Insurance Claim Demo

[AmericanLandMgt]

A friend of mines house burned yesterday and it looks like its a total loss. I was hoping to get the job tearing it down.I would do it basically for cost pluss a few dollars in order to save him as much money as possible. Does anybody know how insurance claims work, do I put in a bid with the company or do they just cut him a check for the estimated amount to demo the house and rebuild and he deals with it from there?

 

[mitch504]

In SC the homeowner usually gets paid for the demo, and he negotiates with the adjusters; at least the ones I've done (8 or 10)worked that way. If you have to set a price beforehand, be very careful if you don't often do demo, disposal fees and etc. can quickly take you from doing a friend a favor near cost, to losing big. You can always give your friend a gift to help with his loss if there's money left over.

 

[AmericanLandMgt]

Yeah doing it for standard price and giving him a gift afterward sounds like a smarter deal. I will talk to him about it tomorow. Ill also get some pics so you guys can give me a hand bidding it.

Another question I have... If they want to build the exact same house over again can I save the foundation? I figure that will save a lot of time and trucking fees if the slab can stay. My excavator is 13 tons, can I walk on the slab without it breaking up?

 

[oldtanker]

Check the laws in your state. In Mn most of the time the insurance company cuts the check to the homeowner and the homeowner pays from there. The reason behind that is that the insured has a bad habit of blaming the insurance company if the work isn't done to thier satisfaction. The glitch comes in when the insurance is carried through a morgage company. They 1. want thier money or 2. want the home rebuilt and payments to continue.

Rick (former licensed adjuster)

 

[D5G]

if its a slab, I would stay off of it. Its always hard to tell how thick they are, at the edges they may be thick and bulky looking, but in the middle much thinner. I have expirenced many many house demos in which we think the slab is thick, then we cut or drill a test hole(s) in a few different places and get suprised. How old is the house? There was one not too long ago here when it was opened up it had steel roof trusses. Made for one heck of a suprise, and more time and labor to get rid of the steel. Seeing as how there wasn't a torch on site, it all had to be cut with partner saws. If the slab stays the other thing you might want to be careful of is trying to condense the pile by smashing it down, gets back to how thick the slab is and how much stress it can take. Good luck.

 

[AmericanLandMgt]

The house is only two years old and its burned so bad you can see straight through the roof so there shouldnt be any big surprises. Its a fairly small house so I can most likely reach accross it from each side and stay off the slab. If I just have to bite small chunks out of it and put it straight into the truck it will cost a lot more in trucking but the extra demo expense should easily be made up for with not having to tear up and re pour the slab. Or would it be more sensible to jsut rent a smaller machine like a little eight ton rubber track and use that?

 

[Dozerboy]

Shouldn't need to go any smaller then a 12 ton for sure. I have done plenty of demo with 20 ton and saved the slab. Its not hard just knock down a bit of the house and then track on top of it. Try not to get to crazy with the hoe. We normal don't break anything except when we are bring the hoe in or taking it out and normally tracking on some 1/2" plywood will put a stop to that.

 

[CM1995]

My suggestion would be to NOT try and save the slab. The main reason is the plastic drains and vents, if not damaged by the fire, will be full of ash and debris. Not to mention any damage to the copper or plastic water supply lines. Your friend will spend more money than the cost of a new slab and a lot of aggravation trying to save the slab in the long run.

 

[AmericanLandMgt]

Update for anybody that cares: The insurance company apparently deals with the reconstruction but the home owner gets to decide who does the work. The adjuster in his infinite wisdom decided the house was in good enough shape to be rebuilt. The GC got onsite and laughed in his face. The insurance company has agreed to demo the entire house...except the front wall. They are not authorizing heavy equipment to come in and do any work. So they are going to demo the entire house but the front wall by hand......to save money......and time.....I guess thats insurance companies for you.

 

[mitch504]

If you try to figure out an insurance Co. you will get a stomach ache.

 

[D5G]

My dad used to work for a fire restoration contractor, and we have done a little bit in the past as well. They (the insurance co) will support half a house that is trashed and worthless (in this case its one wall) and rebuild the other half, it simply makes no sense. Your friend might want to see if the insurance company would let him pay for the rest himself out of pocket. It wouldn't be very expensive, and it would be worth it. The reason I say this is because you will NEVER, EVER get the smell out. You can paint it 1000 times, there will always be a slight smell you can't put your finger on that is annoying. Good luck to you both.

