First let me apologize for the length of this post.
My SO and I are purchasing our first home (*yippee*). We've hit a few bumps along the inspection process though. We are exactly a week away from closing on the home. We've had our normal house inspection, appraisal, and water testing. The inspection was ordered by us but the water testing was ordered by the sellers a month ago and we finally just got the water report today (really irritated about the time to get the report).
Here's some of our findings and some background info about the home:
1. There's a full basement. In the basement, there appears to be two "crawl spaces". I found the crawl spaces to be very odd though. Basically, you walk down the basement stairs and to the left there is a half broken wall where crawl space #1 is at. Look to the right, and again another half broken wall with crawl space #2. Both spaces are filled with dirt.
At first, I was curious if the dirt could just be removed along with the rest of the broken wall. But it seems like it's a bit difficult to tell if the foot of the house in those corners go down as far as the rest of the basement.
2. The radon level is way too high (approx. 15 pci, needs to be no more than 4-preferably under 2). So there is no doubt about needing a radon mitigation system. Based on research and talking to a couple people who've had a system put in, it'll cost approximately $1500 for the system. Because of the crawl spaces being open and the dirt being exposed, the crawl spaces probably have to be dealt with to help with the radon levels in addition to the radon mitigation system.
3. The house has a private well. The water report showed to tests: Test #1 water directly from well. This came back with multiple issues, but honestly I would've been surprised if there wasn't because the area we live in. Test #2 came from the kitchen sink. The water pump in the basement has a filter which was replaced after the test was done. The test showed that some items were cleared up from the filter, but two items were still much higher than the state allowable amounts. It seems like an "ion exchange" system will remove the two items that are still a problem.
Now that we have all of the inspections and reports back, I've started searching for solutions and this is where I'm hoping some people can shed some light on their own experiences. I understand no two experiences are the same, but I enjoy filling my noggin with as much information and experiences as possible so I can make a better decision.
Although I love the idea of not paying a company for water, I do recognize that we will need to have our water tested probably once every year or every couple years. when seeing these sheets filled with numbers and levels I don't understand, it makes me wish the house was connected to the city lines. But then again, even being hooked up to the city water we may still need additional filters and an ion exchange (our current apartment and previous apartment have horrendously hard water).
Has anyone had a well and then connected to a water line? Do you wish you still had a well?
Has anyone had a radon mitigation system put in? Or have you had a crazy crawl space that had to be sealed up or a crawl space that could easily be seen in the basement? Or a crawl space that you were able to just remove the dirt and you didn't understand why the dirt was there in the first place? Any idea on how you can even tell how far the footing to the house go down behind the dirt?
