Ode to the Home Warranty

Always an adventure this homeownership thing is...
We got back from a lovely family bonding weekend in Maryland to an ice cold FRIGID house. When it's colder inside your house than outside, you know you've got problems...
We thought it was cause we turned the heat down really low over the weekend and it just needed a little while to heat up. Nope, ice cold radiators. Maybe they need to be bled again? Nope, clear water coming out. Down to the basement at now 11:30pm to investigate, pilot light was on, nothing funny looking except for a dead hairy spider...huh, what could it be? With no idea, the next morning I called the company with the home warranty that came with the house, ordered us a furnace visit for $55 and waited the next day while working from home (thank god for great bosses!), the guys come around 3-3:30 (after saying they'd be there between 10am-2pm, thank you very much I could have gone into the office!). The originator of the term "plumber's crack" investigated our furnace, which I was informed is properly called a "boiler" (so then what's the boiler called? "Hot water heater!" ah, the simplicity escaped me. perhaps we just call things different names up whar ah com frum.
What did he find? Can anybody guess?
A loose plug, well now we know where to look next time. Who knew that your "boiler" needs electricity to transmit the message from the open damper to the gas jets that all's clear? On the plus side, he said if we weren't with a warranty, this trip would have cost $75. sheesh! And at least we didn't give the gas company a free ride cause if the radiators are cold, the gas isn't releasing so even if we had it up to 70 to jump start it, there was nothing coming out. whew!
In addition, he passed along some exciting news that when the previous owners replaced the boiler in 2001, while they did choose the top of the line and it ought to last us the life of the mortgage, they should have lined the chimney and that if we didn't do it soon, it was just a matter of time before it collapsed. Joy joy joy... This news from a man who doesn't do chimneys....so it seems true. You know what though, even with all the things that have popped up over the past few months, all the extra stuff that's been what a friend of mine likes to refer to as the "delayed maintenance" of older homeowners--it's all been okay, some how we've had the funds to take care of it. So I'm going to just continue trusting in HJ's reiki list and working extra hours when possible! ha ha.
You'll be happy to know though that the "hot water heater" has been successfully retaped and is snuggly wrapped in it's little silver cocoon!

okay okay the roof...

It's kinda a big deal, I mean we had a little bit of leaking going on, which wasn't initially disclosed in the house inspection, nor was it told to us via the seller's disclosure--actually nothing was told to us via the seller's disclosure because it was the daughter of the owner who was acting as the power of attorney and even though she lived there her whole life, and was clearly living there not too long ago, well as POA you don't have to complete a disclosure, you can just plead ignorant. sigh. Sometimes it makes me wish we kept the $700 we found under the rug, but as HJ is quick to point out, while we could have easily put that money into the house, we did the right thing by telling her about it and sending it down.
So, this is what the roof used to look like before I attacked it with the "Great Stuff". I'll add that photo when I can. This picture also gives you a good sense of the "pre-manicured" lawn. So all the roof that you can see, that all got replaced and now we've got a 30 year guarantee on it. Although I've got to call the roofing company because one of the gutter junctions is leaking, which is annoying because that's not supposed to happen and it'll help keep our basement dry if they fix it.
Let's see, the reader's digest version of the roof story is this.
They showed up pre-8am on Thursday last week and it wasn't until around 10am or so that we figured out what their (there were two guys) first language was. I was so wrong. I had guessed Spanish or Italian, nope they were Ukranian. Good thing the one guy spoke pretty good English because it made it alot easier to ask him to also take care of our little squirrel issue. "I fix it. With metal." Excellent, so far so good, I haven't heard any more pitter-pattering...not that I've been hanging out on the third floor alot, but we need to--we both need to bring some more life and energy to the third floor. Maybe it'll be the focus of our next party... So HJ stayed home which was awesome because there was no way I could and I really like having one of us home when there's work happening. They took off all the old roofs Thursday, then laid the new roof on Friday and came back Saturday to install the gutters and fix some flashing.

So what else has been happening? Well, Azu and I tackled the pipes under the kitchen sink, you can see the kitchen here, or maybe you can't...seems I'm having some technical difficulties loading up the kitchen image... Anyways, there was a leak in the "S" part of the pipe so we replaced some parts. I turned some things backwards and Azu who had a different perspective on the situation kept reminding me of the righty tighty rule and that no, I was not going right, and yes I really did need to turn it the other way. We also cut a new base to the bottom of the cabinet that was nice and clean and didn't have a gigantic gaping hole to the nether regions of "who knows what might come in there" space between the kitchen floor and basement ceiling. Thankfully Azu was present for this aswell because while she wanted no part in the power tools section of this episode, she wisely pointed out that while yes indeed I did measure twice to cut once, that the pipes were not going to hop into my drawn out hole in the middle of the board. Not to mention the middle section of the cabinet that meets the doors, I mean how was I going to get a full size board in there? Cut it like a puzzle! So we did two pieces and after some final shaving down, they fit perfectly! No leaks, no holes to speak of besides for the pipes to come up, and clean surface for all our cleaning stuff!

Ah, next on the list will be retaping our insulation job on the water heater because contrary to what you might think, duct tape doesn't always stick. go figure. But that foil tape is pretty fantastic, and I'd never think it would do as good a job, but it beats duct tape hands down.
Then, considering the new cold wave that we're due for, we'll probably turn the focus on other ways to weather proof the house. There's quite a few windows with broken glass that we need to tape up and mark for replacement come spring. I've got some more "Great Stuff!" to fill the gaps in the windows, weather stripping for the windows and doors, and the plastic film to vaccuum pack your house with--we just need to borrow a hair dryer from somebody...

At some point there will be an expedition to the attic for anyone brave enough to join us where we'll explore the treasures under the floor boards, and bag up the stredded papers, etc left by previously mentioned squirrels. I am sorta excited to check out the floor boards up there though, I mean if we found $700 in cash under a rug, who's to say there's not more stashed up in a "safer" hiding spot?

Alright, that's it for this house update. Another day, another dollar, I've gotta get back to work.