^^^

they're incredibly efficient, but installation cost is in the 5 figures, so expect a long payoff if you're substituting it with an expensive heat source like electric resistance heating or propane.

if you're on natural gas or a standard heat pump, the break-even point is going to be longer than you'll likely stay in the house.

The one thing i didn't look into is whether there are any tax credits that apply which make the cost more manageable. ultimately, as cheap as natural gas is, it wasn't a good solution for me.

2/10/2013 9:53:33 PM

Quote :

"where do you live that people charge less than double minimum wage to do home improvement?"

it is laying tile, a very simple task. You could easily find somebody to do this for $10/hr on craigslist.

Quote :

"^that. If you don't have any experience with hiring a decent contractor just keep your trap shut."

Why the fuck would anybody hire a contractor to install a back splash?

2/11/2013 12:44:21 PM

anyone know anything about under cabinet ducted hoods for electric ranges? my stupid ass forgot to purchase one with my other appliances and now im scrambling.

im thinking about getting a convertible b/c i have no clue which to get.



everything has been complicated, or so it seems, with getting these renovations completed.

2/11/2013 4:45:47 PM

We got the over the range microwave option to match the appliances. One less thing to have on the counter.

2/11/2013 6:32:43 PM

Quote :

"where do you live that people charge less than double minimum wage to do home improvement? "

This was in Burlington. The guy charged $100 bucks for about 40 sqaure feet of back splash install and did a great job. He actually asked for $80 but I thought that was too low since he had to make 2 trips. I was going to do it myself, but I found this guy. He even did it in a diagonal design rather than just squares.

Quote :

"^that. If you don't have any experience with hiring a decent contractor just keep your trap shut. "

As many people have mentioned, it isn't complicated work. By hiring a guy that knew what he was doing, rather than a contractor I saved money.

2/12/2013 10:39:12 AM

working on some drywall in the master bathroom, i noticed it felt a bit moist, and while testing how soft it was, my finger popped through, and came out wet.

went up to the attic and the bottom of the truss right above the master bath was wet.


FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU


had someone come out to look at it and
• Remove existing shingles surrounding valleys on Main House, down to the decking.
• Remove existing valley metal.
• Replace any damaged decking as needed.
• Install new ice & water shield, and reinstall valley metal.
• Install new shingles, weaving shingles to close valleys.
$1300

FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU


oh and the reversing valve in one of our heat pumps died.
and our dishwasher won't finish a cycle and gets stuck in the rinse cycle for hours.
as we've lived her for a month, we're definitely seeing all sorts of areas where the previous owners were slack on maintenance (stuff that doesn't get caught by the home inspector). As it was the sellers had to spend about $15k in various repairs based on the inspection.

i don't get this whole buying older homes thing. it has bee a complete fuck as far as i'm concerned. previous 2 homes were new construction, and other than minor shit like nail pops and settling cracks, we had zero problems.


mainly I'm mad because all of this shit has made me have to put off buying a big motherfucking TV.

2/14/2013 2:59:24 PM

^ I looked at a bunch of those houses for my first home-buy and avoided all of them because of posts like yours.

I'm sure it's possible where I can be at a point in my life where I could deal with all of that shit (financially and mentally)...but not at that time and not now. It's either brand new construction or completely renovated (my house was torn down and re-built). I mean..even with new construction and re-builds, you're still going to run into a problem here and there. I couldn't imagine buying a 20-year old house and thinking to myself, "what the fuck am I going to find wrong today."

[Edited on February 14, 2013 at 6:58 PM. Reason : .]

2/14/2013 6:57:38 PM

New construction ftw

2/15/2013 10:09:14 AM

I find it very surprising the inspector didn't find the roof leak, unless it hadn't rained for a long time before. We made sure to go look at our place after it rained and check the attics and crawlspace.

If the roof is close to replacement age it might not cost that much more to get the whole thing done, and then no more leaks and expensive repairs. Our place is 20 years old and we know the roof has to get replaced in a couple years (but is doing fine now). Get a quote both ways.

