Adcadet
Storage Freak
After much trial and tribulation, my wife and I have a purchase agreement without any active contingencies. We close and move on May 25th. This has been partially documented here , and there's more info and pictures of the house on our blog
I post here partially to ask for advice from some of the older folks. This is my first home, and clearly running a house has not been my focus in life. I'm blessed with a great father and father-in-law, but they can only do so much or go so far, again, because they've had other focuses in life.
Roof
The home was inspected, and my wife and I will be doing a walk through with the inspector in the next month or so. The house was built in 1984. One potential problem that came up during the inspection is that half the roof was replaced 1.5 years ago after a hail storm (we've seen numerous homes with new roofs from 1.5 years ago), but the other half is original. The inspector marked the older roofing to be in the "marginal" category - not good, but not the worste. Our realtor thought maybe it will need replacing within 3-5 years. But there's zero water damage in the house, and all the attic insulation is nice and fluffy. So hopefully we'll get some years out of the roof then replace it before it becomes a problem.
Moisture
One problem the inspector noted was that some of the windows have dry rot. Two are being replaced, partially because of this, and the others are being re-sealed. The lower level bathroom is also improperly vented - it shares the vent with something else (a dryer, perhaps?). They'll fix the vent. Twice when we visited we noticed condensation inside the windows. I figure maybe they had just taken long shower before leaving. They also have a central humidifier, which was turned on both times we were there. I want to try to prevent this problem from coming up again. So I'll turn the central humidifier down as low as we reasonably can (like, off in the summer). I'm also thinking about installing timer switches to the bathroom fans so they'll run for about an hour after we shower. Hopefully that will take care of the problem. Anybody deal with this before? Luckily the home is on a small hill, has a good grade around it, the basement in the back is a walk-out, and they don't have a sump pump (good, one less thing to fail, right?). So hopefully flooding won't be an issue.
Internet
I went through DSL reports, plugged in my new address and the current phone number there (found via a reverse number lookup, and I recognized the name from the purchase agreement). DSL reports warned that I'm rather far from a DSL station thingy - I emailed those who offer DSL but I'm not hopeful. It looks like the only cable company serving the area is Charter. They said they charge $57.95/$62.95/$82.95 per month (regular rates, not a discount) for 3/5/10 Mbps down and 256k/512k/1M up, and there's an installation fee of $49.95 which is required since there has never been cable out there before. There's also a $10/month discount if you get cable TV as well, which the wife might want. And they offer phone as well, but I'm thinking my wife and I might just go with all cell phones. Unfortunately Rochester is in a different area code so we'd likely want to drop our old phone numbers.
Right now we're not exactly sure where the computers will go, but we're likely to have mine upstairs and the wife's downstairs, so we'll likely be running ethernet cable. I think it would be nifty to actually set up the cables with real "outlets" in the rooms that look like phone jacks rather than just a cable. Any tips on this, or web resources explaining how?
Lawn care
We unfortunately have a largish yard, which if my math is correct is around 0.17 of an acre (lot size minus foundation size), but I guess I'd have to subtract for the large driveway, sidewalk, maybe garage, deck, and landscaping. I'm unfortunately allergic to many things outside, including grass. Between that and my schedule, there's a change my wife will be doing some of the mowing. Any tips on lawn mowers? Weed wackers? Other stuff I really should have? This summer my wife may have a small garden, but she'll likely go much bigger next summer as she likes to garden. Oh, I'd also need a good shovel and if I'm feeling lazy, a snow blower as well (never had one in the past).
Deck
We have a large deck. The current owners have two large grills on it. I think I'll need to get a grill. Around where I'm at now I occasionally use a small grill with briquettes. Growing up I used a basic propane gas grill. Any thoughts on grills?
The deck is unpainted wood. Anybody know what I need to do to keep it up? Weatherproofing?
Under the deck is a hot tub. Anybody know how to run a hot tub, or things I should watch out for?
I post here partially to ask for advice from some of the older folks. This is my first home, and clearly running a house has not been my focus in life. I'm blessed with a great father and father-in-law, but they can only do so much or go so far, again, because they've had other focuses in life.
Roof
The home was inspected, and my wife and I will be doing a walk through with the inspector in the next month or so. The house was built in 1984. One potential problem that came up during the inspection is that half the roof was replaced 1.5 years ago after a hail storm (we've seen numerous homes with new roofs from 1.5 years ago), but the other half is original. The inspector marked the older roofing to be in the "marginal" category - not good, but not the worste. Our realtor thought maybe it will need replacing within 3-5 years. But there's zero water damage in the house, and all the attic insulation is nice and fluffy. So hopefully we'll get some years out of the roof then replace it before it becomes a problem.
Moisture
One problem the inspector noted was that some of the windows have dry rot. Two are being replaced, partially because of this, and the others are being re-sealed. The lower level bathroom is also improperly vented - it shares the vent with something else (a dryer, perhaps?). They'll fix the vent. Twice when we visited we noticed condensation inside the windows. I figure maybe they had just taken long shower before leaving. They also have a central humidifier, which was turned on both times we were there. I want to try to prevent this problem from coming up again. So I'll turn the central humidifier down as low as we reasonably can (like, off in the summer). I'm also thinking about installing timer switches to the bathroom fans so they'll run for about an hour after we shower. Hopefully that will take care of the problem. Anybody deal with this before? Luckily the home is on a small hill, has a good grade around it, the basement in the back is a walk-out, and they don't have a sump pump (good, one less thing to fail, right?). So hopefully flooding won't be an issue.
Internet
I went through DSL reports, plugged in my new address and the current phone number there (found via a reverse number lookup, and I recognized the name from the purchase agreement). DSL reports warned that I'm rather far from a DSL station thingy - I emailed those who offer DSL but I'm not hopeful. It looks like the only cable company serving the area is Charter. They said they charge $57.95/$62.95/$82.95 per month (regular rates, not a discount) for 3/5/10 Mbps down and 256k/512k/1M up, and there's an installation fee of $49.95 which is required since there has never been cable out there before. There's also a $10/month discount if you get cable TV as well, which the wife might want. And they offer phone as well, but I'm thinking my wife and I might just go with all cell phones. Unfortunately Rochester is in a different area code so we'd likely want to drop our old phone numbers.
Right now we're not exactly sure where the computers will go, but we're likely to have mine upstairs and the wife's downstairs, so we'll likely be running ethernet cable. I think it would be nifty to actually set up the cables with real "outlets" in the rooms that look like phone jacks rather than just a cable. Any tips on this, or web resources explaining how?
Lawn care
We unfortunately have a largish yard, which if my math is correct is around 0.17 of an acre (lot size minus foundation size), but I guess I'd have to subtract for the large driveway, sidewalk, maybe garage, deck, and landscaping. I'm unfortunately allergic to many things outside, including grass. Between that and my schedule, there's a change my wife will be doing some of the mowing. Any tips on lawn mowers? Weed wackers? Other stuff I really should have? This summer my wife may have a small garden, but she'll likely go much bigger next summer as she likes to garden. Oh, I'd also need a good shovel and if I'm feeling lazy, a snow blower as well (never had one in the past).
Deck
We have a large deck. The current owners have two large grills on it. I think I'll need to get a grill. Around where I'm at now I occasionally use a small grill with briquettes. Growing up I used a basic propane gas grill. Any thoughts on grills?
The deck is unpainted wood. Anybody know what I need to do to keep it up? Weatherproofing?
Under the deck is a hot tub. Anybody know how to run a hot tub, or things I should watch out for?
