For homeowners, what have you spent on home maintenance over the last couple of years and are there any major projects you’re are going to need in the next few? I’m talking about a roof, HVAC system, major appliance or other thing needed, not an improvement project because you want to.
Over the last 5 years I’ve replaced a dishwasher, a washing machine,
$500 repairing brick paver steps, $300 for a garage door opener, a $150 AC repair and a couple very minor things. The only thing that might need replacing in the next 5 to 10 years is my HVAC system and water heater.
Ive owned my house for 11 years. Ive replaced 2 acs, roof, wood floor, built a second master bed and bath upstairs, installed 20x24 covered patio, knocked down soke walls to open up the inside a bit. I have almost 100k into my house.
I talked to a realtor last week. She thinks i can ask 600 and it could go to 635k in a bidding war. There are buyers with 800k budget but nobody is selling. I owe just over 190k.
If you sell where will you move and how much will it cost? I’m guessing you will be downsizing and will be paying cash, which is another benefit of owning over renting.
In 2015, we replaced our roof and coolers, and had cooler enclosures built on the roof and had solar tubes installed in lavatories with no windows. Roof and coolers should be good until 2030 or later. House originally had half tile and half carpeting. In 2017, we had all the carpet pulled out and replaced with tile. Since the house was torn up anyway, I did a lot of drywall patching and wife and I repainted the entire interior. In 2021, had the water heaters replaced. In 2022, we had the house restuccoed. So far this year, had all the moving parts and much of the plumbing of the sprinkler system replaced,
I put a new roof and guttres on 5 years ago. I replaced all the windows about 8 years ago. This past year I put up cellular shades in my den (which are pretty useless now that I have a cat - can’t have him trying to climb them so they are up all the time). I also pulled the carpet in the den and tile in the kitchen and installed laminate flooring. I tore out a wood deck that was starting to rot and replaced it with concrete patio. I never understood a wood deck at ground level.
A project for next year is to create a spot to bring my laundry up from the basement. The easiest thing to do would be to put it in one of the spare bedrooms, but I am leaning towards a stackable combo and rework the master bedroom closet to accomodate it.
The first fall i lived in suburban atlanta in 2003 we had remnants of a hurricane blow through and that knocked down 13 trees on my property. I lived in Florida 24 years, never had oroperty damage from any hurricane.
@Wintermute - My house is on a very heavily wooded lot in Connecticut and in addition to contacting a tree specialist when I notice a problem I have my trees inspected once a year to make sure that there aren’t any problems that are not obvious to me. This proactive measure has prevented me from having a problem when there were hurricanes and wind storms.
We had a freak situation here a week or so ago. I guess several storms converged and we had straight line winds between 85 and100mph. A lot of very large trees came down. What is interesting is the number of trees that were sick or diseased. They didn’t LOOK sick…they looked pretty healthy. But I circled what we’ve seen in a lot of the trees that broke
That black and brown part isn’t good, but there was no way to tell. It’s kind of odd - the really health trees were the ones that got uprooted.
Still, I have a maple in my back yard and an oak in my front that are 75+ years old. I have my tree service thin them out periodically because I figure the insurance company will try to say “You should have maintained the tree” and reduce the amount of a settlement. This way I can show them the reciept and tell them that I DID maintain them.
2019- new appliances.
2020- addition, new siding, new roof, new windows, half rewire, 33’ above ground pool, pool deck, 10x53’ front deck.
2021-2022 nothing
2023- planning to reinsulate the attic and deck a catwalk. Also wanting to redo water lines and propane lines in crawl space. The addition was just dried in and i plan to finish it this fall. Wife also wants to repaint a few rooms in the house.
I hired out the siding, addition, and roof. I have done everything else.
We’ve replaced our double built in oven and dishwasher twice over 19 years, my wife has wanted to replace the refrigerator for the last 10 year, but it’s still running strong and looks good.
Ours was 16 years old and the ice maker quit working, and it was making a few funny noises.
We decided to replace it before it completely crapped out.
Fun thing, we can change the panels on it from stainless, to black glass, white glass, and blue stainless. I told my wife when she is out of town I am going to do a mix and match.
Our last one expired at 17, also with some water issues. Replaced it with an Electrolux, mostly based on size for the space allotted to it. Next time we’ll size down for a better design.
Its always something. The more you have, the more you have to take care of.
Interesting story:
We completed a kitchen remodel just a few weeks ago. We already had working appliances except for a dishwasher so we did get a new stainless one. We were also going to replace the refrig because it wasn’t stainless and wouldn’t match everything else.
While at the major local appliance store I explained to the sales guy we have a 20 year old Frigidaire that worked fine but it wasn’t stainless so we want to replace it.
He pulled me aside, looked around then said “you didn’t hear this from me and I shouldn’t be telling you this but hang on to that Frigidaire. The compressors in the newer ones of all brands aren’t built as well as what you have and will last half as long if you’re lucky.”
I came home cleaned out the condenser coils, replaced a few yellowing trim pieces and going strong.
After doing a kitchen remodel and talking to several appliance sales people they are saying on average we can expect modern appliances to last about 8 years.
