why it's great to own a house!

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workinforwood

workinforwood

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Joined
Mar 1, 2007
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8,173
Location
Eaton Rapids, Michigan, USA.
I know we've all been in this "boat". When you own a house, all is fine and then one day something happens and who knows what or why right? 5 days ago my daughter says her closet is leaking water. I went and checked it out. The ceiling is finished, so it's tough to see what's up, I popped off a ceiling vent and stuck my head up inside with a flashlight. I see a big round metal pipe, air duct with water on it. Seems logical to me that the pipe must be sweating, especially since the basement is extra damp with all the rain we've had. Of course the darn pipe should have been insulated before the ceiling was installed, but that's just one of those things about having a house too I guess. I put some containers up in the ceiling to catch the water off the big pipe..that's all I can do until she moves out, because I'll have to cut the whole ceiling section out to insulate that pipe. A couple days later she comes complaining it's still leaking. I'm frustrated, I go check it out again. I see a nail sticking through the floor up above just happens to have a ball of water hanging off the end of it. Very strange, there's two bathrooms up there close to that spot but not over top of it and no pipes very close by. I inspected everything and there is no wet trail anywhere I can find, inspected all the sinks and plumbing and toilets, spent 3 days of frustration trying to find the poltergeist! I decided to have the septic pumped. Makes no sense, but last time I had a mystery leak it was the septic. He looked at it too and it makes no sense to him either, but he did say "it's too bad it so confined up there, because if it wasn't I'd reach up there with a saw and cut into the floor to see what is leaking". I thought about that a few hours. Finally I gave in..I got my drill out and a 1.5 spade bit and drilled a hole right beside that nail. Now I go upstairs to see if it's possible to find the hole...darn hole is right in the center of the bathroom floor! :eek: Hmmm..the wood is a bit damp, so I grab a chunk of lenolium and pull on it. I guess I already destroyed the bathroom anyhow, so lets see if the floor under the lenolium is wet and takes me to the source. Well it was and did. The leak was under the bathroom sink, a 2 second repair. Somehow the P trap got knocked down loose so when you ran the water it just leaked all into the cabinet, but reaching down in after the fact and touching the pipe gave no hint and there's so much stuff in the cabinet that you couldn't see it. The water was all in the bottom and flowed under the flooring to a nail that led the way down. Problem solved! Honey finally gets that new bathrooom floor she wanted. :biggrin:
 

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Oh yes, the joys of owning a house. Ours has a raised foundation which has its benefits and its drawbacks. We have our house up for sale in anticipation of moving back to California. A couple visited our house and on the way out of the new living room noticed a stress crack in the wall. I had forgotten all about it but my wife DID NOT. So I spent the better part of the morning under the house with my Sears hydraulic jack, leveling the house. It had rained yesterday so I was nice and muddy. No mystery to solve like Jeff's, just maintenance.
 
I have a rental that the last tenants trashed, then moved out owing me $3,000.00. So far I've put in a new bathroom, working on a new kitchen, have to patch and repaint everything, and replace 5 year old carpet that their dogs soiled in every room. I feel for you Jeff. Hey, when it's all new, think of how good it will look. You gotta laugh or you will cry.
 
Jeff you're on a roll here lately, with all your venting to us. Great story by the way, Sorry to hear about the leak though, that sucks. Thanks for sharing.
 
Had to do something very similar last year. Our en suite is directly above my little workshop. I saw wet marks on my ceiling and eventually had to rip out the entire bathroom to replace the chipboard floor. The leak was a stupid loose connection on the shower u-trap.
Yesterday I had to fix a leak on the loo ( same one I replaced:redface:) but luckily my missus uses bloo-loo so we noticed it quickly.

Have fun with the repair Jeff:wink:
 
bobjackson said:
I have a rental that the last tenants trashed, then moved out owing me $3,000.00. So far I've put in a new bathroom, working on a new kitchen, have to patch and repaint everything, and replace 5 year old carpet that their dogs soiled in every room. I feel for you Jeff. Hey, when it's all new, think of how good it will look. You gotta laugh or you will cry.
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Make sure you report them to the credit agencies. Most landlords will look at their credit report. And if you find them, get a rope, I'll find a tree. :mad:
 
Well now I don't feel so bad about spending a grand and 3 weeks replacing the entire bath room on a trailer that was worth about a grand tops!!!
 
Good story there Jeff, but sorry it had to happen to you.

Look on the bright side, nobody was standing in the bathroom right where you were drilling! Best of success with the repairs. :biggrin::biggrin:
 
Last night it rained like a monsoon. My kid comes upstairs and says hey, the basement is leaking. What????:eek: My basement never leaked before, my house is on the side of a hill with a walkout basement. The leaking was in the furnace room. There is a window and the window is maybe 12x24 and mostly below ground with a well around it. Well the well was completely full of water and that water decided to come through the window. I ran outside and baled out the window. So I guess that window caulking is wearing out. I put a huge sheet of plywood on an angle over the window so if it rains again, the water will run far away. Well it did rain again about 30 minutes later and man did it ever rain! The window well filled back full of water. The gutters couldn't even keep up with that much water, which just poured right down the walls behind my wood deflector and I was out there in a monsoon bailing water out of the window but it was filling faster than I could bail it out. I'm going to call someone and have that window turned into cement wall.

Am I venting..I suppose, but really just sharing my bad luck last few days. This stuff happens to all of us home owners..things get old or tired and wear out, can't really complain about that, but at the same time is sure sucks dealing with it. I'll get it all fixed so that something new can happen. :biggrin:
 
They say that bad luck comes in three's. Maybe the third one was in the email I just sent you. :rolleyes:

LOL, this should be a warning to all newbies!!!! This obsession with pens can detract from our real life responsibilities, like home maintenance:biggrin:
 
When you guys are done with your "maintence" stuff I have some paint scrapers that will fit your hands.
 
