Apartment Shopping

Little Kat is looking to relocate into the county of his college. He needs to do this for a chance to get into the program of his choosing at school. At first, I thought we would just have him rent a room from some friends of the family. That is proving harder than I thought. So now we are looking at renting him an apartment.

Luckily there are some apartment shopping aggregators out there. Trying to find a place with a washer/dryer inside the rental unit. Would be easier if the apartment provided high speed Internet. Just found out today that Little Kat would like a lot of counter space in the kitchen.

I am worried that we might choose a dud. So I am looking for an initial short term lease. That way Little Kat can bolt if need be. It would be nice if he did not live too far away as well. For now, me and Momoko scouted out a few apartment neighborhoods. Just today, Little Kat and I took a drive around those neighborhoods too.

Dryer Mix Up

Our dryer started having troubles recently. It makes a funny noise when you start it up. Sometimes it does not dry clothes in a single cycle. The lint catcher broke, so I ordered a replacement part from the manufacturer. It did not fit correctly, causing the door not to close easily. For all these problems and more, we decided to get a new dryer.

We had a gas line run to behind the dryer. So we went shopping for a gas dryer. Lowes only seemed to have electric ones. So we ordered an electric dryer. The thing turned out to be back ordered, causing them to miss two delivery dates. Third time was the charm. The dryer got delivered.

The delivery guys said they could not unhook the old dryer. It was gas. Lo and behold, they were right. I guess I forgot that we previously upgraded from electric to gas. That's okay. I got my handyman to come and switch out the dryer. Turns out the new electric dryer does not have power any more. We reclaimed the big dryer line to power our window A/C units upstairs.

My handyman recommended I just go buy a gas dryer. That is what we wanted anyway. So now I got to return this electric dryer, and find a new gas one that I like. The only consolation is that my handyman can hook the new one up as soon as I acquire it.

Niece Returns Home For Summer

 

Momoko's niece came out to live with us this summer. She stayed in Momoko's study. We previously purchased a guest bed for her to sleep on. It fit nicely in the room. There was an Amazon fire stick in the room. However the niece came down to the family room to watch shows on the big TV.

 

This week was the last one for the summer visit. Momoko and Kit Kat woke up before the crack of dawn, and drove the niece to the airport. They stayed with her until she checked in her bags and got to security. Luckily there were a lot of food choices for breakfast just on the other side of the security checkpoint.

 

Yesterday we packed the mattress and box springs into their original plastic bags for protection. Then we stored then in the utility room in the basement. Momoko got her study back. Her desk was moved back in there today. There was a slight disturbance as Little Kat built his new over-the-toilet shelf in the kids bathroom. All the supplies were temporarily placed in Momoko's study.

Roof Install Troubles

The guys came early to install our roof. They started ripping the old roof off around 6:30am. I think that is illegal in our jurisdiction. I did not stop them, as the weather would only get hotter during the day. I went out and watched them tear off the old shingles. There were two layers of roofing up there. They also pulled out all the plywood under the shingles. They said it was too thin.

They asked me to look around as they were finishing up. I had to climb up to the second story to see the back of the house. Had them do more work on some of the flashing. One of the flashing over the apron behind the chimney was the wrong color. They said the roofing company sent them that color.

The main problem was that the roof was not at a uniform height where the edge of it met the rain gutters. This was defective on both the second and first story roofs. Also, there was an indentation in the middle of the roof over the front door.

The project manager called and said he would call back with a schedule for somebody to come, inspect, and resolved my problems. Never heard back from the guys. That was a few weeks ago. I called their production department. Got promises of calls. Never got them. Time to escalate to management. I am not too worried. I am withholding the final payment of over $10k. Somebody will eventually notice that and get in touch with me.

Law of Surprise

The roofers came really early today. I was ready. They were tearing off the roof by 6:30am. I think by law they are supposed to wait until 7:00am. However since there is a heat wave, I figure they needed to start early.

Luckily I had pre-negotiated that any sheathing plywood would be covered by my roofing estimate. Normally they charge by the 4x8 sheet. It ranges from $50 to $100 a sheet installed. My contract stipulated that the price for any sheathing replacement was covered. Turns out they roofers decided every existing sheet needed to be replaced on my roof. That could have cost me $3000++ extra.

During the removal of the second layer of existing roof, somebody must have slipped and fell through the roof. It punched a whole in Kat Kat's bedroom ceiling. She was disturbed to say the least. The main roofer was apologetic. He came in and cleaned up the mess from the puncture. They he called a guy to come patch the ceiling.

They color matched the ceiling. But the color would not match exactly. It was close enough for us. I did have to run after the contractor because he took the wood/lumber that we used to cover up and brace the whole temporarily. They offered to give me extra plywood that they will be throwing out. No thank you. I just wanted to keep what I started with.

As an aside, I have made a lot of charges this month with the kids bathroom renovation, plus Momoko's niece coming out to visit for the summer. While I am not at my limit yet, paying the balance on the roofing job would push me over the limit. I was able to call up my bank and get them to give me an instant credit increase. Now I hope we should be good (still have a beach trip to pay for later this month).

Roof Delivery

The roof installers arrived really early this morning. I guess they prepared to be pulling up the old roof prior to 7am. I asked them to not remove the rain gutters. The delivery people had not brought the roofing material the prior day as planned. The installers put in a call with them.

The installers put down tarps everywhere. They asked even the car in the carport to be moved away. The took the grill and black trash enclosure away from the house in the back patio. Ladders were extended up to the roof. Things looked ready to go.

After a while, I heard the ladders being retracted. One truck left. They the last installer told me they would have to come back tomorrow as they had no idea where my roofing materials were. I later got a call from the company that the delivery truck broke down.

In the afternoon, a truck with a huge crane on the back appeared. They dropped of a lot of plywood in the driveway. They also put some ridge venting material on top of it. The real impressive part was that they lifted the shingles right onto the roof. A guy secured a safety harness to the roof as he pulled the shingles off the pallet hoisted by the crane.

Afterwards I parked four cars to box in our materials. Better to hide it and make theft difficult.

Bathroom Redesign

The kids previously had a pink bathroom with a tub. They only took showers in it. Water kept escaping from the tub onto the floor. Not good for the house. I decided to get the tub converted to a shower only. The kids then asked for more updates to their bathroom.

They chose their shower wall and bathroom floor tiles plus colored grout. They chose a square shower handle. They chose a floating vanity with matching sink. They chose a tall medicine cabinet and a modern LED light above it. They also got accessories in brushed nickel. Their shower door was a frosted glass which turned out to only have half of it which would open/move.

With Momoko's niece over for the summer, plus the redesigned bathroom, it was time to get our hot water problem resolved. The water would only remain hot for 10 minutes. Second person taking a shower usually got cold water. After trying a couple fixes, I decided to replace the hot water heater.

Initial estimate for a new 75-gallon gas hot water heater was $4.5k. Went through my handyman to get one installed for less than half of that. Unfortunately the top of the new expansion tank has water coming out of it slowly. Waiting for that to be repaired.