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Home stuff šŸ” Home Improvement

AG74683 said:
Well the roof is done and I'm unimpressed. Honestly it looks like a pretty poor job, but I don't know enough about it to be able to tell. The edges are cut fairly ragged and overlap the flashing, there's more than a few bubbles in it and some heavy wrinkles, and it doesn't appear that they fixed the roof deck.
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Too late to edit, but I uploaded a few pics to check on the quality on another forum I frequent. General consensus is that the job is garbage.

http://imgur.com/gallery/2TmOqVm
 
Planit said:
That is pretty bad. Looks like a sloppy hurried job indeed.
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I called my contractor this morning about it. Said he'll come by either today or Tuesday to take a look. Glad I didn't pay them anything yet, because this job was crap.
 
My tile guy is over today to hopefully grout everything. After that the shower will need to be sealed, the plumber come in and finish the fixtures and I'll finally have a functioning shower in the master bathroom.

My wife complains that it took two full months, but I remind here that if *I* did the work it would have taken far longer. ;)
 
Finished up taking out the blinds, curtain rods, and removing the 500 screws and nails used to attach them. Contractor will start end of the week.
 
Tried to fix my microwave yesterday. That makes every appliance in the home something I've worked on and they're all GE/Kenmore. The microwave is dead so I bought a new one. Naturally the mounting bracket was different so I had to install a new one. Of course the holes in the upper cabinet were different too. Even the one for the plug. And of course my cordless drill died before I could drill the first hole. Still got it done though.
 
WSU MUP Student said:
Don't put a pound and a half of coleslaw down the garbage disposal all at once. :-@
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So the plumber was out and apparently the coleslaw may have just been the final breaking point in our backed up drain. They could only get their snake to go about 5 or 6 feet where it should have easily made it 15+ feet. The house is a 1950s ranch and I've noticed over the past couple of years quite a few of the similar-aged homes in the neighborhood having new main drains installed out to the sewer. It may be our time. Grumble grumble.

Hopefully they can run an auger through ours and solve it that way.
 
WSU MUP Student said:
So the plumber was out and apparently the coleslaw may have just been the final breaking point in our backed up drain. They could only get their snake to go about 5 or 6 feet where it should have easily made it 15+ feet. The house is a 1950s ranch and I've noticed over the past couple of years quite a few of the similar-aged homes in the neighborhood having new main drains installed out to the sewer. It may be our time. Grumble grumble.

Hopefully they can run an auger through ours and solve it that way.
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Ugh. This is going to be expensive. Apparently when the kitchen was remodeled ~25 years ago they didn't properly tie in any venting to the plumbing so there has never been the right amount of pressure/air flow in the main drain as there was supposed to be causing the gunk in all the wastewater to just slowly build up and calcify inside the drain over the years. We are going to start with replacing the accessible drain piping in the kitchen and utility area and then properly venting the system and hopefully that will fix the problem but that's already $$$$. If that still doesn't get things flowing as they as it should be, we'll have to either replace the main drain completely or apply an internal epoxy coating to it. Either way, that will be an expensive fix (but at least it will be guaranteed for years).

They won't be able to come back out until Monday to install the new piping and do the venting so we are without a properly draining kitchen sink or working dishwasher until then.

Oh and to make it worse, the ignitor on our oven decided to die yesterday. :facepalm:
 
Home ownership is better than renting, they said.

You'll benefit greatly, they said.

Master of your castle, they said.

They can stuff it.

:D
 
Roofing guy is going to tidy up the sloppier spots and take care of the flashing around my plumbing vents and chimney this week, probably Wednesday, so that's good. I think I'll have them install oversized downspouts for the gutters while they're at it. That's where my rot is coming from. Gutters overflow and the water travels up and over the gutters to the wood fascia. This is largely fixed because the new drip edge actually continues into the gutter unlike the old, so it's now pouring out the front. Hopefully the oversized down spouts will help move more water.

