Home maintenance projects in 2020
October 26, 2020
If you’d like to join me in helping Lakota families and/or rural libraries this year, please read this post. Over 6 weeks in 2019, we raised $2669.94 for the Lakota families, touching 27 lives. What can we do in 2020?
Current total: Lakota, $1,905.47; Rural libraries, $346.69.
NOTE: I started this post many months ago and added to it as I researched options but events 2020!! got the better of me.
Item 1: water heater
After a grueling weekend of social obligations that had my legs seizing up, I drew a bath for myself for the first time in 2 years. No joke. And by the time the tub was partly filled, the water was tepid. Disappointment.
Now that the furnace installation, oh luxurious furnace bringer of warmth and comfort inside, is well behind us, I’m looking ahead to another old appliance that we knew was on its last legs when we bought the place. To be honest, I was hoping it would crap out in the first year when we still had our warranty purchased by our agent.
Of course it chose not to oblige during the warranty period so I’m debating whether it makes sense to replace it before it dies or if we should just use it til the bottom falls out. I’ve skipped many a comforting and soothing bath because it’s just not warm enough for my bones but I sure would like a real bath.
Linda ventured into the world of the tankless heater a couple years ago, and our former neighbors were talking to us about them before we moved too.
My internal debate has gotten this far:
Tankless pros: smaller footprint, lower energy needs
Tankless cons: PG&E doesn’t give rebates for tankless water heater units, it won’t work during a power outage, it’s 3-4x as expensive as a traditional tank heater.
They did offer incentives for solar water heating which would work alongside conventional water heaters, but we live wreathed in fog most of the year so I’m a bit skeptical that this could work for us. They state: You might get a rebate of up to $4,366 and a 30 percent federal tax credit. We already missed the boat on the 30% federal tax credit, that expired Dec. 31, 2019, but it looks like there are lower tiers of tax credit through 2021 according to TurboTax.
I’m pondering if it makes sense to have solar alongside tankless, would that help us with the power outage non-availability of water? Though thoroughly inconvenient, I can deal with multiple days of power outages if we still have hot food and hot water. I’m not so sure of my equanimity without. I don’t want a solution that requires us to give up more room in the garage then we already do with the existing old style water heater though.
Does anyone have experience with replacing water heaters? Are you using solar, tankless, or conventional heaters?
Item 2: The Exterior
Our front and back yards are a travesty and not at all useable. We also have a TON of other exterior work to do:
– Bolt and brace
– Replacing dryrotted boards
– Replacing our gutters
– Fixing the drainage problems
– Painting
– Functional landscaping to remove and prevent the resprouting of the jungle that has sprouted after all my efforts at weed eradication last summer
PiC has a lot of aesthetic interior projects he had wanted to tackle this year in addition to the functional stuff, painting and putting up hanging hooks and suchlike, but it’s been too much of a year to get into it. I have zero interest in painting, myself. He did commit to some hanging hooks though.
We drew up a master list to figure out our priorities because we needed to budget for maintenance spending and still hold back some cash for the inevitable surprise something happening, but honestly, I have no clue what we will be able to get done this year considering we will need help for the bigger things. Getting a contractor / sub-contractor has proven to be nearly impossible.
I’m also not prepared to have PiC risk himself on a high ladder to do gutter work during this period where our city is again becoming a hotspot for COVID.
Item 3: The Interior
We had some big ticket items on the list.
The (used when we bought it) sofa was aging badly.
I love our bed but the mattress was at the end of its life for me (my pain issues are very affected by mattress quality) and we just don’t have enough real estate. I had lobbied for a king size bed when we had to replace this mattress but it wouldn’t have fit. With me the size I am, and with the back pain ramping up to a high screech, the need for more bed had my tiny voice squeaking I TOLD YOU SO.
We spent money on both bed and sofa at the same time which was a heck of a hit but well worth it. Not that the sofa has actually ARRIVED *glares at Joybird*.
I’m still thinking about how long we can get by with this washer and dryer. They each have issues but they still work so I’m hoping to push replacement well into next year. š¤š¼
We opted for a water heater with tank. The modern ones are less energy efficient than the tankless, but with a water heater blanket (or even by themselves) it’s really not by much. I wanted to have an automatic water storage in case of disaster, plus the lifetime of tank heater is longer than tankless and maintenance cost for fixes is less expensive too.
