My house is falling apart. Besides a new roof, it needs a new foundation, plumbing, wiring, etc. Problem is, I don’t even know where to start.
Does anyone know of a person that will do an honest evaluation of my house, telling me what needs to be fixed first and some very rough estimates on cost?
Also, I need recommendations for roofers, carpenters, etc, especially ones that won’t shy away from working in a low income area (I’ve been having trouble even getting estimates.)
I’m not so sure I ever want to own a house again.
We’re hoping to be able to put $10-$15k into it and get it in stable condition- i.e. something isn’t going wrong every other week, but so far, we’ve only been getting estimates in the $20-$30 k range.
Boy, Karin, for a big list like that it’s always tough to know where to start. I don’t have many leads, but I will ask one guy I know if he can help you out. He used to be the do-it-all kind of guy that you need, but I think now he is much more of a specialist. I’ll see if he has any recommendations for somebody you can call.
Edited to add: And by the way, I feel your pain in the “where do I start?” department. Owning a home is great fun, isn’t it?
Right now our main concern is the plumbing- sewage is backing up into our basement. We rented a sewer snake Monday, and it seemed to take care of the problem, but now the floor drain in the basement is backflowing. We think it’s either another blockage or a faulty seal on the bypass in the floor drain. I’m hoping it’s the latter.
It seems like all the specialists- plumbers and the like- give us only the $20,000 options, and I keep thinking there’s gotta be something they can do that’s a little more reasonable. If I had a little more information, I could come back with “well, what about this?”
Karin,
I have some people you could speak with that currently work for a company in town however they do ‘side’ work as a way to start breaking out on their own. Specifically I know they could take a look at your roof and plumbing issues. For foundation work, I’ve heard Thrasher Basements does a good job (may be costly) and a company called something like “Block and Concrete”. I’m not certain on anyone for wiring.
There are ‘house detectives’ that will look at your home from and evaluate the issues and provide you with an overall outlook for repairs and costs, maybe they too can provide you with contractors or repair people. I will speak with my friends on the roof and plumbing and get back to you tomorrow.
I feel a lot better today- we figured out our plumbing issues for now, and I can take a real shower again, which does a lot to ease my nerves.
We still need plumbing work, but at least we’ve got drainage and water pressure.
The other idea I had was someone that would work with us to guide us on doing what work we can ourselves- We’re not scared of doing work, we just don’t know quite what to do. Perhaps a handyman of some kind?
I was trying to find some basic home repair classes in the area with no luck. (although I did find these workshops in omaha: http://www.mccneb.edu/cwe/student/homeimprovcert.asp - I might try and attend some of these)
I think after this, owning any other house will be a breeze.
Karin,
Please feel free to contact Eric Anderson at 402-440-5967 as he is the one that would take a look at your projects and be able to direct you where to go. He has an associate Scott that works full time on his own, so many times they split projects. I believe Scott is out of town for the remainder of the week, but Eric can fill you in further. They both have a high quality product when it comes to construction and remodeling and can assist in the DIY aspects.
I can’t find his contact information right now but Dan’s Hauling took care of a drain tile problem I had that was causing some water in my basement. He did excellent work and was extremely fair. If I can find his information, I’ll post it. We moved this summer and I can’t put my finger on his business card right now.
For your roofing needs, Neeman and Sons do a great job. Biggerstaffs have always treated us right when we had problems with the plumbing and the HAVAC. I would tend to stay away from Action. My parents had a lot of problems with them installing the wrong sized cooling coils and then saying that my parents wanted the smaller coils.
I was going to make my husband make a bunch of calls today, unfortunately, he’s sick. Or so he says.
I’ll have to squeeze them into breaks over the coming week.
We had another plumbing emergency this weekend, rented the sewer snake again, and it appears to be fixed for now.
Apparently, we need to be dumping root killer down far more than the recommended 2x a year- I really hate dumping that kind of stuff down the drain though. I wonder if there are any environmental implications?
Apparently, we need to be dumping root killer down far more than the recommended 2x a year- I really hate dumping that kind of stuff down the drain though. I wonder if there are any environmental implications?
I had the same problem with our first house. There was this Siberian Elm on our property and the root invaded our sewer. We had to call Rotor-Rooter about ever 5 years (at around $150 or so a visit… but that was because we lived near Hickman and he charged us for time the moment he left his shop in Lincoln). In the mean time we bought a snake and used that every other month and dumped that crystal-weed/root killer down every fall and spring. The Rotor-Rooter was great though and he pulled out a rats-nest of roots.
