biggerboat's building boondoggle blog
I started this in H&F but this seems a better place for it. These are my H&F posts. A bit long-winded but hopefully entertaining. I'm sure more hilarity will ensue.
I've been debating about doing this, and I sort of thought it might qualify as health and/or fitness so I'm gonna do it.
A little background. I have a very old house that I started to remodel about 10 years ago, then ran out of money and WIM to finish it. I gutted it completely and moved walls and did a lot of interior work. But I never did anything with the exterior.
It is sort of falling apart now. The roof leaks and a lot of the wood siding is so rotten I can stick my finger through it. It needs to be completely replaced.
I just paid the house off so I can sort of afford to completely re-side and re-roof it..............if I do it myself. Another factor is I just got out of a serious relationship and now I have way too much time on my hands. I'm going a little stir crazy.
Now to the health tie-in. The last few years I just haven't been able to do things like this. I used to be able to work sunrise to sundown. But lately I'd be good for about 2 or 3 hours and my back would just tell me to stop. However, due to this forum, my back is really feeling strong again. I think I'm up for the challenge. The other health aspect is mental. I don't feel good unless I have some sort of challenge like this. It gives me something to look forward to. I'm really needing something like this about now.
So, I think I'll sort of log this activity as well as lifting. I'll have to cut back on lifting/running some. Mostly due to time considerations. I'll be working on the house on Saturday/Sunday so no lifting/running on those days.
I haven't committed to this quite yet, but I think I'm close.
On the house front. I went to the city website to see what permits I'll need. It was so confusing that I called, got an answering machine, and never got a call back. So, I went down to city hall to ask some very basic questions. Apparently the appropriate question answerers are only there MWF but a substitute question answerer was available. So, after waiting 1/2 hour the substitute question answerer informed me that he couldn't really answer my question so he told me to come back when the real question answerer was there.
I suspect this will not be healthy in any way.
I tweaked my back Wednesday doing deadlifts.
The back pain has nothing on the pain the city is inflicting on me, though.
Went back to talk to someone again. I at least got the right day. The girl was really friendly and helpful. However, she seemed to not really know what all I was supposed to do. Which, as you will see, nobody could.
The first thing she did was pull up my address.
Apparently, there were 3 expired permits associated with my house. About 10 (or more) years ago, I did a big remodel. I did it mostly myself. The first permit was for an interior remodel. I had to get electrical, plumbing, framing and probably more permits. I remember having each one signed off on. However, apparently there was a final inspection that I never got. This is just conjecture based on what she said and my hazy memory. The second was for a garage. I hired a contractor to pour the slab and I framed and finished it. Apparently the slab inspection failed but the framing inspection passed. I'm not sure how this happens. I really don't recall any of this. The third one was for a bedroom addition. I never did this. I do not recall even applying for this. But, it is there. More on this later.
So I asked a lot of questions and the girl was very polite when she had to repeatedly excuse herself to ask someone else that knew the answers. From what I gathered I can do most of the work on something they call an express permit. However, if I want add a small porch roof I will need site drawings, impervious cover documents, elevation drawings, detailed framing plans and flood plain people approval. At minimum.
Back to the old permits. The girl indicated that I could fill out a form to remove the permit for the addition since I never did it. She then sent me to someone named Tony on another floor to figure out what to do with the other ones. Tony, it seems, did not have his coffee this morning. Either that or he was just an *******. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. He told me they couldn't do anything about any of them since he had no idea if I even did any work or not. Which is problematic since I can't get any new permits with these on their computer. After much discussion he agreed to go back downstairs and talk to the friendly girl. Tony then came up and informed me that I needed a Life Safety for Expired Permit permit. He informed me that I needed to go back where I started (the line that I waited over an hour in) to start this process.
So, I go back to the window and explain to them what Tony said. They seemed a bit confused on exactly what a Life Safety for Expired Permit permit was. So, they suggested that what I really need to do is re-submit all three permits and get inspections on the work I did over 10 years ago. Even if I didn't do the work. They then put my name in the computer to talk to someone. However, the number of people waiting had swelled considerably and I had already been there 2 1/2 hours so I think I'll tackle this another day.
The hits just keep coming.
We bought my wife's car several weeks ago, in the middle of all the chaos. We got her a Honda Accord.
But we left without the paperwork so we called and asked them to send it to us. It took over a week to get it and all we got was the loan agreement.
The loan amount was $14,000 MORE than the price of the car. Something is really wrong. They sent us no other paperwork.
They have to know this is a mistake. There aren't any accords anywhere for sale even close to the
So, my wife went to the dealership. They completely stonewalled her. They refused to give her any of the paperwork other than the final loan agreement. They just kept telling her, it all looks good. Then I called and they guy also said it all looks good. I told him we didn't get any of the paperwork and he said he would have to ask if he could email it to me. Haven't heard anything since.
