Continuing Joys of Home Ownership

[El Tejon]

I awoke this beautiful morning at 4:30am, grabbed my vitamin pills and sauntered into the kitchen for a bottle of water.  While in the kitchen I found plenty of water--ON MY KITCHEN FLOOR!  Ahhh, Lake Badger.

Apparently a kitchen pipe gave way overnight.  The plumber will arrive between 2 and 4pm.

Remodeling, landscaping, ventilation, contractors who get arrested on their way to my house, a bathroom remodel three times over budget, an assault by carpenter ants last year, sidewalks and curbs not originally approved by the City Engineer, a nursery that puts in the wrong type of tree, painters disappearing for weeks at a time, gypsum dust from dry wall throughout the house, and a yard under seige from dandelions, and now plumbing issues--what what a brilliant idea it was to buy a house!:D

[w turner]

I can relate.  

My wife and I bought a house in '02 and made it a little over a year before all hell broke loose.  This is what 2004 looked like for us.

February- start remodeling our LR with plans to finish that and an upstairs bedroom

March 6 - We wake up one sunday am to find that our washing machine has malf'ed and had been pouring water onto the laundry room, kitchen, and dining room floors all night.  The water had actually seeped out fo the siding on the outside.  The only thing that saved us was shoddy construction.  There was a gap in a closet on the opposite wall of the laundry room that allowed much of the water to run through the subfloor and into the crawlspace.

March 8 - My dog dissappears/is stolen.  This is the only dog I have ever really bonded with.

Mid-April - After blowers running 24/7 to dry the floor out, dealing with the contractor, picking out flooring, and having the contractor come out 3 extra times due to worksmanship issues, the unscheduled remodel (where we also painted the Laundry room, kitchen, and Dining room) is finished.

Mid-May - Start really trying to use our central HVAC system only to find out that the compressor is out.  We make the decision to go ahead and replace the entire system.  

Early June - The central HVAC is finally done and I can finish the LR remodel that I started way back in February.

Late July - A/C compressor and related parts on my car go on the fritz.  Have to replace compressor, A/C fan and other assorted small parts

Early November - Hot water heater under the stairs burst.  I have to replace the floor in that closet, plus have someone to come out and install the new hot  water heater (I don't  do plumbing).

That was 2004 in our house.  We spent around $10K on all of this, not including the cost of the planned remodel to the Living Room.

BTW- Did I mention that when this all started, my wife was 3 months pregnant and working two jobs?  Imagine living with a 6 months pregnant woman..........with no AC...........in the south.........in late May/early June.  The AC compressor in the car went out one week after my son was born in July.  Problem is that was the only car that all three of us can ride in at the same time.  

W

[Nathaniel Firethorn]

Ah, plumbing.

10:30 PM, in the Firethorn loo, taking The Pause that Refreshes. Finished up and flushed.

Gurgle... gurgle... whine......... BANG! GUSSSSSSSSSSSHHHHHH........

The slight overpressure from the toilet valve shutting off had cracked a fitting off the water filter in the basement. I spent an interesting half hour patching a piece of pipe in place of the filter.

And then there's the time that the township sewer line froze and the basement flooded with poo... and the time the county bulldozers flattened our water line on a project next door... and the Battle of the Carpenter Ants... and the Invasion of the Galactic Mildew... to say nothing of the school district and the township council playing Santa Claus, to the tune of umpty-thousand Firethorn bucks per year...

Home ownership. It's not for wimps.

- NF

[Guest]

I don't see mention there of white trash neighbors.

[280plus]

or $25.000 septic systems...

[Larry Ashcraft]

Plumbing isn't all that hard, if you learn some tricks from somebody who knows what they are doing.  I especially like working with copper pipe (a nice sweat joint is a joy to behold ).

In our 1933 Craftsman I have:

Installed two electric water heaters, really simple, takes about an hour.
Installed radiant hot water heat.
Installed a propane water heater complete with direct vent system (used as a boiler for the radiant heat).
Installed a water softener.
Re-worked the plumbing in the well house a couple times.
Installed four pumps in eleven years (we have had bad luck with pumps).

[Nathaniel Firethorn]

Yeah, Larry, but how much of that were you forced to do at midnight?

- NF

[280plus]

Installed radiant hot water heat.

Ahhh, music to my ears...  

[Larry Ashcraft]

Yeah, Larry, but how much of that were you forced to do at midnight?

- NF

Don't do midnight, but I usually do my outside plumbing (in the wellhouse) in January or February when it is 5 below zero.

Funny how it works out that way.

[grampster]

In Colorado, outside plumbing is probably a wooden structure with two holes and the plumbing work is killing bees and creepy looking spiders.  heh.  

