House stuff... Rrrr

I am so loving our new house. The space, and the openness of the kitchen, dinning room, and family room. I love being able to be getting meals ready and still be involved in what the kids are doing or what they are watching and what not. Our kitchen is gigantic in comparison to our old kitchen. I have so many cupboards that are only half full and shelves that are left empty. I have a cupboard that I have just piled junk into since it is not in use for any "kitchen" stuff really. I plan on making that our art supplies for the kids to have all their stuff in. What I call their "homework helpers" being the scissors, glue, crayons, pencils, markers, glitter, paper, foam pieces, stickers, pom poms..... all those sort of things I let the girls use.

It seems like there are all those "little" things that keep going wrong here. We had our problem with the hot water, then the ice on our stucco (which I don't think I blogged about), the leak in our closet ceiling, the gutters that needed to be replaced. It just seems like it is all these little things that keep coming up.

We had some gutter guys come out because our gutter around our balcony wasn't draining and with all the cold weather we were having, it was all iced up and then creating ice running down the side of our house, which then got behind our stucco making it bubble and look horrible (which now needs to be repaired). Above this icy spot the water wasn't getting into the drain for the gutter either so we thought the gutter guy could fix that. The gutter guy looked at it and the gutter around the balcony. He could fix the balcony gutter so that it would drain the right way and he could put a bigger opening at the top where there was such a icy problem, but he said it was a roof problem and their wasn't enough flashing or not good enough flashing there. He also recommended some heat tape so that the ice wouldn't build up like that. He fixed what he could, then we called the roofer. He comes out and looks at it, yes he can fix it. We also have a leak in the ceiling in our closet. He looks at that and says, yes he can fix that too. It seemed to be another flashing problem with our exhaust pipe for our furnace and hot water heater.

The roofer does his job, he also recommends heat tape for the roof on the north side where we are having all the icy problems with the stucco bulging and what not. We tell him to go ahead and install the heat tape. I am so glad to have it all done.

Since we had the leak in our closet, we had a big plastic tub (the kind you use for storage that have lids) under the hole Robert made in our ceiling. That night after the roofer leaves, I notice a "drip-drip" I look, and sure enough we still have a leak.

Robert climbs back into the attic and sees it is a condensation problem, or so he thinks with the furnace. We call our furnace guy. He comes out and looks at it and says, it is a roof problem, the flashing must be bad. He told me the snow must be melting and dripping down. I would like to scream! I told him we already had him "FIX" the problem and it didn't work. Not to mention it drips when our roof is dry and there is NO SNOW out there. The furnace guy goes back into our attic and sees that maybe it is a condensation problem after pulling some pipes apart and found all that water in there. Supposedly our furnace is not suppose to build up condensation, so it is not working correctly. He services our furnace. Hopefully it is all taken care of now. The furnace guy said it may be just a "bad design" of how that pipe comes out. If it continues, they may need to redo that pipe. JOY! We have a bowl up in the attic now to collect water. I hope whatever he did fixed it. I really don't want to pay for anymore repairs!

Not to mention we got this nice "Warranty" on our house when we bought it. We were under the impression it would cover if we got a leak or if the stucco had a problem or if we had issues with the hot water heater or plumbing. It turns out it only is good for the "mechanical parts" of appliances of our house pretty much. I think it does cover plumbing too. (Hopefully we won't have any problem with that!) Each time we have a problem I call, "no we don't cover that." Then I call and tell them about our hot water heater, "Since you already did it, we can't reimburse you for that, you should have called us first. We would have covered that." We do have a microwave above the stove that the handle is broken on it. The warranty covers that, but like Robert said, we have to pay $50 and they will probably come out and just replace some $5 part and call it good. It seems like our $400+ warranty is not really worth it since we have paid OVER that several times in repairs to things that we THOUGHT would have been covered. I feel like we got ripped off!

And while I am complaining (which it seems like I am doing way too much of lately) I must admit having a yard without grass makes for a MUDDY DISASTER when the snow is melting or when things aren't so frozen. I would think we built our house on a river bottom by the amount of mud that is out there. The girls like to come around back when they come home from school to come in the back door. I told them they are not allowed in the yard back there, it is a total MUD pit. I will be happy when things are warmer to start putting grass in. I don't care about much more than that right now. Just something to help with the mud--- hopefully!

Live and learn I guess! I still like our house! I wish all my old neighbors and friends where around this house.... I sure miss them all, and feel really alone out here.... sigh!