Ask the Architect

Best not to raise the house

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Q. We started working with N.Y. Rising two years ago and have been through three caseworkers. We’re still confused about the program. Our house had about 10 inches of water, just in the basement, which we cleaned up with a wet-dry vacuum in about four hours. We never removed sheetrock or anything. Our first floor saw no water, but we got a letter saying that we were eligible for money to lift our house 3 feet. What do you think we should do? We’re about eight years from retiring and can’t put an extra dime into the construction. We were told it would take two months to do. Is that right?

A. After having gone through the same two years watching N.Y. Rising employee and policy changes take place, almost daily, finishing construction plans for many and sitting through a multitude of six-hour-long audits of flood victims’ 6100 forms, listing the estimated cost of every nut, bolt and cubic yard of concrete, I wonder why you’d want to continue thinking about a lift. Unless you live in a low-lying, flood-prone area, plan on living in your home for at least 10 more years or will be paying out of your own pocket for improvements with a high return on investment during the activity of a house lift, I’d focus on accepting funds for repairs and preventive waterproofing techniques that will prevent the minimal amount of flooding you received.

My average house-lifting client will be spending about $50,000 above whatever their award letter says. That’s because the government program will only subsidize putting the home on columns, or “stilts.” In your case, you’d have to fill in your basement and lose that space. The program doesn’t pay to replace all that space with another floor area by lifting your house high enough to recoup the lost basement space. Also, if you did lift that high, you would pay for the full walls to enclose the new area, and because your new house might have a third story when your second floor moved up, you’d be required to install a full house interior ceiling sprinkler head system.

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