Main water supply leaking

[mamzak]

Hey guys! New to the forum.

A little back story:

I have recently put an offer in on my first house, which was accepted so the sale is pending inspection. The number that was finally agreed upon is $400,000. The house was built in 2006, and the main water line is 1" Kitec (the teal blue stuff) The house is also a foreclosure so I'm dealing with the bank and the house is currently vacant.

During the inspection, I took my dad with me who is a civil engineer with the city. He noticed that some water was draining into the sump, and getting pumped out constantly, at the rate of maybe 1/4 flow from a household tap (so quite a bit..) The sump was cycling about every 15-20 mins. My dad suspected a broken water line either on the street, or the main water supply line that runs into the house. We called the city flood prevention line, and their inspectors came out and verified that it was in fact city water leaking into the sump, and that it was the main water supply line that was leaking. So the city shut the water off to the house, and can't turn it back on until the problem is repaired.

I brought out a contractor that specializes in water/sewer line replacement and when we were in the basement we popped the metal access cover off the basement floor and instead of finding dirt it was all just soupy mud. He wrote up an estimate of $8000 and said that that would be absolute worst case, if they had to fully replace that entire line.

I'm not so much worried about the price because obviously the bank is going to have to either pay for the repair and leave the asking price where it is, or deduct it off the asking price and then I'll have to finance it somehow with my mortgage broker. What I'm more worried about is the amount of wet mud underneath the basement floor. Will this cause foundation problems in the future? I'm thinking it will dry once the leak is fixed, but is this something to be really concerned about? Should I just run while I can? I'm hesitant to run because of the value I'm getting on the house, it's worth about $60-$70k more than I'm paying and I really like it, so ideally I want to pursue the repair.

Has anyone dealt with a situation like this before? I'm a first time home buyer so any advice is welcome!!

Thanks!

Steven

 

[inspectorD]

Welcome aboard.
So...what does your father think, he was there to offer advice I'm sure.
I would go with that...or you will never hear the end of it.

Seriously though, once there has been an area of liquified soil, it will settle. It all depends on your soil, and how uniform the settlement is. I have seen entire homes sink six inches, hovever it was uniform. It just caused havok with the septic system.

My advice, would be to back out. That $4 your savin will not be saved if any issues come up related to this.
More deals are out there!!:2cents:

 

[mamzak]

My dad is just worried about the possibility of a void existing below the surface that could cause some sort of collapse? I'm not sure how you would test that though... maybe hire someone with some form of Ground Penetrating Radar? That's about the only way I can think of.

If I can get the bank to cover the cost of the repair though, then there shouldn't be anything wrong with the house right? I seem to think that the wet soil under that one spot in the basement is just because that's how the water was getting in, and will dry over time. But like I said...I'm far from an expert in this field. Hmmmm

 

[nealtw]

Get a geo-teck engineer to look at it, he would have a better idea what going on I would be concerned about mud infiltation of the gravel around drain tile and void under floor when it does dry out.

 

[joecaption]

$400,000 for a house that may or may not end up having major foundation issues, Hmm.
If a foundation turns out to be bad the rest of the house can be effected.
Sticking doors and windows, cracking walls ECT.

Where do you live?
$400,000 in my area would buy you a 4 bedroom house right on the bay with a boat lift, or three 1800 sq. brick homes.

 

[user 4883]

$400,000 in my area will buy you the entire subdivision.

 

[mamzak]

My dad is talking with some experts that he works with today to see what they think.

haha I live in Alberta, Canada. About 5 hours south of the oil sands. I'm making $90k-$100k a year as a second year apprentice mechanic, but everything is so much more expensive here. The house is pretty nice, 1800 sq/ft, double attached garage, huge ensuite, etc... but the same house in somewhere like Phoenix or whatever would cost probably ~$90k from what I've seen.