The guy on the phone mentioned a couple of the add-ons that he said were on it. The two he mentioned we SPECIFIALLY refused. I remember being asked and we said no.
Something smells rotten with this one. This is almost 50% higher than the price we agreed on.
I've sent a google review on it and emailed the honda corporate office. We have a local news person that looks into stuff like this that I'll email. We will also be hiring an attorney.
I just checked the loan agreement on the truck I bought a few days after from Chevrolet. The amount of the loan is EXACTLY what we agreed on. Not a single add-on.
I'm just boiling on this one.
We continue to battle the car dealership. They refuse to tell us why there is such a huge difference between the agreed upon price, and the loan amount. They continue to refuse to give us any supporting documentation.
I've filed a complaint with BBB and the attorney general.
We continue to battle the car dealership. They refuse to tell us why there is such a huge difference between the agreed upon price, and the loan amount. They continue to refuse to give us any supporting documentation.
I've filed a complaint with BBB and the attorney general.
We finally got someone at the Honda dealership to contact us. My guess was the 1 star rating we gave them on google (more on this later).
It turns out they did overcharge us and admitted to it. They blamed it on a "clerical error." We spent quite a bit of time with the sales manager and the end result was they corrected the "clerical error" and agreed to reimburse us for the difference. Nothing more.
The sales manager then requested we change the google review rating to 5 stars. I told him that I would post the follow-up that they corrected things but there was no way this was a 5 star experience.
He then called back again several minutes later and asked if we could find it in our hearts to give him a 5 star rating. I told him once again that it was anything but a 5 star experience and the only thing he did was correct what they did wrong and it took several days of refusing to do anything before they did. I also told him about my experience with the chevy dealership when I bought my truck and told him THAT was a 5 star experience. He continued to try to get me to change the rating to 5 stars.
I did not and I explained in my review why.
Finally got the guest bathroom cabinets in correctly. We had them in but they weren't straight and flush with each other. We were so exhausted when we finally got the countertop on that I wasn't inclined to spend any more time trying to fix it.
We lifted the countertop again and got things fixed. Looks fine now. Whew, that was really hard.
We finally got out on the boat for a booze cruise. We putted around our neighborhood. What a mess. Almost every dock facing the bay is damaged, many completely destroyed. Quite a few seawalls destroyed. Boats in people's backyards.
Holy crap, I imagine fixing the seawall in the second picture is going to be quite a chore.
If the Honda dealer asked me to change my review after this debacle, pretty sure I wouldn't have been so calm. Quite certain the phrase, "****ing kidding me?' would've been said.
Amazing to me it apparently didn't occur to them to offer anything for your hassles--even a couple oil changes or something would've went a long way. Guess you're never buying from them again.
i would have told him it will cost him many sales and if for your profit on one car i will. which by the way is 15% plus.
but thats what you get for financing anything from a dealer.
And, you know what Ray. If the sum total of comments to me after going through what I've gone through is I deserve something bad because I had to make a decision under these sorts of circumstances, then I would just as soon you not say anything here. Thank you very much.
We have another hurricane heading our way. Unbelievable.
I remember very few November hurricanes
It's a new world out there
As of right now, they have it as a cat 1 pretty far west of us. If the forecast is correct we'll be ok.
We have bamboo on one side of our house. It formed a really good barrier but there was quite a bit of dead stuff. Milton knocked one really big clump of it over so I decided to clean it up. I had no idea how hard that was going to be. It took me 2 days just to remove the dead stuff.
I hate it now. We went from almost total privacy to a somewhat see-through barrier. My wife and the neighbors hate the bamboo to begin with so nobody is really happy.
Here's the resulting pile.
the idea was that dealers are the least trustworthy in a transaction.
good bye.
My apologies for the early morning rant......
**** just never stops coming at you when you go through this. I've talked to my neighbors a lot about the fact that you just cannot truly understand what you go through unless you actually go through it.
Today I got my property tax bill. I think I mentioned it but I had to jump through hoops to get a homestead exemption. I have the email saying it was approved. However, they didn't apply it. So I have to go deal with this on top of everything else.
I also found out that literally everything we are working on needs a permit, which I haven't even tried to deal with. Sheetrock repair needs a permit. Replacing cabinets needs a permit. Really, anything you do to fix your house needs a permit. I'm sure there will be a day of reckoning with this and it hangs over our heads, but we move on.
They are nowhere near picking up the massive trash pile in our front yard. They are working their way towards us but at a snail's pace. Might be months. Some people are getting dumpsters but I'm guessing we probably need 5 40yrd dumpsters at about $500 a clip, not counting that I have to lift everything into the dumpster. Probably not happening right now.