Did I ever tell you about how we clear up constipation in deer camp?

1.  2 holer 50 yds from the shack
2.  Constipated hunter straining and sweating in the 2 holer.
3.  Sneaky hunter "friends" discharging 30.06, 7mm mag, 30-30 and 12 gauge rounds while encircling the 2 holer.  (discharges safely done of course, even the one in the 2 holer.)  

[El Tejon]

Apparently it was a bad faucet.  I remodeled the kitchen in early 2003 and put in a nice (or at least I thought nice) Moen faucet.  Off to the hardware store, aka the Retired White Guys Club.

w turner, I know what you are going through; I've been having 2004 since 1997!:(

Barbara, let me bring you up to date.  Don't have hillbilly neighbors anymore (Praise the Lord), but there was hilltrash in the 'hood.  The problem has corrected itself!  The trash that parked their pick-em-up truck on their lawn sold their house and moved back down to the land of cotton.  Hoozah!

On the other side of the neighborhood a hilljack or hilljack want-to-be has decided to put his small fishing boat on the side of his lawn during spring cleaning.  It has not moved in 3 weeks.  He has a lovely blue tarp over it now.  *string of profanity*

I have drafted a proposed ordinance for my city so we can stop these people.  (I have no idea what to do with the crazy elderly man who puts the shark in his window--Father Time is my ally there).  Working with my city councilman and the city attorney now that the primaries are over so we can prevent the new immigrants from trashing the place.  Got to hit them where it hurts--their #3 chain wallets.

[El Tejon]

The headaches are worth the equity, the headaches are worth the equity--if I keep saying it, everything will be O.K., right?  Right?

[Guest]

You have no idea how tempted I am to drive all the way down there for no reason other than the plant a stand of pink flamingos in your front yard.



And lemme tell you, until you've had a neighbor who sits his overweight self on the recliner on the front porch, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, a peg leg and an oxygen mask, smoking a cigarette and drinking beer, you've never seen white trash. But since we're all rural-libertarian types here, we just nod at him, the kids refer to them as the redneck neighbors, and no one really bats an eye. We just wave howdy when we drive by.

[mtnbkr]

You have no idea how tempted I am to drive all the way down there for no reason other than the plant a stand of pink flamingos in your front yard

Someone did that to one of our neighbors a few weeks ago.  We just chuckled and got on with our lives.

Chris

[K Frame]

"Someone did that to one of our neighbors a few weeks ago.  We just chuckled and got one with our lives."

I saw that. For some reason I had the oddest urge to go home and watch Carmen Miranda movies...


"I don't do plumbing."

Relatively easy to do home-repair type plumbing. I love working with plumbing. I put in mtnbkr's water heater for him 2 years ago...

[mtnbkr]

I put in mtnbkr's water heater for him 2 years ago...

Yeah...That's why we get our hot water from a pan on the stove.

Chris

[El Tejon]

Barbara, I guess it could always be worse.  I have no one as irresponsible as that.  

I do have a "security guard" type in the neighborhood.  Guy, must be 80, sits in his lawn chair in his garage in all kinds of weather and waves to people who pull into da 'hood off Union Street.  I wished he lived across the street from me.

I'm all for freedom, but there is duty that is the rent one pays for freedom.  I am free to keep and bear arms, I have a duty to be educated with those weapons so I do not harm others without cause.

I am free to own property, but I have a duty to continually improve my property and see that it never hurts anyone.

[Monkeyleg]

If it were up to me--which it's not, since my wife has a 50% stake--we'd live in a condo.

We spend our entire lives trying to keep our "stuff" from deteriorating. The more stuff you have, the more time you spend on it.

A home is the biggest array of "stuff" possible. And I'm just too damned lazy these days to keep after it.

And then there's the cost. Here's what I'm facing:

$8000 to rebuild the chimney (a must-do).

$5000 for a possible new roof (hope not necessary).

$3000 to replace some bad sections of sidewalk.

$3000 to $5000 to finish remodeling the main bath (started years ago; ran out of money).

$15,000 for a new garage.

At the rate I'm going, I'll be dead before all that is taken care of. Then the state will step in and say, "nice house, Dick. Thanks!"

[Guest]

I'd rather live next to Mr. Peg Leg.

[doczinn]

I would live with all those headaches, and say Thank You, if it meant I was able to own a home in my area.

[El Tejon]

New faucet went in today, Monday, May 15th.

Now, I'll just sit back and wait for something else to break.  *whistiling, twiddles paws*

[crt360]

Fortunately for you, killer bees and fire ants have not made it to Indiana.  Yet.

[mtnbkr]

or formosan termites