Tim- I'm familiar with cama setbacks so I think we are ok on rebuild according to my measurements, house is slab on grade concrete and has a substantial dune in front with good vegetation.
Alexy- appreciate the offer, I'm coming back down at the end of month to determine what if anything can be saved, most of the house is ruined if not from the fire from the water damage and smoke damage.
I'm emotional over the situation, not just because the house is a total loss but because of all the time and energy I put into renovating the entire house top to bottom, I probably have over 1000 hours of work into the house in the past 5 years. The stress of redoing an entire house, the time away from my wife and kids, time I can't get back was all for nothing at this point. This house was completely redone, the pictures don't even do it justice as they are two years old, I just finished a complete master bath gut remodel in February and it will all be ripped out. I own two houses in south nags head so I live down there the entire winter from dec 1st to march 1st working on the houses. This year I finally got to a point where both houses were finished to my standards and I was ready to take a break from going to Home Depot every other day. I try and find the good in any situation and I appreciate the time I've spent down in the outer banks the past 5 years, mostly the people, I've become friends with a lot tradesmen that live and work on the island, and just the random people that greet you or talk to you throughout the day which is nonexistent in northern Virginia. I've been able to spend time with my friends I grew up with that are in the construction industry and would come down with a simple phone call to bail me out of a project where I got in over my head. Good friends are hard to find and I've got more than I could imagine. I feel defeated at this point, starting all over after reaching the finish line is tough. Every time I walked into this house I would say to myself I love this house, it was perfect, everything in the house was perfect, the people that rented the house would say it was the nicest house they've ever stayed in, I purposely didn't update the pictures on the rental website because I wanted people to be surprised when they walked in and the house was way nicer than they had imagined which is the exact opposite of almost every rental house out there. I always figured that if the house was really nice people would respect it more and treat it better than a rundown house and I think that theory holds true to this day.
I met with fire chief and he's putting his report together, charcoal grill was in garage clean/unused, no electrical on 3rd level deck, I don't think it was intentional. I will update when I get definitive answers, I won't speculate at this point.
insurance adjuster said house is a total loss. The entire roof structure will have to come off, some framing on upper level will have to be replaced, the house will be stripped down to just studs and then rebuilt from ground up. hopefully I can start rebuilding by July after we get permits and all the insurance/fire inspections completed.
I expect my houses to get abused by renters, its part of the business of short term rentals, I've come to accept that, and I will go down every winter and fix everything, never thought I would get a phone call from my wife at 5:30pm on a Monday that my house was on fire. Such is life I guess, I appreciate all the locals I know who reached out, the outer banks is truly a special place, and not because of the beach but because of the people. My wife always wonders how I know everybody wherever we go when down there and I tell her it's not hard to have friends here, everyone is your friend. I will post some more pics when I get time and some more when I start rebuilding.
Corey
Like +13QuoteFlag