My closing got pushed back a day or two...GRRR

6/22/2010 2:41:39 PM

Quote :

"I will never understand a water heater that is placed above living space. Any leaks and you're fucked"

agreed! stupid as hell. Glad mine is outside in the utility room.

6/22/2010 3:25:47 PM

Just got me a brand new roof....insurance covered it under wind damage. Score one for me! $5,000 saved...well, technically I've already paid for it over the years, but still.

6/22/2010 3:27:12 PM

my alarm system is fucking up

i use a cellular radio so i dont need a landline. ive had the system for just over 2 years & adt tests the signal monthly to make sure its cool. well they called on sat & said my signal wasn't coming in so they wanted to try to manually test it. that didnt work so they have to send out a technician

the tech costs me $120 for the 1st 30min & $30 every 15min after that... so they ask me if i want to set up an appt (uhh i have no choice, the system needs to be fixed)

the dude shows up & says the cellular radio is dead & needs to be replaced. he gives me a quote for $450.... i originally purchased it for like $100 when i got everything set up

the tech didnt take my money that day, said he'd talk to his boss & try to get the fee waived. not sure what he could do on the new equipment but mentioned they might honor the price i originally paid

so i hop online & find another alarm company. they said they could use all the equipment i already have and give me a new cellular radio for $100 plus $50 installation & $35/mo (im paying around $40 now). they want me to do a 2 year contract with them which reminds me i prob have a contract with adt.

so its just kind of a mess and a potentially expensive mess. if adt will work with me i will stay with them. if they act like ass holes i will go to the other company without a second thought...once i determine if im under contract & if so for how much longer

ugh homeownership

6/22/2010 3:43:40 PM

^^congrats on the savings. while i know the insurance stuff can be a hassle, when it works, it really works...


on a related note, my twin sister recently had her AC unit replaced. Cost her about $5,000 (before the $1500 credit.) What she forgot was that she had a home warranty, and it would have been covered had she checked with those guys first. That's a tough lesson to learn the hard way...

6/22/2010 4:46:33 PM

Quote :

"So... how does one acquire a Jose? I've considered paying some students to do it, but they're lazy. "

You PM Me for his number.

6/22/2010 6:30:15 PM

bleh, my sandbags worked so well for a while...now the mud it has seeped through again. different spot, but just as annoying. rained for like 7 days straight.

oh well.

6/22/2010 8:47:03 PM

it would be a pain in the ass, but can you dig a trench behind the wall and build a rebar/concrete backing?

6/22/2010 9:54:30 PM

Is the problem here over saturated soil due to a high water table, or mud and water leaks in a basement due to poor drainage?

If it's the drainage, excavate the dirt down to the base of your foundation in a trench around 6" wide, fill it up with ~2" of gravel, put a foundation drainage pipe in the trench, and make sure to run the trench off toward the downhill side of your lot. Grade the trench so it slopes to the downhill side (making sure the grade is consistent). Cover the drainage pipe with more gravel and put some landscaping plants in front of the new gravel trench to help reinforce the strength of that soil and to help soak up some of the water. Consider getting a professional landscaping/grading company to do this for you since they can do it in 1/20th the time you could.

6/23/2010 12:40:00 AM

Question:

My contractor is going to build me a little shed before closing and I need to figure out how big I want it to be.

The house is in downtown Charleston, so there really is no storage space in the house (save for a huge attic I got lucky to get). I have a good sized yard for downtown, but pretty small compared to an average yard. But I'm going to need a push lawnmower and some other basic lawn tools. And hopefully a good sized toolbox at some point. After that, the only things I need to store will be a couple bikes, maybe a surfboard.

I'm thinking something like 8 x 8...10 x 10 at the most. I don't want it to take up too much of the yard, and I'm paying the contractor extra, so the bigger the shed the more expensive it will be (although I can't imagine him jacking it up too much just for a couple feet).

Thoughts?

6/23/2010 8:45:02 AM

i'd go with the largest you think will work with the lot size you have. no matter how much storage you have, you will always need more.

6/23/2010 10:03:10 AM

^ Excellent advice Bobby! I second that opinion. Whatever room you can spare, make it as big as will fit.

