I flushed the toilet. Well, I tried to. The flush lever was suddenly loose and not doing what it was supposed to. When I lifted the lid, expecting to find a broken or loose chain, I was surprised to see a broken plastic stick instead.
Oof. It was a busy work day though, and I had another bathroom, so I postponed dealing with it for a day or so. And another day when I realized I couldn’t loosen the old lever to replace it. And as long as we needed to get one thing fixed, it seemed like a good time to get my shower faucet, which drips for a bit after a shower, corrected as well. Oh, and the kitchen faucet, which no longer swivels and the rubber bit to switch to spray mode has long since melted… might as well get that replaced too.
I reached out to a handyman on a non-urgent basis about getting those fixed. And then I attempted to turn on the hall bathroom shower, which went click, turned loosely and left behind a steady drip with no way to adjust the water flow. This suddenly became more urgent, and the handyman’s schedule wasn’t opening up for a couple weeks. (He’s good, that’s why we like him, but it means everyone else does too.)
With the exception of one other project, all of this was plumbing-related, and fortunately, the company we’ve called before was able to fit me in within an hour of calling them. Whew.
Coming straight off an Alaska cruise, you’d think that would be the most exciting thing on my mind. I promise, those photos are coming soon, we just haven’t sorted through them yet. When I had someone check the roof for hail damage, I was hoping they’d say the roof was fine and didn’t need any work. Obviously, that wasn’t the case. However, having a new roof put me in the position to do something I’ve been waiting for… adding solar panels.
When we picked this house a few years ago, it had exactly one tree – the silver maple near the back property line – and a small mulberry shrub. The mulberry is taller now (I’ll trim it down after mulberry season, for real this year), and we’ve planted an assortment of trees around the yard, all still fairly small. In other words, we have minimal sun blockage over the roof, making solar panels ideal. As with many home improvements, I opted to go through Costco when selecting a company. The sales rep was able to come out a couple days after we provided our contact information to the guy at our nearby Costco, and fully explained the process before I signed a ton of documents agreeing to the installation and the financing.
A week or so later (it’s all kind of fuzzy because I dealt with siding issues for so long), someone came out to photograph the space and check our circuit box to see what might be needed there. Sooner than I expected, I received an e-mail offering us an installation date… the week before our Alaska cruise. We deferred, as I had a ton of meetings at work that week, we had packing to do… and we weren’t quite done clearing the space in the garage they needed to do the work.
Overall, the installation went smoothly. There were clearly defined teams working on different pieces of the project – people installing the panels on the roof while another team did the electrical work inside and outside the garage, and another person on day two to install the backup battery. (The options were no battery, just a backup, or a fancy battery and pushing power back into the grid.) There was, of course, one hitch: the electrical team noticed some issues with previous wiring work done in the circuit box which were outside the scope of the equipment they came with. I’m working to get an electrician in to fix the box issues before the inspection, hoping (unlike my siding) for a pass on the first try. The inspecting organization (this varies by locality) will then notify my electric company that it’s approved so they can flip a switch and bill me for far less than they currently do.
You may recall earlier in the year when I posted about getting new siding and how great it looked. A couple weeks after the installation, I noticed a section of siding sticking out along the south side of the house. When calling it to the attention of our sales rep, I noticed a small section near the shed that appeared loose. It got worse from there… specifically the day a piece of siding flew off the wall.
The original siding gap that I spotted. It pushed back into place easily, then blew loose any time the wind picked up.
A loose spot of siding near a window – the piece meant to hold it in place was cut shorter than needed, and the siding was cut short, so they tried a patch job with a smaller piece and some caulk.
The small piece of siding that had been caulked on fell off, making the dried caulk visible.
A loose piece of siding just north of the bay window… this is the piece that ended up flying off later.
The same piece of siding as the previous photo a day or two later, now looser, clearing sagging and taking the piece below with it.
A loose piece of siding under the front window.
The top panel of siding is down by the air conditioner instead of attached to the wall.
A loose piece of top siding by the kitchen sink window.
The previously caulked piece theoretically fixed – the piece above it now the appropriate length – but loosens with the wind.
