Special Decision Point

[Deleted]

Only one course of action provided/considered.

I am taking a break from adding more DPs.  I have some personnel issues to tend to that require more attention.  (replacing Sewer pipes, thinking about unretiring (due to sewer pipes), some other related issues, and that these are a lot of work and I am a little worn out.  Stand by for the next season in a few days or couple-three weeks.

[Beth]

Mike thank you for the interesting discussion. I know personally I will look forward to your return. I hope to see you back soon.

[Deleted]

Mike
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In the worst house sewer scenario another idea is put the big money into re-developing the land by tearing down your house, sub divide the land, and build two new ones on the block. Lots of moving parts to consider but just a thought.

Cheers

mac  I do not have the funds to pay off the house, demolish it, and build one or more new ones.  Nor do I like the thought of increasing my debt.  My retirement planning did not include essentially doubling my mortage payment, but not adding any value to the house.  I am probably going to engage with the realtor to find out if someone wants to buy the house to flip it.  I don't want to make a huge profit.  Just enough to pay off the house, move me to somewhere else, maybe put down a down payment on a new house, and be closer to someplace with my few friends and not so much travel distance from my home to interesting places as I have to deal with lining in the Southeastern most US State.  KS would locate me pretty centrally to the places my daughters are at or want to be:  Idaho, Seattle, WA, Chicago, and FL (that one may decide to follow me.)

If I could get formal estimates from people, I could then engage the lawyer needed to go to battle with the insurance company.  Two of my daughtrers have provided nearly 4,000 in funds raised among their friends to help me out.  I have a similar size cash reserve, some more in my little game company, and still more in savings, but not 30 - 125,000 which are my current MINIMAX values.

Enough of my whining.  We will see how the next couple weeks go.

[mac]

Sounds like a good plan to me Mike.

KS would put you much closer to the LBH..a sign of the disease increasing. You could hook up with Tom and Steve for visits, which would be the final step.

Mind you, I possibly hold the world record for the longest trip to specifically visit LBH. The saddest record of them all!

Cheers

[yanmacca]

You must have one serious sewage problem Mike, I could connect a brand new system from toilet to the main drain for a few grand tops!

Hope everything goes well and good luck, cone back soon because we have got used to you being around.

[Deleted]

Well. The house is on a a slab and the pipes are iron. The sewer pipes run from the garage and kitchen to the main line which is from the mater bathroom to the guest bathroom, and then out of the house and then the piple angles out to between me and my neighborb;s house where they join to the street.

So, they first start by ripping out all the concrete along the lines, digging a trench, and ripping out drywall to expose the pipes in the wall. The worst case is I have to replace all the sewer and water pipes. If I do the whole house at once I apparently need both a general contractor and a plumber, and there is some regulation/law about what has to happen if the repair is some percentage of the value of the house They then fill in the trench and concrete it. My house has a terrazzo finish which no one fixes anymore, so then I need to tile ur carpet the whole house. I think they will patch the drywall, but if I need to refinish the kitchen and bathrooms that adds to the cost.

COA 1: Do all the work at once. 5 - 7 days. all the lines out to the city connections inside and outside. requires a Plumber and GC,
COA 2: Do all the work except for water supply. That saves some money and if the water pipes go, I can always through the cieling.
COA 3: Same as 1/2 except don't do the external lines to the city connections. Save some money and ripping up my drive way.
COA 4: Phase the job. Does not require a GC.
Phase I. Just do the kitchen, garage, and guest bathroom. The Master bathroom does not exhibit the same problems as the Guest Bathroom.
They will trench close to the master and cap the pipe.
Phase II. Do the master bathroom.
Phase III. Do the external lines.

If anything really bad is discovered, I have to resort to a different COA, so I need to be prepared to do that. I have already removed most carpet in the house because it was old and I will just rip out the rest since I pretty much need to empty the house to avoid dust and crap all over my possessions. since no one does the terrazzo anymore I will probably just put throw rugs over the trenchwork until I decide to sell the house at which time I will tile it.

The house was built in 1958 and is on dredged land. Apparently the pipes have settled or they were installed incorrectly because one plumber says they slope up as the travel under the house. This may preclude relining the pipes. My evaluation from those people got postponed from 19 FEB to 5 March.

My insurance doesn't cover the cost, although I have not filed a formal claim, but supposedly they are supposed to do it regardless of what they write, but I need to sue them and I dont want to engage with the lawyers till I understand all COA and have some kind of estimate. If I dont win the suit, I don't owe them any money. They price the settlement form me to fully pay the job and they get their full fee. However, litigation can take six -36 months.

If they can reline the pipes, the average cost is 20000. But I have to be prepared to fund the full cost regardless in case they lose or the whole thing needs to be done. My first house cost 32000. This one cost me 160000 which sent me into shock. Cars can cost more than my first house, the last time I bought a new car was after Desert Storm, and I keep cars a long time. I kept one car and put 750000+ miles on it and was starting back from the moon when my father in law died and gave my wife his brand new hybrid (13 years ago) and I just gave it to my youngest daughter.

A long tale of woe, probably not worth anyone's time and there are better things to talk about.

If a hurricane flattens the house that is probably the most desireable course of action.

[Beth]

There are times that you have to just realize that you are in the wrong place and move on. I am unsure of where you are at but depending on the difference in the cost of living and how long you have owned your current home you might be better in Kansas. (I am a relocated Iowan so I will always thumbs up the Midwest.) It sounds like you might be in Florida though so even if you sell it to a flipper or someone who just wants the lot you might be surprised how much you get.

Older slab construction is a nightmare when things go wrong with the plumbing. When we build our house 3 years ago I watched it go in and wondered what would happen if something ever went wrong.

