The Super Official Homeowners Thread

[WRXtranceformed]

I'll let you know but it's not looking promising, for the style of bulb I need anyway. The major manufacturers don't seem to have an option that will work for me. Our incandescent bulbs were already "singed" inside as well, like a little black film in there and they've only been used for a few months.

As part of my revised home security plan, I was looking at some motion sensor floodlight options. There are actually bulbs with built in sensors that would be really cool: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://www.amazon.com/Sengled-Smartsense-Security-Floodlight-Detector/dp/B01F1PCZFG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484763121&sr=8-1&keywords=screw+in+motion+sensor+flood+light">https://www.amazon.com/Sengled-Smartsen ... lood+light</a><!-- m -->

Wifey wants to have something that we will just leave on all the time in the front though, so I'll snag some regular LED replacements

[WRXtranceformed]

Sully: I just snagged two of these for our floodlights. 1300lm should be bright as fack and figured I would go with the brand name this time since these were so much cheaper on Amazon than anything else:

<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LT0O2N6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1">https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00LT ... UTF8&psc=1</a><!-- m -->

If they end up being good I'll order two more. Another benefit I read was that people weren't having issues with GE's LEDs if they decided to upgrade to motion sensor floods in the future (I may do this on the rear flood)

[WRXtranceformed]

Ran the water test last night and our water actually turned out to not be hard or be out of the norm for all of the test parameters (iron bacteria, copper, chlorine, etc.). Super easy by the way, just dip a strip in a tube of your water and wait 2-30 seconds depending on the test. We are getting a little bit of hard water staining in the shower already but nothing that was out of the ordinary from our old place, so I'll probably hold off on the water softener for now.

[Kaan]

Channing... i need you to consult on the lights in my damn garage. its like a cave in there if its not super sunny out.... no i wont cut back my trees unless required.

How much are you guys banking for your house slush fund? We are trying to keep enough cash on hand (just for the house) to have the roof done when needed. But we have done a lot of upgrades to the well, septic, etc. and my wife wants to start on the bathrooms (two full bathrooms) AND kitchen (FML).

things i can recommend:
1. a good home warranty IF you buy and have older AC units... its $100/visit to keep them alive. That sounds like a lot, but we have TWO system that use the old freon... so to replace them would require all new lines and everything. We were quoted about $8k/system to replace.

2. we get our roof inspected on the same rotation as our septic is pumped (easier to remember).... every 3 years. its $100-ish per visit and they make sure the nails are down and all the seams are good. I have shingles on hand and they did a spot repair for $240. Its a HUGE cost to replace a roof, so i think its worth it to get checked out regularly.

[ScottyB]

things i can recommend:
1. a good home warranty IF you buy and have older AC units... its $100/visit to keep them alive. That sounds like a lot, but we have TWO system that use the old freon... so to replace them would require all new lines and everything. We were quoted about $8k/system to replace.

some of you have heard me say this before, but our home warranty literally saved our asses when we just moved into our first place here. i'm not an "extended warranty" guy, and absolutely everyone told us it would be a waste of money to get a home warranty. in most cases i'd agree. but this was our first house, we spent at the high end of our budget, and our gut feelings told us we wanted the psychological peace of mind as much as the utility aspect of the warranty so we could focus on enjoying making the house "ours" and not worrying so much about random catastrophes especially with a baby in the house.

sure enough, despite a very thoroughly passed home inspection, 1 month into ownership in August here in the deep south during a triple digit heat wave and both the AC unit, condenser, AND lineset needed replacement all at once due to the unit's compressor grenading and filling the entire system with shrapnel. our house is 9 years old and in a place where the AC runs 8 months out of the year, i guess it was "time"

almost $10k later our system is completely new, and i think our deductible was $1k. easiest grand i've ever gratefully paid. and our warranty company dropped us after that :lol: AC stuff is just layer upon layer of expense since its such a specialized trade and there's a lot of specific waste handling measures.

we no longer carry a warranty nowadays, it was sort of a buffer measure for that first year when we first moved in. when we move into a different house again someday i might be tempted to get one again though.

[Kaan]

i'm sure once these units get replaced i'll look long and hard at canceling it. but at $500/year its takes a while to make up that replacement bill lol

[JPolen01]

I'm going to be planted firmly in the Don't Waste Your Money on A Home Warranty Camp. Our realtor "included" a one year warranty with our house. It was $1000 per year with a $100 deductible. Our AC unit was making funky noises and the house was taking a while to cool down so I called them up a month before the warranty expired and had someone come out. Of course the problem with our unit was not covered by the warranty (because they hardly cover anything - READ THE FINE PRINT).

