How to fund $70,000 of home repairs?

Hello PFC, Edmonton was deluged with rain in June and July so my basement suite flooded. Fortunately I had the overland flood endorsement on my home insurance so the demolition and restoration part of the basement is covered by insurance, however I don’t want to do all the repairs just to have it happen again.

The insurance policy covers $10k for flood prevention so I want to take advantage of that. My house was built in 1946 so it doesn’t have weeping tile or a sump pump but that was not an issue until we had the wettest Jun/Jul in our city’s recorded history. I have a quote from a concrete repair company that can install weeping tile and sump around the house for $49,000.

My hot water tank and furnace need to be replaced as well (they’re 23 years old) and the quote I have for that (as well as installing some air conditioning which has been an ambition since we moved in 4 years ago), is $20,000.

if I empty out my TFSAs I can come up with around $24,000, that plus the insurance makes $34,000. The HVAC company does financing at 5% for two years which seems reasonable so that could bring me up to $54,000. For the remainder I am considering withdrawing from RRSP or using a line of credit that I already have access to.

Big red flag for this whole plan is that my income is not steady right now, I’m on EI and training to do a commission-only sales job (I‘m looking for steady work as well but it’s rough out there at the moment), my spouse is on disability and does some part time work, we normally have rental income but not right now because of the construction needed for the basement suite.

i’m leaning towards making that big withdrawal from RRSPs even though I know there are tax implications because I don’t think it would be wise to load up on a bunch of debt right now. Because my income is low right now the tax implications are less than they would be in other years though. I can withdraw this money without screwing up my retirement plans because I’m a bit ahead according to my calculations and I have no outstanding debt other than the mortgage on the house.

My question for you PFC is, am I missing something? would a HELOC be a better plan than withdrawing RRSPs? As far as I can tell it’s either this or crossing my fingers and hoping I don’t have any other issues which doesn’t seem like a great plan.