- Jul 11, 2001
- 40,875
- 10,222
- 136
I live in Berkeley CA and my house was built in 1910, with some to-me somewhat mysterious modifications that were done over the years (before I got here), it's now at about 1925 square feet, a two story. It's a wood-framed house, with exterior brick around most of it, large stone on the front face below stucco farther up. On the sides, the brick extends up maybe about 6 feet with stucco above that. A lot of the brick is kind of not in great shape, I should shove new mortar in there, and there's a small patch where maybe 20-30 bricks have fallen out near the ground on a side wall. I could maybe put them back myself or have it done by a bricklayer.
The foundation is old, stones and mortar a lot of it such as they did centuries ago, maybe as old as Roman times, I heard. Some of the foundation is newer construction styles. The house is in no sense, AFAIK, bolted to the foundation. The nature of the foundation as it is does not accommodate bolting the house to it. The house basically rests on the foundation, that's the nature of the technique used back then.
The house has gradually been sinking in the middle. I have a sense when I walk from the front door into the foyer, thence into the living room and then the dining room (which is more or less in the center downstairs) that there's a drop of maybe 3-4 inches or more from the foyer to the dining room! You can just feel it, that you are dropping in elevation as you walk! There are concrete piers under there with vertical wooden beams that support the floor joists in the crawl space (no basement). Clearly, some of those piers have been sinking, particularly when the ground gets saturated when there have been heavy rains.
Now some of this settling may be because, according to the city's surveyor's records, a stream used to flow in front of the house, about where the street is, which is about 20-30 feet from my front door. Thus, the house is kind of maybe on alluvial soil. Plus, I'm told, that the neighborhood is on alluvial soil.
I lived here during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, was upstairs in my bedroom (where I am now) about to watch the World Series when the quake happened. Part of the chimney fell down, that was the major damage to the house, but the epicenter of the ~7.0 quake was ~50 miles away.
They've been saying for years (20 at least?) that we're due for a fairly big quake here on the Hayward Fault (which is as near as 1.5 miles from me as it runs through Berkeley), and/or the Rodgers Creek fault, who knows, maybe other adjoining faults. They say there's been a big quake (~6.8-7.0 on the scale, possibly as large as 7.2, but that's much less likiely) in this area about every 140 years and I think we are already at this point! They actually say that in terms of damage, cost of the damage that is, this area is the most dangerous in the country due to all the infrastructure in the vicinity not the magnitude of the quake.
Well, having been a renter here for nearly 20 years I bought the house in 2000, cheap because the house has a lot of issues. I nearly took the first inspector's bid to fix the thing up and didn't. Now it would cost 3x as much and experienced general contractors tell me I'd never get my money out of the house if I do all the major work it needs, including basically a new foundation or at least a major foundation overhaul. So, I figure I won't spend that money, will do things essential to selling a house and then sell it. It's really not the best house for me, anyway.
I have always had fire insurance since 2000 when I bought the house, the California Fair Plan being the insurer, at around $600+/year. This year my auto insurance guy worked up a bid (Mercury Insurance) so I could get a real live homeowner's policy, which includes far more coverage than the California Fair Plan, which is basically (as I understand it) for people who can't get a "normal" homeowner's policy. So, for about $200 more/year I'm getting much more converage, over 600k fire insurance, and etc., plus I get a 15% discount on my car insurance for having multiple coverages with the comany.
So, I used to get letters from the California Fair Plan offering earthquake insurance. I think that's mandated by law. Likewise, I believe that my homeowner's policy with Mercury Insurance is mandated to offer me earthquake insurance, and sure enough with my several letters with my new policy I got one offering earthquake insurance. This is with the California Earthquake Authority and it's basically for $664k to rebuild, with a 99.6k deductible and the charge is $3117/year and I was given 30 days to decide. 30 days is up in a few days, today being Thursday, I have until Monday to grab the policy. If I decline the offer now there will be offers later, at least one/year, I'm sure.
Well, is this smart? Can I possible wrangle with them, maybe get them to lower the deductible? Is this sort of thing totally take it or leave it? What are the caveats? I'm really a noob, a babe in the woods on this one, don't know if it's a decent deal, a bad deal, a wise investment or something I should just forget about. If the house fell down, became unlivable in a big quake, it would pretty much wipe me out to rebuild it without insurance, i.e. if I had to pay for it with my resources. What do you think?
