Generally, I really like owning a house. I like having a backyard. I like having a finished basement that includes a home office and home theater. I like having a huge master bedroom and master bathroom. I like having a formal dining room (altought saying that makes me feel like a bit of a sissy.) In the case of the current house, I like having a forest preserve behind the house. I’ve also taken to mowing the lawn. Its cheap forced exercise, if nothing else.
However, when things break they seem to be expensive, happen at inconvient times, and happen in groups.
A few weeks ago, shortly after Dinah was born, it was finally getting hot outside, so it was time to turn on the air conditioning. Actually, we probably could have held off a bit, but as new parents we decieded to err on the side of caution. After 4 hours of the house being sealed and the air conditioning running constantly, it wasn’t getting any cooler. In fact, it was actually getting warmer. Rather than sweat to death, we turned off the AC and opened the windows. The next day, Sarah called a repair man, and it turned out we had a leak somewhere in the system and we were out of freon. They guy filled it up with freon that had a dye in it so they could find the leak, and was to return a few weeks later.
Turns out there’s a leak in one of the coils, and we could just replace the coil, which is not cheap, or we could replace the air conditioner and the furnace, which is 5 times not cheap. The furnace and the air conditioner are ending their life cycle and they were the cheapest available when the house was built. We’re still trying to figure out what to do here. My father-in-law, who’s built two houses as well as does sheet metal work professionally, is in town for the week. He’s gonna take a look and help us deceide what to do. Either way, its not good.
Wednesday, after we learned about how much the air conditioning could cost us, we got hit with another bomb. Now, I’ll admit this one wasn’t house related, but its falling in the same catagory mentally for me.
In any case, as I drove to volleyball on Wednesday, it was warm out, so I opened up my sunroof and windows. When I got to the bar in Downers Grove, as I was rolling up the windows and locking down the car, I discovered I could not close the sunroof. I pressed the button repeatedly (so the car would know I was upset, of course) and nothing happend. I went into the bar to tell my teammates that I couldn’t stay, as I was uncomfortable leaving my sunroof wide open like that. Mark and Stephen came out to look at it again with me in a manly show of solidarity. I pressed the button to show them how it didn’t work and the sunroof moved half an inch and gave up. That’s when we deceided the motor might be shot. Mark and I managed to get the sunroof closed enough that I could stay and play.
The next morning I dropped my car off to get repaired. It seems something snapped or broke on the rails the window travels on, so the motor was working extra hard, and eventually burned out. They had to replace the whole sunroof module. So, boom, another $1200 for the week!
Yesterday, I was doing the laundry, and the dryer seemed to be running a lot longer then it should. Having had this happen before at my old townhouse, I cleaned out the vent that runs outside. I don’t know if it was clogged or not, but I did get a lot of lint out of there. In any case, I figured it up again, checked to see if the air flow was good, and then waited to see how things were going. After five minutes, I checked the close, and they were still cold. It looks like my dryer has lost the ability to create heat. I discovered this at 9:30 last night, so it must have given out after my first load. Anyway, I just let the clothes sit after running around the house swearing. It is just very disconcerting after the past week. It has the potential to be another pile of money sacrificed to the homeowning gods. The only amusement I’ve had with this is noting that we have the opposite problem that Chris and Melissa usually have. They generally have devices unable to make the cold, we now have one unable to make the hot.
Anyway, after that, I have been very discouraged on owning a home (and a car too, I guess.) Its just been a bad week in this area.
Betting is now open for what is next to break and its cost…..