Home Ownership – Mom's Guide to the Galaxy

Homeownership is not for the faint of heart

Almost two weeks ago now, it snowed – again – bringing our accumulated snow to a whopping 11 inches early in the season. It was warm enough that the snow was melting on the roof even as it was falling, causing an annoying drip drip drip outside my bedroom window, which I unfortunately noticed in the middle of the night. I suspect the persistent dripping off the edge of the gutters is partially due to the smaller width of the gutters after the siding and gutter work early last year; this was not a problem we had encountered before. A few hours later, I was sitting in the living room sorting embroidery thread and realized I could open the curtains for better lighting, as it was a sunny day and reasonably warm (for winter).

Snow, not content to pile on our roof, garden, and driveway early this winter, melted into our house, leaving a puddle in our bay window. (Alas, poor Olaf.)

The ceiling of our bay window shows water damage.

I was definitely not prepared for what I found! There was a puddle on the bay window bench and water damage on the window’s ceiling. I scrambled to clean it up, then move everything we had near the window out of the way, discarding a couple cardboard boxes after relocating their (fortunately undamaged) contents. It was a while before I returned to sorting my embroidery thread, followed by waves of cleaning, and as the snow continued melting, the realization that the afternoon heat (I use the term loosely, it was in the mid-30s) was causing a steady drip of snow melt and I wanted more than just a pair of towels in the window to mop it up.

Monday morning found me on the phone to the window company, who installed the window back in 2018, followed by reaching out to the company who redid our roof, siding, and gutters last year. The consensus is that nothing can be done until after the snow melts (did I mention 11 inches of accumulation?), my towel/bucket approach was the necessary approach for now, and the cause of the leak (likely the gutter work) needs to be fixed before the window can be. As the weather shifted back to cold (and colder… last Saturday’s high was 8 degrees), the drip temporarily abated, though it did return this afternoon in a sudden burst of warm weather (high of 48!). Hopefully enough has melted to clear the gutters of ice, though we’re not keeping the warm weather for long, so I’m not sure of the repair timing.

Another disaster struck Friday morning, at least for someone who works from home… our internet connection vanished mid-morning! Our neighbors use the same service, so I was able to verify that it was isolated to our house, and now know that the wire bringing fiber into our house can freeze at the box if water gets into the wrong spot, pushing the wires apart and breaking the connection. On the plus side, they were able to send a technician out that evening, though the poor guys were working in the dark by the time they got here.

As the title says, homeownership is not for the faint of heart. On the plus side, there’s chocolate. On the downside, I wonder if that’s why my glucose count was higher than usual on my annual blood test last week?

Anxiety exists for a reason.

In this particular instance, I’m referring to my anxiety related to nests inhabited by stinging insects, particularly wasps. You may recall a couple years ago, I had a terrible Saturday morning when I accidentally disturbed a yellowjacket nest on the east side of our house, safely tucked between an empty planter and our shed. This past Saturday, I was talking to my neighbor about our plethora of balls in the deck box, specifically in relation to something his puppy could use. (The deck box moved to this house a couple years ago and had not been sorted through in that time.) I had already handed him an old volleyball of mine that was stored under a nearby bench, but flipped up the lid to show him how many other balls we have. As we stood there talking, I noticed movement in my peripheral vision and realized that there was a hornet’s nest on the underside of the lid.

A blurry photo of a wasp or hornet nest (I don't really distinguish between aggressively stinging insects) on the underside of our deck box lid. I wasn't getting closer to get a non-blurry photo.

I swore, and we both immediately moved away from the box, him in response to my action before he noted the nest as well. We both took a few more steps for safety, and he offered to lend me the wasp spray he owned, though we both noted that it should wait until evening – wasps tend to be active during the day and dormant at night, so the ideal time to spray a nest is when most of them are clustered on it, resting. I sent Cassandra a warning to avoid the side patio and after lunch, we wandered off to an Arts & Crafts Fair at Morton Arboretum.

As the afternoon wore on, I noted that the impending thunderstorm might interfere with my plan to spray the nest that evening. Before the rain started – splendid rain, bringing about four inches of water to our yard – we had some high winds that caused me – after it started raining – to pop out the side door and see if the lid to the deck box was still open. Upon discovering that it wasn’t, I stepped out under the overhang and carefully flipped the lip open again, thinking that when the opportunity arose to spray the nest, I didn’t want to disturb them with the motion of opening it again.