Electrician couldn't really find a way to add a new light off the existing switch because of the flat roof. I guess the plan is to come off an existing outlet in the screen room and add a switch and a light. I'm not a huge fan of that. TBH I can do that myself. I just added a receptacle in there over the weekend and it was incredibly easy. I think I'm going to do some research and see where the wires run and figure out how to get it off that existing switch. Otherwise I'll probably kill that project. I think it would be kinda stupid just to have a random switch in the screen room for one light. The decks are actually open underneath to the crawl space, so I THINK wire can be run from below rather than above. I'm going to talk to the previous owner tonight and see where everything goes.
 
Doohickie said:
My tile guy is over today to hopefully grout everything. After that the shower will need to be sealed, the plumber come in and finish the fixtures and I'll finally have a functioning shower in the master bathroom.

My wife complains that it took two full months, but I remind here that if *I* did the work it would have taken far longer. ;)
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Yes, the shower is finally complete. We're taking showers in it daily now. :lmao:
 
Under the kitchen wallpaper: Everything's coming up daisies!

34725837_1684885941560289_8023752027148386304_n.jpg
 
Roofer was out today. Looks good from the ground now. I'll pop up on the roof when I get home to double check it, but it looks pretty tidy now.
 
Is it truly fixed, or does it merely look good now?

I'm not a fan of flat roofs. Done right they can be fine and it makes the house look sharp (we have several flat roof homes in our new neighborhood), but when they go bad it's harder to find someone who knows how to maintain and fix them.
 
Doohickie said:
Is it truly fixed, or does it merely look good now?

I'm not a fan of flat roofs. Done right they can be fine and it makes the house look sharp (we have several flat roof homes in our new neighborhood), but when they go bad it's harder to find someone who knows how to maintain and fix them.
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It wasn't that the roof wasn't done right before, it was functional and wasn't going to leak because of the nature of the product used, it just looked like complete crap and they didn't finish the flashing repair at my chimney or plumbing vents. They've fixed it all now. I'll get up and take one more look this afternoon, but I think my concerns have been addressed. Apparently they want payment like tomorrow which sort of sucks because I planned to move some cash from a few other accounts, but it's not the end of the world and we get paid tomorrow so whatever.

Final stage is to get the soffit buttoned up and the major work should be finished. I did talk to the previous owner this afternoon about the electrical, but he doesn't know where it goes either. Funny enough, he's pretty sure the same electrician who came out the other day was the guy who wired the house :lmao:.
 
AG74683 said:
It wasn't that the roof wasn't done right before, it was functional and wasn't going to leak because of the nature of the product used, it just looked like complete crap and they didn't finish the flashing repair at my chimney or plumbing vents. They've fixed it all now. I'll get up and take one more look this afternoon, but I think my concerns have been addressed.
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Went up yesterday. It's a job well done now. They smoothed out the really bad wrinkles, took care of all the flashing and installed two new boots around two of the plumbing vents (the other one is an old school vent where the flashing is the vent itself). They fixed the flat roof to pitch transition where some shingles got bent up, took care of a spot where the flat roof wasn't even attached, and painted the plumbing vents black. It looks good, worth the money now. They also fixed my ridge vents where I had some starting to pop up. One vent needs to be repainted, I'll do that this weekend I think.
 
Painters are at RT's house today. They removed the popcorn ceilings in the hallway and three bedrooms and replastered on Tuesday/Wednesday.
 
Our oven recently died. We are in the process of planning a remodel and of course our oven dies and plumbing craps out early on. The plumbing is almost fixed and it's $$$$$ but we're better off that it failed now as opposed to after we did the remodel since it may involve removing our cabinets and tearing up part of the floor and going through some walls - we'd hate to have to do that after we've spent a bunch on new flooring and counters and cabinets, etc.

Back to the oven - it died one day a couple weeks ago but the stove sill worked. We made by with the microwave and the stovetop and also using the grill and then I went out of town for a week. My wife just wanted to go out and buy a new oven while I was away and I had to fight with her to convince her that we could just get it fixed and then not rush to buy a new oven now but rather make sure we coordinate it with the new kitchen.

