Home Renovations and a potential Money Pit
I own a house - I took ownership on Sept 14th. The house already had a new roof and all new windows, which is great, and a remodeled kitchen. It does, however, need new flooring throughout (even the aforementioned kitchen), a new interior paint job, and a new furnace (the current one being about 23 years old). I have budgeted about $23K for the work.
One of the prime attractions though was the size of the backyard and the huge gazebo with a natural gas fireplace and a hot tub! The backyard needed about $5K worth of cleanup since it was a proverbial jungle of weeds and shrubbery. Various animals have made their home there, include voles and a fairly ornery gopher I like to call Norman (gratz to anyone who gets THAT particular obscure reference). But the hot tub has a leak in the pipes that needs fixing...my hope is that it's a pipe at the pump and heater, else I am in trouble, since the rest of the pipes are inaccessible. Sigh. I don't think they can replace the hot tub as it would entail removing a gazebo wall. Double sigh. I can't imagine the cost involved. It would have to be in the 10s of thousands, for the new hot tub and the gazebo wall.
The gazebo has a trap door which, when opened, exposes the main pump/heater and associated pipes. THIS is where I hope to find the leak. First though is to clean up what else the trap door exposed. Namely, mice had made their home in the insulation surrounding the area, which means I have chewed up foam and some dead, dessicated mice. Fun, eh. I have to clean that up, reinsulate, and block access to more mice. THEN I can clean the tub (since it's filled with mice droppings amongst other dirt), then fill it. Hopefully, the leak is at the exposed pipes.
Now I know why I prefer buying a brand new house. It's actually less work :)
One of the prime attractions though was the size of the backyard and the huge gazebo with a natural gas fireplace and a hot tub! The backyard needed about $5K worth of cleanup since it was a proverbial jungle of weeds and shrubbery. Various animals have made their home there, include voles and a fairly ornery gopher I like to call Norman (gratz to anyone who gets THAT particular obscure reference). But the hot tub has a leak in the pipes that needs fixing...my hope is that it's a pipe at the pump and heater, else I am in trouble, since the rest of the pipes are inaccessible. Sigh. I don't think they can replace the hot tub as it would entail removing a gazebo wall. Double sigh. I can't imagine the cost involved. It would have to be in the 10s of thousands, for the new hot tub and the gazebo wall.
The gazebo has a trap door which, when opened, exposes the main pump/heater and associated pipes. THIS is where I hope to find the leak. First though is to clean up what else the trap door exposed. Namely, mice had made their home in the insulation surrounding the area, which means I have chewed up foam and some dead, dessicated mice. Fun, eh. I have to clean that up, reinsulate, and block access to more mice. THEN I can clean the tub (since it's filled with mice droppings amongst other dirt), then fill it. Hopefully, the leak is at the exposed pipes.
Now I know why I prefer buying a brand new house. It's actually less work :)
Comments
That's a lot of money, dude.
Is Norman from "Caddyshack" when Bill Murray was trying to kill the gopher?
Gross on the mice. Ugh. Gross. I don't know if I could handle hangin' in the hot tub knowing vermin had crawled in their and relieved themselves.
Just a thought...
I'm sure you'll enjoy the new hot tub, though.