i've discovered a downside to home ownership

i do have a de longi oil heater thingie but when i plugged it it it tripped the switch on the circuit breaker.

I could do with new windows too, the perils of buying an ex council flat i suppose.

Still it should be nice in summer, i've got a lovely view over the Firth of Forth and i do get a lot of sun.

I bought a couple of those DeLonghi electric radiators for twenty quid each in Argos. They are great. I'm fortunate enough to have open fires in the sitting room and dining room so it's not too bad.

Like others have said - watch out for the freezing pipes. If they do freeze, you are in real trouble.

Can't you apply for a grant for a new boiler or something? I think local councils give you money for this. Worth looking into, maybe.

god damn dry rot

good thing I wasn't going to rent that room out!

Over the past few weeks our air conditioned has started pumping out really musty smelling air whenever its on. I've checked the crawlspace and the attic and found no water issues that would indicate a mold problem, so I'm wondering if the condensate pan inside the unit has stagnant water sitting inside it somewhere. The unit was just installed two years ago, but of course the way it was installed means I can't get to that pan without disassembling way more pieces than I have the means to put back together. Going nuts trying to figure out what else might be causing the smell. Technician coming out to look at it tomorrow.

sounds like the undead. is your home built over an indian cemetery?

Not afaik, but ghost infestation might explain some of the crazy neighbors.

So after having all the HVAC equipment given a clean bill of health, discovered that the problem is very likely groundwater in the crawlspace. There is a low area down there that occasionally fills up with groundwater (maybe at most a half inch of water), but it doesn't drain back out completely so sits and stagnates. Our old return air duct down there is made by utilizing the space between two floor joists with the bottom covered up by a sheet metal. Thus it isn't 100% sealed off and takes in any odor from the crawlspace. Anyway, I think I fixed it by pulling the vinyl taut over the "dip" to let the water drain, now I just hope it doesn't fill back up.

Sure this is mad boring, but I'm guessing another ilxor out there might be interested in this kind of stuff like I am.

This is why I'm glad I rent.

(Not that I'm in any position to buy.)

Yeah, these are the situations where I really really wish I still rented. But, on the other hand, there is a good deal of satisfaction that comes with figuring out the root of the problem and solving them.

Of course I'd much rather just not have any problems ever.

Our crawlspace has problems too. The previous owners did not have their kitchen sink hooked up to the sewer. They just had an open pipe draining into the crawlspace! I also have a sinking suspicion that our current flea problem (recurring over the past 3 weeks) may have something to do with neighborhood cats taking shelter down there.

AN OPEN PIPE DRAINING INTO A CRAWLSPACE??? WHAT IS THIS, ALBANIA?? That is ridic. Did you not have a chance for a home inspection, or they just didn't look at the plumbing...?

We did have a home inspection, but it was apparently cut-rate. We discovered the pipe during our renovations and had the plumber connect it to the sewer.

i've yet to discover an upside to home ownership tbh

i drunkenly pulled up our shitty linoleum floor the other day. that was fun! couldn't do that as a renter

that is kindof hilarious yet horrifying re: the draining into a crawlspace.

i really like this thread title tbh

"hilarious yet horrifying" really sums up my house, which was largely built by the previous owner, but we're turning it into something charming, we think.

HVAC heating + cooling system been crapping out all week - brought mechanics out a few times to take a look, spent $$$ to keep it working then not working etc. guy thinks maybe it's a big leak and they want to go in and find it and patch it and maybe that'll get it working. or maybe not and i'll be spending god knows how much buying a new one. sigh.

Had to buy a new dishwasher last night. We had just been thinking about upgrading the washer and dryer, but voluntarily, ya know? I guess that dream is dead now.

Also discovered our first roach last night, just chillin on the bathroom wall as my wife was getting ready to take a shower.

I've just paid £600 for a cocking new toilet to be put in

Woah, what does that toilet do for you?

Also, just to share my experiences, they tend to be packaged with very fragile plastic seats. I've bought two toilets in the past 5 years. In one case the seat lid shattered after about two years. In the other, the whole thing just fell apart after about a month. Each time necessitated going back to Home Depot to buy a replacement seat in the $40 range, neither of which I've had trouble with yet.

Last year we called a roofer to look at fixing a small leak over one of our rooms. It turned out that the whole roof was a complete disaster and we had to have it torn down to the boards and completely redone. $12,000 all told.

Yeah, we did that last fall. Rotted joists, all that.

£160 to stop the leak, try (and fail) to fix the old toilet

£100 to realise new toilet i'd bought would not fit around the pipe properly. this toilet is now back in its box, sitting in my living room.

£340 to go buy a third toilet, bring it back and have it installed.

Ugh. That sucks.

The last time our dishwasher failed (in 2014), we thought about getting it repaired. The guy told us they charged $250 just to come out and look at it, so we just went and bought a new one. It was my dumb fault for not getting the extended warranty on that one though. The manufacturer's warranty had expired a year ago and I just kept ignoring emails from GE to get further protection for $60 a year.

My refrigerator has been broken for... a few weeks. Basically, it stopped being cold in the fridge part (but not the freezer) a few days before I went on a two week vacation and I was like, fuck it, I'll figure this out when I return. On return, threw out the contents and let it defrost. Plugged it back in, still not working. Cleaned it out, managed to break the bottom glass shelf (DAMN IT).

I was going to have someone check it out but I got motivated and did my own troubleshooting, bought a new evaporator fan motor, and installed it yesterday. I'll know by the end of today if it's properly cooling, which I think it should be. Outside of the shelf which I broke when cleaning the fridge, it was a $65 part!

If this doesn't fix it, I'm getting a new fridge. The repair price would get up to half the price of a comparable new one.

the dude who was supposed to get back to me about a roof/siding estimate has not gotten back to me, so I'm procrastinating

The local gas utility did a bunch of infrastructure upgrades in town back in the spring, including new meters for several hundred homeowners. Turns out they missed the part of our gas line that goes to our furnace, so no central heat. (until later today) (plumber will bill the utility, not us) (whew)

i was without heat for abt a week earlier this month. had to have an electrician run a new cable from my electric heating unit to the circuit breaker (abt 20 ft away thru the ceiling) b/c the one that was in place wasn't sized correctly for the charge by the corner-cutting/incompetent developer of my condo

havnt rec'd the bill yet, but im dreading it

bought a house tday
~2.5 hrs chipping ice off drive/walk-ways so movers could move us.....maybe more a downside to living in the northeast usa tbh

congratulations!

congrats!! invest heavily in ice melt.

Johnny wit da ice pick, you know, down the street

yea ive no assets currently cept this house and mts of rock salt p much

your house fighting weather is the absolute worst part of home ownership.

Spent a day last week stalking drafts with a caulking gun.

I took out a ten thousand dollar loan for a new roof last month. Turns out the “new roof” that came with the renovation was just a fresh coat of bitumen slapped over the 95 year old metal and wood planks from the original construction.

last year I went thru hell with ice dams, attic started leaking 3 days before we were closing on the sale, dropped $1500 to get them steamed off and the roof shoveled off, deal still fell thru

I am selling my apartment next year and keep getting enticed by cool houses for sale on that "For the Love of Old Homes' fb page. I think I would only buy a house again if there was a caretaker ghost that lived there and was licensed to do electrical.