A little while later, the rain let up, so I popped outside, grabbed the can, sprayed the nest thoroughly, and promptly ignored it for the rest of the evening as the rain came and went. Come morning, I verified that the nest was empty, noting several corpses in the deck box. I used a plastic bag to grab the nest, tied it off, and dropped it into our garbage can. I then emptied the entire box, organizing as I went… and much to my dismay, discovered a trio of yellowjackets tucked into the palm of a rather wet softball glove. The dismay was augmented when I dumped them into the grass and they began moving! Fortunately, they were the only ones, though I did proceed carefully in case there was another nest buried in the box.

Once the box was empty, I hauled it onto the grass, scrubbed it down, and left it to dry. In the afternoon, we started to refill the box, though we left some damp items drying nearby. We closed the lid… which turned out to be a mistake. When I went back out to put other items into the box, there were a few hornets at the spot where the nest had been, presumably trying to rebuild. I left the lid open again and retreated. When I returned a while later, they were gone, and I sprayed the area again to discourage them from returning.

A couple days later, with no evidence of hornets in the open box, I finally closed the lid again. So far, so good.

Melting! Melting! It’s how old?

There was, alas, a casualty from the power outage I mentioned last week. The following Monday, we realized that the large freezer in the garage, which came with the house, was clearing experiencing a meltdown. Not a minor one of the “oops, I left the door cracked open” variety which causes a build-up of ice… the previous build up (from one of those incidents) was clearly melting over the entire contents of the freezer.

An inside view of a large freezer with one shelf encased in ice

At a pause in the mad scramble to squish the contents of a larger freezer into a smaller – and not empty – one, I paused to Google the freezer model, on the off chance that it might be reparable. I haven’t located the serial number, so I don’t know the exact age… according to the search results, the Sears Coldspot freezer model was replaced by Kenmore in 1976.

Needless to say, I was flabbergasted, and have progressed from wondering at its sudden demise to appreciating the quality and extended lifespan of this freezer. We will certainly miss it.

I didn’t realize the power was out.

I realize, even in the United States, this is a privilege. But even this privilege has quirks.

You may recall that we had solar panels installed last summer, including a backup battery. (I did incorrectly say we weren’t pushing power back into the grid.) On Saturday morning, as I lay in bed cuddling the cats and scrolling my social media feed, I heard the power go out, and immediately kick back in. As is customary when our power flickers noticeably, our 2.4 GHz network dropped, sending a notification from our thermostat app that it couldn’t communicate with the thermostat. (The thermostat and printer only work on the 2.4 GHz network; almost everything else runs on the 5 GHz.) When I eventually got up, I knew I’d need to reset it through the admin portal.

When I did get up, my first responsibility was to feed the cats. This is where I noticed things being weird – one of the lights in the kitchen weren’t working, others were fainter than usual, and on one, two of the three bulbs weren’t lit. I wondered what sort of power outage would knock out some – but not all – of the light bulbs. This was before caffeine and it didn’t click yet that the power was still out.

While taking my morning shower, the water pressure dropped. That worried me – the well circuit was supposed to be on the battery, so why hadn’t it come back on? (Noting that the circuits were supposed to be accurately labeled shortly after I bought the house; now I’m fairly sure the “well” circuit is actually the water softener’s outlet.) After my shower, I scrambled to check the circuit breaker and the reset by the well. You may recall I gained some experience with our water pressure about a year and a half ago, when a pipe rusted through on Christmas Day. All I was sure of at that point was that the water pressure was really low, and it was way too early to call anyone to help troubleshoot it.

The display on the solar battery, showing a green power light and a blue electrical plug or something similar.

Eventually, I looked at our solar battery and realized that the blue icon I was seeing was not its normal display. Annoyingly, I couldn’t find anything online explaining what the different icons are. That display combined with having to manually light the gas stove are what made me realize that our power was still out and the solar battery was working as designed.

I made myself a micro breakfast to minimize water usage – I had water in the kettle from Friday and grabbed a snack bar. About twenty minutes after I finished, the power kicked back on with all the normal beeps and clicks that come with a power flicker. Including the need to reset the 2.4 GHz network again.

Well, sh…

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.

The inside of a toilet tank with a hand holding a broken stick which should be attached to the flush lever.

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.

Chock this one up to the joys of home ownership.

Solar panels!

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 dozen solar panels leaning against a blue house and a white-framed window

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.

The siding nightmare is over (I hope).

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.

The home repair project is done!

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.

An updated photo of the house, now with a white garage door and trim instead of brown.

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.

What an ex-siding week!

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.

The front and side of a beige house with brown gutters.

Here’s what the house looked like on Monday, with beige siding and brown gutters.

The front and side of the same house, three days later, now blue with white gutters, matching the white window frames.

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.

Step one: a new roof

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.

The layers under the new shingles on our 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.

Step two, I believe, will be the siding.