I successfully diagnosed the problem as a failing igniter and then found the part online for about $20 and installed it myself. It was an incredibly easy fix. The only semi-difficult part was removing the screws inside the oven since they probably had almost seized up after not being removed in probably 20 years. The entire process from opening the package to having the oven working again took all of about 15 minutes. I think even my wife was impressed. I am not a handy person so small things like this make me feel accomplished.
 
And now the heat pump is having issues. It's been 95 to 100 here the last few days so I expected it. It turns 14 this year in December so it's quickly reaching the end of the line. I suspect it needs refrigerant, and I think the air handler is having some issues but I think this is stuff that can be repaired and extend the life span out another few years. It's unfortunately an R-22 system, so each pound of refrigerant is around $100, or was in 2016. It's probably more now. It was 2 pounds down in '16, so I'm expecting near 3 this time around. I'm hoping the coil is still good, if it's not, there's no sense fixing it.

Contractor should be dropping the rest of my soffit this week to get access for the electrician. I decided that light is a must have over the weekend.
 
AG74683 said:
And now the heat pump is having issues. It's been 95 to 100 here the last few days so I expected it. It turns 14 this year in December so it's quickly reaching the end of the line. I suspect it needs refrigerant, and I think the air handler is having some issues but I think this is stuff that can be repaired and extend the life span out another few years. It's unfortunately an R-22 system, so each pound of refrigerant is around $100, or was in 2016. It's probably more now. It was 2 pounds down in '16, so I'm expecting near 3 this time around. I'm hoping the coil is still good, if it's not, there's no sense fixing it.

Contractor should be dropping the rest of my soffit this week to get access for the electrician. I decided that light is a must have over the weekend.
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$200 of refrigerant that will get you through the A/C season isn't bad if the coil is still good.
 
kjel said:
$200 of refrigerant that will get you through the A/C season isn't bad if the coil is still good.
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Turns out that is all there was to it. It was about 2 pounds low. This group charges $80 a pound for R-22 so that's nice. The last was $100. That means the system is losing roughly a pound a year, which isn't bad at all. I can deal with that until I can afford to replace the whole heat pump.

I liked this last crew a lot better. I used my contractors recommended group. I'll be using them again for sure.
 
WSU MUP Student said:
Ugh. This is going to be expensive. Apparently when the kitchen was remodeled ~25 years ago they didn't properly tie in any venting to the plumbing so there has never been the right amount of pressure/air flow in the main drain as there was supposed to be causing the gunk in all the wastewater to just slowly build up and calcify inside the drain over the years. We are going to start with replacing the accessible drain piping in the kitchen and utility area and then properly venting the system and hopefully that will fix the problem but that's already $$$$. If that still doesn't get things flowing as they as it should be, we'll have to either replace the main drain completely or apply an internal epoxy coating to it. Either way, that will be an expensive fix (but at least it will be guaranteed for years).

They won't be able to come back out until Monday to install the new piping and do the venting so we are without a properly draining kitchen sink or working dishwasher until then.

Oh and to make it worse, the ignitor on our oven decided to die yesterday. :facepalm:
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Well, we've had a couple estimates now and both are that the best (most thorough and long-lasting) fix will be anywhere between $8k and $12k. We had signed a contract with our preferred plumbing company and they came out a couple weeks ago and did the first step which got the drain flowing and we can again use the dishwasher, sink, and garbage disposal but they keep pushing us back on the schedule to come do the rest of the work but they were scheduled to come out and finish it tomorrow but they called today and said they had to push it back again until the end of next week, and that oh, it's going to take 2 days instead of one and during that time you will not have the use of any drains throughout the house. My wife blew up on them on the phone and they offered her a $25 gift card and a slight discount on future services. Thanks, that will put a big dent in the ~$11k bill we are expecting. :r:

This is a pretty big local company and we've been using them for any plumbing and AC work we've needed since we moved in and they have always been absolutely top notch and usually get any job done (no matter what parts or labor are needed) within 48 hours but no such luck this time around. We haven't paid them for any of the work yet and based on the initial estimate and contract they gave us and the procedures they've done, we probably owe the about $1,600. At this point, I'm inclined to call them up a day or so before they are supposed to come back and cancel completely and tell them to just bill us for the work completed.

