Risks to consider when buying Kominka in a Non-rebuilding land

[crew]

Thanks, these are super helpful. The owner is renovating the place so I don't really know much about the renovation details. I do know they rare replacing all the floors. From what I have seen I don't think they poured concrete like in the picture.

Sorry I forget what the existing structure you had, but did you replace the walls with concrete blocks?

[edmundedgar]

Thanks, these are super helpful. The owner is renovating the place so I don't really know much about the renovation details. I do know they rare replacing all the floors. From what I have seen I don't think they poured concrete like in the picture.

Sorry I forget what the existing structure you had, but did you replace the walls with concrete blocks?

The walls are original. They're the local stone, from the quarry in Oya.

The walls have a layer of stone at the bottom which I guess is pretty common, but also the house is kind of weird because it's dug into the mountain. The walls on the earth side are made of stone, then everything else above the bottom stone layer is wood.

[OnionChutney]

Thanks, these are super helpful. The owner is renovating the place so I don't really know much about the renovation details. I do know they rare replacing all the floors. From what I have seen I don't think they poured concrete like in the picture.

Sorry I forget what the existing structure you had, but did you replace the walls with concrete blocks?

The walls are original. They're the local stone, from the quarry in Oya.

The walls have a layer of stone at the bottom which I guess is pretty common, but also the house is kind of weird because it's dug into the mountain. The walls on the earth side are made of stone, then everything else above the bottom stone layer is wood.

The house is dug into the mountain?? That sounds incredible. Any photos?

[edmundedgar]

Thanks, these are super helpful. The owner is renovating the place so I don't really know much about the renovation details. I do know they rare replacing all the floors. From what I have seen I don't think they poured concrete like in the picture.

Sorry I forget what the existing structure you had, but did you replace the walls with concrete blocks?

The walls are original. They're the local stone, from the quarry in Oya.

The walls have a layer of stone at the bottom which I guess is pretty common, but also the house is kind of weird because it's dug into the mountain. The walls on the earth side are made of stone, then everything else above the bottom stone layer is wood.

The house is dug into the mountain?? That sounds incredible. Any photos?

There are a bunch of photos on the thread I posted when I first found this website:
viewtopic.php?t=491

It doesn't really show you the "dug into the mountain" aspect. But with most houses when you build into a slope, you have a little space behind the house, often reinforced with concrete, and the air circulates around that. In our case the stone is just built right up against the earth. Because we're built into the slope, the back door at the far end of the upstairs floor opens out only slightly higher than ground level, and you only have to go down a few little stairs to get to the ground outside. The ground floor below that is effectively a cellar.

The downside of this design is that the underground area is really damp; I think this was done on purpose, because it was originally a pottery workshop (with the potter living upstairs and in the not-cellar end of the ground floor) and you want constant humidity to avoid the clay drying out. This is especially true as the walls are made from the local stone which is really porous.

We have a tatami room on the ground floor built slightly into the underground part, and at the bottom was what was originally going to be a closet for futons and things. Before we even moved in this got totally covered by mold, so we ended up repurposing it as an exhibition space with the pottery made by people involved with the house: the lady who built it, the people who rented it after her, and the builder's assistant who is also a potter when she's not being a builder's assistant.