Home Improvement and terrible experiences thread

equus

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well i dont have anything super terrible. but two weeks ago i had a leak in our garage. initially i thought it was from our garage fridge and the fact that it had somehow had the freezer thaw but it had only tripped and been off for about an hour. upon further sparky/ heisenberg electrical analysis i discovered that i am no electrical expert. i found a leak into our basement mechanical room from our garage wall. i initially though condensation but i went over to the garage wall and found a leak.



felt the leak and it was hot "shower temp" water. i peeled back the sheetrock and followed the pipe up and somehow about 8 years back when our house was built, a framing nail went perfectly into the center of our copper pipe behind our kitchen bathroom wall.



so a trip to home depot and $40 worth of material later i fixed it and saved myself whatever the shit a plumber call on a saturday morning wouldve been.



the only other big pain in the ass was when our fan went out on our ac unit in the basement resulting in our outside unit turning into a giant fucking ice cube. that was only $140 to fix. i know there will be much more shit to fix in due time...

you?
 
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I've lived in 2 new homes in the last 5 years and in both of them the dishwasher was not installed correctly and flooding resulted. The first home the builder ran the washer without tightening all the connections, flooded the kitchen which led to ceiling in the basement needing to be replaced, which threatened our move-in date.

The second home, a shipping plug of some sort was left in place. The dishwasher was ran for awhile with some leaking occuring out of sight. We eventually noticed water staining on the ceiling in the basement and the hardwood floor in the kitchen started to warp. Had to fix both at my own expense.

cliffs: dishwashers suck.
 
Damnit, that sucks.

I got a Jacuzzi bathtub that started leaking, some of the boards inside the wall started trying to rot.

To Completely fix I'd have to pull the whole tub, so for now I just re-sealed it.
 
I've lived in 2 new homes in the last 5 years and in both of them the dishwasher was not installed correctly and flooding resulted. The first home the builder ran the washer without tightening all the connections, flooded the kitchen which led to ceiling in the basement needing to be replaced, which threatened our move-in date.

The second home, a shipping plug of some sort was left in place. The dishwasher was ran for awhile with some leaking occuring out of sight. We eventually noticed water staining on the ceiling in the basement and the hardwood floor in the kitchen started to warp. Had to fix both at my own expense.

cliffs: dishwashers suck.

i had a wife who hated the new dishwasher i had just installed, even though she knew it lacked a drying feature when we bought it, so she made me buy a new one and install it. not as shitty as yours but it did make me rage.
 
Bought a condo to specifically avoid dealing with homeowner situations. I have now become unreasonably lazy in regards to this stuff.
 
well thank god for pex, makes repairing a cinch, and I'd rather not solder if I didnt have to.

on a related issue, I think I may have a termite issue....
 
Laundry Room. Was a small hole in the water pipe. So everytime the washer was used the water would run down the wall under the flooring. Being a first time home owner and not a DOY'er paid someone to rip it up, fix the wall and floor and put down new flooring for $2000
 
i found a Grandy's cup from 1986 chilling inside our shower wall. Those bastards just set it there and tiled up the shower with some sort of garbage hobo time capsule in mind
 
That is one of my biggest fears in life.

Leaks behind walls....and being attacked by a shark.


My dishwasher started leaking a week after I had moved in to our new home.
It kind of ruined the feeling of getting a house a little.
 
Bought a condo to specifically avoid dealing with homeowner situations. I have now become unreasonably lazy in regards to this stuff.

we had one previously. and after realizing how much money we had lost and could have owned our own home about 3 years ago at the rate we had gone at, i wish we wouldve bought much sooner since both our incomes wouldve allowed for us to be owners. dumb for us.
 
Laundry Room. Was a small hole in the water pipe. So everytime the washer was used the water would run down the wall under the flooring. Being a first time home owner and not a DOY'er paid someone to rip it up, fix the wall and floor and put down new flooring for $2000

yeah, had i called the plumber, i was told it wouldve been around $300-500 for the fix since it was a sat morning. it literally took me 10 minutes after i turned the water off, cut the pipe and put the pex and shark bite in, and turned the water on.
 
The guy I bought the house from left me all his crap and garbage to deal with I guess he figured I wanted a broken couch and a 1960s broken TV
 
yeah, had i called the plumber, i was told it wouldve been around $300-500 for the fix since it was a sat morning. it literally took me 10 minutes after i turned the water off, cut the pipe and put the pex and shark bite in, and turned the water on.

It was my first few months of owning the home. Not the most handy person back then, even now somewhat, but I am more willing to do home improvement type things than I was 9 years ago.
 
I've been fairly lucky. I've had to replace appliances and we've done renovations, but I haven't had a major repair yet. I'll gladly pay someone to do a lot of the work. Not a big fan of spending my free time on projects unless it's over the winter.
 
we had one previously. and after realizing how much money we had lost and could have owned our own home about 3 years ago at the rate we had gone at, i wish we wouldve bought much sooner since both our incomes wouldve allowed for us to be owners. dumb for us.

For us, it ended up being the cheaper option once we factored in the homeowner costs for all of the things I had no intention of doing. But we looked for a long time before we found one that made sense financially, which meant walking distance from both of our jobs.
 
We had mold. Insurance does not cover mold.

We spent $12K to remove said mold and redo part of our basement.
 
Water heater leak that soaked about a third of my living room carpet. All due to a loose fitting.

Broken seal under the dishwasher resulted in a flooded hallway.

Compressor shit the bed and I had to stay with my parents for about 5 days while waiting on a new unit to be installed. It was in the middle of summer so no way I was toughing it out with a window unit.

I hate being a homeowner.
 
Left the lights on in my cellar and about 6 months later I found I had a spider infestation down there. Figured I could deal with that shit by turning the lights off, but then my basement flooded and killed my furnace. Had to wade through the floodwater (Full of dead spiders) and cobwebs to fix my sump pump. Shit was manly. Had to buy a new furnace though, and the guy told me my water heater's probably going to cop it sooner rather than later too
 
It was my first few months of owning the home. Not the most handy person back then, even now somewhat, but I am more willing to do home improvement type things than I was 9 years ago.

believe you me, im not exaggerating in terms of how easy this fix was. i turned off the water main. got a close quarters pipe cutter that went around the pipe above the nail hole. clamped it around the pipe (it locked into place). turned it about 5 times and it cut through clean. i then did the same thing about 3 feet south on the pipe and repeated. then measured the pex about 5 inches longer total and placed shark bite bits on the top and bottom and they lock into place with no adhesives and are self locking. then water back on.

i seriously stressed more over the thought than the act and time it took. i could have talked my 9 year old daughter through this if i had been trapped under a boulder in my wifes garage parking space. :D
 
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AC went out, cost $2,800 to fix, and our home was built in 2005. This has been the only "major" problem so far, and we bought the house in 2010.
 
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