I've been doing a lot of research because if something happened to hubby I would have to have a plan on where to go because the Austin area has too high of a cost of living to survive on retirement and SS. I don't know if it works for you but South Dakota is supposed to be one of the best because it is super tax friendly and has a low cost of living.

[yanmacca]

Pipes embedded in concret, wow that would be a bandjack job, hot, dusty and noizy work.

We don't call them slabs in the UK, but rafts, I have done that job only once and only two yards long and six inches deep.

Luckly I know a builder who lent me the bandjack for a weekend back in 2010.

We took out the bath and put in a shower, the new pipe had to go under ground the main drain.

[Deleted]

Feb 14, 2021 19:30:58 GMT Beth said:

There are times that you have to just realize that you are in the wrong place and move on. I am unsure of where you are at but depending on the difference in the cost of living and how long you have owned your current home you might be better in Kansas. (I am a relocated Iowan so I will always thumbs up the Midwest.) It sounds like you might be in Florida though so even if you sell it to a flipper or someone who just wants the lot you might be surprised how much you get.

Older slab construction is a nightmare when things go wrong with the plumbing. When we build our house 3 years ago I watched it go in and wondered what would happen if something ever went wrong.

I've been doing a lot of research because if something happened to hubby I would have to have a plan on where to go because the Austin area has too high of a cost of living to survive on retirement and SS. I don't know if it works for you but South Dakota is supposed to be one of the best because it is super tax friendly and has a low cost of living.

I am indeed of Florida, about 20 km south of what used to be the Saturn V pads, then the Shuttle Pads, now one of the SpaceX pads.  South Dakota is much too far north for me.  FL is freindly income taxwise, but I am tired of hurricane objectives.  I left in 1976 after University of Florida, returned in 1996 for about a year working for a computer game company, then have been back since 1998 until now.  The longest I have lived somewhere in my life.

[Deleted]

Spent the weekend in the Everglades, so am somewhat refreshed. Saw the usual American Alligators, an American Crocodile (the Everglades are the only place in the world where crocs and gators hang out in the same Eco System). First time I have seen a Croc in the 20 years I have been going to the 'Glades. Also toured an Nike Hercules ADA Battery emplaced after the Cuban Missile Crisis and which was active till 1979. Sadly, only the missile storage sheds are still in place, with one of them filled with exhibits including the missile, warhead, and some other equipment. The Everglades were very wet for the 'dry season' so instead of seeing hundreds, we only say 20 or so gators. The water is high because it has been a wet winter and also because they elevated portions of the northern road (US 41. Tamiami Trail) so water could pass through so it may actually be more 'normal' now than it has been for some time.

[Beth]

We lived in Lake Worth (PBC) and were lucky enough to make many trips to the Cape to what shuttle launches. We tried to see a landing because we had seen every other stage of the 'story' a launch, the shuttling back from a CA landing on the back of of a 747 (our honeymoon in Omaha) Unfortunately we were there waiting when the Columbia was lost on reintery. A hard thing to explain to small children.

We envy you being able to see so many launches if you chose to. When the Covid thing is over we are going to S. Texas to watch a launch.

BTW My younger daughter is currently studying game design and animation at Bradley U. She is a Junior though she is 'on the books' as a senior but her double major means that she will have to take at least some classes next year. I am encouraging her to take classes beyond her majors to expand her world. I have to see how that goes.

I understand about moving a bit. I am 64 years old and the longest I've lived in one place is 7 years.

Good luck on your housing problem I am sure everyone has eeen the news about TX if they aren't dealing with their own weather problems. We got our power back about 3 hours ago but have no water. No power meant no heat or phone so we have spent 2 days basically buried in blankets reading. I've lost all my flowers in the back yard and one tree. Still it could be worse.

[Beth]

We weren't far from the north end of the Glads so we would get gators in our lake. Thank goodness the girls were young enough they would play in the screened veranda. We would see them (gators) sunning on the shore. Whoever removed gators in the county would tell the HOA that they wouldn't come until the lake was out of ducks or the gators reached a certain size.

[yanmacca]

We saw how bad Texas got hit on the BBC news, looked more like Alaska then the lone star.
Hope you are through the worst of it Beth.

[quincannon]

Texas is getting it in large part because they are on a separate power grid from the rest if the country, and the cold weather, bad as it is, has really crippled that grid. Being on a separate grid means that neither the east or west coast power grids that service the rest of the country can transfer excess power to Texas. Texas made their own bed, now unfortunately their people have to suffer because of the political cabal that runs the state.

Watched Judge Lina Hildago of Harris County (Houston and surrounding area) explain what was happening on my news feed last night. Bad shit, real bad. Hildago is a remarkable woman. She did not immigrate to this country until she was fifteen.  Since then she has become an American citizen, graduated from one of our  best universities (Stanford), and is now the chief executive of the largest county in Texas, and the third largest in the country.  She just turned 29 years old. Would not surprise me if she was sitting in Austin some day relatively soon.

One thing I really like about Hildago is that she never appears on TV without the Lone Star Flag of Texas being in the background, symbolizing the people of Texas are her first priority. That also serves as a reminder that Texas itself was founded by all immigrants, some from the States, others from south of the Rio Bravo Del Norte, and others, many others, from all parts of Europe. If anything  it is the story of the United States in miniature, if anything in Texas could be called miniature.

Beth talks about being a blueberry in a bowl of tomato soup. That is true for now, but the blueberries all over Texas , Houston, Austin, San Antonio. Dallas/Fort Worth, and El Paso are all getting exponentially larger, and the bowl of tomato soup has sprung a leak in the bottom.

[Deleted]

A small nit. I seem to recall Texas was inhabited by natives prior to the immigrants arriving. They objected somewhat to being overrun by migrants.