The Swamp

Closed on a condo this morning that's in a prime part of town that I never thought I'd be able to sniff. (Pretty sure my realtor was more hungover than myself.) Built in '82 and hardly updated since. Gonna be ripping out carpet and linoleum this weekend to prep for installing wood floor and tile hearth. Then it's new fridge and cabinet-painting time. I have a pretty comfortable 30 days left on my apartment lease, so getting it move-in ready shouldn't be to much pressure.

P.D.X. wrote:Closed on a condo this morning that's in a prime part of town that I never thought I'd be able to sniff. (Pretty sure my realtor was more hungover than myself.) Built in '82 and hardly updated since. Gonna be ripping out carpet and linoleum this weekend to prep for installing wood floor and tile hearth. Then it's new fridge and cabinet-painting time. I have a pretty comfortable 30 days left on my apartment lease, so getting it move-in ready shouldn't be to much pressure.

Congrats. In the Boulder area, I assume it is a very high likelihood that it will quickly increase in value and your upgrades will be money well-spent.

Congrats. Very interested to hear about the cabinets; it's a longer-term maybe project here.

P.D.X. wrote:Closed on a condo this morning that's in a prime part of town that I never thought I'd be able to sniff. (Pretty sure my realtor was more hungover than myself.) Built in '82 and hardly updated since. Gonna be ripping out carpet and linoleum this weekend to prep for installing wood floor and tile hearth. Then it's new fridge and cabinet-painting time. I have a pretty comfortable 30 days left on my apartment lease, so getting it move-in ready shouldn't be to much pressure.

Congrats PDX...welcome to Boulder County home ownership. I hope you enjoy the property tax increases (and valuation appeals) as much as I have.

sancarlos wrote:Congrats. In the Boulder area, I assume it is a very high likelihood that it will quickly increase in value and your upgrades will be money well-spent.

Thanks much. In the year that I've been shopping every time something would come on the market there would be like a 3-5% price jump from the last comparable property. I was on the verge of getting squeezed out, and frankly lucky that no one swooped in with a last-minute cash offer (which had happened to me a few times prior.)

GoodKarma wrote:Congrats PDX...welcome to Boulder County home ownership. I hope you enjoy the property tax increases (and valuation appeals) as much as I have.

Coming from Portland the prop taxes are still pennies here (although we make up for it w/ sales tax). But the real win is getting out of the rental market — my PI + taxes + HOA is probably even with what rent would be on the same unit at the moment.

If the underlying structure is fine, is there any reason I wouldn't be able to replace my deck boards by simply measuring the current ones and swapping out one by one?

mister d wrote:If the underlying structure is fine, is there any reason I wouldn't be able to replace my deck boards by simply measuring the current ones and swapping out one by one?

So long as you don't screw up the joists pulling the old boards off you should definitely be able to reuse tHe substructure.

Finding some real gems watching diy youtube videos all day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JerVHGoj-d0

(I have to do this but only for like a 14"x46" hearth. Not gonna rent any power tools.)

I've guys re-doing the landscape in my backyard in 110 degree heat and I feel pretty damn bad about it. (There's nothing I can do about the weather, but damn...that's a tough job.)

If any of you local boys want a brown storm door, it's leaning up against the tree in front of my house.

$8k was the first quote to replace 2 windows and the patio door. Oof.

How much is the patio door itself? That sounds crazy high knowing general window prices, but maybe doors are that much more?

Dang. Did it have to be reframed?

mister d wrote:How much is the patio door itself? That sounds crazy high knowing general window prices, but maybe doors are that much more?

I didn't ask. The 2 windows are slightly large, non-standard sizes, so that probably adds. The crew I got the quote from replaced the windows in the apartment I've been renting, and I was really impressed with the product and install (top-end Andersen windows). The dude was cool though and gave me a referral to someone who'd do the base product of the same brand for roughly 1/2 the price, so going to look into that.

(This all started from the AC talk in here. Thought I'd get a window re-framed to accept a standard unit but apparently egress code won't allow for that.)

A_B wrote:Dang. Did it have to be reframed?

Yeah, I've watched them in action. They basically cut out around the old windows and then put in new frames, seals, inflation, waterproofing, etc. It's dope when finished but obviously $$$.

How many windows total in the place? I imagine it would look nicer, sell better and cost less per to redo at once.

mister d wrote:How many windows total in the place? I imagine it would look nicer, sell better and cost less per to redo at once.

He'll find out soon enough. Seems like the solicitors that are around all are window replacement guys. We probably get 3-4 flyers a month even with the large no solicitors sign.

mister d wrote:How many windows total in the place? I imagine it would look nicer, sell better and cost less per to redo at once.

Just the 2 windows and the balcony door. It's small.

Home repairs lick the sweat off my taint after a four day hike through the sipsee wildnerness. Currently living with my mother in law, as we just bought a lot on the Tennessee river. Lovely lot, but to build the house we want we are looking at a year with the MiL because we sold our last house quicker than expected. Have finally convinced the wife to buy something else and then build later, but still am petrified at building. To get what we want right now leaves no float, but everything rational insints on leaving a 20% float.

You know what I was taught growing up, Bert? Pentagons have 5 sides...and NONE of those sides are going to sit there and worry about a contingency plan. Those sides are ALL IN.

Guess who gets to redo his basement? And hopefully on the insurance company's dime?

We had biblical amount of rain Wednesday night and had water in my basement again. I think it was a gutter issue again -- created because of the amount of water in the gutter coming out of screw holes that are there from me redoing the gutters the last time -- spewing into a spot where water pools. There's a small wash hole between where I landscaped to prevent the issue from happening and a pavestone right underneath the downspout curve where the holes are.

