The Home Improvement Thread

[PSU Taco85]

Worked late last night to fill up the remaining empty spaces in the dumpster. I couldn't stand the thought of sending back a dumpster that still had space in it.

Found more bad contractor work which has basically convinced me that this will be a full gut and build back job.

This house has every generation of plumbing too. Copper, PVC, CPVC, Galvanized pipe and PEX.

Gut it all and keep only PEX going forward. CPVC is a ticking time bomb

 

[Anathollo]

Gut it all and keep only PEX going forward. CPVC is a ticking time bomb

That's the plan!

 

[Oswego]

My neighbors fence is in pretty bad shape. I still have my fence next to his. He wants to tear them down and split the cost to build on, which I don't mind doing... when my fence is worn out. Hopefully that gives lumber prices some time to come back to earth.

Sounds good but the thought of that makes me twitch.

Who will have legal ownership aka who's property line will it sit off of? Who will be on the hook for maintenance? Which way will it face?

That overgrown tree that was supposed to be taken care of by the neihbor died and lazy people moved in. Going on 17 years, every single neihbor I share a property line with has changed at least once and in some circumstances three times so I'd be sure to have 100% ownership.

 

[Silverback]

Its normal around here to have a single fence between homes, the fact that on one side of my property I have two is the exception. It's expected that neighbors just split the cost for a new fence when that time comes. I've never heard of anyone that had an issue with it.

 

[Oswego]

You can have your hail back... not nearly the same size but first good thunderstorm of the season.

 

[Oswego]

Its normal around here to have a single fence between homes, the fact that on one side of my property I have two is the exception. It's expected that neighbors just split the cost for a new fence when that time comes. I've never heard of anyone that had an issue with it.

I guess I'm just jaded from having 4 of 5 neighbors be lazy pos that let leaves pile up and rot my fence out at the bottom + them letting vines and poison ivy have free reign on their side till it grows over to mine. Oh and trees..

 

[Silverback]

Don't have those neighbors around here. Across the street is the worst, they just have no concept of weed control and they start yard projects and leave them all jacked up for weeks. They started a flower bed out front of their house about 2 weeks ago. I bet its never finished.

 

[Oswego]

Been staing my fence for months now. Had tyvek on 1/3 the house since Nov. I am that neihbor.

Had some good progress staining yesterday. Today was all prep work for another round tom if weather permits

 

[Silverback]

Oh yours is fine! These people are from Africa... he us straight from a tribe in the bush. But he has his PhD and has her MD and is an ER Surgeon. So smart people. But their yard is SHIT! I'm talking they had/have about 3 or 4 tomato cages just standing in their yard (down to 1 now and its in a pot.. others where in the ground)... I think at one point they may have had some kind of flower their?? The flower bed is just tilled up dirt. The trees are dead! They are the same age as my trees and mine are 2x as big. The cold this winter killed theirs off though. I bet they never replace them. There was a large bush about 14' tall at the left corner of the house, it tipped over in a storm.. they left it for months. I was just cut off near the base and that's it. They did hire a lawn service to cut the grass at least. It used to get tall.. but that yard has never had weed-n-feed put on it. No care what so ever.

 

[Oswego]

Still nicer than my house

 

[Silverback]

I won't try to sell my house until they are gone.

 

[Oswego]

Spent the morning prepping my back beds for staining the fence tom. Had a ton of left over river rock from when I put it on heavy so decided instead of moving it twice to start on the forgotten bed.

Never I mean never use small river rock. It sucks. No idea what I'll do with it all but this is just from 12' of bed and I've got 64' left to clean out

Sometimes free stuff comes back to bite you.

 

[Silverback]

I wish we would have done larger rocks when we put it around the backyard.

 

[balakay]

Got the refi started. Saving about 25% a month. Cut my interest rate in half. It'll be nice having a payment under $1k.

Haven't had the official appraisal done yet but for the quotes they based if off of comps. House has gone up about 30% since I bought it 34 months ago. Will be interested to see what the actual appraisal comes back as.

 

[PSU Taco85]

Got the refi started. Saving about 25% a month. Cut my interest rate in half. It'll be nice having a payment under $1k.

Haven't had the official appraisal done yet but for the quotes they based if off of comps. House has gone up about 30% since I bought it 34 months ago. Will be interested to see what the actual appraisal comes back as.

with an appraisal comes a tax hike, be careful.

 

[balakay]

with an appraisal comes a tax hike, be careful.

Still going to come out ahead by a few hundred a month. I currently have a 6% interest rate on my house. I've been getting royally fucked for the last three years. Taxes are going to go up anyway because the average home price in my neighborhood has gone up around $30k since I bought. Most of that has been in the last year.

 

[PSU Taco85]

Still going to come out ahead by a few hundred a month. I currently have a 6% interest rate on my house. I've been getting royally fucked for the last three years. Taxes are going to go up anyway because the average home price in my neighborhood has gone up around $30k since I bought. Most of that has been in the last year.

well that's good then and sounds like you've done the research. I was going to complain about my taxes this year but then realized they don't have on record my shop having heat/plumbing and my basement being partially finished so I'll leave a sleeping dog lie Guess what it comes down to is no matter what they will eventually get their piece of the pie

 

[PSU Taco85]

6% is pretty rough, I don't remember what mine was but the principal payment was like 2/3 of the actual payment. I also felt like every quarter the escrow would rise until the mortgage company had enough to buy another house on my savings

 

[balakay]

6% is pretty rough, I don't remember what mine was but the principal payment was like 2/3 of the actual payment. I also felt like every quarter the escrow would rise until the mortgage company had enough to buy another house on my savings

Yeah best interest rate I could get at the time was 5% even with a high credit score and perfect credit history. Was just a bad time to buy. Plus I had to tack on an extra 1% in order to get my first time home buyer grant. Finally got off my ass and looked into actually refinancing. Wish I had done it last year when rates first tanked but hindsight is 20/20. New rate is 3.15%.

 

[Oswego]

with an "state or town" appraisal comes a tax hike, be careful.

Ftfy

Having your bank appraise your house is completely different than the gubments appraiser. One has nothing to do with the other 99% of the time.