It sounds like the previous owners didn't do anything so now you are having to catch up on it all. We're in the same place, except the last tenants were bad enough everything had to be fixed so we got it super cheap. Almost finished with the kitchen renovations, and parts of it are starting to look good.

It gets better, I promise!

2/15/2013 11:22:19 AM

I bought a 20 year old house but luckily for mr the lady spent her money on maintenance instead of aesthetics.

I'm putting about 20k into the house to modernize it and the only real problems is that Im having [SO FAR (thank jesus)] the water heater replaced today because its leaking and looks like it was swollen and about to explode.

Only $410 out of pocket for everything

I'm kind of relieved

[Edited on February 15, 2013 at 12:02 PM. Reason : Gg]

2/15/2013 12:01:27 PM

Quote :

"Only $410 out of pocket for everything"

that's cheap for the unit and installation...who did you use?



and it's always a good idea to look at a house while its raining before you buy.

2/15/2013 12:41:37 PM

^^

That was caught by the inspector, and supposedly fixed-- have receipts where all the work was done, but clearly it wasn't done right. That said, we didn't see any evidence until we had a period of 10 straight days of heavy rain. we are working through the closing attorney to go after the cost Even so, I've gotta go out of pocket to get it fixed now, since it will likely drag on for a while even if we do get compensated by either the previous owners or the company that initially did the work. the roof overall is still in good shape (40 year roof) and is still a ways off from total replacement.


i did forget we had a home warranty that the sellers gave us, so that should help with the heat pump and dishwasher... granted i'm not going to hold my breath too much given the track record of AHS.

2/15/2013 12:43:20 PM

I think they put a 30 year roof on this place and they never last as long as they are supposed to, so we're planning on doing it in several years. At least we get to put it off until after the interior and siding are done.

2/15/2013 1:40:15 PM

Metal flashing is a horrible way to construct shingle valleys. Also I'm not sure why anyone would replace metal valleys and weave the shingles. Woven shingles over ice and watershield would be fine but a closed-cut valley is best practice IMO.

Obviously if you get rid of valley metal at only one location it won't match the rest of the roof.

2/16/2013 7:35:03 AM

is it possible to get a tax credit for a house within the city limits that has a well and septic? seems kinda lame you're being taxed the same as everyone else for fewer services

2/19/2013 6:41:16 AM

my GC is dragging his feet some.

my renovations were supposed to take 3 weeks as he know I am on a tight schedule for a move. I work in a different state than I live and I am only so flexible with this.

I told the dude that I had to move my shit this weekend and that is non negotiable. it is what it is kind of thing.

well we are 2 days into week four and he tells me that the granite will not be laid until Friday and he has yet to get the electrician in there for my recessed lighting. WTF is the guy doing. I am trying to figure our what i am paying this dude for sometimes.

this motherfucker is about to really piss me off.

on top of that he has not been doing a good job of quality control. I am pretty much having to do all of that. shit that I shouldnt even see I am having to point out to him. I did a walk through with him last week and he kept apologizing for some of the shoddy work.


thank god i am very organized. I had to send him my one email three times regarding the granite edge, sink and faucet type.

2/19/2013 4:51:50 PM

it's getting to be that time for a new roof. the storm a few weeks ago blew shingles off and lifted a bunch of the one that remain. anyone have experience here? just looking for a place to start on getting estimates.

2/19/2013 6:01:12 PM

tried to get satellite TV

trees were in the way

Thanks Obama!

2/19/2013 6:15:49 PM

^^ you may actually want to do some research and consider an insurance claim. if the roof is old enough & you lost enough shingles, some carriers will pay for full replacement.

2/19/2013 10:08:18 PM

I've thought about it... we had to make another insurance claim for water damage (toilet ran and overflowed... didn't notice it until it was raining inside in the room underneath )... I don't want to end up making a claim and then being dropped by State Farm.