I'm renting the house I'm in (crap credit, can't buy). Went to pull the laundry room cabinets that the owner had installed by a local "handyman". They left too small an opening for my full size washer/dryer.

I unscrewed the six mile long screw at the back of the cabinet and a stream of hot water came shooing out. The installer somehow managed to drive the screw right into the copper hot water line.

Took the plumber an hour to convince the landlord that the screw really WAS driven into the water line, and it wasn't me.

The landlord here is really nice, and he's upside down by a couple hundred a month for this place, so I try to do what maint I can without bugging him. I figure if I owned it, I'd have to do it anyway...
 
maintenance

After we had lived in our house about 10 years we noticed the pantry was getting moldy. Nothing we did would stop the mold.
Then one night the shelves crashed.
Turns out that the drain pipe from the upstairs bathroom went down the outside wall of the pantry. The builder had screwed the supports for the shelf right into the drain pipe. It took that long for the screws to rust out.

Lee
 
Ok I don't feel so bad now. A week ago Wednesday, my wife complained that one of the dogs must have peed in the family room downstairs because there were a couple of wet spots. So as she cleaned them up I said it couldn't have been the dogs because they've been locked out of the basement. "Well it must have been the cats then, clean their litter box!" Fast forward to Friday afternoon, I go downstairs and the spots are still wet, not damp but wet. Still thinking it was one of the animals, I smell it. Nope not urine. So I get out the carpet cleaner to suck up the water. Well the wet spot is growing and I'm getting about 2 gallons of water up.

We had had a big rain storm nearly a week earlier and the leak was well away from exterior walls or the sump pump. Listening to water pipes, I couldn't hear that noise that says "water spraying". Now after continuing to vacuum up water every couple of hours, the wife says "It's probably the drain tile under the concrete, we'll probably have to have someone come in tear up the carpet, cut out the concrete & fix it." I couldn't think of any other reason water would be showing up where it was, so I grumbled, Yea you're probably right, dear (as always).

Well it's now 10pm and as I vacuuming up water before I head up to bed, I get hit with a bolt of lightning (not literally, figuratively). We turned on the air conditioner about 5 days before the water appeared. I wonder? I went into the room where the furnance & a/c was and sure enough, I had forgotten to hook the hose up to the condenser drain. All that little bits of water was dripping out onto the floor and then under the wall to right where the mystery puddle was.

Of course being the good husband I went upstairs and told the wife, "Well I saved us a bunch of money. I fixed the floor leak in the basement so I want to use that saved money on some new lathe tools. What did I do to fix it? Well I hooked the hose up to the a/c drain." "Nice try dummy, but you're not getting rewarded for something you should have done first off anyway!"

Isn't love grand after 34 years!!
 
Owning a house means always putting your extra money into some type of repair. My house is a 1916 Edwardian and slowly but surely I am replacing every piece of plumbing and electrical throughout the house. The consolation is that the house itself is made of redwood and there is no rot or termites anywhere. The joists are 4X8 redwood that I can see when in the garage working. Sometimes I look at them and think what a beautiful bowl or pen or something they would make. LOL. Just took up the hall rug and found hardwood flooring underneath of oak and mahogany, but covered with some kind of rubbery substance. Will see if I can clean it off myself or if I have to have it done. My father says that to own a home is the same thing as having a hole in the backyard and putting your money into it, it is a never ending task.
 
nava1uni said:
Owning a house means always putting your extra money into some type of repair. My house is a 1916 Edwardian and slowly but surely I am replacing every piece of plumbing and electrical throughout the house. The consolation is that the house itself is made of redwood and there is no rot or termites anywhere. The joists are 4X8 redwood that I can see when in the garage working. Sometimes I look at them and think what a beautiful bowl or pen or something they would make. LOL. Just took up the hall rug and found hardwood flooring underneath of oak and mahogany, but covered with some kind of rubbery substance. Will see if I can clean it off myself or if I have to have it done. My father says that to own a home is the same thing as having a hole in the backyard and putting your money into it, it is a never ending task.
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Cindy, how we envy you. Those homes in your area are priceless.
John
 
I dug out my window after work yesterday. I cleaned it up as best I could and caulked it big time. I installed a new plastic well and cover. I was rather peeved at the big box store because they sell the window wells 37" and the large see through covers are all 40", so none of them fit the wells! They had a flat cover that did fit, so I just bought that. I installed the well and cover but it wasn't big enough to cover the full height of the window. I dug a trench and ran a 1.5" pipe from inside the bottom of the well around the side of the house and exiting on the big hill to the backyard. The rain came about midnight last night. We got 2" of rain in one hour, then it was all over. There is a huge flood out there, but not in my house! I got out of bed and went downstairs for a bit during the deluge of rain. The window well took on a lot of water still, even with the cover and the ground tapering work I did out there, but the pipe did a great job of keeping the water level in check. There was just one small spot on the wall where the window was still leaking. The leak spot was however so minute that it only made it 12" down the wall, never even reaching the floor. Now I am going to clean and caulk the inside of the window and now I can clean up all the water in the furnace room. I didn't want to waste my time cleaning up the mini flood until the window was fixed. I know that if I did not hurry home from work and spend a few hours working on that, then my entire basement would probably be covered in an inch or more of water. As it is, I only have a 1/4" of water along one cement wall in the furnace room to clean up from the last little bit of flood we had yesterday. Whew!
 
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