We're planning a kitchen remodel for the fall and everything is working for now (though there's no guarantee that we will not have the same problem again soon and the completed project comes with a 50 year guarantee) so I think we'll just wait until we gut the kitchen completely and roll any drain work into the rest of the job. We're not planning to dramatically change the layout or where any plumbing fixtures are located so theoretically we should be able to do all the needed plumbing now and not run the risk of tearing it out anyway down the road but I'm still going to use that excuse when we cancel.

[/venting about crappy contractors]
 
Got the final bill for the work today - $1,250. It's on the high side of the quote, which is a little unfortunate.

Honestly I think it's kinda high for what was done. Maybe 300 linear feet of fascia and soffit replaced. I had to have them come out a second time to take more soffit down to get access for the electrician though. I'm hoping this bill covers the electricians cost too, because I'll be happy then. It would come out on the low side of the quote at that point. I'm not going to ask questions and hope he forgot about it IF it doesn't include the electricians work :lmao:.

SO, all said and done, replacing the soffit ended up costing right around $3,750. I guess that's not awful considering I needed an entirely new roof, AND it comes with a 30 year warranty so I won't ever need to worry about it.
 
Oh my freaking God. I have decided I'm no longer hiring anyone to do work at my house unless it's absolutely necessary and I am completely unable to do it myself. This project has been the biggest pain in the ass.

I get back Friday to check over the work. They failed to replace the rotten fascia like I asked, and then had the audacity to reuse the bent busted up soffit vents they tore off earlier. SERIOUSLY? A white aluminum soffit vent is around $2.00 at Lowes and they couldn't even be bothered to replace them. PLUS they were all screwed in, so there was literally no need to destroy them in the first place. :-@.

To make matters worse, yesterday when I got on the roof to get pine needles and various crud out of the gutters, I discovered why I think they failed to replace the fascia. The roofers, in their infinite wisdom, put the roof flashing OVER the gutter brackets, IE there is no way to get to the screws to remove the gutters to even replace the fascia. I have no idea how to fix that, and I'll be damned if I let any of those idiots do it. I'm sure they'll just take tin snips, cut the flashing, bend it up, and leave it that way. My plan is to get the smallest hole drill I can, drill around the screw heads, add larger screws with washers, and silicon them in place.
 
AG74683 said:
Oh my freaking God. I have decided I'm no longer hiring anyone to do work at my house unless it's absolutely necessary and I am completely unable to do it myself. This project has been the biggest pain in the ass.

I get back Friday to check over the work. They failed to replace the rotten fascia like I asked, and then had the audacity to reuse the bent busted up soffit vents they tore off earlier. SERIOUSLY? A white aluminum soffit vent is around $2.00 at Lowes and they couldn't even be bothered to replace them. PLUS they were all screwed in, so there was literally no need to destroy them in the first place. :-@.

To make matters worse, yesterday when I got on the roof to get pine needles and various crud out of the gutters, I discovered why I think they failed to replace the fascia. The roofers, in their infinite wisdom, put the roof flashing OVER the gutter brackets, IE there is no way to get to the screws to remove the gutters to even replace the fascia. I have no idea how to fix that, and I'll be damned if I let any of those idiots do it. I'm sure they'll just take tin snips, cut the flashing, bend it up, and leave it that way. My plan is to get the smallest hole drill I can, drill around the screw heads, add larger screws with washers, and silicon them in place.
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Unless you are there supervising the work and asking questions contractors will often cut corners. There are some little detail things that I'm dissatisfied with at my daughter's house but nothing that won't take a couple hours to address and not worth the hassle to have them come back out for.
 
kjel said:
Unless you are there supervising the work and asking questions contractors will often cut corners. There are some little detail things that I'm dissatisfied with at my daughter's house but nothing that won't take a couple hours to address and not worth the hassle to have them come back out for.
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That's about where I am with the electrical contractors that did work on our house when we first moved in. The electrical itself is fine, but they did a lousy job of finish work around new boxes in the walls and also didn't patch up some holes in the walls... they're still there. My plan to just to fix the drywall myself and we found a handyman that does a good job of texturing walls that match the original texture so he can do the finish texture before we paint.

