By Suzana Mikolova Home Remodeling After a Catastrophe
After a tornado, flood, earthquake or other natural disaster there can be significant damage to a house. This can cause serious need for repairs and restoration but hopefully insurance will be available to cover the costs. Instead of simply putting things back to the status quo, why not take the opportunity to do some long awaited home remodeling and not just fix things but also improve them?
Home remodeling is usually done by demolishing or stripping out the materials in a room or section of the house, so why not just look at the damage as nature’s demolition crew. In a way, you might save time and money by having the weather do the dirty work.
After a flood is a great time to look into installing wood floors or renovating a basement. Tornado damage to a wall of the house may be the perfect time to begin that addition or redesign you have been considering. Also, perhaps the loss of many shingles to high wind and heavy rain means that the time has come to re-roof the house. Home remodeling may be the silver lining of the tragedy and catastrophe that has been foisted upon a property owner.
Home remodeling may not be entirely covered by insurance because these liability companies often seek to pay just enough to restore things to the way they were before. That does not mean that a little extra investment or a creative use of the insurance settlement cannot be used to improve things. If the building flooded, it is probably worth paying for shoring to lift it and prevent future problems of that kind. If the windows blew out in a hurricane maybe higher wind-speed-rating units can be invested in. In situations where an earthquake cracked the foundation, it can be assessed, sealed, and perhaps retrofitted to prevent against future shifting. Maybe the building even needs to be leveled.
This is not meant to diminish the severity and upsetting aspects of a disaster. Home remodeling instead offers a chance to focus on something else. It is easy to get tied up in worrying and grieving for what was lost in an unexpected disaster. While nobody should entirely ignore and repress their grief, at some point everyone needs a distraction to help them return to normal life. While it may not be able to repair the emotional damage of experiencing these events, perhaps it offers a diversion to heal and move forward. If nothing else, it is a chance to improve the protection of structures from similar future problems.
Muhammad Aqib