So the flat porch over my kitchen had been leaking on and off since we bought the house, which is part of I got a pretty good deal on it in the first place. When I finally got it repaired in August of 2012 the roofing contractor told me that it was going to be a difficult fix. Siding was taken down, rotted plywood was torn out, the doorway to the ( Read more... )

My house has a really tiny laundry chute. It's perhaps four inches deep and a foot wide.It's sufficiently tiny that I only drop white laundry (e.g. socks and underwear) down it, and then only one at a time.

Unsurprisingly, things occasionally get stuck in it. Originally I'd clear the chute by throwing down a bottle of Tick Shampoo, but after many ( Read more... )

My furnace (EDIT: technically a boiler) no longer leaks copious amounts of water on to the floor. Of course, this took the transfer of a not inconsiderable amount of cash to the HVAC company. That's not a problem because I got the estimates to install air conditioning in my ventless house, and those estimates were some 70% larger than my " ( Read more... )

So when I woke up on Friday morning I used the upstairs bathroom and then took Tulip for her morning constitutional. When we returned 45 minutes later, I found that water was pouring out of the built-in fire alarm in the kitchen ceiling. Dashing upstairs, I found that the part of the toilet that says "ok, the tank is full, the water can turn off ( Read more... )

Originally I was going to do one every month, but it's March and that hasn't happened. So I'll post them here so I can feel extra guilty about not doing them in the future ( Read more... )

I am not a handy guy. I have little knowledge of plumbing and less knowledge of electrical work. I'm certainly never going to hang up dry wall, and the mere idea of remodeling a bathroom as two of my coworker have been doing recently makes me break out in a cold sweat. As a result, I typically call repairmen when I need work like that done. ( Read more... )

A list of major improvement/repairs on our domicile since purchasing.

Fall 2007 - Automatic Garage Doors put in
12/26/2008 - insulated attic
5/27/2009 - replaced dishwasher and built-in microwave
late October 2009 - replaced refrigerator
4/15/2011 - new hot water heater, new kitchen faucet

Because that's where I'm likely to be in a few weeks, given the water that is leaking slowly but surely out of our hot water heater. Fortunately, it's still working so I have the chance to actually schedule an appointment and not pay emergency rates or live without it even temporarily. (Of course, having typed that it will now explode or something ( Read more... )

There are lots of great ways to spend your Sunday morning. Here is one I do not recommend ( Read more... )

But two years after our dishwasher broke, we have a new one, as well as a new microwave to replace the one that died a few months ago.