Fun in homeownership

[Kheldarson]

So bought a new house back in October. It, of course, was colder than the pits of Hell (is that an oxymoron?) this winter, so there wasn't much thought to the A/C unit, which we had been told was old, but in decent repair according to the inspector.

As the weather got warmer, we hooked up the A/C so we could run it if need be. But it was still cool enough that keeping windows open was okay. But earlier this week it hit 80's (Fahrenheit). Close the windows, turn on the A/C and...nothing. Cool air, but not cold.

Called out a specialist who we've called before. He tells us that the unit's older than what we were told, and that the wires are dry rotted and the compressor won't turn on.

Guess what we get to replace just barely past six months of buying the property?

[Seshat]

We had to replace the toilet. It started leaking between the bowl and the floor. YUCK.

We also had a lot of what I call 'surface' work to do: cleaning, repairing/replacing tiling and paint and grout. Fixing/replacing curtains. But the toilet was the only BAD one in the first year.

[MoonCat]

Yeah, always fun times.

A month after moving into my house, water started backing up into my basement. Turned out tree roots had gotten into the pipes and caused the backup. I also had to have my downstairs toilet replaced shortly after that.

Right now I'm waiting for it stop freaking raining, so a contractor can replace my gutters. Meanwhile there's about 10 ft of gutter hanging down the side of my house.

[Android Kaeli]

Isn't it just so much fun to own a home? Well most of the time it is anyways.

Bought my trailer a number of years ago as a foreclosed home. So far I've had to:

-- Cleaned every. fucking. wall. and. ceiling. Whoever had owned the house before either smoked six cartons a day or had fifty smokers living with them who smoked constantly. That's how much nicotine was on the walls and ceilings. Took about two weeks to clean before I found the walls and ceilings were actually white instead of a dirty mustard yellow.

-- Painted every room in the trailer. This has been done over the last two years.

-- Replaced every sink faucet in the home. The previous ones were either broke or something was wrong with them. Thankfully it wasn't too hard to do.

-- Replaced widgets within both toilets because they were either leaking or broken. I now know how to fix some issues with toilets.

-- Replaced the water heater because the damn thing FELL THROUGH THE FLOOR. Yes, you read that right, no I'm not joking. Unfortunately the water damage also took out a good part of the floor of the vestibule where the water heat is situated. To this day this is one of three of the most expensive repairs I've had to do.

-- Because of the above, had to retile the vestibule. It looks a LOT better then it did before, if I say so myself.

-- Had to get a new AC unit, this IS the most expensive repair/replacement but it also was very much needed.


I'm sure there's more, but yea it's not fun when things go wrong.

[Sapphire Silk]

I had to have major plumbing work done within weeks of buying my house. The city came out and turned off my water at the street level because the meter was running like crazy.

I tried digging down to find the leak, but didn't have the right tools to get all the way to the pipes. My new neighbors told me many houses in the neighborhood had had to replace their water pipes running from the city line to their homes because the builder had used a poor quality type of PVC. I got a quote for $500 from a local plumber, and got it fixed. Fortunately, I had the money.

I find it hard to believe the owner didn't know, but it would have been hard to prove so I wasn't able to do anything about it.

[Kiwi]

The first time we ran the dishwasher it flooded the new apartment, the coupling to connect the hose was the wrong size. We would have asked for the owner to repair it but our strata was fighting for the $26,000 he cleaned out from the strata bank account the day before he switched it to our control. $1200 to replace the flooring.

[protege]

I've had to replace a few expensive things at home the past couple of years.

The AC unit blew up in 2008 after several days of 90F-plus weather. At 22 years old, it was simply trashed and not worth fixing. For whatever reason, the coolant wasn't circulating--the air coming out was cooler, but not enough to cool the house down. 2 grand later it can cool the place down in seconds.

Porch steps were another failure. I knew they were in poor shape when I moved in. One night, a large chunk of concrete fell out of them. I got out the sledgehammer, pry bar, and went to work ripping them out. Expensive job, but well worth it. The wider steps were done correctly and fitted with new railings.

I've had to replace the water heater twice. First time was in 2010, during some seriously cold weather. Not having hot water in the shower really sucks! That was fixed to the tune of $800. Second time was last fall. One of the pipes inside had cracked, dumping water onto the basement floor. That got replaced under warranty. Still, I had to hand over $400 to deliver and install the replacement.

Then there was the storm damage. A few years back, we got roughly 3 feet of snow dumped on us. All that white shit and ice tore off my porch awning, one of the gutters, and damaged one of the windows. As if that wasn't enough, the falling ice destroyed my patio furniture. I did the repairs myself, after I got the check from the insurance company. I put up new profile boards, repaired the gutter, and rehung the awning. All it cost me was a few gallons of paint, a few 1x10s, and a new power drill.

So far, the cheapest repair has been the kitchen stove. Up until it died, I'd been using a 1970s-era item, complete with grease and nasty yellow paint. $200 later and the old one got crushed into a cube.

[drunkenwildmage]

In house since we bought it I've had to replace the dryer, the dishwasher, the boiler (I have radiant heat) I replaced my outside water faucet twice. Second time I accidentally caught the house of fire soldering the joints. No damage, just a little minor charing of the studs.

Had a section of fence my Dog was jumping over. replaced it with a taller fence. Within 2 - 3 weeks after we got the fence done, the dog figured out to get over the new section.


About once every 2 or 3 years I need to snake out the drain pipe to get roots out of it.

Replaced the trim work and repainted 2 of the sides of the house. Side #3 will be this year.

I've had a tree fall on my house to the tune of $15k worth of damaged. Ended up replacing the whole roof, and rebuilding the area above the main bedroom from it



Had a major storm came through and knock down another couple nice chunks of tree plus took out my power and cable for 5 days. That caused the pole that sits behind my house to lean on a a bit of an angle When Edison came out to restore my power, they just planted a new pole, moved all the lines to that and just tied the old one to the new one so it wouldn't fall on some random dog. Damn thing is still there. This time the falling tree parts mostly missed the house. Only damage was a dent on one of my gutters. but still resulted in a large dumpster rental to remove all the offending brush, twigs and things.



When I bought my house one of my coworkers gave me some 'words of wisdom'

'You bought a house? Say good bye to all your free time"

So far he's been right.

[crazylegs]

We had to replace the bathroom - it was a very considerate leak as the water was leaking into the toilet pan of the loo directly under the main bathroom.

Still cost us a few £K to replace/repair though.