2/20/2013 8:08:50 AM

Quote :

"is it possible to get a tax credit for a house within the city limits that has a well and septic? seems kinda lame you're being taxed the same as everyone else for fewer services "

How are you taxed for water and sewage? Most cities the systems are not property tax reliant. They generate their operating costs through usuage charges. You might get hit with a storm water charge, but I don't think you are taxed for water/sewage.

2/21/2013 10:17:44 AM

came to an agreement with the seller today. should be closing around the end of March.

2/21/2013 12:41:50 PM

^^Availability of public water/sewer is a selling feature and raises the assessment, which in turn raises the property tax. Cities usually contract out assessments periodically, so I would call the Treasurer and ask what can be done.

[Edited on February 21, 2013 at 2:12 PM. Reason : ]

2/21/2013 2:12:22 PM

Quote :

"i don't get this whole buying older homes thing"

Just gotta be really careful. Wife and I bought a house from the 50's. The owner spent about 5 years prior to us pruchasing it rennovating everything. The AC unit is the oldest liability at the moment. New kitchen, water heater, windows, circuit breaker, bathroom and half bath, list goes on. Functionally, everything is solid. The walls could definitely be different (I don't care for the previous owner's pastel taste), but repainting is more of a chore than it is hard or expensive work.

When buying an older home, try to find one that someone else has fixed up (properly with documentation or get the inspector to look into it) and you shouldn't have any more trouble than with a new construction. Been 3 years in our home and the only trouble we've had is replacing a section of the main waste pipe because it started leaking. No biggie, as I was able to fix it myself for about $50.

You can even buy a warranty. I think they quoted me like $400/yr or something like that and covered quite a bit of stuff. If you suffer 1 failure/problem, the ins. pays for itself. Any more than that per year, you save money. If you don't have problems that year, then $400 was the cost of piece of mind. Your quote may vary. We had the sellers include a 1 year warranty and used it once (out of convinience) to fix a seperate plumbing issue...

[Edited on February 22, 2013 at 5:45 AM. Reason : .]

[Edited on February 22, 2013 at 5:45 AM. Reason : .]

2/22/2013 5:43:07 AM

Quote :

"Metal flashing is a horrible way to construct shingle valleys. Also I'm not sure why anyone would replace metal valleys and weave the shingles. Woven shingles over ice and watershield would be fine but a closed-cut valley is best practice IMO. Obviously if you get rid of valley metal at only one location it won't match the rest of the roof."

I don't know what any of this means, or i'd probably be able to do the work myself. I just want my shit not to leak

they guy did say something to the effect of sticking with valley metal to keep a consistent look, and now i know what he was talking about a bit more.

2/22/2013 3:35:16 PM

anyone have any experience building with dr horton? they're building a new development that i'm interested in possibly getting into, and have some decent incentives, but was wondering how negotiable they are with the price

2/24/2013 10:44:04 AM

I've never dealt with them but there several links on google
https://www.google.com/search?q=negotiating+with+dr+horton&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari

Not sure if that will help you or not

2/24/2013 12:56:09 PM

I never liked DRH homes or neighborhoods; and aren't they the ones that were sneaking in mineral rights clauses in their housing contracts?


[Edited on February 25, 2013 at 12:21 PM. Reason : well, I don't really like any builder like DRH. ]

2/25/2013 12:19:43 PM

^ pretty sure they were the ones doing that

2/25/2013 12:27:55 PM

Quote :

"Just gotta be really careful. Wife and I bought a house from the 50's. The owner spent about 5 years prior to us pruchasing it rennovating everything. The AC unit is the oldest liability at the moment. New kitchen, water heater, windows, circuit breaker, bathroom and half bath, list goes on. Functionally, everything is solid. The walls could definitely be different (I don't care for the previous owner's pastel taste), but repainting is more of a chore than it is hard or expensive work. When buying an older home, try to find one that someone else has fixed up (properly with documentation or get the inspector to look into it) and you shouldn't have any more trouble than with a new construction. "

At this point, is it even an old home anymore?

