Tear down and rebuild? No, thanks.

Q. We’re renovating our home and building a substantial addition. After many months of planning and bids, a zoning variance and permits, the construction just started, and immediately the contractor called to say we have high groundwater. Now we can’t have the basement we wanted, even though we’re not in a flood zone, unless we do a very expensive waterproofing job. The contractor refuses to guarantee that the basement won’t leak anyway. But now we’re learning that our nearly 100-year-old house has wood walls going down into the ground and that the previous owners added wall beams next to the old rotted ones, then covered the whole thing up with stucco. The contractor now wants to take the whole house down and rebuild, and we just can’t do it. Can our home be saved? We’ve already moved out, and this is just too much to handle right now.

A. I went to the house and looked at the whole series of “issues.” Your problems are solvable. With careful, methodical craftsmanship — and without tremendous cost — your house can be saved. I know this sounds expensive, but it really isn’t, relatively speaking.

First, the house was built before there were building codes, and even though it was a bad idea to use regular, untreated lumber below ground level, it wasn’t unheard of. Second, the current building code actually allows and addresses the requirements for types of wood and fasteners to be used for below-grade construction. In your case, I saw the walls and was not as concerned with the below-grade conditions because the newer wall studs (not the beams) are actually in good shape. The important thing to remember is that the stucco that went on the outside of the wall acted as a moisture barrier and did an adequate job. Even though I would never recommend this unorthodox method of building, what is there can be enclosed.