Speaking of which... the first room (my wife's office) is painted. I always thought brush painting took a lot more paint than roller painting, but apparently that's incorrect. My wife used three different colors of paint and the one that I used a roller for used just about a full gallon (two coats on the upper portions of three walls). The colors that I brushed the whole way are pretty much full (the lower parts of three walls in one color, and an accent color on the fourth wall).
 
Talked to the contractor yesterday about the issues. He "has to check his notes" to see if the fascia board was part of it (it was, I specifically said to replace ALL the rotten wood). I also brought up the soffit vents. He said they'll be out next week to look and asked when I'll have the payment ready. I told him "probably around the time you come back out".
 
AG74683 said:
Talked to the contractor yesterday about the issues. He "has to check his notes" to see if the fascia board was part of it (it was, I specifically said to replace ALL the rotten wood). I also brought up the soffit vents. He said they'll be out next week to look and asked when I'll have the payment ready. I told him "probably around the time you come back out".
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Well I guess those fascia boards at the rear weren't included in the original quote :r:. I know we talked about it. Next time I will request the quote in writing so I can nitpick it. I was trying to avoid being one of those asshole homeowners, but now I'm going to be after this experience.
 
We've had torential rains the last couple of days. ZG reported a roof leak this morning in the area over the patio enclosure. I took the afternoon off and called a contractor. The house needs a new roof. This will cost many Benjamins. :-c
 
Richmond Jake said:
We've had torential rains the last couple of days. ZG reported a roof leak this morning in the area over the patio enclosure. I took the afternoon off and called a contractor. The house needs a new roof. This will cost many Benjamins. :-c
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Good thing your job pays a lot of Benjamins. Might have to ease off the wine for a bit. Could be worse, might have to replace those wonderful WTFs. ;)
 
Richmond Jake said:
We've had torential rains the last couple of days. ZG reported a roof leak this morning in the area over the patio enclosure. I took the afternoon off and called a contractor. The house needs a new roof. This will cost many Benjamins. :-c
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Have you considered putting white tile on the roof? Those things never seem to have problems.
 
Richmond Jake said:
We've had torential rains the last couple of days. ZG reported a roof leak this morning in the area over the patio enclosure. I took the afternoon off and called a contractor. The house needs a new roof. This will cost many Benjamins. :-c
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I discovered one last night as well. very annoying because it wasn't there before I had my new roof installed :-@. I'll have to mention this to my contractor whenever they come over to quote the work they were supposed to do but apparently never included it in my original quote. Luckily the leak is outside in my carport, but still...
 
I need to finish taking up the tack strip from where I removed the carpet and uncovered the magnificent hardwood floors in my living room. I am discovering, however, that it is really difficult to match stain colors for the replacement shoe molding I'm going to install. I'm probably going to have to experiment with mixing light and dark stains since I can't find anything pre-mixed that comes anywhere close to matching what's there now.:-{
 
RT woke up to some water on the floor in the basement yesterday morning. I was able to trace it back to the HVAC unit. The condensation drain line was clogged. She got a lesson on how A/C systems remove humidity from the air and condenses into water which is then drained away.

The installer piped the drain into the waste line which is fine except that he used to 90 degree elbows to do do which made it a bitch to snake. I had to go to the big box store last night to get something that would turn corners in a 3/4" line. Thankfully I got enough of it cleared enough to put some Green Gobbler down it to clean out the slime in it. Seems to be working fine now.
 
kjel said:
RT woke up to some water on the floor in the basement yesterday morning. I was able to trace it back to the HVAC unit. The condensation drain line was clogged. She got a lesson on how A/C systems remove humidity from the air and condenses into water which is then drained away.

The installer piped the drain into the waste line which is fine except that he used to 90 degree elbows to do do which made it a bitch to snake. I had to go to the big box store last night to get something that would turn corners in a 3/4" line. Thankfully I got enough of it cleared enough to put some Green Gobbler down it to clean out the slime in it. Seems to be working fine now.
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You can try using a shop vac too. That's what my HVAC people did, and it worked great.
 