I ordered tile from home depot. I got an email saying they couldn't deliver it because I wasn't here. Only I have been. They simply haven't shown up. Their phone system is beyond horrible. It took almost 20 minutes of pushing buttons before I could talk to someone. The person said they hadn't left the store yet. But I need to wait around hoping they show up in the window they gave me - 6 AM to 8 PM. Really?
My wife and I have worked from sunup to sundown every day, except for our NY vacation. Although we have made significant progress, you just look around and see 100 more things that have to be done. It wears on you.
Plus, I'm physically exhausted to the point of feeling sick all the time. My hands are in constant pain and I can barely use them. I have shooting pain coming down my arm. I wake up so many times during the night from some sort of physical pain.
OK, I'm done ranting.
OK, one more little rant.
Called Home Depot to try to fix the delivery. Their automated phone system is mind-boggling bad. I mean, even for your typical automated phone system. They kept telling me to punch numbers and I did and nothing happened. They requested I talk and I did and nothing happened. Then they hung up on me.
I kept trying and about 20 minutes later got a human. She said they tried to deliver to my house (they absolutely did not) so they took it back. Then she looked up the home depot near me and my address and told me it was only 20 minutes away and they were on their way. She lied. This, I found out later, wasn't even close to the truth.
3 hours later I called again and they sent me to the store. Fortunately, someone answered that really tried to help me. She took a while but she found out that the order hadn't even been picked so there was no possible way they tried to deliver. My, oh my.
How does stuff like this happen?
Anyway, rescheduled the delivery. Fingers crossed.
Re: filling the dumpster. Some of them have swinging doors on one end to help loading. Maybe you an find one of those to make it a little easier.
GL.
Property appraiser got everything fixed (I think). They will be sending me a new reduced bill. That's a biggie for me.
I don't really have anything to say that will be helpful except I've been following along and everything just really sucks.
I think you're doing a tremendous job. I don't even know what I would do in your shoes, maybe just move and go broke? I really don't know. Even given how much progress you've made I don't think I could handle it lol.
I guess it will eventually all get figured out. I hope you get some breaks in the meantime, and not constant incompetence (not to mention fraud) from services you're paying for.
I don't really have anything to say that will be helpful except I've been following along and everything just really sucks.
I think you're doing a tremendous job. I don't even know what I would do in your shoes, maybe just move and go broke? I really don't know. Even given how much progress you've made I don't think I could handle it lol.
I guess it will eventually all get figured out. I hope you get some breaks in the meantime, and not constant incompetence (not to mention fraud) from services yo
Thanks. Lots happened since my last update. I had to take a break from the trolls. I'm not sure why people choose to dump on someone going through something like this. But, I mean, just look at our last election. Humanity is taking a turn for the worse.
/rant
OK, one more little rant.
Called Home Depot to try to fix the delivery. Their automated phone system is mind-boggling bad. I mean, even for your typical automated phone system. They kept telling me to punch numbers and I did and nothing happened. They requested I talk and I did and nothing happened. Then they hung up on me.
I kept trying and about 20 minutes later got a human. She said they tried to deliver to my house (they absolutely did not) so they took it back. Then she looked up the
So.....
The delivery did get rescheduled. They sent me an email for the delivery window. But, it was getting towards the end of the window and my tile guy was coming the next day so I thought I would call.
The guy on the phone told me it was on the way. Strangely, almost immediately after I hung up the phone, I got an email saying it was on the way. Then, five minutes later I got another email saying it couldn't be delivered because I wasn't home. Only I was.
So, i go down to the store and talk to the manager. Yet again, the order never even got on a truck. She didn't really apologize, but just said it was really busy there.
Anyway, I told them to just put it in the back of my truck and I would take it. Took two trips because it was way too heavy to load in one.
Got the tile, got the tile guy. Tile is in and it looks great.
Our mountain of debris is gone!
I finally got tired of waiting on the city and hired a couple guys to haul it off. Took three trailer loads.
And of course the city truck showed up on our street when the guys i hired were loading the last load.
Oh well, they cleaned everything up really well, which the city wouldn't do. There's really no guarantee what they decide to pick up.
So I'm glad I had it done.
My plan for the kitchen was to try to save the granite countertops. I called around for someone to do it and it actually costs more in labor for them to remove the old ones and then put them back than it is to just order new ones.
So, I figured I would try to pull them up myself. I figured if I break one, then we'll just get new countertops.
We're getting new countertops.
Another storm heading our way. It looks like it might not get too big and maybe go north of us. But, I gotta say, after going through what we've gone through it changes how you think whenever a storm is developing.
I bought a bunch of flashing tape, caulk, and tarps in preparation.
