Buying A House: C or D?

we didn't have a dryer at first, but we do laundry once a day and we only have one room where the drying rack can fit, and it takes up almost all the walkable space there when it's up.

dishwashers are not necessary---but I expect someone will chirp up the way I did to explain why they are. or probably this has already happened on some thread or another already.

Dishwashers use a lot less water and energy than washing manually.

There you go.

I never understand dryers. Why throw your money away when the air will do it for free.

Because our air is wet.

^^^this

Our A/C died last week. Granted it was over 20 years old, it had a good run, but sad face over swift dispersal of $7800.

And anyone who tries to tell me A/C is unnecessary has clearly never been to DC in the summer. There’s a reason it is known as The Swamp.

I found a good local repair person who told us in no uncertain terms NOT to replace our old appliances, because most new appliances have computers in them that are not repair-friendly.

With the old ones there might be an occasional need to replace a door latch or gasket or belt or something, but they can be coaxed back with ease. New ones tend to require programming fixes that are way more expensive and disruptive.

he is right

xp Have you considered draining it?

our oven has a touch screen to change temps (not a multitouch smartphone phancy thing, just a monochrome screen laid over physical buttons) and it keeps coming undone & we keep having to fasten it again. a temp dial would be much better.

I bought my microwave in the mid 80s and it's still working, except for the light inside, which is not easy to replace. It didn't have the built-in carousel feature so I have one of those plastic ones that you have to wind up but I rarely bother with that. The timer is all mechanical and there is no LED panel.

dryers can make a big difference in small spaces and humid climates when you have kids -- it can be hard to have laundry hanging around the house/apartment 4-5 days a week.

the allies won world war ii with nickn's microwave

My parents still have our first microwave from the 80s. It is huge and freakin' loud.

Why throw your money away when the air will do it for free.

a week and a half's worth of laundry is five bucks in a dryer or we could literally cover every surface in our entire house with wet cloth for four hours, hm let me think on this

it's fine to have, or not have, some of the common household appliances depending on one's preferences and living situation.

yeah, sorry; I got piqued because i did laundry today and it took four hours and a lot of lifting
i quit sending out my laundry when COVID happened out of safety concerns and it's now become one fo the real banes of my life

it's fine to have, or not have, some of the common household appliances depending on one's preferences and living situation.

BURN THE HERETIC

So, it looks like I am buying one after all...

We are finalizing the contract, mortgage application is underway and looking good etc.

BTW, home inspections are cool as fuck.

congrats! they are cool but be prepared to deal with a bunch of stuff that never came up in your inspection.

We had a to get a second home inspection, because we got into a huge fight with our first home inspector who refused to wear a mask.

hope you paid for the bee inspection. Would be a shame to move in only to find the house is full of bees.

it's just occurred to me that there must exist a ghost inspection service somewhere. for people who are worried about ghost infestations.

xp the foundation is mostly bees, but our guy said thats good for drainage

xp Don't the ghostbusters do that for one bit of the Successful Business Montage in the first film?

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MwFYQeWtDbE/UoK-OirBJJI/AAAAAAAAEXw/CVsrt2rMnyo/s1600/ghostbuster-logo.jpg

“performing paranormal inspections in addition to our usual home inspections gives our buyers added peace of mind knowing that they’re making the right choice with the most important purchase of their lives.”

there we go

BTW, home inspections are cool as fuck.

Not in my experience. They're not opening walls or doing anything that would actually detect real problems, so they will only notice the most obvious problems. Because of this, their reports have so many caveats and limitations as to be worthless. Someone who has made a career out of home inspections is someone who hasn't actually dealt with construction.

I would rather walk through the house with a really good contractor who you trust if you actually want to learn how the house is built.

I mean it doesn't take a genius to count how many layers of shingles a roof has and make a not if the number is more than two.

not = note

Best to hire an inspector inspection beforehand

The quality of home inspectors must vary widely, because ours was amazing. He spent hours going through the house with us, and it ended up being something like a crash course in home ownership and maintenance in addition to an inspection. We came away with a 30+ page pdf detailing everything that could be problematic and why, filled with photos and illustrations. It wasn't this guy who writes a very interesting column in the local paper, but it was his company: https://www.startribune.com/variety/homegarden/blogs/Reuben_Saltzman/
would recommend, A+

Ugh, there's a lot of stuff in that pdf I still need to get fixed. :/

My friend is a realtor, says that in his area there's 1 inspector who is awesome, many that are good, and a few that are horrible.

He spent hours going through the house with us, and it ended up being something like a crash course in home ownership and maintenance in addition to an inspection.

This was exactly the way we felt about ours. He was also the owner of his regional home inspection company and especially experienced. I mean, everything from spots in the attic that could us additional insulation, place that needed a vapor barrier, replacing laundry hoses, what little squiggly patterns on the concrete blocks meant, how water and drainage was being dealt with by the owner, get rid of the gutter screens, a railing was below code height, move the soil away from certain spots on the house to reduce termite risk, etc.

The people that bought my building (they turned out to be cool but it was extremely stressful), one of whom was an architect, had their friend who was a building inspector take them around. I could hear them as they moved through the bldg and courtyard. Somehow no one noticed the rotten walls from leaking showers, the wonky water heating system, where the back wall was literally collapsing into the 3rd floor kitchen, or several other things I could have told them about. They were extremely surprised when they started to reno the bathroom and found nothing behind the tile board because it was rotten all the way to the exterior bricks.

That sounds pretty thorough. Australian build inspections are a joke. On one place the guy missed a massive gaping crack on the wall of one place. I noticed it on the day before the auction, going back for a final look through.

Yeah, he also gave us all kinds of tips on what we should do at regular intervals, and he explained a lot of stuff to me like polarity of outlets and how the gas hvac system works (on the most basic level). I'm honestly psyched to re-read my home inspection report more thoroughly.

Haven't signed the contract yet though, waiting on final changes, so I prob shouldn't speak too soon.

Our home inspector wrote a book. We still refer to it!

Though to be honest, I kind of agree with PBKR that hiring a contractor might also be worth it, but I say that only as someone whose reno'ed house had tons of weird, easily fixable plumbing issues.

I did that with another house before making an offer because I had more concerns about it. I'm kind of past that point on this one, but I may do it if/after we close.

why did he want you to get rid of gutter screens?

He says they just get clogged and cause the problem they're supposed to solve. Better to just be mindful about cleaning the gutters.

Gutters screens never work ime

I have an oak sapling growing through one of mine right now

Ah

Gutter screens move the problem approximate 4 cm above the gutter.

lol

a friend had an offer in on a house, had the inspection include scoping the sewer line to ensure it was in good shape, and the line collapsed while they were scoping it

she felt bad, but they rescinded the offer because it was too much to deal with