What other specific problems are you having?
I took a couple of home-owner classes at SECC that helped me.
I also put in I-beams along my basement walls (every 32 inches). I rented a jack-hammer and cut holes into the foundation, bought about 30 of those basement I-beams, cemented them in and braced them at top between the floor joist. It was a lot of work but those wall will never move and the basement could be framed.
On top of that my basement would flood at even the hint of rain. So I hired a backhoe+driver and dug a trench around the foundation on my house clear to the basement wall footings. I then put in drain-tile (that black 4 or 6 inch plastic tubing) and dug underneath the footing and routed the drain-tile in and under the basement floor and then broke a hole in the cement floor and dug a 50 gal sump and put one of those Coca-Cola soda pop-syrup plastic drum into it. The drain tile drain into that and I bought an automatic 1/2 horse Teel sump-pump that would discharge the water where ever I put that hose at. My basement dried up and so much so that my foundation started settling to a degree. Oh and then I back filled the trench with pea-gravel and now there is a solid French drain around that house and nothing will flood that basement.
For our roof we hired some guy (looked though the phone book and don’t see his ad anymore) after we got about 3 or 4 estimates. He seemed the most straight-up and he agreed to use Timberline shingles by GAF and install them according to GAFs recommendations (no one else would agree and two of those guys argued with me about the whole matter). They also had to tear up a bunch of rotten wood and replace the fascia.
Wow, you sound so knowledgeable compared to us. Luckily, we have not had a lot of problem with water in our basement other than the sewage pipe backing up. The I-Beams sound like a good idea.
I still need to call the person Cam recommended- lately we’ve had a tough time just keeping up with the minor emergencies. I’m hoping that with some guidance, we can do a lot of the hands on work ourselves.
Since we’ve rented that 250lb sewer snake 4 times now at about $55 each, I think the next time there’s a backup we’re going to buy one of those powered 50 foot snakes that are $400 or so. Hopefully that will be enough to keep it clear.
The other immediate problem is not so visible but worries me- the electrical system in the house is old and I believe illegally brought up to code somehow. We bought the house thinking there was a breaker box. there is, but there’s also a working fuse box (controls the same things as the breaker box, but is in an entirely different place), which seems unusual. When we looked at the house, the owner has things in front of the fuse box, so we didn’t realize the house even had one. It’s obvious that non professionals have worked on the wiring over the years, and there’s places where the electrical and water systems seem dangerously close, as well as some frayed wiring, etc.
Our roof is a continuing problem. I finally got in touch with the person I had originally called- he seems really knowledgeable, and was the best at explaining exactly what had to be done and where the money would go, etc. However, it’s been 2 MORE weeks since he said he’d get a written estimate to us, and it’s been over two months since we first contacted him. I’ve like to hire him since he comes highly recommended and is easy to talk to, but this lack of contact has me worried. There have not been any more leaks though, so that’s good.
Wow, you sound so knowledgeable compared to us. Luckily, we have not had a lot of problem with water in our basement other than the sewage pipe backing up. The I-Beams sound like a good idea.
My boss used to be a sub-contractor and a couple of my wife’s friends have built houses. So when we bought the house they were all the time telling me what to do… but then they would never help (sigh). So I knew what to do but not how to do it. So that’s when I took those home-repair type courses at SECC at night. There were a lot of guys there who had good ideas. So between the classes, the friends and boss… oh and the inlaws telling me I had to fix the house for the grandkids (double sigh) I was able to do a few things.
A couple of things that I didn’t feel brave enough to do were re-wire the house and do a bunch of plumbing work. The house just barely passed code when we sold it (and it didn’t pass code when we bought it 11 years ago… but nobody said anything to us and we didn’t know any better). My brother in-law kept telling me how easy it is to wire and plumb… LOL. And he even showed me once. But when I tried my hand at plumbing the copper pipes leaked everywhere and I had to call Greens to save my butt (and I watched them and they did it so fast and made it look like childs-play). Now that I look back, it’s funny.
Hope thing go well for Karin. Being a homeowner can be a nightmare but I think it’s worth it… most of the time.
They might not be doing them anymore. There were two guys who were teaching the courses. One was Dave Carter. Not sure if he’s there anymore. I’ll see if I can find any other classes around.
