The Super Official Homeowners Thread

[Apoc]

Our wife used to clean our house like 10 years ago. She wanted us to move to a shared model where we would alternate every week. I said that was fine, but I was going to outsource my responsibilities. We've had a cleaning service every second or third week since then.

[Sijray21]

I was pretty against cleaners for a while. Hired one (from a friend's recommendation) after our kitchen reno because dust was everywhere. We now have them come every two weeks and it's actually great. No more cleaning toilets and the mess with a toddler and shedding dog is a lot more manageable with free time spent doing things we actually enjoy.

[Ryan T]

So I’ll preface this with this, we have no kids and two non-shedding dogs. That being said, I’m all about the “I went to college so I don’t have to...” etc, but hiring a home cleaner just seems lazy, much like hiring someone to mow the yard if you are perfectably capable of it. Our house is 2400sqft and it doesn’t take more than an hour a week to sweep/dust/clean. Do a deep clean twice a year and it’s good to go. But if that’s what you want to spend your money on, wear it out, we all spend our money in different ways.

[Deceus]

I'm still holding out for the day my girlfriend takes care of everything considering I pay a good portion of the bills.

[.RJ]

So I’ll preface this with this, we have no kids and two non-shedding dogs. That being said, I’m all about the “I went to college so I don’t have to...” etc, but hiring a home cleaner just seems lazy, much like hiring someone to mow the yard if you are perfectably capable of it. 

Yeah, I'm with you on this one.  I hate paying people to do things for me because I'm lazy.... I'm sure its a personality flaw of some sort.

I'm still holding out for the day my girlfriend takes care of everything considering I pay a good portion of the bills.

Dont worry, it doesnt change after you get married.

[HAULN-SS]

Lol't

[Deceus]

Speaking of cordless lawn care, I just doubled down on mine. Bought a cordless Makita mower a while back because I remember my dad going through about 3 cheap gas mowers in 5 years. I also needed an excuse to buy a set of 5ah batteries for my tools with a nice dual charger. It was also in the way of everything in his garage. I can't count the number of times I pushed the damn thing (and half the garage in order to do just that) out of the way of a cabinet I needed, only to have to push it back to get out the back door. With my full-on resto going on the garage at the old place I was looking to avoid that and get something that could fold up along the wall.

Can't say I regretted it too much. It's definitely a bit of a love/hate relationship. I'm glad I have it at the new place because I have to carry it up a set of stairs to get to my lawn. I hate it because the previous owners must've left a month ago and I had to tackle a thick, knee-high, soaking wet lawn with it thanks to all the rain we had last week. Basically had to mow it three times but it's a small lawn so it wasn't TOO bad. It also died the first run with just one pass left so that was a real drag.

I doubled down by buying a 40V-x Ryobi today because I had a shit ton of brush to trim and wanted a blower as well.



Bought the head+string trimmer, brush cutter and blower for ~$300. It all made short work of clearing out what was probably years of neglect in order to get some form of visitor parking at my place. Probably would have been better to get the gas version in the long run but the 40v seems to have plenty of power. 475CFM and 140MPH felt pretty impressive out of the little blower attachment.



I can definitely see it not being it worth it for most people but after years of dealing with my dad's old gas stuff not starting or running well, being able to snap in a battery and push a button gives me a real hard on.

[Apoc]

I’m all about the “I went to college so I don’t have to...” 

You have much to learn young padawan.

[ScottyB]

mess with a toddler and shedding dog is a lot more manageable

wife and i cleaned our house before the kid showed up. after kid, we did it for a while but it got a lot harder so we picked up a good cleaner about 6 months ago. totally worth the money to have an afternoon of my weekends back. now with a dog coming in, i'm not going back. they come about every 2-3 weeks.

the key for us was finding a good cleaner, and for that we talked to a lot of friends to get a recommendation. ours doesn't even advertise, she has built her business totally word of mouth and the work reflects why

[JPolen01]

Went down to the basement to look at something last night. Giant puddle of water under the hot water heater. Oh fuck this ain't good. But we just replaced that 2 years ago so wtf. Turn to leave the room and take a step into some wet carpet. Turn on the light and oh my god there is water everywhere. Turns out the drain tube from the washer got dislodged from the actual drain pipe leaving the house and dumped an entire wash load of water onto the basement carpet. 