I hadn’t thought of the water heater blanket! I wonder if it makes up enough of a difference. All your reasons are why I’m still leaning toward the traditional tank water heater even though I really want to reclaim that space.
The costs are dramatically different, too. :/
We have an ancient (like… the 80s at a minimum) gas water heater that just will not die. It’s very efficient. I’ve looked at tankless but the time you have to run the water to get it hot definitely wasted a lot all the places we lived with tankless, and our house is just big enough it wouldn’t really work without under-sink models, which gets pricey quick.
Our (new!) washer almost refused to spin last night and I just about had a tantrum. We got new washer and dryer a year ago when the dryer went out and they were both elderly when we bought the house, so I splurged.
We also had the roof replaced last spring ($28,000!) but fortunately it took them 5 months to show up so we just saved up the cash.
I need to replace the bed soon.
Our house isn’t what I’d consider big (under 2000 sq feet) but I didn’t even know that under-sink models are a thing. Good to know. Oh goodness the fact that the spin on our washer stinks right now is bad enough. Refusing to is a whole other ballgame.
Good luck with the bed replacement!
How do we prioritize? Well the short answer is: we don’t. š We’re still figuring out how to handle alllll the work of being homeowners, plus we have very different perceptions of what is most urgent & important. Having Covid stress wipe out our spring and my car accident wipe out 2/3s of my summer definitely didn’t help either.
Sooo right now things get done either when it’s an obvious hair-on-fire emergency or when one of us is in the mood for tackling a particular task… regardless of how unimportant it is. Sigh. Maybe in ten years we’ll have a better system!
We’ve been pretty bad about prioritizing, too! We’re already nearly into November and we honestly only picked up the furniture because I was actively suffering from the old ones :/ Not the best way to do things, I agree. But we’ll only figure it out if we start trying?
And honestly anything that gets decided this year feels like a small miracle between COVID and then all the stuff we each have going on.
We did not actually replace our water heaters (they’re past their “due” date though, I think by like 2 years), but we decided when we were getting the whole house filter to go with tanks again next time. To be completely accurate, according to my blog note on the topic, we’d be replacing the garage one with a tanked water heater because we want to run the dishwasher and the clothes washer at the same time from it. But we could go either way on the one that just services the other two bathrooms. Something important in our research was what kind of hookup the tankless heater has– you have to put in a bunch more work if they don’t have a standard hookup.
We posted about little maintenance things today! The bigger stuff we generally put off until we have someone to hire… actually finding and calling someone and having them come out is usually our sticking point… or it gets really bad and we have to get it fixed right away. Thankfully that’s been mostly plumbing and we love our plumbing company.
Our heater is way past the expected lifespan so I’m just waiting for it to fall over. But yes, we definitely want to be able to run at least two things at once between the washing machine and the dishwasher and the showers.
Thanks for sharing about the hookup though. That’s something I didn’t know and extra work is definitely not something I am signing up for!
I replaced my roof and gutters this year. I bought my house in 2013 and the listing said it was a new roof in 2002. It wasn’t leaking but looked a bit rough and I thought I’d just have someone take a look – and it turns out it was a second layer roof in 2002, not a tear-off, and was WAY overdue for replacing. So I had it done and am glad I didn’t wait longer. About 1/3 of the underlayer had to be replaced since it was damaged/rotting, but as far as I can tell the house is okay.
Next up, but without specific plans: water heater and furnace. I’m kinda planning to go until they quit. The furnace is 30+ years old but the last time I had minor work done to it the tech said it looked fine and he’d keep it if it was his house. So.. I’ll probably have some period of cold/no water at some point in the future!
If/when I do a new water heater I’ll probably not do tankless because of the emergency water storage benefit. I looked briefly into under-sink boosters because it takes forever for warm water to get to the bathroom and kitchen sinks, but you need to get a beefier electric line and it just seemed too hard.
Argh, what a crappy surprise with your roof! I’m glad you got it done before it went on too long. Fingers crossed that your water heater doesn’t go out during the winter!
In a similar boat re water heater! Not sure but will probably just stick with the conventional option. Other priorities: the deck that is falling apart at one end, peeling windows out front … oh and the shed randomly caught fire last week. Waiting to hear about insurance.
Randomly caught fire?? What on earth! I hope everything was ok despite that.
Would you attempt a DIY of the deck?