6/23/2010 12:09:50 PM

a view from the top about a year ago. its about 4-5 tall. this is from the corner. to my left and where im standing is level with the high part.

i since got grass to grow over the entire top and put in some sandbags. any place with a sandbag in the "hole" held fine, but these are new spots that probably resulted from wet dirt needing to find a new way down. i have considered digging behind the entire wall and putting down netting/cement/gravel/something, but it would be a lot of work considering how tall it is.

6/23/2010 8:00:49 PM

You could try some sort of rudimentary grout injection. Grab some smaller rocks that match the color of the wall, find the holes that piss you off. Jam those rocks into the wall (hammer them in if they barely fit, rather carefully or you'll go blind from flying rock chips). Now, with the biggest holes turned into a number of smaller holes, take something like this:

http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/items/4CRG6?cm_mmc=Google%20Base-_-Adhesives,%20Sealants%20and%20Tape-_-Caulks-_-4CRG6

Cut the tip, jam it into the hole, and give it a good squeeze until the thing gets grout everywhere. Yeah, you can treat that as a dirty joke if you want to. Anyway, this will probably help control your water flow problem a bit better. One thing to keep in mind is that no matter how deep you make that go the water will still try to flow to the bottom of the wall and flow out underneath those rocks (assuming the floods happen often enough and the water flows enough). This also isn't a cheap solution since you'll probably buy fifty of those tubes before you're done (unless it's just localized to a few large holes in the wall).

Another option is to jam the holes with smaller rocks (break up similar color landscape rocks that are long and flat and skinny; jam lengthwise into the wall so they anchor into the dirt a bit), to use a post hole digger to dig straight down where you've got the problem leak (or dig all along the wall every X number of inches) and to fill up each hole with a fairly dry concrete mix. You can block off half of the hole with some plywood cut to size so that the concrete mostly flows out into the wall, and if the mix is thick enough it should barely flow out some of those holes you mentioned and should plug them up pretty well. Otherwise, just jam big holes with lots of little rocks and hope for the best.

6/24/2010 12:41:55 AM

Fuck it, my contractor is officially done with my house. I keep asking him to do little extra things and that I'll pay him fairly, and he comes back and quotes me prices that are two and three times what Lowes or other places would do.

I'm okay with it. I just want to get this closing over with and get into the house and start getting to work. I don't really have time to do most of this stuff, but I'm not overpaying this contractor to do menial shit.

6/24/2010 10:33:48 AM

woohoo!! i'm officially an old school member now i just bought a house so i expect i'll be posting in this thread every now and then...hopefully not too often though

6/24/2010 10:39:49 AM

Think I finally came up with a delightfully tacky idea for the corner of my yard

6/26/2010 3:48:32 PM

Quote :

"Fuck it, my contractor is officially done with my house. I keep asking him to do little extra things and that I'll pay him fairly, and he comes back and quotes me prices that are two and three times what Lowes or other places would do. I'm okay with it. I just want to get this closing over with and get into the house and start getting to work. I don't really have time to do most of this stuff, but I'm not overpaying this contractor to do menial shit."

That's how it goes with little menial stuff. Lowe's is set up to go after that stuff, an actual Contractor would prefer to be doing a whole job instead of bits of stuff.

6/26/2010 8:10:06 PM

So I technically won't be in this group for about a year, but I think I'm going to buy the house that I renovated with my family a year or two ago. I'm moving into it shortly and it has a half an acre lot that has a lot of potential (i.e. poison ivy).

I need to sort out what sort of loan I can qualify for first, though I have a decent idea of what they'd give me. I'm just unsure whether the length of my income history is enough.

6/28/2010 11:13:14 PM

so i've got high moisture issues in my crawlspace

it's not from invading water, since i have a nice drainage system set up for that. my [pest] inspector says it's because i have some crappy,aging ventwork and warm humid air is coming in and hitting that crazy cold air near the vents and is causing condensation. the result is puddles on the plastic barrier, and damp wood with the insulation starting to come down like icicles. i know the final fix will be to replace the ductwork, but for now i closed the foundation vents and set up a beefy dehumidifier.



does anyone have any recommendations on who to install the new ductwork? ...or at least what type of service people to look up online or something? general handymen? hvac specialists?

