 hours to do an inspection and report on exactly what work is required. This will add up to about $750+ just for the engineering report -- he'll then arrange for quotes on the actual repair work from three builders he knows are capable of doing this sort of work.

And the good news? The insurance company's builder did some emergency welding repairs to fix the broken brace which I won't be getting billed for.



Copyright Enough Wealth 2007

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