The foundation is old, stones and mortar a lot of it such as they did centuries ago, maybe as old as Roman times, I heard. Some of the foundation is newer construction styles. The house is in no sense, AFAIK, bolted to the foundation. The nature of the foundation as it is does not accommodate bolting the house to it. The house basically rests on the foundation, that's the nature of the technique used back then.
The house has gradually been sinking in the middle. I have a sense when I walk from the front door into the foyer, thence into the living room and then the dining room (which is more or less in the center downstairs) that there's a drop of maybe 3-4 inches or more from the foyer to the dining room! You can just feel it, that you are dropping in elevation as you walk! There are concrete piers under there with vertical wooden beams that support the floor joists in the crawl space (no basement). Clearly, some of those piers have been sinking, particularly when the ground gets saturated when there have been heavy rains.
Now some of this settling may be because, according to the city's surveyor's records, a stream used to flow in front of the house, about where the street is, which is about 20-30 feet from my front door. Thus, the house is kind of maybe on alluvial soil. Plus, I'm told, that the neighborhood is on alluvial soil.
I lived here during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, was upstairs in my bedroom (where I am now) about to watch the World Series when the quake happened. Part of the chimney fell down, that was the major damage to the house, but the epicenter of the ~7.0 quake was ~50 miles away.
They've been saying for years (20 at least?) that we're due for a fairly big quake here on the Hayward Fault (which is as near as 1.5 miles from me as it runs through Berkeley), and/or the Rodgers Creek fault, who knows, maybe other adjoining faults. They say there's been a big quake (~6.8-7.0 on the scale, possibly as large as 7.2, but that's much less likiely) in this area about every 140 years and I think we are already at this point! They actually say that in terms of damage, cost of the damage that is, this area is the most dangerous in the country due to all the infrastructure in the vicinity not the magnitude of the quake.
Well, having been a renter here for nearly 20 years I bought the house in 2000, cheap because the house has a lot of issues. I nearly took the first inspector's bid to fix the thing up and didn't. Now it would cost 3x as much and experienced general contractors tell me I'd never get my money out of the house if I do all the major work it needs, including basically a new foundation or at least a major foundation overhaul. So, I figure I won't spend that money, will do things essential to selling a house and then sell it. It's really not the best house for me, anyway.
I have always had fire insurance since 2000 when I bought the house, the California Fair Plan being the insurer, at around $600+/year. This year my auto insurance guy worked up a bid (Mercury Insurance) so I could get a real live homeowner's policy, which includes far more coverage than the California Fair Plan, which is basically (as I understand it) for people who can't get a "normal" homeowner's policy. So, for about $200 more/year I'm getting much more converage, over 600k fire insurance, and etc., plus I get a 15% discount on my car insurance for having multiple coverages with the comany.
So, I used to get letters from the California Fair Plan offering earthquake insurance. I think that's mandated by law. Likewise, I believe that my homeowner's policy with Mercury Insurance is mandated to offer me earthquake insurance, and sure enough with my several letters with my new policy I got one offering earthquake insurance. This is with the California Earthquake Authority and it's basically for $664k to rebuild, with a 99.6k deductible and the charge is $3117/year and I was given 30 days to decide. 30 days is up in a few days, today being Thursday, I have until Monday to grab the policy. If I decline the offer now there will be offers later, at least one/year, I'm sure.
Well, is this smart? Can I possible wrangle with them, maybe get them to lower the deductible? Is this sort of thing totally take it or leave it? What are the caveats? I'm really a noob, a babe in the woods on this one, don't know if it's a decent deal, a bad deal, a wise investment or something I should just forget about. If the house fell down, became unlivable in a big quake, it would pretty much wipe me out to rebuild it without insurance, i.e. if I had to pay for it with my resources. What do you think?
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That's insane. I understand housing costs are more in California, because land costs more. But, a 2x4 in NY and a 2x4 in California aren't that different in price - plus you guys have tons of cheap immigrant labor that gets used.
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