6/29/2010 12:16:26 PM

I dont know of a specific referral in the Raleigh area, but you might want to inquire about the spray insulation being done when you get the new ductwork put in.

6/29/2010 12:35:57 PM

Thank God they passed the extension for the first time home buyer's tax credit, or else I'd be screwed. So I won't be closing tomorrow, but hopefully very soon as I was suppose to get most of the furniture in this weekend and was planning on moving in.

I'm praying the sellers don't try to put it back on the market as I think they could get more for the house than what our original contract is for. And that they allow me to move shit in if we don't close by Friday. Fuck, now I'm nervous.

6/29/2010 1:50:21 PM

^Almost same situation happened to me.

I was supposed to close last wednesday...but because of paperwork taking too long, we had to push back to last friday. Well, last friday rolls around and we're still waiting on a few forms to come back from the sellers. They even verbally agreed to let the attorneys give me the keys so I could move in this weekend, but they failed to submit this in writing, so I had no keys. They later called me that night and at least gave me the garage key code so I could get my stuff moved in.

I closed on the house this morning, although we're now waiting on a form to be sent back from the sellers so they can record the deed and I can get my keys!

6/29/2010 2:48:06 PM

Yeah...I had a truck ready to bring a bunch of furniture from Wilmington (I've been having my mom pick up shit we found on Craigslist) this weekend. So I'm hoping we can either close by Friday or we at least set a permanent date for early next week and the seller's let me bring furniture into the house this weekend (I at least know where the "hidden" key is). I even want to go ahead and switch all the utilities into my name so I don't have to worry about that shit when I actually move in.

I really don't think they'll put the house back on the market and risk having to wait another month or two for it to close...but I don't want to jinx myself. I've done all I can...lenders have just been swamped with people trying to close before the 30th.

I've just been ready to move into this house ever since we signed the contract on it and they pretty much finished building it. It's so friggin sweet and I'm ready to get out of this "shoebox" house on the beach.

6/29/2010 3:10:12 PM

W00t! I just got the call from the Attorney's office that everything is complete and I can pick up my keys!

^Good luck Jbrick! Everyone really is swamped with people trying to close by June 30...myself included. I'm sure it'll work out just fine.

6/29/2010 3:37:37 PM

why won't i let myself pull the trigger on a home? Ugh, i frustrate myself.

6/29/2010 5:30:19 PM

why wouldn't you. you will never find better deals than what you can find now...

6/30/2010 5:26:47 PM

Still waiting on my $8,000 credit bah. Closed first week in April but I didn't get it sent in until May because I was waiting (just to be safe) for both my wife and I to get our new licenses to send a copy of as well as our first utility bills. So it has probably only been out there for about 8 weeks but I'm just impatient

[Edited on June 30, 2010 at 5:39 PM. Reason : ]

6/30/2010 5:28:21 PM

i got mine april of last year. getting ready to give it back lol.

i wish they would extend it. my wife is in new home sales and she was killing it. since it expired she has hardly had any traffic. she sold 7 homes last month and 1 this month

6/30/2010 5:40:06 PM

ouch

6/30/2010 6:02:56 PM

I feel for you but it's just inflating the price of houses by $8000.

6/30/2010 6:25:51 PM

while I agree it might be inflating the price some because of false "demand" created, I don't think the $8000 really affected the amount people were willing to spend.

For example, I already wanted to get a house around this time, it had been my plan since about 3 years ago. I just worked it out to make sure I closed in time to get the credit but I never changed my target purchase price.

6/30/2010 7:52:40 PM

Brown spots in the sod from closing day last week are still there. No amount of watering will make them re-green.

7/1/2010 12:54:55 AM

brown patch:

http://www.cals.ncsu.edu/plantpath/extension/fact_sheets/Turfgrass_-_Managing_Brown_Patch_in_Tall_Fescue_Landscapes.htm

7/1/2010 6:26:00 AM

Our house is full of fail this year... we purchased it in November 2009 -- was built in 2003. Thankfully the sellers paid for 1 year of the AHS home warranty which we have had to use extensively.

Over winter we had issues with both heat pumps at different points in time.

A few months ago the blower motor went for the upstairs AC.