 

[stumpjumper83]

How can it be cheaper to demo by hand? One excavator w/ operator is $100.00 to 125.00 per hour. A laborer is $35.00 to 50.00. There is no way that 4 laborers will out work a 120 sized hoe in a demo.

By the time that the carpenters work around the front wall it will take them longer to fix the old than it will to build the new. Plus you should have more contractors interested in a new build vs. a patch job, making it a little cheaper probably.

The way I see it the savings in time and labor to demo completely with heavy equipment covers the added cost of an extra wall in the demo can. Then the ability to go with more choices in the construction covers the cost of an extra wall.

If the fire was hot enough to warrant the rest of the house to go, all the windows in the front wall are gonners, it will need re-wired, maybe some studs changed. And end up costing more.

The adjuster is looking at it like a house has 4 walls and a roof so if one stays thats 1/5 saved. That isnt true cause that other wall with take more time to fix than the other three will take to build.

I'd have a second gc try to explain that to the adjuster, and if that didn't work, get quotes both ways and go above the adjuster. Make sure to get time frames in your quotes.

 

[AmericanLandMgt]

Yeah the guy is clueless. He thinks hes working in the company's best interest but hes just going to make the process miserable for everyone involved. I told my freind I would give him a demo quote anyway and maybe he could get the GC to give him a quote for just the demo manually and then get some quotes to patch vs rebuild and present that to the adjuster. He dosent seem to care about the integrity of the finished product. He also said they wont even get their check for replacement cost for three months! They gave them five grand to "get settled" but five grand dosent go very far when youve got to replace everything you own and get a rent house.

 

[Silveroddo]

One thing to watch is the tipping fees for burned material vs regular demo, its generally considered hazardous if its been burned and that really limits where you can go with it around here and increases the cost considerably.

 

[AirBornOne]

A rebuild could possibly save the homeowner from permit nightmares/cost.And that is all I can think of re: saving one wall.
All the best to your friend and his family.
J.

 

[eianewb]

we had something similar happen to our house. we had a tree fall on it and squish part of it. ins guy wanted to save the foundation and the walls, just replace the roof he says. nah, that did sit well with me. i fought him, they upped their adjustment a little. still not working with me, we bickered with them some more and it went to mediation... a third party came in and gave another opinion, we won some more. still not complete replacement costs, but they did give us more than what they wanted. i will also say it was nice tearing it down and starting over completely. i had it on the ground in 7 mins, and loaded in cans and out of there in 3 hrs (mostly waiting on truckers). it was a 20ft by 50ft single story addition off the back of our house, however you guys figure out the #of cans and time and dumping costs and whatnot (we had 3 30yd dumpsters for the house and 3 dumptruck loads for the foundation totaling $1400, the excavator was mine). also, our insco wouldn't cover any disposal or yard damage kinds of stuff... this was all my expense.

hope my situation helps you guys out some, i would sure get other opinions (especially from your buddies) to maybe sway your ins adjustor. i am a contractor myself and had gotten bids from friends... not to be fraudulant, but to keep them honest as the ins co kept wanting their own contractors to bid stuff.

keep on em, and get bids to save the wall, and compare them to bids tearing it down and starting over.

good luck to ya, keep us posted!

 

[Dozerboy]

A rebuild could possibly save the homeowner from permit nightmares/cost.

X2 my dad does a bit of fire restoration. There have been building they tore down all but one wall. Built the building then later came back and tore down that old wall and rebuilt it. A lot of times it has to to with build offsets

 

[AmericanLandMgt]

If it was me I would fight it tooth and nail untill I had gotten what I wanted out of the Ins company. But the guy is already stressed enough at work and I may not have mentioned that his wife is six months pregnant so they just want the whole mess to go away as soon as possible. As long as they have a place to live in the end theyre pretty much resolved to just play the insurance company's game. I hate it for them because I know their situation would be better in the end if they had some more patience. As of now the construction crew has got all the sheetrock off the inside and are starting to rip off the sheething on the exterior walls. I havent got any pics but I may drive by there this week and snap a few and post them up. Thanks for all the good advice.