Home Repair Mis-adventures

Home repair and four letter words.

Did you know that snow and procrastination are four letter words when it comes to home repair?  Procrastination first.  Procrastination is what happens when fear grips you and you aren’t able to make a decision to move forward.  This is a bad thing, especially during a year where our weather has gone from summer to winter within a 2 week period. 

Second, is snow.  Snow is another, but new, four letter word in our house this fall/winter.  The sad thing is that I LOVE snow!  Almost everything about it!  I love the look, the feel, the glistening sparkle, the fun you can have in it, the possible snow day from work or school because of it… I just love it.  It just isn’t ideal to try to complete outdoor home repairs in cold, snowy weather!  For snow to become a bad word in our household was monumental!  Maybe next year this word will go back to be the fun-loving one we treasure.

Have you ever needed to make a home repair that costs a good amount of money?  That time when you know you have something wrong, you’re not sure how wrong, but you know there’s a repair needed?  And then you start that repair and it snowballs into SO. MUCH. MORE!?  We’ve all had this happen to us at some level, I just happen to be living it currently.

Puddle jumping…

So I notice a puddle of water on my porch while it’s raining.  Hmmm… why is that there, that doesn’t seem right?  Right?  Water should not normally drip through the ceiling of your porch.  The roof must be leaking.  Phone call made.  Roofing guy shows up to inspect.

As I witness the inspection of our roof (now this is still late summer mind you), he looks around and says, “The shingles look fine.  There may be something wrong with the flashing around these crickets (part of the roof that meets up with the chimney), but it looks fine.”  Then he turns his attention to the chimneys, and says, “It looks like the caulk has failed around the siding and trim here and is letting in water.  Also, it looks like there’s damage to this siding up here.”… saying this as he pokes his finger toward the siding of our chimney, his hand literally just pushes right through the side and leaves a gaping hole!  Seriously!  I watched it!  “Well that’s not good,” he says, or at least that’s the version I still hear in my mind. (I can laugh about this now.)

So the chimneys, all leaking to some degree, need repair, we have 3! Do you realize how much chimney repairs cost?  I guess there’s an upcharge for having a job with the risk of falling from the top of a building, or something silly like that.

What to do with leaking chimneys?

Well, you have to fix them.  If we don’t, eventually they would leak onto our family room, bedroom and foyer ceilings.  Thank heavens they haven’t so far!!  For that blessing, I am truly grateful!

After making the decision to repair them, finding someone to call me back to assess the rest of the damage was a nightmare.  Evidently people who do roofing repairs typically don’t do chimney repairs. So who does that then?  After calling and waiting and calling again and waiting again, then calling someone else because the first person never called me back… and does NO ONE want work??  Seriously?

So after calling a 4th guy, (not kidding!) we finally have a quote.  Now begins winter.  Wait, it’s October.  Winter?  Snow?  Seriously?  What happened to fall?  Isn’t that a season in Illinois?  I’m trying to get my home repaired here!

Also, I realize that I am a fairly optimistic, but maybe slightly unrealistic person sometimes.  After making a commitment to hire someone for a repair, does not mean they will show up the next day to do said work.  Why not?  Oh… that’s right, an emergency on my part does not constitute one on their part.  Wow, I say that to my kids all the time!  Ouch!

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The saga continues…

But how long does it really take to repair a chimney?  Evidently forever! 

Week 1: workers show up, go up on roof, assess issues… and disappear.  Rain, cold weather (in October mind you). 

Week 2: Workers show up, all disappear but one, who works on 2 chimneys for about an hour, then says he will be back in a couple days.  More rain, snow, more cold weather. 

Week 3: Workers return, dismantle one chimney we’re decommissioning, repair roof where chimney is now missing, put siding up on 2 other chimneys but can’t finish because old chimney caps don’t fit new siding,  order new chimney caps, Thanksgiving. 

Week 4: More snow, violent wind rips current “make do” chimney cap and pipe off one chimney!  It’s now laying in my yard with a banged up vent (termination)cap.  Really?  Can we not catch a break here?  More waiting, cold weather. 

End of week 4: Guy comes to put new chimney caps on, can’t reuse bent cap that landed in yard, also can’t work on other chimney due to ice.  Come on God, let’s warm things up a bit, please! 

Week 5: Guy comes back and puts chimney cap (and all pieces) on 1st chimney, FINALLY!  One chimney done, but not the one we typically use.  Puts chimney cap on 2nd chimney, but not top termination cap, new one is the wrong size.? Slightly slick roof, guy falls off roof.  Um… 

Week 6: Nothing, oh, but now that it’s mid December it’s like 48 degrees outside, go figure!  Other chimney guy comes back and caulks siding on chimneys, yay! 

Week 7: Yes!  We will have a usable chimney by Christmas!!  Yay!!  Oh, wait, nope, just kidding!  Really?  Christmas passes, New Year’s approaching…

Week 8: New Year’s Eve day…

Week 9:  Guy comes back, tries to put newly ordered chimney cap on, but it doesn’t seat right.  We insist that he screws it on somehow, so that we can at least use this fireplace, while another is on order… again.  

Week 10-13: Nothing.  

Week 14:  Contractor tells us that no one can find a cap to fit the pipe we have, but it’s ok to leave it like it is…  It is now mid-February and we still have the wrong cap on our chimney.  I’m not sure this will ever get resolved properly.

**UPDATE: Week 21: (Basically spring now) New chimney company comes out to assess the problem. Week 22: Original contractor meets with us to tell us that the new company has informed him that this chimney cap IS in fact the correct one. It’s a little loose fitting, but it is the correct cap and will function properly. Wow. Finally seeing an end to this saga.

THE END!

I think there’s a lesson in home repair here to be learned and as I see it, there are 2 options.  1. Only do house projects during the summer, or 2. Make sure you haven’t prayed recently for God to grow you in the area of patience!