Homeownership stinks! 4 1/2 days without water and no hurricane in site

jal

Member
UGH! last yr we went 4 days with-o water/power due to Sandy. Then yr before 8 days without due to another hurricane & we live in CT, haha....No hurricane this time, just a burnt out well pump. House built in '71. Bought the house in '99. 2 months to the day we moved in septic went, we put in a new, bigger one. Luckily, husband had been in excavation for 15+ yrs and we got away with it for a grand. Did the roof, again bartered with-someone in business and did it for about $1000. Upgraded our heating from electric to oil, when oil was still inexpensive and bartered the work while paying for boiler, etc. Upgraded our finished downstairs from electric heat to hot water baseboard last winter...

Come home this past Tue, no water at all in house. Have to laugh. Now we are almost 14 years to the day we moved in that another major thing goes. Just took a fine shower that morning. Figure its the well pump, probably 42 yrs. old. On Thur husband takes off early from work, meets plummer friend, buys $500 pump and they install. All great until 8 that night when pressure goes and water stops. husband makes contacts and plans on Friday. Come home from work on Friday and a friend in the excavation business had dropped off a machine for husband to dig with. TG!

Luckily, my parents live 2 min up the road so we can shower, laundry, etc. Plus they have a whole house generator if power is out so we can still get stuff done when there is no power.

husband starts digging this am, plummer friend comes @ 10:30am. Find leak, which was suspected @ well under ground, fix. Rehook, no pressure. They have to dig, and dig and dig. Ended up with a 20 foot long by 7 foot deep trench in our front yard! We live in a HIGH ground water table area. We have a pond (with fish; cat, sunny & bass) in our front yard. It is big enough to have several people ice skate on in the winter. Ground water flowing in the trench like a flood. UGH! Luckily, my parents had a submersible pump & we used it to pump out the water, just so the guys could work on the lines. Took 10 hours, but we are finally hooked back up with the most awesome pressure we could ask for...

Too much stress with this, this week. I had an opthalmic migraine yesterday at work. I've had one in my life a yr and a half ago...No symptoms ever since the first one, until yesterday while working in excel @ work and lost my vision and had the halo and colors for 1/2 an hour or so. difficult child isn't even on the stress radar...He is doing so well in school and aftercare...He's not even a problem at the momemt. Go figure, but awesome news. Just too much other coy...Oh how I want to use the S word:)
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
Holy cow!!! That's a lot of digging!

Glad it's repaired.

been there done that. Owning a house is a lot like owning a boat. It's a huge hole that you pour money into.

Soooo sorry about the migraine. You take Imitrex? I HATE migraines!! Feel better.
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
(((hugs)))

That is a nightmare and a half. I'm relying on prayer that my furnace keeps on keeping on. It's ancient............so ancient it doesn't take furnace filters type ancient. I can't afford to replace it.......afford heck, I couldn't begin to replace it.

I store water in vast amounts. Currently I have about 50 gallons on hand. I'm working on much more. It doesn't go to waste.........if I don't have to use it to drink before the time I should use it, then I can use it to water the garden. But last summer we had a major power outage hit part of the town........the part that works the water tower.........and large areas of town were without water for quite some time. Not me, thankfully. But it woke me up that I should have some water stored in case of emergency. Our stores were sold out within about 2 hrs.
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
Lisa... if your furnace is ancient then... it will probably run forever.
Ours is newer. Of course. I'm convinced that new stuff is designed to have a short life, on purpose.
 

jal

Member
InsaneCdn, no way - don't want to touch that weather. Hopefully, you got the furnace fixed in a very timely manner and if not, I am thinking of you. Luckily here, not even a frost line & we are in CT. We should be frozen right now.

Terry, the boat connation, exactly:) Never had a real migraine in my life. These happen without an onset of a headache. They are like a light show in your eye, a halo, with colors, shapes and flashing lights. It moves from left to right in one eye, for me anyway. First one ever was in my left eye, this one this week my right eye. I get the headache after, but yet I have only had two in a year and a half, so I'm not ready to try medications, yet.
 

jal

Member
Hound, I hear ya about your ancient furnace and hope it keeps up doing its job for you:) The older, the better. We were lucky too in the fact that we had bottled water left over from the hurricane. But it was slightly over 4 days and we started going for the pond water this am to flush.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
I was one of those poor schmucks who got taken by a miserable scam artist mobile home dealer. The week after they parked my completely paid for home on my land, the entire company went bankrupt and disappeared off the face of the earth! I assumed I was buying a home from a dealer who was buying my home from a reputable builder considering I was getting it custom built to my standards. Oh how wrong I was.

