A new puzzle
Jim and I spent about $10,000 since August doing mandated repairs to the Cornell house getting it ready to sell to this particular new owner, a woman named Christine Beyerlein. I haven't met her yet, but because of the type of FHA loan she was getting, specific repairs were needed per official inspections or the deal would fall through. Most of it I don't begrudge. There was a LOT of 'deferred maintenance' to the roofs and electrical systems in particular that needed doing.
When I first went on the large flat roof of the 2 front units a few months ago, I was nearly in tears about how much debris was up there. I spent 4 hours raking, tossing tree branches, leaves and twigs, and blowing off debris on a Monday morning (a work day) so we could get thorough inspections for what repairs were needed. The back house has a pitched roof (except for the garage). Amazingly, we were able to get all but our $500 deductible covered to have the shingles replaces through insurance - prior hail damage. The wiley estimators for Roofing USA seem to do nearly all their work in getting insurance settlements for roof replacements. That process was a bit unsettling, since it felt a bit underhanded, but that is all done and an upgraded shingle roof was put on a month ago.
The front house flat roof repairs were made this past week, having been delayed by a couple of rainstorms, both of which required me to go on the roof and broom off massive amounts of standing water and ice. But that's done, too.
Soooo...the new puzzle.
A week ago, Danny and I started noticing a musty sewerish smell in our downstairs bathroom. We couldn't really trace the source of the smell, but thought maybe the wax ring on the downstairs toilet had failed and was letting sewer gasses up. The smell came and went a bit, but it was always there.
This morning, when I was getting coffee, he came upstairs to tell me he had started to trace the problem. He found a slight drip coming from an outlet in the downstairs bathroom wall--the outlet controls the overhead heat lamps. It's not a big leak, but enough that it IS a serious issue. Checking out the area that would be above it, the upstairs guest bathroom toilet is more or less overhead. He removed the switch plate, and indeed the cavity there is rank with sewer smell.
So now we're not going to use that toilet (which we use much more than the master bath or downstairs toilet) until we can get a plumber in.
We're expected $3000+ in repairs. It'll probably require tearing the downstairs ceiling out in several places, repairing or replacing plumbing/sewer lines, replacing the ceiling, texturizing it and painting it.
Danny wondered idly if we can file an insurance claim. Sigh.
In other news, we have a new Mr Coffee brewer, which works quite well.
When I first went on the large flat roof of the 2 front units a few months ago, I was nearly in tears about how much debris was up there. I spent 4 hours raking, tossing tree branches, leaves and twigs, and blowing off debris on a Monday morning (a work day) so we could get thorough inspections for what repairs were needed. The back house has a pitched roof (except for the garage). Amazingly, we were able to get all but our $500 deductible covered to have the shingles replaces through insurance - prior hail damage. The wiley estimators for Roofing USA seem to do nearly all their work in getting insurance settlements for roof replacements. That process was a bit unsettling, since it felt a bit underhanded, but that is all done and an upgraded shingle roof was put on a month ago.
The front house flat roof repairs were made this past week, having been delayed by a couple of rainstorms, both of which required me to go on the roof and broom off massive amounts of standing water and ice. But that's done, too.
Soooo...the new puzzle.
A week ago, Danny and I started noticing a musty sewerish smell in our downstairs bathroom. We couldn't really trace the source of the smell, but thought maybe the wax ring on the downstairs toilet had failed and was letting sewer gasses up. The smell came and went a bit, but it was always there.
This morning, when I was getting coffee, he came upstairs to tell me he had started to trace the problem. He found a slight drip coming from an outlet in the downstairs bathroom wall--the outlet controls the overhead heat lamps. It's not a big leak, but enough that it IS a serious issue. Checking out the area that would be above it, the upstairs guest bathroom toilet is more or less overhead. He removed the switch plate, and indeed the cavity there is rank with sewer smell.
So now we're not going to use that toilet (which we use much more than the master bath or downstairs toilet) until we can get a plumber in.
We're expected $3000+ in repairs. It'll probably require tearing the downstairs ceiling out in several places, repairing or replacing plumbing/sewer lines, replacing the ceiling, texturizing it and painting it.
Danny wondered idly if we can file an insurance claim. Sigh.
In other news, we have a new Mr Coffee brewer, which works quite well.