Home ownership adventures
Nov. 19th, 2020 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shaunacarrickWhat an adventure in home ownership! Plumbing work being done – day two.
Day one was mostly just getting all the ‘uck’ out from under the house in the crawl space under the kitchen.
Day two is replacing all the plumbing in the house as far as ‘outflow’. No leak coming in, but plenty of issues underneath where the washing machine, the kitchen sink and the bathroom fixtures all drain.
Right now the guy is finishing cutting out the bits under the sink and also attacking the outside hose bib, which is also under the sink!
They already cut out all sorts of stuff under the house, and the water is currently off so we are dry ‘camping’ for a bit.
Cats are NOT happy! They can’t go out, and the noise is not fun on their ears, I am sure.
It’s going to cost me just about everything I had put into a savings account. That was expected (thus the savings set aside) but it will mean that the rest of the month is on credit cards. Fortunately most of the rest of the bills are already paid, and I should be able to get what’s left playing ‘poker’ with the cards I do have open. SIGH.
December 1 is pay day and I’ll be fine – we have plenty of food and cat food and household supplies already stocked, but it will be ‘interesting’ for a few days. Renee is going to get the rest of the T-day foodstuffs, as she has that $ already from me.
Hopefully this will all be ‘done and dusted’ by about 5 pm today, then we’ll have shiny new plumbing that should last a good long time. After the new roof two summers ago and the new furnace a few years before that, all that is ‘left’ is a bit more electrical stuff inside the house when I can save up a bit more – nothing really serious, but some of the outlets really should be GFI’d and there are a couple of outside places that could use a check-up to make sure that they are safe. That can all wait until next Spring – it’s been a few years since the last time I had a round of ‘please fix these outlets’ and these last ones are the hardest to access, so it will take some planning as far as moving furniture as well as saving up some more funds. Fortunately I don’t think it will be nearly as expensive as this run of plumbing or the roof or furnace!
Aside from the foundation and the siding, the rest of this 100 + year old house is in pretty good shape. We’d like new carpet and flooring in the kitchen and bathroom, but that is a long way down the road. I am almost positive that there is asbestos tile underneath what we are walking on, so it will be a LONG time before I can afford the abatement! Maybe if I win the lottery.
Time for lunch, I guess. Thank goodness for microwaves!
Day one was mostly just getting all the ‘uck’ out from under the house in the crawl space under the kitchen.
Day two is replacing all the plumbing in the house as far as ‘outflow’. No leak coming in, but plenty of issues underneath where the washing machine, the kitchen sink and the bathroom fixtures all drain.
Right now the guy is finishing cutting out the bits under the sink and also attacking the outside hose bib, which is also under the sink!
They already cut out all sorts of stuff under the house, and the water is currently off so we are dry ‘camping’ for a bit.
Cats are NOT happy! They can’t go out, and the noise is not fun on their ears, I am sure.
It’s going to cost me just about everything I had put into a savings account. That was expected (thus the savings set aside) but it will mean that the rest of the month is on credit cards. Fortunately most of the rest of the bills are already paid, and I should be able to get what’s left playing ‘poker’ with the cards I do have open. SIGH.
December 1 is pay day and I’ll be fine – we have plenty of food and cat food and household supplies already stocked, but it will be ‘interesting’ for a few days. Renee is going to get the rest of the T-day foodstuffs, as she has that $ already from me.
Hopefully this will all be ‘done and dusted’ by about 5 pm today, then we’ll have shiny new plumbing that should last a good long time. After the new roof two summers ago and the new furnace a few years before that, all that is ‘left’ is a bit more electrical stuff inside the house when I can save up a bit more – nothing really serious, but some of the outlets really should be GFI’d and there are a couple of outside places that could use a check-up to make sure that they are safe. That can all wait until next Spring – it’s been a few years since the last time I had a round of ‘please fix these outlets’ and these last ones are the hardest to access, so it will take some planning as far as moving furniture as well as saving up some more funds. Fortunately I don’t think it will be nearly as expensive as this run of plumbing or the roof or furnace!
Aside from the foundation and the siding, the rest of this 100 + year old house is in pretty good shape. We’d like new carpet and flooring in the kitchen and bathroom, but that is a long way down the road. I am almost positive that there is asbestos tile underneath what we are walking on, so it will be a LONG time before I can afford the abatement! Maybe if I win the lottery.
Time for lunch, I guess. Thank goodness for microwaves!
no subject
Date: 2020-11-19 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-20 07:02 pm (UTC)With the new roof two summers ago and the new furnace a few years before that the regular bills (gas, electric, water) have all been pretty decent even with the inevitable price hikes over time. This plumbing repair won't really affect my water bill since the leak(s) were all in the outflow side, but long before this I had to have the meter box replaced (old wooden one buried in the front yard had collapsed, making it unreadable). THAT made for some interesting bills for a while, but since that repair the actual water bill has been pretty steady and averaging around $75 a month. Goes up in the summer when my roommate waters her garden and the yard, but not terrible.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-23 04:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-20 05:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-11-20 06:58 pm (UTC)With new plumbing all around, we should be in fine shape for quite a few years. He's just finishing now - new outside tap (hose bib) and re-insulating the crawl space so we don't have quite so much heat loss. It used to be a porch and was walled in to make the kitchen as early as the 1940's, so no real foundation or insulation under the floor. Just something else unique to my 1908-ish house.