Well, maybe we could play skee-ball during dinner parties...

March 9, 2008 11:46 AM

Should we pass on this great apartment we've found because the floor slants a bit?

We've found an apartment in Brooklyn co-op we interested in buying. There is one problem - the floor slopes a bit in the hallway and into the master bedroom, and there is noticeable crack in the wall above the bedroom doorway where the foundation has settled. Welcome to New York real estate if you're not a millionaire.

The apartment is in great shape otherwise and a good size. The problem is concentrated to one patch of floor. The price is a little high, but the seller is motivated (he has a job offer in another state) and we feel we could get the asking price down to within a more comfortable range. We love the neighborhood and the street, there's public transportation nearby, the building has no underlying mortgage so our maintenance would be considerably lower than other places we've viewed. The building is well-maintained and managed, and the co-op board consists of all of three people. Average approval, we're told, takes one week.

The building was built in 1930. We're told by the real estate agent that co-op investigated the matter and it was determined there wasn't much that could be done - old buildings settle, and so forth. One owner in a lower unit apparently had their floors evened out for about $13,000. Of course, the agent is trying to sell the apartment, so we're taking this info with a grain of salt.

Questions - how big a problem is this? Anybody have experience leveling out a floor like this? Would this be a deal-breaker for you? Is this just the price of wanting to live in a Pre-War building? If we went for it, what kind of reduction in the asking price would be appropriate? Too big a risk? Any experience, advice, cautionary tales, encouragement or insight appreciated.

posted by TryTheTilapia to home & garden (19 answers total)

Call around and find a good property inspector...get some recommendations from realtors you respect and find one who specializes in multifamily buildings like the one you are talking about. Take that person's advice, or, spend the 400-500 on a second inspection. If you are working with an inspector who has been around for a while, that's going to be the opinion you want to hear either way.

Unless you wanted to play marbles, I would guess that if the structure is sound and the building is done settling (ask to see the engineering report from the co-op) you would learn to live with the buildings quirks.
posted by johngalt at 11:56 AM on March 9, 2008

Sheesh. Sorry for the grammar and typos. I've got my mind on other things, I suppose.
posted by TryTheTilapia at 11:56 AM on March 9, 2008

2nd independent inspector

i'd ask to see the paperwork related to their findings that everything is OK
posted by Salvatorparadise at 12:05 PM on March 9, 2008

I'd consider getting an inspection - or checking out the report if the co-op had one come in - for the wall crack, just because I'm not sure how much that really affects the building.

As for the floors, they're generally not noticeable once you have furniture up. Our apartment is in an 1890s house (very common around here) and we definitely had some issues setting up our bookcases, but since then, we haven't had any issues.
posted by cobaltnine at 12:07 PM on March 9, 2008

I live in a Brooklyn (amusingly enough, in Park Slope, ho ho) apartment with a pronounced slant- at its slantiest there's a 5-inch difference between one side and the other. When we saw the apartment, we noticed the bedroom floor wasn't quite level, but it was nothing we couldn't handle. Maybe we're dumb, but we didn't connect that slant to the weird 6-inch-tall platform covered in green astroturfy carpet that took up about 80% of the living room, put in by the previous tenants. Our best guess was that it was a tiny putting green of some kind. The broker asked if we wanted it removed, and we of course said yes. When we moved in, we realized why it had been there. The platform was level, the floor underneath, not so much.

But we live with it. We strategically arranged the furniture so that tip-overable things (TV, bookcases) lean against the wall at the bottom of the slope. Two of the couch legs are propped up on blocks. We put a rug under the rolling computer chair, although we still have to be careful when shifting our weight. We're blissfully ignorant about the structural effect this may have- for all we know, the building will fall down tomorrow, but I doubt it. It's all a little annoying, but since we like almost everything else about the place, we don't mind too much. Even if we had realized the extent of the slant beforehand, we still would have moved in, and when it comes time, we'll probably renew our lease.

Moral of the story: a slant is definitely livable. If you don't want to pay to have the actual floors leveled, there's always the cheap green astroturf platform route.

Plus, when we drop something, we always know where to find it.
posted by doift at 12:21 PM on March 9, 2008 [1 favorite]

I live in an apt with a slight slant, and I am definitely going to do all I can to avoid it next time I move. But it's not horrible in a day-to-day way.
posted by milestogo at 12:28 PM on March 9, 2008

Can't add to the practical aspects, but I can tell you that it's not that annoying living with uneven floors. Also lived in a building with uneven floors (living and dining rooms were convex-- higher in the middle than the edges). Very annoying but not unlivable, and it created much entertainment value with uninitiated guests and rolling chairs.