Now the upstairs is only blowing warm air. We replaced the filter, checked the fuses, turned the system off for a few hours in case it was icing up at all, cleaned the coils, still nothing. Repairman coming out next Wednesday. Yay for home ownership.

7/2/2010 11:21:25 AM

prob need some refrigerant

7/2/2010 5:39:34 PM

^^ LOW FREON

hopefully you do not have a leak

7/2/2010 8:17:45 PM

Washer shit the bed this past weekend. All kinds of oil coming from the bottom. So according to the wife this is the "perfect" opportunity to get a pair of those fancy new front loading washer and dryers. They are coming to deliver at 11am so I have been up since 6:30 getting the old ones out and cleaning the room. There was oil all over the floor. I never knew they could make that kind of mess. I bought the stacking kit to give us some more room in there. Anyone done the stacking bit before? I cant really think of a bad reason.

7/3/2010 8:06:33 AM

sagging/broken main sewer line, maybe in two places.

7/3/2010 12:39:28 PM

spent 7 hours renting a pressure washer, spraying the whole deck, returning it, staining the entire deck, and getting sun burnt.

but hey it looks way nicer now.

7/3/2010 9:17:59 PM

I loved having my front loaders stacked, but when the motherboard went out in the washer (2 days out of warranty none-the-less), it was a pain to have to unstack and restack them about three times...

then we moved and were unable to stack them in the new house. If I could redo my laundry room, i would stack the appliances and have room for full hanging clothes over where the dryer would normally go.

7/6/2010 9:01:27 AM

i am building a workshop bench for my garage. anyone have any plans for a bench that you may have built before?

7/6/2010 11:37:45 AM

I remember seeing some at http://www.instructables.com/index

7/6/2010 11:57:33 AM

My water smells like rotten eggs. I know the first response is sulfur, but we had it checked and that's not it. So we changed studor(sp?) vents under the sinks in the bathroom, since that's where the smell is the worst. It's still terrible. I have to let the water run forever for it to smell normal. I don't know what else to do. Someone suggested getting my septic tank pumped. Sigh.

7/6/2010 12:21:02 PM

^ My parents' had something similar happen and yeah, it was that the septic tank was full.

7/6/2010 12:23:16 PM

kitchen faucet has developed a contstant drip (about a drop every 10 seconds or so) in the past week....I know 0 about plumbing, so what's a likely cause and solution to this issue?

7/6/2010 12:45:17 PM

Quite a quandry. I have unintentionally found a house that I love, that is listed for 50% of its tax value and has everything I could dream of in a home. My wife is freaking out because I am debating making a conditional offer and placing our house on the market to make this happen. Would essentially double our mortgage, but the house is 3800 sq feet, a pool, and a high end custom home (would sell for over 1 million in my neighborhood). The catch is that it is in an area that is plauged with foreclosures and people that over extended themselves (this wouldnt be an overextension for us, but its not a single earner home), and there are a ton of undeveloped lots. The house is going to end up selling for a little over $100 a square foot.

pros are that it would save us $300 a month in gas, and our work commute would be 15 minutes as opposed to 1 hour (each way).

Has a beautiful pool, seperate garage, and screened in porch with a fire place to boot.

7/7/2010 1:13:49 PM

The only red flag that popped up in my head was that you said it definitely wasnt a single-earner home for you two.

I don't know how you two feel about kids, but having a kid could throw a pretty big wrench into the two salaries, depending on how you handled it.

7/7/2010 1:29:40 PM

I guess it basically comes down to money.

It seems like you can afford it. You said it will double your mortgage, but maybe your current mortgage is ridiculously low. Will you still be able to save a good amount of money and do all the things you enjoy with the new mortgage?? Even if you can't do ALL the things you enjoy, will this amazing new house make up for it?? How do you feel about your current house?? Do you not enjoy living in it? Feel cramped?

I don't think the kid's thing is that important. If you decide to have a kid and go back down to a single-earner, just sell the house and move into something smaller. Even if you don't get exactly what it's worth, if you're buying it for 50% of it's tax value, you come out a little ahead.

7/7/2010 1:38:34 PM

Sounds like a long term commitment/investment with all the issues surrounding the neighborhood. In the end if that's where you want to be then why not.

7/7/2010 1:39:10 PM