Waiting on the contractor blues

Got home from DC, and WOW! My kitchen and next-door bath were a disaster. I'd put out extra water bowls for my cats (it's August) and every one of them had kitty litter mud in it. The cat food silo was completely empty, as was the small bowl of "dental diet." Bathroom had kitty litter mud all over the floor; kitchen too.

First I started a fresh water bowl. My poor cats! So dehydrated and hungry! And apparently they'd gotten their feet dirty and tried to wash up in the drinking bowls.

Dumped out all the bowls, set them to wash along with the silo. Mopped the floors, pulled out the clean silo (inherited from dear ol' dad). Washed and wiped and cleaned. Refilled cat food and water bowls.

Started checking everyone's feet, and they weren't dirty at all. And the litter boxes weren't excessively bad.

My two girl kitties are brown tabbies, and I was walking through the kitchen with my glasses off, noticed one of them in the bathroom. But it didn't look right. For one thing, it had a black mask on.

I asked it how it got in, and how it planned to leave. It ran upstairs, and I followed.
It leaped into the spare bedroom, and squoze itself out the window (screen compromised, open about 2").

I closed the window, headed back down to my office. Then I heard trilling sounds.

Back up to the spare BR, and between the mattress and headboard were two more little masked faces looking at me. They ducked down to try to make themselves less conspicuous.

I re-opened the window (wider this time), told them they had to leave. Picked up some of the stuff knocked over near the window, turned off the light and closed the door.

In the morning I found my Halloween strobe noisemakers, turned them on and placed in the room.

Then I started calling contractors to fix the huge hole in the rear soffit.

One wanted to quote from a photo, which I sent, and then he suddenly doubled it when he realized there was a squirrel-sized opening in the front soffit. He kept sending texts. "See you tomorrow." "I need your address."

The next guy...he strung me along on Weds (he managed to swing by and see the large hole) but then prolonged any commitment. "Oh, I'll be there Thurs."
"No wait, Friday."
This morning I CALLED and left a message. He said 1:30, then said 2:30. He showed up at 3.

He assessed both spots, took a look at my materials stash in the garage, said he'd be back at 9:30 am. "No later than 10."

I'd just call the short-statured young man I used before, who always does show up, but...he'd told me the squirrel hole was "just a shadow" and declined to repair it last year.
 
Veloise said:
Got home from DC, and WOW! My kitchen and next-door bath were a disaster. I'd put out extra water bowls for my cats (it's August) and every one of them had kitty litter mud in it. The cat food silo was completely empty, as was the small bowl of "dental diet." Bathroom had kitty litter mud all over the floor; kitchen too.

First I started a fresh water bowl. My poor cats! So dehydrated and hungry! And apparently they'd gotten their feet dirty and tried to wash up in the drinking bowls.

Dumped out all the bowls, set them to wash along with the silo. Mopped the floors, pulled out the clean silo (inherited from dear ol' dad). Washed and wiped and cleaned. Refilled cat food and water bowls.

Started checking everyone's feet, and they weren't dirty at all. And the litter boxes weren't excessively bad.

My two girl kitties are brown tabbies, and I was walking through the kitchen with my glasses off, noticed one of them in the bathroom. But it didn't look right. For one thing, it had a black mask on.

I asked it how it got in, and how it planned to leave. It ran upstairs, and I followed.
It leaped into the spare bedroom, and squoze itself out the window (screen compromised, open about 2").

I closed the window, headed back down to my office. Then I heard trilling sounds.

Back up to the spare BR, and between the mattress and headboard were two more little masked faces looking at me. They ducked down to try to make themselves less conspicuous.

I re-opened the window (wider this time), told them they had to leave. Picked up some of the stuff knocked over near the window, turned off the light and closed the door.

In the morning I found my Halloween strobe noisemakers, turned them on and placed in the room.

Then I started calling contractors to fix the huge hole in the rear soffit.

One wanted to quote from a photo, which I sent, and then he suddenly doubled it when he realized there was a squirrel-sized opening in the front soffit. He kept sending texts. "See you tomorrow." "I need your address."