I had to call them back two times and thankfully they were still there within that first week because they hadnt come to get their wheels yet and one was because they hadnt hooked up my AC unit and the second time was because they had hooked up my water line to the ice maker in the fridge and left it running which soaked all the floors in the house because the water to the house was turned on! The fridge wasnt plugged in. It went everywhere. All they did was mop it up and supposedly put fans in there to dry everything out. I think that is why all my floors are buckling. They should have replaced the subflooring.

I was supposed to get a 3 ring binder with all the warranties on the house. I should have had a 1 year warranty on the flooring, a 1 year warranty on the AC, a 5 year warranty on the furnace, and a 10 year warranty on the roof. HAHAHA...let me prove that one. Number one I cant even prove when I bought the thing or who I bought it from. I cant prove they gave me warranties. I called Coleman about my furnace and they were astounded. That is when I found out about the warranty. I was told to send in my copy of the warranty and my heart sank. I had to tell them I never got one. I attempted to contact someone...anyone..to see if I could get help and the answer was no. I was simply taken.

I am going to write to some like either Ellen or the Kitchen Cousins or someone on HGTV and see if someone will take pity on me. I have tried to go through all the local programs to get help for low income and disabled people but if you dont know someone you wont even get on the list. There are people down here who have been on the list and gotten repairs 4 or 5 times. Meanwhile others never can get on the list. All depends on who you know.

My roof is awful. Everytime we have a bad storm, shingles fly off. I want to do it with tin. They wont fly off then. I dont want fancy. I dont need new furniture or all the bells and whistles. I just want something that works. I would like a deck that I can get up and down on easily and I would like a bathroom that would be easy for me to get in and out of. A kitchen that isnt falling apart would be nice and no carpet would be lovely. Other than that I would be thrilled. If someone would help me with that, I could afford to do the fence for the dog on my own.
 

witzend

Well-Known Member
Buckling separating floor in an 8 month old house and the builder wants to put stain in the 1/4 gaps between the hardwood planks so that no one will notice the problem anyone?

Yes, it should be under warranty, and yes he has some SERIOUS fixes to do on a girder under the house. And yes, he seems to not have any money for what should be about a $4,000 fix and we have to wonder if he's going out of business. He sure didn't seem to need to come out to supervise any work for the 3 weeks surrounding Christmas. Then he tells me that if I expect him to pay for the engineer that his "seller's realtor" told us to have come out to verify that the house wasn't falling down that he'd take it out of her next commission. Oh, I don't think so.
 

DDD

Well-Known Member
I agree, Hound, old sure seems to last a whole lot longer than new. I'm almost afraid to even say it (or type it) LOL but we have been pretty lucky with repairs. At home and at the store our AC units are over fifteen years old and when the repair guys get called the younger ones say "Oh, your unit is really old"...the older repair guys say "Oh you've got a good old unit." Our refrigerator/freezer is seventeen years old and we've only had two minor problems. on the other hand I bought new ss dishwasher less than five years ago and it not only doesn't do a great job washing/drying the dishes it takes 93 minutes to cycle. It's a name brand and it was not cheap. Guess what we are planning on replacing?? Yep, the new fancy dancy wife has got to go!

My unsolicited advice?? Start exploring repair people before you need repairs done and look for OLDER repairmen. I have been told (politely, of course) by two repair guys in their 30's "Ma'am these appliances are not meant to last more than five years." You've got to find OLD people who anticipate that big purchases will last a lifetime. I'm betting yours will. Hugs DDD
 

DDD

Well-Known Member
Geez, jal, I forgot to even send you a hug. I'm sorry you're having problems. My old brain got triggered by the new vs old and I forgot to be a friend and send you a hug. Sorry. DDD
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Isnt it horrible that we have become a society where they expect you to replace major items every 5 years? Absurd! In the house I grew up in we had the same fridge, dishwasher, AC unit etc that was put in when we built it. I would lay odds that the heater/ac unit is still going. We built that house when I was 10.

I have replaced my fridge 3 times since 2001, my dishwasher twice and it hasnt worked since 04, my HVAC once, washer/dryer at least 2 or 3 times each. Im not even going into lawn mowers. I cant get one that works. I know I have bought at least 6 and one riding mower. We now just get someone to come mow the grass.

We have only lived in this mobile home since 01.
 

jal

Member
Yes, Buddy. We were/are very lucky. husband was in excavation for 16 years, so he can operate machines and knows what he is doing when it comes to digging and grading, septic system installation, etc. It's really electrical work that he doesn't want to touch. Growing up he's also done roofing, flooring. He's quite handy, which is why I keep him around:) Just kidding. Luckily, our friend who is the plummer that worked with us gave us a good deal and only charged us $750 for his time and supplies. We bought the new pump at his cost of $500, so we got the job done for $1250. The man who loaned us the excavator didn't want a dime. Very lucky indeed.
 

jal

Member
Yes, Terry. We got up and running Saturday @ 5:30pm:) We had been out since Tuesday when we got home from work.
 
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