In my opinion if you can save money for possible repairs then you are much better off because if nothing breaks you can apply that money saved to anything else you want. I can see how it paid off in Scotty's case, but I would rather hedge my bets. Our AC unit was replaced in the last 7 years so I am still comfortable it has plenty of life for our time in this house.

Interested to hear answers to Kaan's question about how much people have aside for house emergencies? The wife and I are phenomenal savers and have banked a ton of money over the last couple years so we are prepared for pretty much anything at this point. I would like to know if there is a general rule of thumb/formula for this however.

[Jewels]

Having worked for a Heating and A/C company I have only a few pieces of advice. When it comes to home warranties they will "fix" the problem without looking at the bigger picture (if your shit is leaking coolant, it can be fixed, but the leak has already caused your system to be compromised). So they'll "fix" instead of replace. And 9 times out of 10, it just needs to be replaced. If you go with the lowest bid for a new system because you are cheap, you will get just what you paid for. Shop companies, get recommendations from friends and neighbors, do your research. I worked for a company that wasn't the cheapest, but if you had an issue, they would come back until it was right. When you get those new systems- take care of them, get with a company that offers maintenance visits. It does cost money, but we caught a LOT of capacitors that were failing or had failed before it got to be 90 degrees outside and your system wasn't cooling. So these costs were waaaay cheaper than a service call. Also, keep your filters clean, you'd be surprised at how many people had to go 2 days without AC because they'd forgotten to change filters and their system had froze up. It takes 24 hours for that bad boy to thaw properly, and you can't run it until its thawed. And they had to pay a service charge for us to tell them they needed a new filter. $100 for a $10 filter at most.

[Apoc]

Emergency slush fund is emergency slush fund, regardless of whether it's used for medical, house repairs, or unexpected loss of income. As such, we don't have a certain amount set aside for the house.

That said, we have a year's worth of "normal" expenses in liquid assets.

[Kaan]

My AC guy says its all in how to word it to the warranty company.

[JPolen01]

My AC guy says its all in how to word it to the warranty company.

Yeah well no kidding. If you have someone is who is willing to bend the rules anything is possible. The warranty company we had used a list of authorized vendors to prevent that exact thing from happening.

[BLINGMW]

Channing... i need you to consult on the lights in my damn garage. its like a cave in there if its not super sunny out.... no i wont cut back my trees unless required.

ugh :oops: the last two times I came to your house I meant to bring some LED tubes with me but now I don't have a bunch of free ones anymore. That being said I think that's still the way to go, bypass the T12 ballasts and go LED, PM me your # maybe I can help out

[D_Eclipse9916]

I'm going to be planted firmly in the Don't Waste Your Money on A Home Warranty Camp. Our realtor "included" a one year warranty with our house. It was $1000 per year with a $100 deductible. Our AC unit was making funky noises and the house was taking a while to cool down so I called them up a month before the warranty expired and had someone come out. Of course the problem with our unit was not covered by the warranty (because they hardly cover anything - READ THE FINE PRINT).

In my opinion if you can save money for possible repairs then you are much better off because if nothing breaks you can apply that money saved to anything else you want. I can see how it paid off in Scotty's case, but I would rather hedge my bets. Our AC unit was replaced in the last 7 years so I am still comfortable it has plenty of life for our time in this house.

Interested to hear answers to Kaan's question about how much people have aside for house emergencies? The wife and I are phenomenal savers and have banked a ton of money over the last couple years so we are prepared for pretty much anything at this point. I would like to know if there is a general rule of thumb/formula for this however.

+1,2,3,4.... A bunch of my friends have had home warranties (including me, was included with home sale). They did everything they could to avoid replacing and just fixing, costing you $100 per visit.

Firmly in the "dont waste your money" category. $500 per year + $1000 deductible? That's $1500 the first year towards your slush fund. Plus you know that home warranty place is going to put in CRAP, not high quality items. Therefore you will be paying again for a deductible soon, repairs, visits etc.

[Steve85]

2. we get our roof inspected on the same rotation as our septic is pumped (easier to remember).... every 3 years. its $100-ish per visit and they make sure the nails are down and all the seams are good. I have shingles on hand and they did a spot repair for $240. Its a HUGE cost to replace a roof, so i think its worth it to get checked out regularly.

If you have a water softener that discharges into the septic, make sure they inspect it for corrosion if it's concrete. The salt in the discharge eats the older style concrete based systems. We had to replace ours before selling the house and has become very common for all the houses in that neighborhood.

[ScottyB]

+1,2,3,4.... A bunch of my friends have had home warranties (including me, was included with home sale). They did everything they could to avoid replacing and just fixing, costing you $100 per visit.

i guess we got a good one. they took a while, but they put in good mid-range equipment and our techs ran the choices by us before communicating back with the warranty company.

again, we don't have a warranty anymore, and i totally get why people don't want them. our experience was an outlier, but wanted to share it anyway.