Anyway, the basement is thankfully dried out, but the floor is all warped to hell. Supposed to have an estimate hopefully as soon as Monday and then file an insurance claim. I have a $1K deductible with coverage up to $5K for this type of stuff per my agent, so I'm hoping that covers most of a new floor and installation along with the 10 foot section of wall where the water has come in that I'd like to have replaced and waterproofed. And to save money, I'll be hopefully doing all the demo and moving and concrete floor kilzing to get the place ready for construction.

Hopefully this is done by football season. And I'm so glad that I spent the time and effort this spring to open the basement windows that had been painted shut by the previous owners.

Brontoburglar wrote:Guess who gets to redo his basement? And hopefully on the insurance company's dime?

We had biblical amount of rain Wednesday night and had water in my basement again. I think it was a gutter issue again -- created because of the amount of water in the gutter coming out of screw holes that are there from me redoing the gutters the last time -- spewing into a spot where water pools. There's a small wash hole between where I landscaped to prevent the issue from happening and a pavestone right underneath the downspout curve where the holes are.

Anyway, the basement is thankfully dried out, but the floor is all warped to hell. Supposed to have an estimate hopefully as soon as Monday and then file an insurance claim. I have a $1K deductible with coverage up to $5K for this type of stuff per my agent, so I'm hoping that covers most of a new floor and installation along with the 10 foot section of wall where the water has come in that I'd like to have replaced and waterproofed. And to save money, I'll be hopefully doing all the demo and moving and concrete floor kilzing to get the place ready for construction.

Hopefully this is done by football season. And I'm so glad that I spent the time and effort this spring to open the basement windows that had been painted shut by the previous owners.

Interesting. I find water issues the craziest thing about insurance. A water main broke outside of my house years ago. We were in a town house community. Called them and they did not do anything for 8 hours. As a result water came into my basement (and my neighbors). Insurance gave me a Heisman since it was water from outside the foundation. Also VA law protected the crappy condo management company for failure to do their job. Then the next time it happened it was during a crazy rain storm that flooded a whole bunch of the county. I got lucky on this one because the company we used to dry out the basement lost the paperwork for the whole thing but we were warned by our insurance agent that this was likely the same situation as the first time. The 3rd time we had a problem with the washing machine. It just ran and ran flooding the basement. Insurance picked up the whole thing (maybe even went after the washing machine company. You also get coverage when you fail to maintain your house (i.e. your hot water heater goes after too many years and not enough maintenance).

So why does insurance not cover you when it is not your fault but if you just fail to properly maintain your house you are covered? Crazy.

wlu_lax6 wrote:So why does insurance not cover you when it is not your fault but if you just fail to properly maintain your house you are covered? Crazy.

Because they don't go bankrupt when one idiot fucks up. When it's a flood, they get hit with hundreds or thousands of claims at once.

Ha. Youre trying to understand insurance.

I took today off to patch drywall holes and it's a truly suck process.

I'm now being told I'm not covered -- well done, insurance agents! So I've asked for a copy of my policy so I can read it through and then see what's up. I've gone from "this isn't so bad" to "fuck this is terrible" in a matter of minutes this morning.

Yeah, its never happened to us, but external flooding is almost always exempt from your homeowners policy. Natural disasters too, I think.

mister d wrote:Yeah, its never happened to us, but external flooding is almost always exempt from your homeowners policy. Natural disasters too, I think.

This has been a few friends of mine's experience as well. Inside is classified as a "water event" (pipe burst, etc) and is covered, outside is considered "flooding" and is only covered by supplemental flood insurance.

BSF21 wrote:

mister d wrote:Yeah, its never happened to us, but external flooding is almost always exempt from your homeowners policy. Natural disasters too, I think.

This has been a few friends of mine's experience as well. Inside is classified as a "water event" (pipe burst, etc) and is covered, outside is considered "flooding" and is only covered by supplemental flood insurance.

"Acts of God" clause.

This is why attorneys have jobs. If they won't pay, skip a public adjuster and go straight to a first party (claim against your own insurance) attorney.

There's a steady stream of wasp traffic heading into a small opening between the fascia and the wall. Must be a nest in my attic.

Help.

My first instinct was to climb a ladder and spray an insecticide/sealant on the hole, but from what I just read, that could mean the rest of the weekend in the hospital!

Any advice?

mister d wrote:Burn it down

Call a pro?

rass wrote:

mister d wrote:Burn it down

Call a pro?

Yeah. $120 is worth it.

I thought I'd be hero dad... until I did 10 minutes of research.

Yup. I'm more than willing to acknowledge my limits.

sancarlos wrote:Exactly what came to my mind, too, when reading this thread.

It's a meme!

Why Are Air Conditioners Killing So Many TV Characters In 2017?

rass wrote:Yup. I'm more than willing to acknowledge my limits.

No point endangering my health to save cash...

Five years ago or so, I changed a bathroom sink as I didn't want to pay a plumber to do it. Ended up doing a fine job (on the 2nd try). So I saved the money and all it took me was 8 hours of work and $60 of stuff from the Home Depot. So based on that, my time is worth about $16 an hour.

Slung some hot caulk today. Tight and straight, just the way my wife wanted it.

Sliced the tip of my finger open doing yard work this past weekend which is a really good thing to do when your job (and distraction) requires incessant typing.

The board on my dryer died for the second time in the last year and the guy who fixed it said we should surge protect it. Reading up, it seems like I should be doing this one a bunch of computer-y appliances. Any definitive yes/no list out there?

mister d wrote:The board on my dryer died for the second time in the last year and the guy who fixed it said we should surge protect it. Reading up, it seems like I should be doing this one a bunch of computer-y appliances. Any definitive yes/no list out there?

In Belkin I trust.