Tonight we went to the house with our electrician and plumber, who happen to be Pete's dad and a friend from church, respectively. (It's not what you know, it's who!) We really wanted to know what we were dealing with in the mechanical department. We knew there were some plumbing issues, as evidenced by the massive flooding in the house, and we knew there are some electrical issues related to the flooding. However, everything is in fairly good working order. We'll need some new toilets (which we wanted anyway since we found a sweet model at Home Depot with separate flush settings for "liquids" and solids"...that's right, people, be jealous!) and a new water heater. We'll likely also redo the master shower, for cosmetic reasons as much as for plumbing reasons.
When we fired up the electrical, we were able to turn most of the lights on...until we smelled burning! Then we turned everything off real quick-like and isolated an outlet that had shorted out. Dad K. took care of that and we were back in business. There will be some repair work with the electrical, but nothing major.
We were very thankful that there were no budget busting-surprises tonight!
There were, however, a couple of other surprises. We have been infested by some sort of tiny black bugs....eeeeww, gross. I'm lobbying for extermination or a bug bomb since we didn't know (a) what they are, (b) where they came from, or (c) where they're hiding out. Super yucky!!
Also, a big pine tree fell down in the backyard. Major bummer!! The house is shielded from the street by several large pine trees, and this was the only one in the backyard. Shucks! Hopefully, his front yard brothers don't come down in the next 24 hours of gale-force winds. Those have the potential to do more damage. The backyard tree fell nicely into a wide-open space. We were really hoping to keep all of those trees, but we'll have to see.
We are set of close on the sale this Friday at 4:00 pm and are hoping to begin "official" work on Saturday! We're planning on this house being more treat than trick!!
Make sure Home Depot doesn't get the best of you with the dual flush toilet. You can convert any toilet into a dual flush for about 50 bucks, which pays for itself in about a year for a family of Four(Ask this old house is my reference).
ReplyDeleteGeorge
Good tip! The toilet is only $98 regular price, so we think it's a good value and we're watching for it to go on sale, but I didn't know you could do that. Keep the tips coming!! :D
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