There are many reasons why damage contractors would opt to raze your home to the ground. Most of the reasons relate to total restoration expense versus the cost of razing and rebuilding. Here are the reasons why your damage contractor might suggest tearing down your home and rebuilding it instead of restoring affected areas.
The Mold Is Lethal and Widespread
That little patch of mold you see in your attic may not be so little. Worse still, a damage contractor may uncover some unpleasant details about it, e.g., it is the lethal or potentially deadly kind, it is hiding inside many of your home's walls and not just the attic, etc. When your mold problem is this dangerous, it is less costly to tear the house down and rebuild it than it is to rip away the affected sections and hope the mold spores do not spread to the "healthy" sections during the restoration process.
Tornadoes Took Most of Your Home's Load-Bearing Walls
When tornado hits (yes, Canada does get them!) and it takes most of the load-bearing walls and timbers from your home, tearing the rest down just makes sense. The problem here is that, without your load-bearing walls, the restoration and damage contractors would have to pull apart and remove any dangerous and hazardous sections of your home that could fall and crush someone. They would have to do this before they put in new load-bearing walls to support any part of your home that is still salvageable. Then they have to reconstruct the areas of your home that are completely lost. The total cost could exceed your home's value, which is why a total deconstruction/reconstruction may be offered.
Your Home Is Saturated with Water and Smoke Fumes
Even if firefighters are able to put out the fire on your home before it burns up a quarter of it, the fumes inside may be very toxic and may have invaded every open space inside your walls. Since you cannot extract those toxic fumes because they bond with the wood and insulation, you could be looking at a slow death. The amount of water necessary to put out the fire may also have created so much damage that, when combined with the toxic fumes, your house would not be worth saving unless you are determined to do so. You may have to have all of your belongings checked for toxic fumes, smoke, ash and water damage too.
The Time Table for Razing vs. Restoration
The time table for razing and reconstructing your home is about the same for restoration in all of the above situations. This is because damage contractors can only estimate time based on what they have found and what they can see. There may be a lot more unseen damage once the restoration process begins, extending the restoration process and time to completion. Your contractor could even get through a portion of the restoration process and then discover that tearing everything down is the only way to finish the project. Contact a company like ServiceMaster Of Edmonton Disaster Restoration for more information.
Share3 June 2015
Do you know what it takes to restore your home after water damage has occurred? If you are anything like me, you think that you can get away with simply drying the house out and getting rid of the furniture and contents that are beyond repair. Unfortunately, there is a lot more to it than that. I learned the hard way just how devastating water damage can be to the home if you do not take the proper measures to clean the mess up. You can learn from my personal experience so that you do not have to spend the time and money going through the additional steps of restoration after water damage incident.
