Drive-Thru Window

[thekid]

Look what dropped in at my brother's house the other night.......

Bryan Stableford of Fredericksburg, Va., says crash 'sounded like a large explosion' when vehicle struck his kitchen | wusa9.com

[thekid]

New estimates of damage are now approaching 50K......

[ForeverAutumn]

Wow. I'm happy to hear that your brother was not injured. But what a horrible thing to have to go through. He may want to consider some sort of barrier near the road. There are ways to make concrete barriers look nice.

We have friends who live on lakefront property. Up here, their lake freezes over in the winter. A few years ago a huge ice jam drifted onto their property and right up to their house. It took out their dock, tore up the yard, and took out the deck off their kitchen but, luckily, stopped just before hitting the house. After that they put in a few concrete posts (about 10 feet into the ground) and then surrounded the posts with wood, so that it just looks like wooden posts at the top of their dock. It looks really nice, but it's solid as hell and the concrete should break up any ice that drifts their way in the future. I suspect this would work for cars too.

[thekid]

Reviewed the estimate with my brother yesterday.
They included everything but I am guessing the adjuster never opened the washing machine or they would have seen that it was full of broken bricks and concrete. So it looks like the cost for the repairs will be about $45,000. The cost to replace the masonry is just over $17,000 alone.

My brother is now looking for a temporary residence. He rented the downstairs so the insurance company said they will pay for the lost rent during the time the repairs are being completed.

Financially he will come through this okay but he has been pulling his hair out since it happened just dealing with the contractors, estimators and city inspectors. The utility companies have been disconnecting his electricity and gas on and off since the accident.