Quote :

"John Locke proposed a scenario regarding a favorite sock that develops a hole. He pondered whether the sock would still be the same after a patch was applied to the hole, and if it would be the same sock, would it still be the same sock after a second patch was applied until all of the material of the original sock has been replaced with patches"

2/25/2013 1:54:00 PM

^^yeh, that's scary and shows what kind of contractor DRH really is... they contributed it to "oh, this is our typical contract in texas"... yeh... sure you didn't want those rights with the current fracking "boom" in NC. I wouldn't trust them.

****

So I want to sort of finish out my garage. It's currently just mudded drywall and no trim around the door and windows. I was just going to prime the walls, but I've read that this is a bad idea (primer not holding up over time; flaking; absorbing dirt, etc.). Any opinions? Is priming + exterior paint the best way to go? I also want to trim the door (rear entry door) and windows, but not true trim... just thinking some ripped (in half) 1x4s (or whole 1x4s to cover the small gaps between the door jam and dry wall. Opinions?

After that, I'm going to do a french cleat system around most of the interior walls.

2/25/2013 9:14:46 PM

You could definitely do some flat board trim using 1x4s and 1x6s. It is definitely still true trim, just not a more decorative style like is the default in most houses. It's basically one of the variations on craftsman-style trim. That's what we have done inside our actual house since I like it better.

We've put up new trim and replaced some of the old trim to match as well. Flat trim is a good transitional decor. Our house is only 10 years old and is more of a standard, traditional style house but we are into very modern furnishings so the house style really did need trim but we didn't want it to be fussy or ornate. The flat boards struck a nice balance.

You have a couple variations you could do with it though: 1) You could just do 3 1x4s either butt or 45 joints. 2) You could go with 1x4s on the verticals and a 1x6 across the top that overhangs the 1x4s a bit 3) You could go with 1x4s on the verticals, a 1x2 on it's side overhanging the 1x4s a half inch or so on each side horizontally and then a 1x6 above that whose length is the same as the outer to outer dimension of the 1x4s flanking the doorway. 4) Same as 3 but with a small piece of shingle molding or small crown wrapping the top of the 1x6.

Those 4 are in order of easiest and least materials to most materials. As long as it doesn't really clash with the rest of your house I think that would be a fine option for the garage area.

2/25/2013 9:31:34 PM

Does anyone know a exterior home painter they would recommend? Or for that matter, know of any to explicitly stay away from ? Going to get the house painted this spring/summer I think.

2/26/2013 1:21:30 PM

^ PM sent

3/6/2013 11:25:17 PM

^will you PM me too?

3/7/2013 9:02:07 AM

^I noticed you had asked about roofs earlier - I just had mine completely replaced by insurance due to wind damage, and here's what I've learned:

If you have extensive wind damage, > 60%, they will generally replace the entire damaged face. In my case, I got enough on my 18 y/o roof to warrant replacing the whole thing. Insurance cannot ding you for a weather-related claim, but if you have another claim that is not an "act of god", then they can drop if they want. They will pay to replace it with like material, but you can upgrade at your own cost, and it's less than you might think. I ended up deciding to replace my 20 year 3-tab roof w/ lifetime architectural shingles since it was only $30 more per square. I worked with the contractor and got the upgrade for $250 over the original amount plus my deductible, so I'm basically paying $750 for a brand new, premium-grade shingle roof instead of $500.

A asked about a couple other houses they were working on up the street, and he told me that they're still going round and round with State Farm because they're being a total dick about fixing roofs. They'll try to spend absolutely as little as possible, regardless of what makes sense or even matches the existing construction. He said it's pretty much only State Farm that gives them this much grief about roof replacements, and a lot of folks end up leaving after they finally get the claim paid because they don't want to deal with State Farm's BS again.

3/17/2013 9:00:26 AM

Fuck...bats in the attic.

