The Home Ownership Thread - Page 16

That sounds divine. Love me some garage space. My garage is more of an old style barn. I've been seriously considering insulating it and wiring some heating in there but I know if I did I'd never leave it.

. I would love that too. garage space and water pressure - two seriously underrated features that make a huge difference IMO in the selection of one's home

Congrats on the new house. While I generally enjoyed the work I've put into improving my house, I don't think I would be very enthusiastic about moving on to another house and restarting from square one.

Over the next couple years I'm going to finish the detached garage. It's drywalled downstairs so it'll have to be blow-in insulation, but I've done that before--it's not hard or expensive. It's got a steep roof like the house, so there's a big loft too. Didn't measure the square footage but I figure finished it'll be 400 square feet or so (with a lot of storage in the knee walls). Add a mini split and it's going to be a hell of a shop.

Right about that. I'm from the country where a lot of houses have well water or poor quality county water that smells funny and stains everything yellow. And you're right about garages being underrated. The appraiser valued the 670-square-foot detached brick garage with the half-finished loft at... $5000. It's definitely true that you need to be careful when buying a house to only pay what something is worth and not what it's worth you personally, but, man, that's ridiculous.

I've never been completely happy with anything the first time I've done it. So it's a do-over, a chance to correct mistakes and take on challenges you weren't prepared to accept the first time. The big thing, though, is that the old house was at the point where additional work wouldn't add to its value. The new one has a lot more potential.

It's funny the way these things go, too. Home buyers must be a really dumb lot. The house had a new roof, new air conditioners, new hot water heaters, new wood floors in the whole house--but I got a deal on it because of dated lighting fixtures and faucets.

So few people do their own home repairs anymore. So to novice buyers they look at old fixtures and faucets and see plumber's and electrician's bills. Personally I love working on my house and changing things up and making it my own. A male attorney in the office I'm at had his water heater thermostat die. That's literally a 15in15 repair ($15 in 15 minutes). But instead he paid a plumber $150 to swap it out. And this guy's not so rich that throwing a hundred fifty out is no big deal to him. Generation Y is so dumb.

My generation is very busy estimating the value of their time. I always find satisfaction in this, but most of my friends look at me as some sort of anomaly.

For those kinds of "15in15" repairs, it costs more in time to call and schedule a professional to make the repair than to just do it yourself providing you have the ability to turn a screwdriver. That number probably goes up to about 90in90 for car repairs. There's an awful lot of car repairs that fall into that category.

I think the trouble with car repairs is in the diagnosis. I would love to do my own repairs, even with the aid of a Haynes manual, but outside of trial and error actually locating teh problem would take me many hours. This jumps for anything involving the cars wiring loom.

The advantage of throwing parts at a car problem is that you end up with lots of new parts on your car. Better than paying for labor, IMO.

Also most dealerships will diagnose the problem for a relatively modest (~$100) charge.

I agree that that's a problem, but there are still an awful lot of 90in90 or less maintenance (rather than repair) tasks on a car that require no diagnosis abilities. E.g., oil changes? They cost way more of my time to take to an oil change place than it takes me to run my car up on ramps and do the job myself. Extra bonus that I don't risk some minimum-wage wrench monkey stripping the drain plug bolt on my car.

For some that is a daunting task. You're playing with water and electricity in the same space. That said, we replaced my grandmother's electric water heater last year, and I'm pricing a new gas water heater for our own house.

The internet and an ODB scanner is your friend. O'Reilly will loan you a scanner here - I did a lunchtime diagnosis on the Mrs' wagon one afternoon to fix a bad sensor. But there's a ton of into on the internet, particularly for some makes. Surprisingly, Mercedes has a wealth of info from owners who turn their own wrenches.

And you know what's going in your car as well. The worst part for me is recycling the oil.

When you fuck u a 15in15 repair and it becomes a two-day-several-hundred -dollar repair, calling a professional becomes a lot more attractive.

but you've learned what not to do

Get a five gallon bucket with a lid that has a screw on cap. When it fills up take it to wally world and let them pour it out for you.

I did a lot of manual labour as a kid. Spent two summers hanging dry wall and mudding. Helped frame several houses and quite a few garages. Roofed those fuckers too. I cut grass every day of the week for several summers, including the four acres of my church's lawn with a push mower.

I don't have to do that shit and revel in it.

I lease cars so they are always under warranty.

Life is good.