This bottom section by the gas meter looked a little loose… it was. (Spare pieces left from the first repair guy’s siding bundle are stored along the ground.)
A loose section of siding under the bay window.
After a second failed inspection and the third set of fixes (a team this time), I walked around pulling at different sections and found three bottom sections that were clearly loose. This is one of them.
A bottom piece of siding being pulled away from the wall easily by my hand. This is one of the sections I found after three repair crews and two inspections.
It took about 6 weeks from identifying the first issue to getting someone here to fix the problems I had identified, and he wasn’t given the appropriate supplies (additional siding pieces) to do the repairs, so he had to return the next day. (He, yes, singular person sent to repair what a team of people got wrong.) The day after his repairs, the county inspector failed the siding and fascia work for assorted loose pieces that would be a problem. A week later one of the pieces that was theoretically fixed removed itself from the back wall, and it took another week to get a guy out here to fix that and other identified issues, including the ones the inspector noted on his first pass. A couple days later, I noticed that small square near the window appeared loose again, but my sales rep didn’t respond to that text or the one the next week letting him know that the siding work had failed a second inspection.
Conveniently, just under a week later, the company’s office reached out to my insurance for a copy of the approved estimate, and the Claims Adjuster copied me on the reply. I took that opportunity to reply to my insurance and the construction company asking if this was related to the failed re-inspection. And while I received no reply to that message, I did receive a “please leave us a review” e-mail which appears to trigger any time their office receives an e-mail. (I’m fairly sure I’ve gotten one each time I responded to Customer Service.) This e-mail includes buttons to review them on Google, Facebook, or the Better Business Bureau if you’re happy, and a button to contact them directly if you’re not.
I actually had a response from them within the hour and a team (two people!) out here the next day. They fixed – from what I can tell, properly – the issues I had identified. And while it looked good, given the problems so far, I went around and started poking at areas I hadn’t yet and checking everything I could think of, which unfortunately turned up three more sections of siding that were loose at the bottom. My understanding (all new from this year) is that this style of siding is assembled bottom to top, so if the bottom isn’t on right, they have to strip the entire section and reset it.
In addition to how unresponsive the company became until I started interacting with their Customer Service team, there were definitely attempts to shift the blame away from the company. When discussing it with the sales rep this week – he stopped by for the final payment – I was told that because the house is old the studs weren’t where they expected them to be (stud finder, anyone?), and then that they hire the crews without knowing what work they’ve done previously (huh?!?).
As a result, I have both removed the company name from my previous post about my new roof, and removed the Yelp review they had solicited (before I knew about the problems). This is my equivalent of being nice, since they have repaired the problems at this point. That said, if you ask me privately, I will let you know what company not to hire.
Well, this home repair project at least. As any homeowner can tell you, there will always be another one. (The kitchen faucet, for example. Or the couple lingering spots of green paint outside). But the work for this particular project resulting from the hailstorm and covered by the insurance finished with the garage door installation earlier this week.
Let me just say… damn, it looks good. I am immensely grateful to C&N Construction for doing the work and Allstate Insurance for covering the repairs. (I was going to say funding, but technically I suppose it’s funded by all of us customers paying our insurance bills.) Both companies worked together to make this a fairly painless process for their mutual customer.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun. As I mentioned before, because of a hailstorm last spring, our house needed a new roof, siding, and garage door. As you may have guessed from the title, the siding work happened this week.
It wasn’t without problems – apparently it’s fairly common for siding work to mess up the fiber connection to the house, so my ISP was out here yesterday, starting to repair our internet connection as the siding team was wrapping up. And my mailbox, along with the neighbor’s, now have new posts because they got knocked over around lunch yesterday.
Here’s what the house looked like on Monday, with beige siding and brown gutters.
And here’s what the house looks like now, with blue siding, white gutters, and a white number plate with gold number replacing the old (and smaller) black numbers. At some point soon, the garage door will be replaced with a white one for a fairly uniform look.
As I recently mentioned, a hailstorm last spring did considerable damage to our house. By the time I wrote that post, I had signed paperwork with [company name removed] to handle the work and provided them with a chunk of insurance money. (The insurance process involves providing part of the money in advance, and some only when they receive receipts proving that you actually did the repairs and spent the money you’re asking for above the initial payment.) The first step in the work – after the decision-making and signatures, of course – is the roof replacement.