If you're going to be there awhile, you can start saving now to invest in leveling them, maybe?
posted by nax at 2:36 PM on March 9, 2008

I, too, live in a tilty park slope apartment, and the biggest problem I have is that my fried eggs come out crescent-shaped. I've been here ten years and the tilt doesn't seem to have changed in that time. It's a 5-story brownstone from 1900.
posted by moonmilk at 3:00 PM on March 9, 2008

I've had a builder level an uneven floor. You don't talk about the construction of your floor but this is how mine was done:
- floorboards were removed;
- the joists underneath were built up as necessary to a single, consistent height by adding thin batons of wood on top of them (screwed and glued down);
- floorboards were replaced.
It's time consuming, but $13,000 seems high, even in this day and age. Basically, you are moving the whole floor up to the existing high-point. Where unevenness runs through a door etc it can get complicated, and you may also have to trim the bottom off the door. But I guess if you were handy and careful you could do a room yourself in a couplea weeks.
posted by londongeezer at 3:06 PM on March 9, 2008

Well, $13,000 seems high for a room, maybe not so much for an apartment.
posted by londongeezer at 3:08 PM on March 9, 2008

Most houses that old have a slant, and it's nothing to worry about. The crack is perhaps more troubling, buy only if it's widening. I would have any place you want to buy looked at, but wouldn't stress about it.

I was raised in old houses and buildings, so I don't even know what it would feel like to have a smooth even floor. The only real problem is if it's going to drive you crazy.
posted by gesamtkunstwerk at 3:51 PM on March 9, 2008

Thanks to all so far, particularly the info about inspections and requesting reports. We surely will follow that advice. We're first-timers, so that info is really helpful to have. Personally, the slant itself doesn't bother me. It's more troubling to my SO aesthetically, and we both wonder how it will affect our re-sale value if we decide to move on in several years.

londongeezer, that info is so helpful. We are neither one of us terribly handy - well, my SO is much more so than I. I've seen friends, though, become their own handymen as they've improved their own homes, so I guess there's hope for people like me. And great story about the putting green - truly, that put things into perspective! And, yeah, I guess there are benefits to the slanted floor I hadn't considered.
posted by TryTheTilapia at 4:28 PM on March 9, 2008

Depends on the degree of the slant. But it doesn't sound like good feng-shui at all.
posted by watercarrier at 5:08 PM on March 9, 2008

My floor slants, and I hardly ever even notice it. I guess it's about a three inch difference.
posted by solipsophistocracy at 5:25 PM on March 9, 2008

Just an anecdote. My uncles hallway tillted badly left until the archway (on the right) where the floor now veered to the same direction until just beyond the arch where it lurched back sharply to the left but thankfully there was a wall. (Rather than a room full of people) :) It was like being at sea.

Apparently it was demolished, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the polite way of saying a guest finally went through the wall.
posted by mu~ha~ha~ha~har at 5:31 PM on March 9, 2008

bookcase solution - chopsticks. tilt the bookcase back until the top back touches the wall, put a pair of chopsticks under the front (one under each side) and snap off the extra.

in my place, if you dropped a marble it would roll for days!
posted by KenManiac at 5:51 PM on March 9, 2008

I live in an apartment with a slight in part of the unit, and will definitely avoid it next time- walking into those rooms sometimes gives people (like my Mom) feelings of dizziness- I occasionally feel it as well and it is disorienting. Makes it somewhat easier/harder to clean the rooms- on one hand, everything pools on one side of the room, on the other hand, spills get all over.
posted by arnicae at 8:43 PM on March 9, 2008

Obligatory Mad About You clip.

A small slant is definitely livable, even effectively unnoticeable. It's when it begins to affect how doors align, say, that it becomes a serious problem. I live in a duplex under renovation -- we rent out the other side. The MBR door over there won't even latch anymore, so they use a drapery swash to hold it shut. The one here (mirror floor plan) has the hinge on the other side and only looks out of kilter in the doorway. Meanwhile, the doors on the perpendicular walls are completely unaffected.

There's clearly some ongoing settling -- in the 20 years since the plaster was cleaned of calcamine, it's developed new cracks in each wall crossing the apartment (but again, not the lengthwise wall), as many as three in an individual lath-and-plaster wall. It's not going to fall apart as long as we keep patching it, but it's an annoyance that the patching you did just a five years ago, say, is now cracking again.

I'm a bit reluctant to consider structural correction. We did that in my parents' house a couple of decades ago, because a major beam in the basement had been sliced in two (!) for a duct when they moved a wing around the corner of the building in the 1920s. We had to prop it up on jacks and slip in steel supports. The house got straighter, but not only did the wall directly about get compressed until it popped, there were many cracks that appeared in the perpendicular walls. The plaster had, I suppose, adapted gradually as the house sank over some 50 years, but didn't like being forced back up in just six months.

So adapting to the circumstances in one way or another is certainly an option worth considering, as long as you're sure that the structure itself is not suddenly starting to get worse. Only an inspector -- and maybe an expensive structural engineer -- can really tell you that. (For example, drainage around the building may have changed, meaning the entire foundation is sinking unevenly.) Good luck!
posted by dhartung at 12:03 AM on March 10, 2008

Nthing the inspection w/structural engineer to make sure that there's not a hidden nightmare. If not, meh, call it character.

/owns slantyfloored 100 year old rowhouse
posted by desuetude at 1:20 PM on March 10, 2008