I had an electric dumbwaiter in my old house that broke three times in the first three months that I lived there. I was afraid it would break with a full load of groceries in it so I very rarely used it. Then, the safety feature that was supposed to prevent you from being able to open the door if the elevator box was not on that floor failed, which terrified me because a kid could have opened the door, crawled in and fallen three floors. So, I got it fixed and added a deadbolt lock and never again used it after that, for the 20-years I lived in the house.
My kitchen was on the second floor of the three-story house, with a large deck on the first floor and a roof deck above the third. I got very used to carting stuff up and down the stairs. The dumbwaiter was NOT a selling point and it took up tons of valuable room. Would never want one again. The people who bought the house and remodeled took the dumbwaiter out.
I would not spend the money on a dumbwaiter. Many houses in that neighborhood had them but no one used them.
That’s why you want a family with kids to buy the house - so they can carry the groceries up! The first house we bid and lost on had the garage and entry on the ground floor and the kitchen upstairs. That’s one of the reasons I’m glad we got outbid - I was thinking of a basket and pulley system over a balcony! But that’s really the same situation as just about any split level house, whether side-to-side or front-to-back; there are going to be stairs somewhere no matter what.
Right now the only way to enter the house from the garage or the driveway is up some wooden stairs to main level. There are no stairs inside the house to the basement/garage area. If you do the Street View from the alley in back, the stairs to the left go straight into Bedroom #3 (I find this really odd). Stairs to the right go into a laundry room thing in back of the house that is behind the kitchen.
My house has a garage under, and for 20+ years we’ve been hauling stuff through the basement and up the steps to the kitchen. It’s not that big a deal.
H grew up in a house that was 66 steps from the street to the front door. He lived there with his parents for nearly 4 decades. He, his sibs and parents went up and down those stairs regularly. The stairs are outside the house–lovely unobstructed views.
Both of our kids said they do NOT want to live in that house–too many stairs. The stairs have also limited the rental pool and lessened rental rates.
H said hauling 50 pound loads up and down the stairs was a bear.
The dumb waiter will depend on whether there is a roof top deck or some kind of entertaining space on top of the house and the kitchen remains on ground floor and then garage one floor down. If only bedrooms are going to be on top then I will not entertain dumbwaiter idea
I really think the dumbwaiter is a dumb idea. It screams this was an OLD house. .
It appeals to us older posters, BUT CB should be designing a modern home that appeals to younger buyers- those with families , instead of buyers with infirmities!
Her realtors have clients looking for for 4BD 3BA homes, not homes to house Mom and Pop. I would not waste the $ or dedicate the space to it.
Builders here are building 3 story new homes- not a dumbwaiter in sight…
Time to move on, imho.
“I really think the dumbwaiter is a dumb idea. It screams this was an OLD house.”
This!!! To me, dumbwaiters are in the same category as built-in vacuums and intercoms… They smell of the seventies, together with avocado appliances and toilets.
I agree no dumbwaiter. We need to remember this is a spec house and dollars need to be spent wisely. A dumbwaiter may appeal to some buyers but it isn’t going to make or break the sale. As I said in a previous post, H built many 3 story homes with a roof deck. Not 1 dumbwaiter. He did build 1 house with an elevator but that was because the lot he bought came with a set of plans already drawn.
In the many homes of friends and loved ones that are in the 7 figure range, NI dumb waiters but one has an elevator. All the rest just have one or two sets of stairs and it has not hurt their value or desirability at all.
Because this is a flip, money needs to be spent on the amenities that will most appeal to the demographic that will be buying the house. There are so many possibilities to make this house amazing, but then there wouldn’t be a profit to be made. I’m looking forward to what the architect suggests.
As much as I would detest climbing stairs to bring groceries in the house, I would find loading them into a dumb waiter and then unloading them from the dumb waiter to be more time consuming than just running them up the stairs. But that’s just me.
My friend who is a retired contractor (and a key investor) from the Pt Loma area called one of his retired soil engineer friends. They walked the bottom of the property yesterday. Lots of good news…
The soil engineer crawled around and inspected the soil. It is good ‘high bearing’ soil that will not require any type of expensive anchoring or geo grid type of thing for a high retaining wall
They believe that I might be able to do a standard 6 ft retaining wall with the pre-approved City plans. This removes all requirement for expensive soil testing and custom structural engineer calculations
If I do not want to try to reclaim one or two feet out of more flat land (by back filling a retaining wall), his recommendation is that we can gunnite the critical vertical that has the soil erosion. Paint the concrete gunnite to match the dirt. Then build a nice 2-3 foot block wall around the perimiter for the perception of safety and privacy and to provide a seating wall along front of property. If I choose to do a gunnite protection of the vertical portion of the slope it will save close to $30,000 in cost!!!
