Let's talk about Country Living

[Scrappah]

Gee... i hope i'm not throwing out too much at once.

You're probably leaning more toward an existing home. There's one key thing you want to look for. Check out the foundation. What you want is a dry basement. If you see any evidence of water coming in down there just walk away. If the air feels humid down there on a dry day look it over carefully.

Water vapor issues in a house are a big hairy deal but most people don't understand them. Even people with over twenty years in the trade don't understand.

It's really too much to go into in a post here.

Just to give you a sense of why it's important though: I was working on an older home yesterday that was completely rehabbed back in 1999. The contractor that rebuilt it didn't know what he was doing and actually made a bad situation worse by tightening up the house and adding a polyethylene vapor barrier on the inside wall.

I feel like i'm fighting a losing battle with that place sometimes. The folks that own it are really great people and it's a shame that they've had to bear the cost of his incompetence. This last bill that i just turned in was over 900.00$ just for a bunch of smaller repairs and building ventilation improvements. Over the past six years they've had to lay out over 14 k. in repairs. They're probably looking at another 2 - 3 k. sometime this fall. ~ It's all because of that damp basement.~

A house built on a concrete slab that was done right can be a good thing !