Home Remodeling and Repair
You asked for it - here it is!
I have nothing to report myself other than the painful water tank story. We have a well and it feed into two tanks to keep the water clean tasting (the purity of it is fine right out of the ground - taste is the only issue. The other tank has a diaphram in it to keep the pressure constant. Both failed last month to the tune of a grand. To make matters worse they will connect us to city water - in two years or so! I couldn't do a makeshift repair as a result. Oh, well.....
I have nothing to report myself other than the painful water tank story. We have a well and it feed into two tanks to keep the water clean tasting (the purity of it is fine right out of the ground - taste is the only issue. The other tank has a diaphram in it to keep the pressure constant. Both failed last month to the tune of a grand. To make matters worse they will connect us to city water - in two years or so! I couldn't do a makeshift repair as a result. Oh, well.....
2015 Mazda 6 Grand Touring, 2014 Mazda 3 Sport Hatchback, 1999 Mazda Miata 2004 Toyota Camry LE, 1999.
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Any idea what the water/sewer hookup fee is going to be?
It seems like a couple of wells fail every year here too, and the going rate for replacing the two that failed over this last winter is running around $30,000.
Yikes!!
Hoping I avoid paying to get the house hooked up to city water before we move in a few years. We will see. Gonna be a tight race.
The good news is I couldn't be happier with the contractor. He did a great job - much more so than the guy who built the house 14 years ago.
"It's good to have a plan"
:P
I'm planning on contracting out the foundation to ge me to ground level since that would save me a LOT of time.
As opposed to measure once, cut twice.
My dad and I have as one of our standard running jokes: 'dang it, I cut it twice and it's STILL too short......'
There's really no neat way to put wood back ON
Yeah - that's what I do!
Then I go to the barber and say I like it pretty much but could you make it longer?
The heat exchanger cracked for the second time in 5 years about a month ago. The first time it was replaced under warranty, but only for the parts. Labor cost was $660 with a new gas valve. The furnace company that originally came out to look at the furnace gave me a price of $3,400 for a Lennox 2 stage furnace.
I called the company that originally put in the furnace and new heat exchanger, they stated it wasn't under warranty but they could send someone out to give me an estimate. I already knew the warranty probably was out, so I set up an apt. for another estimate. Well, the more I thought about it($$$) the more I became concerned about the heat exchanger not lasting like it should. So, I called the furnace company back and spoke to the owner. I told him I've gone through 2 heat exchangers in the past 5 years and asked if maybe they hadn't been installed properly. He said the Janitrol(made by Goodman) had a lot of problems with their heat exchangers. So much so that instead of putting in new heat exchangers(poorly engineered) Goodman was replacing the entire furnace... for free. The only thing I had to pay for was labor, which was $880... a savings of over $2,000 for the jipster.
It's a new Goodman 2 stage furnace,though this company doesn't have the best record in reliability, the owner stated they had bought out Amana and were making better quality products to improve their image. We plan on living at present location another 3-5 years, so hopefully it won't give us any problems. So far it's been great. It's much quieter, and the airflow is at least 40% more coming out of the air vents. And being a 2 stage furnace it maintains a more even tempeture throughout the house. And the best thing about this furnace... no pilot light. It lights with a heating element.
I picked up a 6' patio door with one swing open door to replace my old slider for $175. Got it installed over a weekend (one of these years maybe I'll trim it out too!). It was an easy fit and the outside paint job matches my existing house color, I didn't have to do anything to it. Home Depot quoted me $3,500 for a similar door installed. :surprise:
The AC compressor on my heat pump is about to go Jipster. Hopefully I can get another year out of the system - ballpark estimates are running $4 to $5k.
I had a cracked heat exchanger in another house - that's a dangerous situation and 2 heat exchangers in 5 years is ridiculous. You may want to think about a complaint to your local consumer protection agency since that kind of stuff kills people.
Forced air systems drive me nuts anyway, and I keep winding up in houses with them. Noisy and dusty - bah!
I had Lowes put in a new water heater for me a few years back. The contractor was fussing about how they don't get paid jack for their time. He tried to put in a damaged water heater, which I refused, which made him even more upset to have to go back to another Lowes to exchange it. Oh well.
We were going to price an electrical heating system instead of a forced air furnace. Though the costs in upgrading our circuit breaker box and other expenses did not justify the cost... as we are planning to move in about 3-5 years.
I scored a newish Jenn-Air today for $80 - all I really wanted was a spare burner cassette for mine and they usually run $40 or $50 plus freight. This stove was so clean (and the clock worked, unlike mine), that I just swapped it out entirely.
Now to replace the rattling Dutch door in the kitchen - nice concept but each door half sags differently. :P
Got the Dutch door replaced last week. No rattles and more light. No so easy trying to hang a door in an existing jamb though (luckily I'm pretty good with Fix-all :P ).
I was reading your furnace story and was wondering if you
would mind telling me how you went about getting them to replace the furnace for free. I have a very similar problem
and have been told my heat exchanger is cracked. Pilot light
problems getting worse over the last few years (went out a lot last winter) and was told the other day by a contractor that part is partially under warranty (prorated). Have had many problems in the past with this furnace and is 14 years old. Just wondering did Goodman offer that information
since they did not mention that when I called about the prorated amount.
Webbe
Well, I called my Heating and Cooling Co, and asked to speak with the manager. The owner came on and I told him the heat exchangers have been failing (cracking) prematurely. He came out and looked at it. Stated my air filter (thicker/non fiberglass) was impeding airflow to the extent the air in heat exchanger was getting too hot. Contributing to these cracks was the poor quality of heat exchanger by Goodman. The owner contacted Goodman and they agree to replace for free under their program. He did state that this program may be offered for a limited time by Goodman, but that he would check for me.
The owner did say something about it being replaced on a prorated basis, but due to something I can't recall, the entire amount was covered. I just had to pay for labor.
Goodman is the manufacturer, which sells to heating and cooling companies or contractors. It was nice of my heating and cooling company to mention this to me, as they very well could have been less than honest and sold me a $3,000 furnace... and I never would have known the difference. So, I would ask the company you deal with to check to see if Goodman is still offering this program. I'd probably call a couple other companies as well and ask them this question.
If you get just the heat exchanger replaced, I would go with the thinnest fiberglass filter you can find for the winter months. The thick paper filters or the heavy filters are good for removing pollen and dust, but they impede airflow. By the air not moving as quickly thru the heat exchanger, it could heat to the extent it can cause premature cracking in a poor quality exchanger.
Your pilot light going out may be related to the cracks in the exchanger. That's what my furnace did. Went out once one year, a couple times the next. I believe it's part of the safty system for them to do this. Buy yourself a good carbon monoxide detector as well. hope this helped.
With tax, about $50 each. next power bill is due soon so I'll be able to compare with last year's usage for the same month.
I'm refinishing some canoe gunwales in the garage, and the other half of it is full of junk from some massive Spring cleaning we've been doing. So we've been parking the cars on the "wrong" side of our house the last few weeks.
My wife and I went to the grocery store this morning and came back, and walked around back with our hands full of bags to the kitchen door only to find that it was locked.
We had forgotten that, for the first time in the 8 years since we've lived here, we have locks on all the doors now.
The old cedar siding on our house got stained this month and we're having the hardwood floor on the main level refinished. And some bathroom work (new vinyl mostly). And new paint on the main floor by a pro and I repainted a bedroom. And I stained the decks. It never ends. :-)
The bids for the stuff we've hired out are mostly "competitive" but everyone seems to have plenty of work.