So at 9pm last night I had the joy of running around town grabbing a dehumidifier from my uncle, steam cleaner from my parents, and a fan and shopvac from my friend. Up until 1am pulling water out of the carpet. So. Much. Fun. Lots of fans and the dehumidifier running all night. Wife went out this morning to home depot to rent a carpet blower. Trying to save the carpet here. Anything else I can do besides fans/dehumidifier? Might call a company to come extract the remaining water.

[Sijray21]

I never realized how much water was a problem until I became a home owner... Glad you realized it when you did.
Aside from lifting it back up I think keeping the dehumidifier and fan going for as long as possible should help.

I think shampoo machines can suck up water, but I don't have much experience with wall-to-wall carpeting.

[JPolen01]

I think shampoo machines can suck up water, but I don't have much experience with wall-to-wall carpeting.

That is what I used to get the water out. Just ran the Bissell without any soap/water in it. It did a great job. Probably emptied 5-6 buckets of water. Plan is to replace the carpet at some point in the future, but the wife got laid off a few weeks back so if we can dry it out and hold off on the replacement for now that would be good. Also trying to decide if paying our $1000 insurance deductible is worth it. I don't think carpeting just one room in the basement, maybe 15x12' and 5 stairs is going to be $1000...but who knows.

[Sijray21]

I think shampoo machines can suck up water, but I don't have much experience with wall-to-wall carpeting.

That is what I used to get the water out. Just ran the Bissell without any soap/water in it. It did a great job. Probably emptied 5-6 buckets of water. Plan is to replace the carpet at some point in the future, but the wife got laid off a few weeks back so if we can dry it out and hold off on the replacement for now that would be good. Also trying to decide if paying our $1000 insurance deductible is worth it. I don't think carpeting just one room in the basement, maybe 15x12' and 5 stairs is going to be $1000...but who knows.

I'd probably advise not to use your home insurance. With a few small claims you risk the insurance company dropping you and then you could be having issues with your mortgage company or pmi company if you have one. I just remember them saying I needed insurance covered at all times according to a part of the contract.

I'd save the insurance claim for something bigger, plus this may not be covered unless you opted for flood insurance which is typically not included around here.

[ViPER1313]

It’s clean water (and probably only 20gal or so) so not a huge deal. I think the dehumidifier / fans will be sufficient. No need to get insurance involved IMO.

[JPolen01]

Should I pull up the edges of the carpet and get the fan going underneath it to dry the pad? Or not worry about that and just leave the fans going. I don't really want to pull up the edges of the carpet and then worry about stretching it back into place.

[.RJ]

I would pull the carpet back.

[WRXtranceformed]

100% you need to pull the carpet back and dry out the padding. If you're lucky you can save it but I had to cut it out in our old house and have a company come and replace the padding / kick the carpet back again where it got wet from an AC drain pan that overflowed.

Having ripped out the carpet and padding for an ENTIRE house that got flooded (top to bottom) during my stint in home servicing, I can say you definitely don't want the mold risk of leaving that padding to dry on its own.

[JPolen01]

How do I go about stretching the carpet back? Can I rent a carpet stretcher?

Edit:

Just watched a couple youtube videos. Since it is a small area I feel pretty confident I can peel the carpet back and use a knee kicker to get it back in place.

[WRXtranceformed]

How do I go about stretching the carpet back? Can I rent a carpet stretcher?

Edit:

Just watched a couple youtube videos. Since it is a small area I feel pretty confident I can peel the carpet back and use a knee kicker to get it back in place.

Yeah if that's the case you should be totally fine with a knee kicker if you want to reinstall it DIY.  If I'm being honest, when I did it in my old townhouse I just kind of pushed it back against the tack strip and left it until I had the guy come and fix it before we sold it.  It was also a corner area, inside of a closet so nobody ever saw it.  Depending on where it is you might be fine just pushing it back onto the tack strip by hand.

[Evan]

Are you sure the water didnt get into the framing, drywall, or trim?
Id be worried about that over carpet