The joys of living beside a river

[Gothichome]

Well crisis over, river peeked about lunch time, no water in the basement. It came to within a half meter (18 inches) of our ingress level.
James, we had a large warm weather event here and up by Willa’s. We had three days of steady drizzle but upstream they had a lot more rain.if I recall London area had a moths moisture in the same three days, it all drains into my river. Well most of SW Ontario drains into my river actually.

[mjt]

Until earlier this week, Minneapolis/Saint Paul was ~10 degrees F above average for the month of January. We had ~1.5 inches of rain 10 days ago and a number of rivers were approaching flood stage, at least one because of an ice dam downstream.

[phil]

is jacking the house an option? Here I commonly see people raising houses. they basically calling the guys with hydraulic equipment, timbers and dunnage. In a day they can have a house up on beams so a bobcat can dig out for a new foundation , then they usually make the basement taller.
It makes financial sense for me to do that because then I could rent out the basement if it were full height. Roughly it would pay back in 10 years and cost about 100K The math works but I'm afraid to take on more mortgage. in theory I could do it in a year and be renting out the suite to pay the cost. If I were out of town and a little off the grid I think I'd be tempted to just get the building raised and framed in then do the rest.
my lot is on a hill in front of a catch basin so I dont have the flooding worries but it still makes sense from a real estate perspective. some of the ones that are done are nice, with the features of an old house but the basement being modern construction. The rental suites can be new style construction. on one lot they built an apartment building with an adjacent ground level parking lot , they nestled three old houses over the parking structure. It saved the houses from development and actually looks really nice. They kept the front at street level so you can hardly tell the houses are on top of a modern structure. the lift isnt' really the big cost, the basement pour , engineering drawings etc are a lot of it. My dad did a cabin like that with a concrete ground level basement, by himself without more than jacks and blocks but out of town where he didn't have neighbors and inspectors all over him. He went slowly and it took time but he wasn't young then, being so resourceful the cost of that was very minimal. In the city it's a different ball game. I have a co worker thatis a carpenter and he did his himself over the past year. He contracted what he needed to, spent 50K on the hot water on demand heating system alone. It'll raise his taxes, he wanted rooms for the kids but in the future maybe a suite when they grow up. It seems lik emore height would solve the flood issues but you might need a really deep foundation if the water table is so high, depends on the soil too I guess. I saw them build a garage near me and they had to dig about 10 feet deep , I guess the dirt and round rocks drain well but maybe hardpan is that deep so they made them put tall footings then filled the hole.

Im torn because I want a garage but its practical to make a laneway house with a garage under it. The city will suppport the idea. Im just scared of making the mortgage go from 300K to above that, at 55 I only have 10 year so earn the money so it looks like im in a state of eternal debt. mine spiked by 30 % three years ago to over a million . this year dropped by 10%. on paper it is increasing my wealth but of course if I switched houses the others are just as high and in reality that doesn't help pay bills, the taxes just go up faster. I figure that if and when I sell the new buyer will look at the potential and hopefully that doesn't mean a tear down. I'd hate to see my work go down the tube by a wrecking ball but that's reality for many similar houses, Everyone wants mcmansions with lots of suites.

[1918ColonialRevival]

Glad the waters crested without causing any damage. Let's hope the spring thaw will be more gradual and the water can drain at a slower pace.