3/27/2013 6:02:41 PM

$800 for bat removal doesn't sound right. Fucker kept talking about all the gaps they would have to fill in...shit, I'll stuff hardware cloth/tarp from the inside.

Anybody have any experience with bat removal?

3/28/2013 9:32:41 AM

We have something in our attic recently as well according to my wife. Probably mice if I had to guess. Not looking forward to dealing with that. $800 sounds steep but any animal/pest removal stuff is not cheap and I have no frame of reference for reasonable cost for it.

3/28/2013 9:37:12 AM

We've had mice/rats before and I put some poison pellets up there and they either got out of the house and died or died inside the house (the smell isn't that bad...and it lasts two days at the most). So if you think its mice/rats...I would try rat poison first.

But we thought we had rats/mice again this time, so I just put some more pellet trays up there and they didn't go away after two weeks (btw...bats sound just like mice rats if they are in the attic above your head...so you might have bats). When I went to check and see if they had eaten any pellets last night, I saw a couple bats hanging out in the corner.

I called about mice/rat removal a couple weeks ago and it was under $200. Needless to say, I was a little shocked at the $800. I was thinking $300 or $400...$500 max.

I'm definitely calling around today to see if I can't get a better deal or POSSIBLY try and solve this shit on my own. Anyone got a 30 foot ladder they want to bring down to Charleston???

3/28/2013 9:52:27 AM

2nd guy quoted $350 for the bats. Said if I needed to seal the whole attic he would come back and tack on an extra couple hundred bucks...but that he didn't think it was necessary.

Feel much better now.

3/28/2013 11:34:02 AM

We had new counter tops and sink put in yesterday, so I had to unhook the water lines. Apparently I didn't turn the water off enough and it dripped all through the night. Soaked out through the bottom of the cabinet and under the laminate floors through the whole kitchen. Water was squirting out between the boards when you walked on it.

I was going to redo the sink drain plumbing this morning but ended up spending most of the day tearing out the soaked floor and putting in a new one. Thankfully the previous owner left me five extra boxes of the laminate.



Sweet linoleum.

3/28/2013 11:04:03 PM

is that actually linoleum or vinyl? that sucks about the water though >.<

3/28/2013 11:26:04 PM

Not sure actually. Either way it saved my subfloor from getting soaked too.

With a bit of help from the guy who installed the new cabinet doors/drawers the morning I found the mess, I had the new floor down that evening. All it ended up costing me was a rubber mallet, tapping block, and pizza. Dodged a bullet for sure.

3/29/2013 2:21:45 PM

re: bats in the attic

i grew up on a chicken farm. keeping rats out of certain areas was a big concern for us. we found that Great Stuff was the best way.

3/29/2013 6:33:46 PM

The termite inspection notice just came. They upped it from $95 to $110. Is it really worth paying this thing every year?

4/1/2013 2:27:02 PM

I think so yes.

4/1/2013 2:28:32 PM

I've been told that if you don't keep it up each year, then to restart the program cost hundreds, up to a thousand or so. I don't know if that's true... but I'd rather not have to deal with termites... because you're most likely to notice them after there is a problem... and if they cause structural damage, then you're looking at a massive repair bill. Think of it as insurance... which makes me think about a homeowner's policy... what does that cover? does it require termite treatment? While it pay for termite damage if you don't have regular treatments? I don't know, thus I'm asking.

[Edited on April 1, 2013 at 4:06 PM. Reason : .]

4/1/2013 4:05:37 PM

most home insurance policies do not touch it. That is why there are separate termite bonds. It basically is termite insurance and they cover mitigation, repairs, and damages should you have problems while under their bond. I can't imagine not carrying it. It's annoying but relatively cheap and not worth dealing with should you end up having a problem.

[Edited on April 1, 2013 at 4:13 PM. Reason : ]

4/1/2013 4:13:32 PM

that's what I figured. $100/yr is great insurance for what can turn out to be a massive problem.

4/2/2013 10:49:14 AM