Our house is 10 year old now. As such, stuffs started breaking. I try to fix whatever I can, as long as I am comfortable doing it. What I am scared to touch is anything electrical, except 12 volt.

Started about 2 months ago, in this order.

1. Water irrigation system. I replaced the Control Panel and the water irrigation control valve. Replaced all drip line heads, fixed 3 water line leaks (discovered the individual drip line detached from the 1/2 inch water line). Digging and finding the source is the hardest part.

2. Found a stained ceiling in the garage. Upon cutting/opening the ceiling, I found a leak on the T-line of the Hot Water. Replaced the connection. Now, just need to patch up the ceiling.

3. The 2-car garage door broke last week. I found out that the model we have have the spring "inside" the tube. I watched couple of youtube videos and found a company where I can purchase a replacement spring. I can maybe/probably do the job with the help from my son. I have pain in my left elbow. Will be difficult for me to reach the parts I need to remove and replace.

I called 1 well known company for a quote. They recommend a "conversion" job, where they will replace the tube with an EXTERNAL springs. Quote was $1,650 for a 5 year warranty on parts or $1,950 for lifetime warranty on parts.

I called another not-well known company (no TV commercial). I was given a $575 quote for a similar job, with a 5 year warranty. But I can tell the springs don't look as good as the previous company. I went with the second company. If it breaks less than 5 years, they will replace the parts. If it breaks after 5 years, I will just pay another $575. Still cheaper than the first company.

We have American HomeShield, which has been pretty good so far. They replaced the washer and garbage disposal. My co-pay is $100 per call. However, they DO NOT cover the garage door, rails, rollers, etc. Just the actual garage opener motor.


4. 1 window pane cost me $475 to replace.

5. I cut down and replaced our 10 year old tree in front of the house that died from the Vegas summer heat last year. The HOA noticed and sent me a warning letter.



The next thing I think will break (I hope not) is the water heater. I made a HUGE mistake of NOT flushing the water tank every year. That is MY mistake.

I hope nothing else breaks for the next couple of years.

Wait until it's 86 years old...

Our DR Horton home is 18 years old.
Been a pretty good house structurally.

We've replaced all this so far:
Windows, $7000 helped a lot with the noise and the temperature in the house
AC/Furnace gas $7000 We replaced it before the other one died
Water heater $1500
Carpet twice at $3000 each, only in the bedrooms.
Laminate floors, everything but the foyer, both bathrooms, kitchen, and 3 of the bedrooms $5000
Garage door repairs over the years have cost about $1000 Wife wants a new garage door
Have the exterior painted $4000
New roof a few years ago, just had to pay our deductible, about $4000

This doesn't include that I have repainted almost every room in this house twice.
The last couple of times, we paid someone to do interior painting.
What takes me 3 days takes them one day.
Although they don't pay attention to detail like I do..

I'll do electrical stuff, running wires in the walls, add this or that, cameras and outdoor lights, etc., but I won't do plumbing.

My challenge of owning a house is that my wife gets the house decorated perfectly; furniture, paint, stuff on the wall, etc.
Then she wants to change it up.
I curse HGTV every time she turns it on..

Yep. The homeowner's constant battle with entropy. Everything in the whole damn house seems to be on a 5/10/15/20 year repair/replacement interval, and things have a tendency to fail in rapid succession around those intervals.

One thing I see new (and not so new) homeowners overlook is how imperative it is to set aside regular savings contributions to a "house fund". That new water heater or HVAC system or fridge or roof or whatever is a much easier pill to swallow when you've been contributing a few hundred a month for 10 years for just such an occasion, as opposed to scrambling to figure out how you're going to absorb that big unexpected bill all at once.

quote:

Originally posted by RogueJSK:

One thing I see new (and not so new) homeowners overlook is how imperative it is to set aside regular savings contributions to a "house fund". That new water heater or HVAC system or fridge or roof or whatever is a much easier pill to swallow when you've been contributing a few hundred a month for 10 years for just such an occasion, as opposed to scrambling to figure out how you're going to absorb that big unexpected bill all at once.

I agree.
I never understood these home warranty ads on TV.
I guess there have been times in my life when I wasn't able to save much, so I understand that.
Although taking that warranty payment and putting it in a savings account would be a better idea, IMHO.

Yep, 27 year old house and we're doing our best to keep up with the inevitable breakage and decay. I could rattle off a list of current and pending projects but all homeowners are familiar with the list.

I'll say this, though- despite all of it, I'll put up with anything rather than go back to apartment living. I just couldn't do it.

There are problems at my house that have yet to be fixed due to "saving up" to fix them. The walls will fall in around me any day now I am sure of it.

