Originally posted by SSGGeezer The same thing happened to a relative of mine after severe tornado damage. Tear down and rebuild was cheaper than repair. Strange that that was the case but I suspect it is more common than I thought.
Sometimes the structure is too far gone to repair. The one I was quoting on was an old lath & plaster finished house that still had knob & tube wiring, lead pipes and a fair amount of asbestos. The roof had been leaking for years and there were significant mold issues. Also one wall of the basement had collapsed entirely (it wasn't a supporting wall or else the building would have fallen, and one of the supporting walls was not far behind).
There was so much remedial work required that it was cheaper and safer to bring a backhoe and some dump trucks in, knock it down, haul it away and start again than it was to put the amount of labour required into fixing it. If the building had been in better shape, it could have been lifted and a new basement put under it, but the building was too far gone.