BarryC
02-25-2006, 03:40 PM
If I have already posted about this, Moderators please let me know where, and you can delete this.
Last summer (it's been so long that I have forgotten exactly when) my brother and family were going to move. They had a house picked out and everything. They want to move because their current house was too small for them and 3 kids, way too small.
Well for them to sell their house the soil had to be tested for leakage of their below-ground fuel oil tank. Well that's where the disaster started. The soil was contaminated with fuel oil down to 22 feet below the surface (or was it 23? I forget). Not only that but the contamination extended under their basement as well as under their neighbor's basement.
This is in a residential part of Egg Harbor City, with blocks of streets. The houses are relatively close together.
Both their house and the neighbor's house had to be moved so that the basements could be dug out and all contaminated soil down to 22 or 23 feet could be removed and replaced with good soil.
So my their move to another house had to be postponed while all this was to be done. All costs were to be covered by insurance. But then they found out that the insurance would not cover alternate housing for them while this was happening. So they moved in with my parents. They have plenty of room in the big house, which is attached to this one.
In the next couple months my parents will be having birthdays and they will be 65 and 66. My brother's kids are 12, 7 and 2. Having the kids around, and doing cooking for all the extra people, is driving my mom up a wall. And now, at this moment, she is recovering from pneumonia.
My brother's house was moved into the back yard, but the neighbor's house was too deep from front to back, and so had to be moved sideways, towards where my brother's house was.
When all digging and soil replacement was done, new basements were to be built. The last I knew, everything was nearing completion, and all that was left to do was for the furnaces, water heaters and other things to be hooked up again. But so far the houses are not yet done and can still not be moved back into. The project has taken far, far longer than anticipated (a few months longer), and apparently has gone way over budget for the contractors involved.
My brother discovered that when they set his house down on the new foundation/basement, the house cracked, somewhere. And now a neighbor 2 doors down is threatening to sue because their house settled a little and cracked.
So needless to say, the whole thing was and is a big fiasco. I understand that the soil contamination is a real problem, but everything could have been handled better. What a disaster.
They still haven't been given a date when they can move in.
Barry
Last summer (it's been so long that I have forgotten exactly when) my brother and family were going to move. They had a house picked out and everything. They want to move because their current house was too small for them and 3 kids, way too small.
Well for them to sell their house the soil had to be tested for leakage of their below-ground fuel oil tank. Well that's where the disaster started. The soil was contaminated with fuel oil down to 22 feet below the surface (or was it 23? I forget). Not only that but the contamination extended under their basement as well as under their neighbor's basement.
This is in a residential part of Egg Harbor City, with blocks of streets. The houses are relatively close together.
Both their house and the neighbor's house had to be moved so that the basements could be dug out and all contaminated soil down to 22 or 23 feet could be removed and replaced with good soil.
So my their move to another house had to be postponed while all this was to be done. All costs were to be covered by insurance. But then they found out that the insurance would not cover alternate housing for them while this was happening. So they moved in with my parents. They have plenty of room in the big house, which is attached to this one.
In the next couple months my parents will be having birthdays and they will be 65 and 66. My brother's kids are 12, 7 and 2. Having the kids around, and doing cooking for all the extra people, is driving my mom up a wall. And now, at this moment, she is recovering from pneumonia.
My brother's house was moved into the back yard, but the neighbor's house was too deep from front to back, and so had to be moved sideways, towards where my brother's house was.
When all digging and soil replacement was done, new basements were to be built. The last I knew, everything was nearing completion, and all that was left to do was for the furnaces, water heaters and other things to be hooked up again. But so far the houses are not yet done and can still not be moved back into. The project has taken far, far longer than anticipated (a few months longer), and apparently has gone way over budget for the contractors involved.
My brother discovered that when they set his house down on the new foundation/basement, the house cracked, somewhere. And now a neighbor 2 doors down is threatening to sue because their house settled a little and cracked.
So needless to say, the whole thing was and is a big fiasco. I understand that the soil contamination is a real problem, but everything could have been handled better. What a disaster.
They still haven't been given a date when they can move in.
Barry