With a 2.35% loan, we are staying for a while. Need an exterior repaint soon. House is 20 years old, have already done downstairs hvac and both water heaters in the last couple of years. I have named the upstairs hvac Suzy and I tell her often how awesome and beautiful she is and we would like her to stick around for a long time

quote:

Originally posted by ador:
The next thing I think will break (I hope not) is the water heater. I made a HUGE mistake of NOT flushing the water tank every year. That is MY mistake.

Even if you had been flushing it annually, a 10 year old water heater is at or at least near the end of its life. ~10 years is the typical lifespan these days. A bit less if it's cheap or been neglected or you have hard water, a bit more if it's higher quality and been well maintained.

(Yeah, yeah... cue someone to chime in with the inevitable "I've had my same water heater since 1992 and it's still kicking!" That's certainly not the norm.)

So you are on borrowed time. It will fail, sooner rather than later. Plan for it now.

Yeah, it never stops. Soon as you patch one thing, another starts acting up. My place is pushing 15 years and I swear the appliances all got together and decided to quit in the same 12-month span.

Those sneaky bastards love to commit cluster suicides like that.

I feel your pain. My wife is the same way. She gets this new idea whenever we watch those home improvement shows. I have painted our living room 3x now.

quote:

Originally posted by 1lowlife:
My challenge of owning a house is that my wife gets the house decorated perfectly; furniture, paint, stuff on the wall, etc.
Then she wants to change it up.
I curse HGTV every time she turns it on..

I grew up living in single dwelling HOUSES. When I got married, my new wife and I moved into an apartment - first time for me but my wife had never lived in anything other than an apartment. I found apartment dwelling to be unbearable! I just had to get a house! We worked and saved and I sold a lot of my most precious possessions and we finally bought the house we're in today. (Almost paid off!)

I've replaced the AC, hot water heater, windows, floors, and a host of other things. Definitely worth it.

I once dated a gal who had only lived in apartments during her adult life.

She was used to the Fix-it Fairy coming by while she was at work, and fixing whatever was wrong. Fridge died? Call someone, and it's replaced before you get home from work. Sink not draining right? Call somebody. And so on.

At some point, we had to have a very pointed discussion about home maintenance. The line "there's more to living in a house than just showing up" was blurted out.

Maybe not my finest hour, but I was not incorrect.

LOL wait until 20-25 years. My house is now 23 years old and I'm now on my 4th water heater, they seem to last around 7 years. But since the third one had 10 year warranty the 4th one was free.

The original appliances are starting to fail, the GE washer and drier were replaced last year, the Bosch dishwasher's heater recently quit and the part is over $300 so I guess I'll buy a new one when I get around to it. The GE Profile refrigerator has been running longer and more often. Just had the roof replaced. The house was re-painted for the second time.

But like Para said it beats renting.

It's one big game of Whack-A-Mole!

My home was built in 1951 and the next big project is replacing 28 or so windows as they are all original and not in great shape. Not looking forward to finding out how much that is going to cost even for just basic replacement windows.

quote:

Originally posted by ador:

We have American HomeShield, which has been pretty good so far.

Glad to see you had a better experience with them. I had AHS for the first few years of owning a condo prior to getting married and they were all too happy to take my money but would not fix a GD thing. I finally gave up on them and told them they were scam artists.

I have two big jobs coming up, outside paint and roof. I think the roof can wait a few more years, but the paint looks like shit. Otherwise, I'm pretty up to date...knock on wood.

quote:

The next thing I think will break (I hope not) is the water heater. I made a HUGE mistake of NOT flushing the water tank every year. That is MY mistake.

I’ve never drained and flushed a water heater in my life. I bought my first house in 1980. I’ve never had to replace a water heater either, except when we have bought a second-hand house. The water heater in my current house was installed in 1999. So I wouldn’t kick myself if I were you.

The annoyance to me is that things are so complex these days that very little is repairable by me. The dryer died a few months ago, and I was able to troubleshoot it down to a bad computer board. But it is obsolete and unavailable. The dishwasher failed, and yup the computer board was bad and costs nearly as much as a nice new dishwasher.

The furnaces (both!) reached end of life last fall, one being a bad computer board (which also fried the new whiz-bang digital thermostat) and the other a cracked heat exchanger.

Compared to my first house in 1983 which came with a 1970's Sears dryer that I repaired several times and eventually passed on to the daughter, who used it until she gave it away in about 2015. Several times I've replaced simple parts to simple old-fashioned natural gas furnaces.

Sigh.

I was wondering if every homeowner went through this.

I’ve been in the same house for 27 years now. I never have been “caught up” on house projects. Currently I’m in the middle of a bedroom re-painting.

Because I foolishly told a girl that I used to paint for a living before I met her. She became my wife and she never forgot it. I get paint at the local Benjamin Moore place so often they know me by name.

Gutters later this month, windows October……don’t even get me started on how much lawn care and correction I’ve done lately.

It. Never. Ends.