We finally joined the 21st century

Ever since we moved into this house.....the money pit.....we have had issue after issue. Ok maybe I am exaggerating. Maybe this true for all home owners. The difference between the story in The Money Pit and ours is that we never had money. Remember.....I'm a starving architect.....one step above the starving artist. 

Just a few of the things that have gone wrong in our house:

1) We have had a ghost electrician. Sometimes the power works in parts of the house and sometimes not. The bathroom receptacles will be working and then all of a sudden they stop. Months later they will begin working again. We have had several different professional electricians look at it but none have figured it out for very long. Worst time was when the power for the turkey roaster went out on Christmas Day and we had to postpone the meal.

2) To date we have somewhere around 15 or more water leaks in the house. Yep, we have the notorious "quest" pipes. Many have been small but some large. Once, we left the house with the kids here, before we had a cell phone. The water line came off in the attic above the master bedroom. It was like a garden hose for 10 or 15 minutes before the kids retrieved a neighbor to help turn the water off. To late. Entire master bedroom and furniture destroyed. Still haven't fixed it all the way. 

Another time we had the floor in the common bathroom getting hot. Couldn't figure out why the tile was so warm. I didn't have heated floors. It suddenly dawned on me when the floor was slightly wet that it was a leak in the hot water line. This is a story in itself that I will share another time but regardless it destroyed the hall floor, kitchen floor and into the living room. This fixed required us to sawcut the kitchen floor to replace the line. Oh yeah, throw in that this took place during the recession. No money!

We even had a leak in the driveway outside where we had to jack hammer up a piece of it to fix. Needless to say, when we first detect a leak, no matter what time of day or night, we jump up and scramble like we have been put on high alert. We have that routine down to a science.

3) So today's big fix was a new air conditioning. We have been putting band aids on the old system we have year after year. This year there was no repair. It was done. We have been living with a window unit in the back bedroom for the last several months. First, I don't think the old system was ever sized correctly so it never cooled off the entire downstairs. Upstairs was always been too warm in the summer. The kids have always complained. Now we nearly doubled the size of the unit and have lots of cool air. Finished last night......the temperature in the entire house.....70 degrees. YES! No we can actually enjoy the living room again.

Well the story of the money pit isn't over. I still need to FINISH the repairs to the kitchen that I started six months ago. The stove sits in the middle of the floor......not on "designed purpose". And that too will be another story.

Enjoy your cool air conditioned homes my friends.....I know we will today!

ET This I Believe

Eugene Thompson