[WRXtranceformed]

Having just purchased a newly built house, we have a bunch of builder and manufacturer warranties that will serve us for a while, so we're good there. I am a firm believer in maintenance though, as Julie said have the HVAC people come out once or twice a year, etc.

I'm with Chris as far a slush fund, we just keep cash on hand for anything emergency related with no specific "stuff broke on our house" funds. But again our house is brand new so ideally anything we are spending is on improvements not emergencies (since we have homeowner's insurance of course). I try not to keep a *ton* of liquid cash on hand where it isn't making money for me in investments but we carry about 6 months reserves with a big chunk in easily liquidated funds if they are needed.

[ViPER1313]

I'm going to be planted firmly in the Don't Waste Your Money on A Home Warranty Camp. Our realtor "included" a one year warranty with our house. It was $1000 per year with a $100 deductible. Our AC unit was making funky noises and the house was taking a while to cool down so I called them up a month before the warranty expired and had someone come out. Of course the problem with our unit was not covered by the warranty (because they hardly cover anything - READ THE FINE PRINT).

In my opinion if you can save money for possible repairs then you are much better off because if nothing breaks you can apply that money saved to anything else you want. I can see how it paid off in Scotty's case, but I would rather hedge my bets. Our AC unit was replaced in the last 7 years so I am still comfortable it has plenty of life for our time in this house.

Interested to hear answers to Kaan's question about how much people have aside for house emergencies? The wife and I are phenomenal savers and have banked a ton of money over the last couple years so we are prepared for pretty much anything at this point. I would like to know if there is a general rule of thumb/formula for this however.

+1,2,3,4.... A bunch of my friends have had home warranties (including me, was included with home sale). They did everything they could to avoid replacing and just fixing, costing you $100 per visit.

Firmly in the "dont waste your money" category. $500 per year + $1000 deductible? That's $1500 the first year towards your slush fund. Plus you know that home warranty place is going to put in CRAP, not high quality items. Therefore you will be paying again for a deductible soon, repairs, visits etc.

+another, f home warranty companies. I cancelled the policy so I could at least get some money out of them...

[Apoc]

I try not to keep a *ton* of liquid cash on hand where it isn't making money for me in investments but we carry about 6 months reserves with a big chunk in easily liquidated funds if they are needed.

To clarify, we have about a year of reserves but only 20% of that is cash (read: money market). The rest is mutual funds.

[WRXtranceformed]

I try not to keep a *ton* of liquid cash on hand where it isn't making money for me in investments but we carry about 6 months reserves with a big chunk in easily liquidated funds if they are needed.

To clarify, we have about a year of reserves but only 20% of that is cash (read: money market). The rest is mutual funds.

Got it that makes sense.

In other news, BEAST MODE FLOODLIGHTS SON 1300 LUMENS OF LED EYERAPE (yea I know my desk is dusty)

[WRXtranceformed]

So the new LED floods are amazing, highly recommended upgrade and I don't feel like I'm burning cash leaving those things and our LED porch cans on all night. The drain attachment I scooped for the Shop Vac worked great, I removed the trim piece on the overflow drain, taped over it with duct tape and sucked out all of the p-trap water plus a big ball of silicone / caulk string and some hair from some of our house guests' showers. My hope is that relieved any other pressure points in our system. Still need to get an electrician out here to give me some quotes on adding outlets to our soffits in the front and rear for the security system .

Since we have this thread now I'll also just move the landscaping banter here. My old neighbor is an arborist, so I texted him for recommendations for local greenhouses here. He gave me some great tips (along with Nate, thanks buddy!) and I stopped by the top one he recommended this weekend. It is also one of the most expensive but he used to work there briefly and said that they had the highest quality plants, they don't sell diseased stock like most of the other local discount growers and they have a no questions asked lifetime warranty on all plants and trees. So if my trees get diseased in 10 years they'll come back and replace them. I'm going to end up with 6-7 Leland Cyprus staggered in a zig zag pattern across the back-side and back of my property line spaced roughly 10 feet apart. That gives us the flexibility to plant stuff in between them in the future and they will create a completely solid privacy wall. I think I'm going to pony up and spend about 3x more to order the more mature trees (~8-9 feet) because we'll have most of the privacy we need after year 1 vs. waiting at least 3-4 years for the smaller cheaper ones to grow up. Not a cheap venture but it will make our desirable lot that much more so and will give us a more enjoyable backyard. Fortunately it's been so warm and wet that we may be able to do this a month or so ahead of schedule, but I need to talk to them to make sure it doesn't make sense to stick to March as planned to install.