Well we’ve narrowed it down to 2 options. Either going to build and spend more but will love the house and be exactly what we want. Or going to try and get a steal on a home we can make work and will be happy with to save money. We can’t make a decision on what we want to do. Really don’t want to move just yet as we were planning to do that next summer.
My 2 cents. I found a "steal" of a home and started putting all my time and money into making it our forever home. About half way through I was losing my mind trying to get this done. Like legit mid life crisis. I started running numbers and my "steal" was quickly becoming not so much a steal and was never going to be close to perfect. We punted on the whole thing, sold the house and started renting. Two years later we are about to pour the foundation of our new house. Only time will tell if I made the right choice but I feel VERY confident that I did.
Assuming your asking about my new home? It won't be 100% airtight, that's not really possible. Goal is 1.0 ACH50, so pretty damn tight.
Everyone: finally got my neighbor to go half on removing four huge hackberries along our property line. We have tiny lots, so these both overhang our houses. Finally damaged his roof, so... When they take these out, they'll definitely demo out a 4' wood fence between the properties. They have dogs and we have kids who love to pretend they are Messi and are constantly taking shots on goal (aka the wood fence) so it sounds like a drum. We're trying to figure out a fence solution (which we'd likely go half on as well). Only 20' or so long, we're fine if it's 4' or 6'. What are our options/what should we pay? I have cheap teenage labor, so we'll probably DIY it. Just curious if there's something other than a traditional wood or chain-link fence I'm not thinking about.
There's a ranch on the other side of our fence and we can always see cows grazing right on the other side when we look over. My wife has been talking about taking down the wood (which is probably on the road to replacement soon) and putting up a wrought iron or chain link so we can see them better
Really not that exciting. My best friend is contractor and we talked about redoing our master bath. Went there in July, picked out all the shit that we liked and that process was fairly simple. The vanity we picked out was not finished until last week, must have called at least 20 times on that. So it's all there earlier this week and I get a call that it can be delivered, we agree on today. I know those fuckers load up first thing in the AM and then obviously want to deliver as quick as possible so I call the store. I spoke to one woman. In the span of 3 minutes I literally got five pieces of conflicting information. First it was oh it didn't leave yet. Oh never mind it's gone. The truck took it. It should be there Saturday if it's on the truck. We only do deliveries Tuesday's and Thursday's. Sir are you there? Yeah I am here, I am just listening you said couple different things there and I was just processing. I said we know Thursday is a delivery day, I am waiting for the materials at my house because you told me they would be here today. I have received calls, texts and an email but there is no material and our window was 8-noon. Oh then I think it will be there tomorrow. I did not give her shit because its pretty consistent there, always a different answer. So my wife calls them and then calls me when they are done. She was told that the truck for today was full, so they left our stuff in the warehouse. The reason ours was left behind was because they load in the order in which they schedule the deliveries. Again, another lie, there's no fucking way they are that organized based on any conversation you have with this place. Ultimately they apologize and say we can do next Tuesday or Thursday. Our schedules are both shit for next week so after some debate we settled on next Thursday. Hang up the phone then five minutes later......... Spoiler: The best part Truck is in my driveway and everything was delivered Absolute morons.
Completely different kind of story, but when we did our huge move we had both our cars shipped. I shipped mine out a few days before so that we would have one car until the day before we flew out and sent all our shit on a moving truck. My wife had her car shipped out the day before we left, they came to our door to pick it up, and it took over a month to get it back. Just non-stop conflicting information about truck drivers getting sick, not knowing exactly where the car is, etc. Mine came a day early and had to be stored in a shop. I used a different company though, but still wildly different experiences.
When you give me 5 different answers in the span of 15 seconds there’s really no point in continuing the conversation.
Well can’t believe we’re doing this but pulling the trigger on building. Bittersweet on leaving where we’re at now but hopefully this is our final move. Went a little over budget of what we were planning but got too good a deal to pass up from the builder.
Just realized stump grinding isn't included in this tree quote. What should it be like for four hackberries about 3-4' around? They're basically two trees, but above ground aren't joined. Also some bad news today as I found my tree that is surrounding a service line isn't around a power line, but around telephone. Alabama Power guy came out this AM, so I guess now I call AT&T.
I'm in the process of trying to insulate my attic above my garage and add some knee walls before doing drywall and installing a mini split for my garage and the attic area. If anyone is knowledgeable in insulation/ventilation and wants to send me a DM I'll donate to TMB in your name. I have a bad feeling I'm about to ruin my roof. Spoiler
Anyone dealt with appraisal gaps when building (yes fuck appraisers)? We got ours back today and the appraisal is 25% less than needed. Land was what we paid for it, but construction costs were 40% under our builder quote and at $192/sf which is impossible to find in the Pacific Northwest. We’re supposed to talk with our lender tomorrow, but I have no idea what the success rate is on challenging new build appraisals and we don’t have hundreds of thousands of dollars lying around.
I posted back in May about my appraiser almost fucking my construction loan. Why does that profession have to be so bad? We ended up not having to fight it so unfortunately I don't have great insights into that other than you can typically have them reassess the property 1 time without any cost. Get some properties together that you think are better comps and get you the price you want and send those over as well. Might be an idiot but I don't know how to pm you. If you want to, shoot me one and I can help best I can.
You know whats funny is whenever they have to decide how much my property is worth for tax purposes it never comes back too low.
So my water bill was about 33% higher than its ever been and it was not a high water consumption month on our part. There are no running toilets, leaky faucets. I was out of town for a week but my wife claims nothing happened while I was gone. I don't see any obvious wet spots in the yard. Maybe the water company fucked up? Its not unheard of by a longshot for them. Anything else I should check? Worried its something hidden but serious.
I have a meter hole in the ground, not quite sure what I'm looking for. They checked it on 9/25 and it was 15 CCF. Now on October 4th its at 1 CCF, so if I extrapolate that out it looks like it'll be back to my average of around 5. So maybe OK?
For us they don’t read monthly only quarterly so the extrapolate a couple months then they do a true up and it can create a difference. Maybe something like that?
Check in the hole if it's wet Also, most meters have a little spinner on them that indicates if there is any flow at all Make sure everything in the house is shut off and see if it's moving at all
Closing on a place on the 16th. Amazingly the appraisal comes back at the sales price. Would've been nice if it was higher than the sales price but that doesn't seem likely when they get a copy of the offer.
Its slightly moist in there but not wet, everything is slightly moist right now. The spinner was running but my wife was getting ready and I'm doing laundry. I'll check back later when I know everything is off. Thanks
My water bill is up a good bit last two months but I’m SOL bc of how infrequent the rain was in Bham this summer and I had to water a ton
To be clear, I'm not talking about my yard or anything belonging to me. One Two will have to show you his secrets.
Spinner still running and I’m actually up 6CCF since 9/25 so I’m looking at about 20 or so for the month at this rate aka even higher than last month so I think I’m fucked. I’ve gone through the whole house and yard and can’t find anything. Do I call a plumber?