I'm considering a buying a tiny but solid 1950 ranch in an New England suburban neighborhood. The house small but adequate, but in a great neighborhood and a buildable plot of land. I'd like to go into the buying process with some idea of the viability of renovating the house. What I'd like to do (not DIY, but to hire a professional) is the following:

1-Remove the 2 small additions off the back of the house
2-Add a full 2 story, plus full basement addition directly abutting the rear of the original structure.
3-Tie the existing roof structure into the addition's roof.
4-Add 2 dormers to the front portion of the existing roof structure (more for visual balance rather than anything structural.
6- The new 2nd floor ABOVE the existing structure will not be habitable rooms.

My hope is that by building a new foundation, extending the existing bearing wall, and changing the roof line, the bulk of the addition's stress will be on the addition itself, and the original structure will not require any foundational or framing reinforcements.

Can anyone review the details below and give your professional option on if this is doable without major structural changes to the existing house? Also, I'm budgeting approx $100k for the addition (not including the kitchen upgrade). Does that sound reasonable? All information is below and/or attached.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Jen

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A. Existing original structure
-A 20x30 stick built ranch built in approx. 1950.
-Original structure sits on poured concrete foundation walls approx 4 ft high.
-Main beam is an 8"x8" hardwood and runs length of (long side) of the house (30'). (I believe the beam sits on top of, not fed into, the poured foundation).
-Beam supports are 1'x1' cement block pilings, approx every 6 feet across the entire span of the house.
-Sill is hardwood (maybe 4x4s?) and in good condition. Couldn't get much closer to see.
-Bearing wall is the wall shared between the LR and front bedroom, and spans the width of the house. No abnormal spans (over 3 feet) or visible cracks.
-Ceiling height on first floor is approx. 8 feet (from what I can remember)
-Ceiling joists & roof trusses are 2x6s, 16" on center. Again, none missing or odd configurations, as far as I could see.
-Could not see floor joists in bsmt, as ceiling is plastered.
-Roof is typical ranch, attic heigth approx 6 feet...
-Roof pitch seems to be 6 on 12.
-New single layer (asphalt) roof last fall.
-Exsiting structure has cedar clapboard siding, in good shape.
-Electric is 100amp service (romex) with full panel, will not need major upgrading.
-Boiler is old (gas) and will need replacing at time of renovation
-1st floor windows are original, and will be replaced prior to the renovation.

There are also 2 small additions on the back of the house, both with virtually flat roofs & same crawl space basement. These structures and this particular foundation addition, I would like to remove during the renovation.

In the rear of the property (last 50 feet or so) is an informal 'wetland'. However, most houses on the that side of the block have full basements and/or multi story additions off the rear of the house. Therefore, I would assume not to have a water issue near the structure

Jen;
The best advice I can give you is to find a local (Boston area) renovation contractor with good references/credentials (NARI/NAHB, and customer references) as every market varies a million ways in cost, soils, code application, etc.

Reputable contractors do not charge for estimating/information--at least not in my market! Give him/her absolutely as much information as you can about what you are trying to accomplish, they should be able to give you a fairly accurate "ballpark" figure
that you can use with the purchase price of the home to see if this is feasible for you or not.

They also should have a structural engineer they use, to be able to answer your comment about not wanting to "beef up" the original home's foundation for non-habitable 2nd story addition over original home (I wouldn't count on it!)

One piece of info lacking in your post was the approximate square footage of addition, my initial reaction to your wish list and budget was you are not allowing enough to accomplish all you want to, but the Greater Boston market may be very different in costs than Dallas.
Hope this helps in your purchase decision....

You asked a lot of real good questions which means your doing your homework. However there are way to many other items to consider when answering these types of questions. Soil makeup, property easements to wet lands, city sewer or septic system, electrical system? 100 amp is light based on todays standards. How many available spaces are still in panel? Plumbing vents and upgrades?

Your best served by hiring a professional engineer and home designer who not only can help you design what your looking to do, but answer these very important questions and knows the area in which this home is located.

As far as buget. I think 100G is a little light to do all this work. But again there are way to many questions that need answered before any one could even guess if this number is somewhat correct.

Hi All,

Thanks for the advice (and pardon my horrible spelling). I know I'll need to get several estimates when I really start planning...but I was able to get an architect friend out to give me an idea of reasonableness (and he verified both of your thoughts that $100k is too light).

That's fine...just wanted to get a very rough estimate to make sure my purchase price in reasonable.

Thanks again!

Jen