Tiger Board Logo

Donor's Den General Leaderboards TNET coins™ POTD Hall of Fame Map FAQ
GIVE AN AWARD
Use your TNET coins™ to grant this post a special award!

W
50
Big Brain
90
Love it!
100
Cheers
100
Helpful
100
Made Me Smile
100
Great Idea!
150
Mind Blown
150
Caring
200
Flammable
200
Hear ye, hear ye
200
Bravo
250
Nom Nom Nom
250
Take My Coins
500
Ooo, Shiny!
700
Treasured Post!
1000

YOUR BALANCE
2 hours of sleep
storage This topic has been archived - replies are not allowed.
Archives - General Boards Archive
add New Topic
Replies: 27
| visibility 671

2 hours of sleep


Nov 15, 2018, 6:08 AM

Basement flooded/actively flooding due to the huge amount of rain and ###### building of house/supposed to have 2 interviews today for a new job.

Sucks

flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

Good luck


Nov 15, 2018, 7:19 AM

Hope the adrenaline from dealing with flooding carries you through the interviews (mother nature works in mysterious ways ;) )

2024 white level memberbadge-donor-10yr.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

The road goes on forever and the party never ends...


Well at least you can demonstrate your answer to


Nov 15, 2018, 7:36 AM

“What is your biggest strength?”

“Being able to perform with only 2 hours of sleep.”


Good luck

“Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.” Or something like that.

2024 orange level memberbadge-donor-15yr.jpgringofhonor-cu85tiger.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

“Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
Isaac Asimov


First thing we did when we moved in was french drains


Nov 15, 2018, 8:41 AM

800 feet of them. 16 tons of gravel. Problem solved.

Our builder sucked too. But nothing you can't fix. Our problem was a damp (mudpit) crawlspace.

Probably should add a dehumidifier some day because there's still some moisture from condensation on the ductwork. But the ground is dry and hard as a rock now. Wood moisture in the middle of summer, when worst, is around 17-18%. Never higher than 18%. Around 14-15% in the winter.


Message was edited by: Tiggity®

2024 orange level memberbadge-donor-15yr.jpgringofhonor-tiggity-110.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up


Serious question, how much does something like


Nov 15, 2018, 8:45 AM

that cost?

badge-donor-05yr.jpgringofhonor-aero.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

Usually about tree fiddy***


Nov 15, 2018, 8:50 AM



2024 purple level memberbadge-donor-05yr.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up


I'd have better replies is Scottish drains were a thing.***


Nov 15, 2018, 8:52 AM



badge-donor-05yr.jpgringofhonor-aero.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

Ours was around $1800.00 but we needed a sump pump too***


Nov 15, 2018, 8:51 AM [ in reply to Serious question, how much does something like ]



flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

11K. Now that was after several bids ranging from 11K to


Nov 15, 2018, 9:00 AM [ in reply to Serious question, how much does something like ]

16K. I got VERY lucky and got an awesome guy who was actually the lowest bid. He also actually recommended doing more than the other bidders too. I tend to shy away from the lowest bids usually, but his recommendations were great, unlike others who came in higher. Our house is on a hill and the builder didn't grade it very well. The problem was a muddy crawlspace that stayed muddy and wet always. Main goal was to divert all water running downhill through the front yard towards the house and into the crawlspace AWAY, and to ultimately dry out the crawlspace...

Here's what he did...

Installed a large drain at the bottom of the driveway to catch the river of water that channels into one corner of the driveway and was flooding the yard and causing erosion. Then that drain dumped into a french drain he ran all the way down behind the house to the creek.

Installed two drains in the front yard, one on the sidewalk where water pooled, and another in a spot in the yard where water pooled. Connected those two drains and ran them down to the creek behind the house.

In the crawlspace, he dug down 2 feet around all the exterior walls, and installed a cross-drain as well, and then went under the foundation and ran that french drain all the way to the creek as well.

He used high quality drains covered in a felt material to keep trash out. Also lined ALL the trenches with gravel to help capture water. Ended up using 16 tons of gravel. Ended up using like 790 feet of french drains. There are three lines that dump at the base of the hill near the creek at the back of our property.

Had to dig the trenches under the house by hand and hauled probably 8 tons of gravel under there. HARD work. End result is no more wet crawlspace, no more water standing on the front sidewalk or in the yard, and no more erosion at the bottom of the driveway.

Oh, forgot. He also added 4 inches to the berm between our yard and our neighbor's yard. Then graded that to dump into the wooded bed in the back yard. That diverted most of the water from the neighbor's yard that was running into our yard and driveway.

He repaired the 13 water lines he broke with the trencher, and also resodded everything with 2 pallets of sod upon completion.

After seeing what he did, and the results, I had absolutely zero problem with the cost.