The next guy...he strung me along on Weds (he managed to swing by and see the large hole) but then prolonged any commitment. "Oh, I'll be there Thurs."
"No wait, Friday."
This morning I CALLED and left a message. He said 1:30, then said 2:30. He showed up at 3.

He assessed both spots, took a look at my materials stash in the garage, said he'd be back at 9:30 am. "No later than 10."

I'd just call the short-statured young man I used before, who always does show up, but...he'd told me the squirrel hole was "just a shadow" and declined to repair it last year.
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Raccoon?
 
I still haven't paid my contractor for the work on the house. I've told him repeatedly I need the receipt and the 30 year warranty paperwork for the roof, and then he'll get his paycheck. That's the only stick I have left and I'm going to hold on to it. I even went so far as to call the roofer myself and ask for the papers, and he never called back. :-@
 
Veloise said:
...

Then I started calling contractors to fix the huge hole in the rear soffit.

One wanted to quote from a photo, which I sent, and then he suddenly doubled it when he realized there was a squirrel-sized opening in the front soffit. He kept sending texts. "See you tomorrow." "I need your address."

The next guy...he strung me along on Weds (he managed to swing by and see the large hole) but then prolonged any commitment. "Oh, I'll be there Thurs."
"No wait, Friday."
This morning I CALLED and left a message. He said 1:30, then said 2:30. He showed up at 3.

He assessed both spots, took a look at my materials stash in the garage, said he'd be back at 9:30 am. "No later than 10."

....
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At 10:30 am he texted to say he was heading out to pick up materials, and "would be over." That was an hour ago.
 
Richmond Jake said:
We've had torential rains the last couple of days. ZG reported a roof leak this morning in the area over the patio enclosure. I took the afternoon off and called a contractor. The house needs a new roof. This will cost many Benjamins. :-c
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Next week begins with Monday Mayhem. The solar panels will be removed while shingles are stripped from the roof. The panels will be stored in the garage. The dumpster will be parked in front of the garage. No vehicles in the garage next week. The dogs are will go insane (ZG ordered cannibus oil to tread them). It's going to be a long week.
 
The siege of Casa RJ came to an end this afternoon. The reroofing job that should have taken 1-1/2 days stretched out to its fourth day thanks to afternoon thunderstorms--each day!. Welcome to August in Florida. :fl:
 
Richmond Jake said:
The siege of Casa RJ came to an end this afternoon. The reroofing job that should have taken 1-1/2 days stretched out to its fourth day thanks to afternoon thunderstorms--each day!. Welcome to August in Florida. :fl:
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Glad you now have a roof over your heads, but you still have a WTF :D
 
Observations following tile repairs in bathroom... it is FAR easier to install tile from scratch than to remove tile, make necessary tub repairs, and reinstall.
 
Suburb Repairman said:
Observations following tile repairs in bathroom... it is FAR easier to install tile from scratch than to remove tile, make necessary tub repairs, and reinstall.
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Agreed. It never looks quite right. The beach house has a 90s/00s tile job that wasn't the greatest and a fiberglass tub/shower surround that clearly replaced a porcelain tub. We thought about making some updates now, but decided to wait until it can be gutted and start over. In the meantime, paint and accessories are camouflaging the ugly.
 
Our hot water heater is in the garage and yesterday evening when I was walking in from work I noticed water puddling up on the floor next to it heading to the drain. I took a look at the little PVC pipe that goes from the tank to the drain to make sure it wasn't just clogged or knocked loose but that appears to be fine. I've got somebody coming out today to take a look at it and it's possible that simply draining it and replacing the valve will fix the leak but it's nearly 20 years old (the sticker on it says it was installed in March of 1999) so I don't know how much more life we'll get out of it regardless. It already takes forever to heat up, especially when using the dishwasher or washing machine so I'm thinking that it might just be time to replace it. Even the lowest-end, cheapest heater is probably going to be considerably more efficient than what we currently have.
 
Get a new one. 20 years is a long life for a water heater. It's amazing how much more efficient they are today.
 
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