Then it snowed, a fairly significant amount over the course of a week – we reached the 9-inch mark on the snow gauge in the front lawn. And then the temperature dropped, including a couple days where the wind chill was around negative thirty. Needless to say, those weather conditions are not conducive to working on a roof.
This week, after most of the snow had melted, the construction company reached out to schedule our installation day. Since our neighbor just had their roof replaced last month – by the same company, for the same hailstorm reason – I had a fairly good idea what the process would be like. The day before installation, they dropped off supplies onto our driveway in two waves: the first delivery was the shingles, and the second an assortment of other large items in their packaging. Early on the morning of, a trailer was backed into the driveway to serve as a dumpster, and around 7am, the team arrived to begin work.
Except for a brief lunch break, they worked all day, moving any obstacles (like the composter and solar path lights), laying tarp around the edges of the house to catch refuse flung from the roof, then tearing off the old roof before taking new roofing supplies up. (The entire process was loud, Zuko hid most of the day.) They had a fancy ladder with a lift attached to raise the heavy supplies to the roof. They finished as it was getting dark, so the photo of the finished roof is from the next (quite sunny) day.
While we were traveling in England in April, a major hailstorm struck our neighborhood. Our neighbor took photos of hail next to a golf ball for size comparison. Though we missed the storm, I knew what would follow… stormchasers, the collection of construction and roofing companies knocking on the door (usually during work) or leaving flyers offering a free inspection, looking to claim insurance money for the repairs after every wind- or hailstorm. Some of them are recognizable names, some aren’t… and most of them are pushy. I turned them all down, even though I have a dent on my car’s roof showing that it was a significant storm.
That is, until our neighbor had their roof inspected and discovered he needed a replacement roof. Yikes. And they have trees protecting some of their roof; ours is exposed. Knowing he’s diligent about such things, I still researched the company he was working with and discovered overall good reviews and an excellent rating with the Better Business Bureau. (Assuming everything goes well, I will share the name of the company in a later post.) I reached out to the company and scheduled an inspection.
Oh boy… yes, there was damage. This is our siding – marked up with chalk during the follow-up inspection with the claims adjuster from our insurance company. Each chalk mark is highlighting an indent on the siding.
And then there’s the roof. I didn’t get good photos of the chalk mark all over the roof – the insurance found hail damage everywhere except over the garage (the side leaning away from the storm’s direction). This photo is one of the vents – soft metal sticking out of the roof, now with multiple dents on it. In between the roof and siding, of course, are the gutters, which were one of the first upgrades when we bought the house. They’re harder to photograph, even when marked up with chalk.
And, last but certainly not least, the garage door. That was fairly new – the old one allowed light and air through underneath, so we had a new one installed in 2021. The new one was a massive improvement both on insulation and privacy – the old door had windows about chest height, allowing anyone passing by to see into the garage. The replacement door has higher windows, still allowing light in, but only allowing tall people right by the house to peer inside. I’m a bit a sad that we have to replace it, but the claims adjuster pointed out that if we don’t, any damage to it by a future storm would probably not be covered. I am grateful for having selected a reputable insurance company (Allstate, if you’re wondering) and for how seamlessly the construction company seems to work with them. Outside photos – probably some before and after shots – will appear in a separate post once the work is in progress or done.
“Merry Christmas!” said the pipe under my sink. “I’m all rusty and don’t feel like holding water in anymore. Were you planning to clean the kitchen floor on Christmas Day?”
So, yeah, that happened. I had just finished washing dishes after making eggnog pancakes and a side of bacon for Christmas morning when I realized I could still hear water running, other than the cats’ water fountain in the room. I doublechecked that I hadn’t somehow started the dishwasher, then opened the cabinet doors to look under the sink. That resulted in water spurting at a diagonal across the room while I scrambled to pull things out from under the sink – in addition to obvious thinks like the dishwasher soap (which really shouldn’t get wet until you’re ready to use it!), our collection of Ziploc bags in their now-slightly soggy boxes were under there.