2024 orange level memberbadge-donor-15yr.jpgringofhonor-tiggity-110.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up


Yep, that is a lot. I think I'd have jut had to burn the


Nov 15, 2018, 9:04 AM

house down or something.

badge-donor-05yr.jpgringofhonor-aero.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

Thought about suing the builder. They had a vapor barrier


Nov 15, 2018, 9:16 AM

under the house and that was it. Under it was a mudpit. They could have graded the lot better and there would be no problem. ANYWAY, they had a clause in the contract. We knew about it, but our last house had a vapor barrier and moisture and there was no problem. But this was a LOT more water. Wood moisture levels were getting too high and we were worried about mold.

I do credit the builder with doing one thing proactive....they sprayed the entire wood flooring and supports in the roof of the crawlspace with a mold-resistant paint. Mold has not been an issue despite plenty of moisture in the past that could have made it a huge problem. They didn't have a mold clause in the contract (lol).

Several houses are on the same hill and all of them had similar problems. EVERY neighbor has had to do something about drainage and moisture under the houses. One neighbor just poured concrete in their crawlspace. Fixed the problem. THEN they lost their termite bond because there was no access to the ground under the house anymore.

We thought about encapsulation. Basically they seal the whole crawlspace off, add a few open vents from the AC system, and that solves the problem. I didn't like that option because I just didn't like the idea of knowing water was still under there and worried over years it could damage the foundation, etc. Encapsulation would have been over 20K btw.

2024 orange level memberbadge-donor-15yr.jpgringofhonor-tiggity-110.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up


Here's the beauty of having to do work like this too...


Nov 15, 2018, 9:30 AM [ in reply to Serious question, how much does something like ]

It adds absolutely no value to your home. Unless your yard was just a total dumpster fire and it cleaned it up some. Even then, it adds very little value.

2024 white level memberbadge-donor-15yr.jpgringofhonor-lakebum1-110.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

I disagree totally. If I didn't do this work....


Nov 15, 2018, 9:46 AM

I would have a bad mold problem, rotting wood in my subflooring, probably termites, and a horrible smell in the house. If I tried to sell the house without doing this work, I'd lose $50k or more easily. Not to mention it would cost $50K for a buyer to fix the problems caused by NOT fixing it, and then they'd still have to pay the 11K to fix it.

Remember, the "value" of your home is what someone is willing to spend to buy it. Period. It doesn't matter about what other homes sell for as much as how well you maintain YOUR home. This is yet another thing I learned to do differently than my parents. My parents NEVER spent money on their home. They spent tons of money over the years traveling and on vacations, over-priced German cars, and jewelry, etc. and never made home improvements or maintenance of their house a priority. When it came time to sell their house, the comps and the neighborhood said the house would sell for X dollars. BUT, I knew full well that it would sell at least 50K BELOW that because they had the same wallpaper from 1978 when they bought the house. Same Formica counter tops from 1978. Only improvement they ever made to the house was when the linoleum flooring in the kitchen finally wore out and they installed hardwood flooring. House sold 50K less than "market" value because of that. Heck, they even had the same carpeting in the rooms. People who bought it spent $100k fixing it up, tearing out walls, upgrading countertops, appliances, carpet, etc. They didn't move in for 4 months while all this work was done. And it was needed. My parents offered to sell it to me, and I told them no because of all the work I would need to do on it. Went inside after all the remodeling was done because the buyers are very nice and let us. It LOOKS like a home worth $100K more than when my parents moved out.

2024 orange level memberbadge-donor-15yr.jpgringofhonor-tiggity-110.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up


You're looking at potential depreciation.


Nov 15, 2018, 9:49 AM

From an appreciation standpoint though, he's absolutely correct. People expect a house to be mold free---it's basically table stakes for selling a house at market value....no one is going to get excited that you did improvements that enabled your house to meet basic expectations, so from that point, the ROI on the 11k was basically zero.

2024 orange level memberbadge-donor-20yr.jpgringofhonor-obed.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up


The ROI for the 11K spent is not having to do


Nov 15, 2018, 10:08 AM

mold remediation, foundation repairs, termite damage, and replacing supports and subflooring.

ROI was whatever the cost of repairing damage from NOT doing it would be. As for appreciation, home location, schools, property taxes, jobs in the city, etc. are where you see your appreciation. And MAINTENANCE of the homes in your neighborhood also play into that.

But as you say, the market value of a home assumes proper maintenance. When you spend money maintaining, that's a ROI later on when selling it.

My home has appreciated 14% since 2011. But that's not because of any improvements I've made, or not made. That's from the schools grading well, location, taxes, etc. That 14% ASSUMES I have kept the home in excellent condition. Had I done nothing, my home would still be valued today 14% higher than it was....until a potential buyer walks into the crawlspace.

