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Homeowners

r/homeowners

14

Posted by3 hours ago

Contractor quoting huge price to replace plywood under siding. Legit?

We hired a contractor to replace our old wood siding with vinyl, total 3600 sq feet in central NJ. The total quote was $24K, which was acceptable to us.

They just started on the project, pulling off the old siding, and he is saying that all of the plywood underneath has gone bad/rotten and they need to replace all of it, quoting an ADDITIONAL $40k.

I have absolutely no idea if this is legit, if the price is reasonable or not. The home was built in 1960 and the plywood is apparently original. Here are some photos:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16R6-Y0eSCFTKv5LoGLNhmqrPBI06paDd/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16Rs-gShkEEBxUKmoipmhDM4dUFAyIbCH/view?usp=sharing

Thanks!!

Edit: a few more

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16oKfXRu0RHzTJpHx91eBDkExKURHEbTT/view?usp=sharing

https://drive.google.com/open?id=16c3B8QiW3jP5HA1jR-pNU5_DYskfnU05&usp=drive_fs

https://drive.google.com/open?id=16dmlG5VbSgQxnbtFsaDDHSaF-NPhH_iT&usp=drive_fs

14

28 comments

Vote

Posted by1 hour ago

Remodel contractor asking for 55% down - is this typical?

I've never done a major remodel before. We are ready to do our kitchen now and the first bid, from a contractor we really liked, was fairly reasonable but the contractor is asking for 55% down. It's an ~80k remodel so we're talking about a big chunk of change. To me that seems excessive and I countered that I would rather pay a smaller 20% down payment, more milestones (i.e. at demo, at rough-in, and at final inspection, and buy any materials directly, but he said the 55% down was non-negotiable, that he needed that money to pay subs and workers and what not. I'm wondering what is typical to pay? For context the home is in Austin, TX.

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12 comments

128

Posted by20 hours ago

My mom shares walls with an abandoned hoarder's home. What are her options?

My mom lives in a townhome unit where she shares a wall with a home that is currently abandoned. Her neighbor was a serious hoarder, and then died a few years ago. For whatever reason, the house has not been sold and has remained abandoned, but with all of her things still. It has not been checked up on, cleaned, or maintained in any way for years now.

My mom has since had to deal with a mice problem. She worries that there would be no point calling pest control since she believes the mice are from next door. She also recently noticed what looks like could be mold in the neighbor's windows.

She has called her HOA and they are (and always have been) completely unhelpful. She wants to move out because she feels helpless. What are her options?

128

41 comments

Vote

Posted by56 minutes ago

Remodel our home or build/buy a new one?

So we bought our home in 2019. We scored a 3bed 1bath 990sqft with around 1.5 acres in the country (Southern Virginia) for $67,000 with a 4.8% interest rate.Now that my kids are older we are debating what to do once I graduate nursing school. The house is in good shape but it does need some repairs and renos. Older style house (80s) and it does need a new hvac and probably a roof. In order to make it our dream home there are a few things we want to do… -take out the separating wall in the kitchen/living room,add a master bed and bath,new flooring,new siding, paint inside,back deck, and I’d really love the back yard fenced in. So my question is,would it be cheaper to fix our current home to meet our “dreams” or would it be better just to sell and buy something that checks all of our boxes? Or even to build? I’d like to add that my husband and I could do probably 80% of the labor by ourselves.

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5 comments

305

Posted by1 day ago

Help: Just bought a home. It’s been 100+ degrees lately and when we run the AC the downstairs is perfect and upstairs is still over 80 degrees. Nobody can sleep.

I don’t know what to do. We just bought this house. What can we do to keep the upstairs cool? I know it’ll be expensive but we’re broke after buying a house and I’m worried about how expensive it’ll be having individual AC units in every room. It’s misery to try to sleep. We’ve tried shutting all the downstairs vents and it doesn’t work. Having the fan on doesn’t seem to make any difference.

Edit: Wow everyone, did not expect to get this many replies. Thank you so much everyone for your advice and sharing your experiences. I think we’re likely going to go with AC units but my parents are getting serviced by Absolute Airflow right now and they’re going to come out to my house to at least check out the AC and see if the unit itself is working properly. I will continue to try to read everything.

Some info that’s been asked: house was built in 2013. It has a single unit AC. Thermostat is downstairs. Some very slightly cold air comes out upstairs but it’s so little that it doesn’t affect the temperature. Open foyer.

305

478 comments

135

Posted by21 hours ago

Are my expectations of living in a house too high? All I want is a quiet place to live.

So, I am a respectable neighbor. I do not make noise, have loud soundsystems, I take care of my yard, and I pay my HOA on time. I say hi to neighbor if I see them, but otherwise stay out of there business.

However, EVERYWHERE I have lived I eventually run into someone who doesn't seem to believe the same ideas.

In apartments, it was every year I would have to move because 50% of people think its cool to be noisy and live like you don't have neighbors around you in a thin cheap apartment. Sometimes even had to call the cops on one who was literally beating the sh*t out of his wife or gf and you could hear it through the walls.

I eventually got away from that hell on earth and moved into a townhome when I could finally afford that. Eventually the same BS. Again, 50% of tenants great, the other half annoying as hell.

FINALLY, MOVE INTO A HOUSE WITH ZERO SHARED WALLS. TOTAL PEACE FINALLY RIGHT?

No, once again a neighbor moves out after a year and then a new one moves in and has a subwoofer that plays endless music all day and night. I have no idea how to make it stop and we don't have shared walls so thought this would stop.

The issue though is that it is low enough that I really can't complain about it. You can hear it slightly in the walls. If I pull out a decibel reader and put it to the correct levels to detection, you can see it jumping but it is well below levels to complain about.

I am just very aware of it and it is like chinese water torture.

Is this just what it is like to live in the USA now? You just have to deal with this no matter where you live? Do I really have to leave the country and move to a country like Japan to have peaceful and normal neighbors who respect one another?

I am just tired of this. Also, before anyone says "if you are always having problems with neighbors, maybe you are the problem". Again, I am not. I never get complaints from neighbors and the saying doesn't work in this situation (also, I have heard the opposite from neighbors saying I am one of there favorite neighbors they had in a while. Doesn't happen often and not in that exact verbage, but its been said a couple time). So that is not the issue.

135

153 comments

6

Posted by4 hours ago

Updating Screened Porch

I have an old screened porch that had a lot of rotten wood which I have replaced. I need to finish the project. The original goal was just to replace the siding, rotten wood, and change screen to pet resistant.

However, my wife would like to change it to a mostly window three season room. The porch size is 22 feet by 12 feet. I have a friend willing to give us an 80 by 50 inch window. That would mean roughly getting seven more full size or larger windows to bring in the light she wants.

I am looking for a cheaper alternative to do this. One thought was to build my own windows with single pane glass or plexiglass and 2x4 with routing the groove. The used building stores don’t have that many matching windows. She wants them to match and not look bad to impact the sell of the house in the future.

Any ideas on how to do this cheaply?

6

8 comments