Once they get the engineer's report, deduct the cost of taking down the fireplace, providing structural support and rebuilding it, if they want to. It all comes down to dollars and cents.

Thanks, worthy. Yes, of course. I believe the owners have priced it as they have (a 3 br in that neighborhood is like gold) because of the work needed. But I'm sure there will be a bidding war.

We had a house with a sinking fireplace. The fireplace was on an outside wall, fortunately, over a basement which had another fireplace directly under the first. Complicating the issue was the fact that the entire house was constructed of native limestone. Very very heavy. The ceilings cracked and the basement floor dropped about 3" in a area of about 4'x 10'.

We hired a professional firm from the city to try to lift the house. Because of the weight (or because maybe they weren't very competent) they were only able to lift the house an inch or so. They were able to stabilize it by the installation of piers sunk down to bedrock under the house (I believe they had to go 60').

All told, we spent $15,000 and were really not happy with the results.

This was about 15 years ago. We really did just the minimum we had to to get the house sold.

That's a beautiful room! Love the fireplace! Ask a house inspector, maybe they don't have to fix it, it hasn't been falling down since 1920. It's must be solid since it only settled down 3" after all these years......I don't know anything about house inspections though, to me it's not broken and it works. :-)

Thanks very much littlebug. That's very helpful. Such a massive fireplace is extremely unusual down here. Most of the cottages built around that time just have a basic heatilator-type.

Summersrhythm, yes, it's a very nice room, isn't it?

You are welcome. I thought I still had pictures of that house - just for fun, here's one of the fireplace on the main floor. This was taken after the repairs were completed. The base of the fireplace and the wood floor never did really line up the way they should have; that's why the area rug is pushed right up against the fireplace.

The home actually had 3 fireplaces, two on the main floor and one in the basement.

Thank you, summers. Yes, it was a beautiful home but it was very large and was setting on 130 acres. We are approaching retirement age, our boys grew up and left home, and we didn't need all the space nor the land. A common story.

We sold it all and moved to a much smaller home on a town-sized lot on the golf course. And no fireplaces! :)

Wow, I'd love to have 130 acres horse farm. I'd have dirt bike trails throughout property, and 3000 roses, 300 fruit trees........100 goats.....2 miniature donkeys........lol

We have a fireplace at the suburb house, the country place had one but for some reason it was closed.

What a beauty. Hope it isn't a major deal.

Hi, cpartist. I figured you'd like it. :)

I don't think the kitchen is in the original spot, and I'm pretty sure the house is missing some built-ins, but otherwise it's amazingly untouched compared to most of what you can find these days. It looks like it got some upgrading shortly after it was built, because it's from 1923 but has a colored tub, and it looks like they enclosed the porch very early on, since it also has 4-over-1s.

Unfortunately it has two baths. 2nd bath is recent, in attic, but it scares me, because it means my friends will be bidding against a lot of sober homes for sure. Those folks won't be bothered by the fireplace, either.

I hope your friends get that beautiful home! Bidding war is no fun.

Bidding war is no fun.

Especially not when you're up against people who can make an extra $60K a month from the second bathroom, so they don't care what it costs.

I always view life as everyone has a book, a journey down earth, If that house is meant to be theirs, the house keys would find their way landing in their hands. :-) Give the best offer, wait and see........

Unlikely to be a structural problem. But likely to be expensive to fix. Not that you probably need to

Love the house!

Slab on grade or crawl space?

Very low crawl space, but it's moot since they were outbid.

My question would have been - is it still sinking, or did it settle a few inches at first, but hasnt since. If the latter then no fix may be necessary, except to conceal the gaps. One house I looked at - it was obviously still moving based on the fact that a fresh coat of paint theyd done prior to house going on sale had recracked along same fault lines.