I would argue maintenance dollars spent are a much larger ROI than improvements. Location, schools, etc. are going to impact appreciation far more than any modifications.

2024 orange level memberbadge-donor-15yr.jpgringofhonor-tiggity-110.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up


I'm not arguing the need for maintenance, just discussing


Nov 15, 2018, 10:27 AM

the math of it all.

So look at it like this. You put 11k into your house, which kept it at market value, which enabled it to realize the 14% uptick in market values.

Let's say (for math's sake), that you had spend $11k on the world's smallest addition, and added 137.5 sq feet to your house at a cost of $80/sq ft. Let's also say houses are going for $135/sq ft where you live. You added $17,875 in value to your house if you were to sell it, a ROI of 62%.

I think that's what Lakebum and I are referring to.....the "joys" of spending money to keep your house at market value, vs spending similar money on real tangible improvements with calculable returns on investment.

2024 orange level memberbadge-donor-20yr.jpgringofhonor-obed.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up


A buddy years ago had a Corvette


Nov 15, 2018, 10:30 AM

He put a $5K paint job on it. He went to sell it, and told the guying buying how it had a $5K paint job--dude looked at him and said "All cars have paint jobs".

All houses have yards that drain.

badge-donor-05yr.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

Ok, I'll bite


Nov 15, 2018, 11:16 AM [ in reply to I'm not arguing the need for maintenance, just discussing ]

So I spent the $11k on extra square feet by adding a small room. Chose an improvement for ROI over maintenance. I'd argue that added value is more than deleted, several times over, by not addressing the maintenance issue.

I think, no I KNOW, people get far too tied up in market values of things (stocks, bitcoin, real estate, whatever). People try to chase an unearned dollar. It's how we operate. It's human nature, get as much as you can for as little labor expended as possible. It's part and parcel with capitalism. Markets drive things. Supply and demand. Simple. It's very much tied to human nature more than reality.

I posted an example in another post where, at one time, you could buy 1,000 acres of land AND build a mansion with a fistful of shiny, colorful, plastic beads. Europeans used cheap beads as currency with Native Americans for many years. In Europe they were cheap and nearly worthless. In America, they were magical items rarer than gold. At first they could purchase entire states of land, tons of food, and untold man-hours of labor with the beads. But as more and more beads came over from Europe, their newness and rarity wore off. Native Americans were no longer willing to give up land, or more than an ear of corn for the things. The world diamond market is much the same. It is managed today to keep the market value constant for the gems. In reality, there are FAR more diamonds sitting in storage, and far more underground, than the market could handle. So they are kept off the market, and mined and released at a controlled pace to maintain value. Diamonds are one of the biggest cartels in the world. OPEC does this with oil. They are a cartel. Until the shale revolution, common knowledge was the world had reached peak oil supply, it was going to become more scarce, OPEC cut supplies, and prices jumped. Gas went up to $4.00 a gallon for basically NO REASON other than human nature and overreaction.

Real estate is no different. The value of a home is driven by the availability of homes on the market, the location, demand, easiness to acquiring loans, etc. The mind game that is real estate market value becomes the driving factor. The runup to the 2008 housing crisis was caused by cheap debt and bad loans lent to people for far more than they could afford to pay back. That caused a spike in building, a spike in demand, and a spike in prices. But people who got into the house "flipping" business assumed that the market was a fixed and tangible thing, meaning money spent on improvements would return more than spent. They thought the value of their improvements were the reason the house sold for more and they profited. In reality, the booming market values of the real estate in the area plays a MUCH higher role. And it did, as long as the market was rising. When the market fell and we had the crisis, the flipping stopped. The truth is the increase in value from improvements is negligible compared to the mental state of the market in that area. If the market is tanking, you can spend $100K on a house and the ROI on those improvements will be offset by the decrease in MARKET value.

Guess my point is don't "invest" in head games. If you're going to invest, invest in something with intrinsic value. Because at the end of the day, there are a million factors that go into the sale price of a home beyond what you spend on an improvement. If interest rates jump 1% at the next Fed meeting, or drop 1%, that will impact the sale value of your home more than improvements. And real estate is a cartel really, just like diamonds and OPEC. It is managed by the Federal Reserve mainly with the issuance of debt and interest rates. Money flowing into mortgages are them managed by Freddie and Fannie to keep the market stable, and by the Fed adjusting interest rates. The crisis happened because that management failed. Interest rates dropped TOO LOW, and lending requirements were ignored as the resale of debt was seen as a valuable asset. So banks lent more than they should, so they could make more reselling the debt. At the end of the day the tangible factors won out over human nature. People couldn't work enough and get enough money for their labor to honor their debts. An asset in EVERYONE'S heads became a liability.

Some say I have a weird or enigmatic view of money.