Then I tried turning every valve I found under the sink, hoping one of them would actually affect the water pressure. No luck. I wrapped a rag around the leak, preventing it from leaving the cabinet at least, and looked behind the pipe, just in case. I vaguely remembered one of the workers over the summer – I think the one who replaced our water softener – showing me the water shut-off for the entire house. That worked… except I didn’t realize it because there was still water in the pipes that needed to be drained. It took a couple emergency runs from family members before I realized the draining part. The photo above was taken at a point when the water was off and drained. The actual fix took a professional about 30 minutes the next day.
But “my pipe rusted through and leaked” isn’t the title of this post. I noticed the problem as soon as it started because I know what the normal house sounds are. Right now, I can hear the cats’ fountain, the hum from the vents, and the sounds of the furnace running in the garage (it’s just through the wall I’m facing). Two weeks ago, when a light switch broke, I knew that switching off the breaker that affected part of that switch (it’s a weird kitchen & garage switch) would turn off all of the kitchen lights, even though the kitchen is on two different breakers and some of the lights are on the other side of the room. That’s part of our house’s “normal.”
It’s similar to identifying a problem with your car because it doesn’t sound or feel right… normal is what you’re used to, and it can help you identify problems before they become worse. Particularly with a house, it will take a bit of time to identify what counts as normal, but it’s worth learning. If I hadn’t noticed the problem as soon as it happened, I would have been dealing with a lot more water where it didn’t belong. For those times when something isn’t normal, it’s useful to have information handy for companies that handle plumbing, appliance, and electrical problems, and a general handyman, so you’re ready for any issue that arises.
Creak went the sofa, again, as I sat down on it. Clink when I leaned against it while sitting on the floor. I had found a metal piece on the floor a while back, and only recently noticed another one on the side table. Sitting down on this old sofa – and it was old, a hand-me-down from family with both a scratchy fabric and pattern that made me wonder which decade it was from – was making me nervous. I placed an order for a new sofa online and moved the old sofa, then removed the cushions.
I don’t know a lot about furniture design, but I’m fairly sure the metal supports aren’t supposed to be curling downwards. The pieces we found on the floor were those round bits at the end, which the supports hooked into.
The new sofa required some assembly. Honestly, this was a relief, as I was concerned about getting a sofa into the house; taking the old frame out was challenging enough. The packaging was quite clever: box 1 held the base, with all of the vacuum-packed cushions, the back support pieces, and the legs tucked inside the base itself; box 2 held the essentially armrests. The legs screwed in with simple twisting, and all of the other pieces simply slid together.
The sofa was, of course, cat-tested (and approved) immediately. Actually, there was some cat testing during assembly, but I was too busy to get those photos.
My first clue something was wrong was the milk that started smelling sour on its purchase by date. I noted it, but sometimes that’s a fluke, a single bottle that progresses faster than normal.
My second clue was less subtle: a sticky spot by a cat food bowl and a gooey puddle nearby, on the freezer side of our old (still current) fridge/freezer. I opened the freezer and tracked the slimy substance upwards to a middle shelf, where a Ziploc bag of overripe bananas lay careless flung at an angle – apparently not properly sealed – and clearly defrosted. I bemoaned the loss of the future banana bread and composted them, then scurried to move whatever was salvageable to the garage’s full-size freezer that came with the house, wiping off banana goo as I found it.
We had plans, so I postponed shopping for a replacement to the following day, exploring several well-known companies that could potentially provide a replacement. I measured the space, multiple times. Then I measured the doors – the front door is slightly wider than the door to the garage, so we’ll plan on the fridge going in and out that way. We discussed styles and narrowed our options down before placing an order.
And now we wait, fortunately with a semi-functional fridge that looks surprisingly bare, stripped of all its magnets and decorations on the outside, and down to the bare minimum foodstuff that we haven’t finished on the inside. The new fridge/freezer (top/bottom this time), originally estimated to arrive the day before Thanksgiving, was delayed and shipped that day instead.
And we’re grateful to the helpers… the family member who offered to loan us a mini-fridge, and the neighbor who asked if we needed space in his. If the fridge had died completely, we certainly would have availed ourselves of the offered assistance.
