Home Improvement

Deathwing_sl said:

This thread makes me want to go back to renting sometimes.

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No kidding. Wife and I are looking for a new house in the 1-1.5m range and I'm kinda like umm. Can we just rent your parents an apartment near us instead. I like the fact we can pay off our house NOW with our savings.

This was my first home, and I'm basically going to break even on it. My issues are pretty minor I suppose, but still frustrating. Next home is going to be a new build. Fuck this older home bullshit.

Deathwing_sl said:

This thread makes me want to go back to renting sometimes.

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Texas has to be the worst state to be a homeowner bar none. When/if my nightmare home is repaired, I'm selling and either renting again or buying a high rise condo where I don't have to worry about shoddy construction, lazy inspectors, and a legal system that is entirely stacked in favor of builders/contractors. The entire construction industry here is not only totally unregulated allowing for rampant day laborer usage, but the city holds the homeowner accountable for contractor deficiencies. Even with a bulletproof contract, the GC's don't care because they are shielded by LLC's and it's incredibly expensive to sue when it comes to complex construction. My original builder literally broke code in a number of places, and it doesn't matter because it would take years to litigate and the "entity" he used to build the property has already been shuttered. It's bullshit.

Ryoz_sl said:

This was my first home, and I'm basically going to break even on it. My issues are pretty minor I suppose, but still frustrating. Next home is going to be a new build. Fuck this older home bullshit.

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Mine was brand spanking new. I moved in the day after the builder got the CO from the city. Seven years later I'm dealing with 40K worth of repairs out of pocket because insurance doesn't cover building defects. A new home is probably the *worst* thing to buy because you have to eat any defects that pop up in the first years. Homes are pretty much being built just to escape the two year warranty, which is about the time it takes for the thick layer of cauling they smeared somewhere to cover up the lack of flashing begins to degrade/leak. The only way I'd ever buy a new home again is if I was engaged before the building process started, and had a 3rd party engineer or inspector supervise the build from A-Z.

Erronius_sl said:

How much did you pay in advance?

What was the total cost of the work?

How are you finding and vetting these people?

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25% down before work started, total estimate of repair was $200,000. We haven't paid for any work that hasn't been completed, so we're not overpaid atm. So far work is 50% complete and he's gotten 100k out of us, but every inch of work completed involves pulling teeth and threats.

When the house fell to shit (literally my living room ceiling caved in) we called a big restoration company to do the cleanup, and the owner referred a GC that works for them to handle the repairs. I also called six other GC's I found on Angie's List and various other websites, and after walking the property they all either didn't want to touch it, or were only willing to give rough estimates of what it would cost to repair because the scope couldn't be properly assessed until they ripped our siding off the house to see the extent of the underlying damage. The restoration company GC was the only one willing to give a fixed bid on the repairs. It seems like GC's didn't want to deal with water intrusion related repairs, particularly related to stucco..

200k in repairs? Why even bother? How much of that can you recoup?

Khane_sl said:

200k in repairs? Why even bother? How much of that can you recoup?

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It's a condo complex based on his earlier posts. This hit ~5 units (or at least the cost did) based on 200/40.

Khane_sl said:

200k in repairs? Why even bother? How much of that can you recoup?

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Each homeowner's share was $40k (5 units total @200k). Each unit has a value of about $350k, so it was obviously still worth doing the repair. The only other alternative (and it was discussed, as some people had problems raising 40k cash) was let the building rot to shit and go into voluntary foreclosure which would of course decimate our credit and flush any equity in the property down the toilet. We fought the insurance company for a few months to try and get them to pay, but ultimately the builder failed to flash around some windows/doors, and on our outdoor above living area patio he tucked the housewrap BEHIND the metal step flashing, thereby diverting water into the house. Once that was discovered the insurance refused to pay.

I see. Fucking "ground water".

It all depends on the contractor.

i know contractors that cut corners ALL the time- we try to avoid working with them
i know a contractor that does such quality of work that he gives 10 year warranties on the construction

that contractor is now looking for another gut job in boston..he buys the property for about a million or so, redoes the entire inside for about 500-750k, then sells for 2-4 million depending.

his work is done mainly in central boston, between huntington and shawmut x east berkeley to mass ave area.....


boston has a ground water district(BOSTON GROUNDWATER TRUST - Home), that if we are working in that area, we HAVE to make sure that we recharge the roofs into the ground to make sure the old piles do not rot away that are under the ground ( pile stays WET- no rot- piles gets DRY-- rots) we have to look up the nearest well location, check the elevation of the water according to the latest testing, and plan around that elevation for the infiltration system.

Big Phoenix_sl said:

There is zero insulation on the exterior walls of my house.

Like why would you do that?

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A better question is how it passed inspection after it was built..

Big Phoenix_sl said:

There is zero insulation on the exterior walls of my house.

Like why would you do that?

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My house is fucking LOL snug. We can cool it to a nice 68 on a 90 degree day NP and it stays that for a while.

Wifes coworkers house had a literal frozen throne. He had pipes with no insulation (Brick house) that froze all the way into his toilet bowl. He had some epic insulation job last spring to get it fixed.

Insulation is pro.