2024 orange level memberbadge-donor-15yr.jpgringofhonor-tiggity-110.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up


not to get into it, but the housing crash was more than just


Nov 15, 2018, 11:36 AM

people buying houses they couldn't afford. Their mortgages were turned into a million little pieces of debt instruments (CDO's etc) and mixed in with AAA bonds. Once these sub prime mortgages were found to be basically worthless, it sent the value of everything they were part of to be worthless as well.

Thats also just a part of it all.

badge-donor-05yr.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

I know. That's the asset that became a liability


Nov 15, 2018, 11:51 AM

Not just the homes, but the mortgage-backed "securities".

I'm still not really sure how we normalize interest rates and economic growth with a decade of mega-low interest fixed 30 year mortgages and stagnant wages. 1.75% to 2.25% meant $110 billion more the government pays to service the national debt. We're painted into a corner here really.

2024 orange level memberbadge-donor-15yr.jpgringofhonor-tiggity-110.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up


I think teh real trick is holding wages low enough so that


Nov 15, 2018, 11:55 AM

inflation never really becomes a problem, balancing that with cultivating an economy that is still functional for most people.

badge-donor-05yr.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

That's how our economy has been governed for decades now


Nov 15, 2018, 12:45 PM

And I'd argue that's why neither party has done anything about illegal immigration. And NO ONE ever knew "free" trade was not really free. I mean, who's on board for us importing stuff with no tariffs, and then the country we're importing FROM places a 10-20% tariff on the same goods coming FROM America? People who love debt I guess. That would be most politicians who buy votes.

It works, the scheme we've been running. But eventually the consequences will catch up. A healthy inflation rate would be around 4-5% and economic growth around the same. But flat wages, flat interest rates, and flat growth to bolster cheap debt will eventually fail.

2024 orange level memberbadge-donor-15yr.jpgringofhonor-tiggity-110.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up


I just need about ~30 more years.


Nov 15, 2018, 1:40 PM

They need to kludge this mess together for ~30 more years. After that, Crulez can have it because he already has all the answers now.

badge-donor-05yr.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

No, there is no choice.


Nov 15, 2018, 1:19 PM [ in reply to Ok, I'll bite ]

You don't choose fun stuff over maintenance. You have to do maintenance.

And that's the rub.

2024 orange level memberbadge-donor-20yr.jpgringofhonor-obed.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up


I mean, you bought it like that. Did you pay way under


Nov 15, 2018, 9:54 AM [ in reply to I disagree totally. If I didn't do this work.... ]

what market value would have been had those issues been addressed? Making it habitable isn't really adding value, it's just keeping you from losing your ###.

I had to address a litany of drainage issues at my house. Trust me, you don't get that money back out. If you built the house, the builder should have addressed that without you having to come out of pocket. If you bought it like that, well....You ain't getting that money back out of it when you sell.

2024 white level memberbadge-donor-15yr.jpgringofhonor-lakebum1-110.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

My house has appreciated 14% in 6 years


Nov 15, 2018, 10:20 AM

And that has absolutely zero to do with anything I've done or not done. On paper it would still be 14% higher in value had I done nothing. Until someone walks into the crawlspace. Then that +14% ends up being -%14. That 14% is because of low crime, low unemployment, good schools, easy access to the interstate and a good location. Basically DEMAND. The ridiculous property values in Mt. Pleasant, for example, are from demand and location, not that people have spent ridiculous amounts improving homes. A pig pen in Mt. Pleasant is valued more than my house.

And in the end, I really don't look at my house as an investment. I look at it as a home. Where I want to live and raise my children. As such, I will maintain it or improve it not because I want money out of it, but because I want the home to be as nice as possible to live in.

On a side note, you don't see people flipping houses in places like Augusta, Florence, Columbia, etc. Houses are "flipped" in hot real estate markets. That's because the ROI for the improvements made are boosted by increasing demand. You can do $50K of improvements on a home in Clinton and lose your ### trying to flip it.

2024 orange level memberbadge-donor-15yr.jpgringofhonor-tiggity-110.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up


But you still have no ROI on that $11k invested. You may


Nov 15, 2018, 10:26 AM

make money on the sell eventually, but Lakebum is right, that $11k was not an improvement. It sucks. Kinda like a new roof or a new HVAC system. They buyer doesn't really pay MORE cause you fixed something that was broken. They only pay more for upgrades.

2024 purple level memberringofhonor-greenr.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

A moisture barrier is simple for the protection.


Nov 15, 2018, 1:25 PM [ in reply to First thing we did when we moved in was french drains ]

A 2 mil plastic layer will work wonders.

2024 orange level memberbadge-donor-10yr.jpgringofhonor-clemsontiger1988-110.jpg flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

Replies: 27
| visibility 671
Archives - General Boards Archive
add New Topic