Posts from February 26th, 2025
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Renovate or Rebuild?
A few years back, I looked into replacing my house's foundation. From my understanding of the history of my house, the foundation was repaired at some point in the 1980s. Otherwise, it's mostly in its original form—which is very, very old. I knew from the time I bought my house that the foundation would need to be addressed at some point, and I was motivated to do it sooner rather than later.
I spoke to some different contractors and they each laid out the most worthwhile options: lifting up the house and repairing or replacing the foundation in its same spot or pouring a new foundation next to it and sliding the house over. One contractor suggested these options, but then paused a moment before asking me, "Why don't you just build a new house?" I was surprised by this suggestion; I hadn't even considered just starting from scratch. I repli...