Four different electricians over the past year to solve lights flickering in our two bathrooms, spare bedroom and daughter's bedroom.

Electrician #1... $350 for walking around scratching his ballsack while clacking gum. Replaced two receptacles.

No dice.

Electrician #2... $185 for "checking" voltage and shitting all over electrician #1's work.

No dice.

Electrician #3... $310 for saying "Hmmm" a lot and then proclaiming the cause was a dimmer switch, that he got zapped hard on while dicking around with it, and one bathroom ceiling exhaust fan that he yanked on and broke drywall + sheered off a nice sized layer of ceiling paint while also saying, "I don't do finishing work bud."

No dice.

And finally today...

#4... $485 for checking everything, finding not much except a loose breaker module for the exact circuit that runs the aforementioned rooms lights ~ hopefully that's the fix. When I asked about the bill he casually says, "Oh, didn't my wife tell you over the phone when you set the appointment what my rate is?"
Me: "No... actually she said you'd charge nothing until you assessed what was going on and discussed it with me."
Him: "Ahh. Well I think I found it and fixed it so no real discussion was needed."

If these lights flicker again I am going to lose my mind.

 

I feel your pain.

Clogged pedestal sink in my all original 1938 bathroom with black & white subway tile. Sink drain goes into the tiled wall and runs across to tie into the cast line at the back of the tub. There is a hatch above the stairs behind the back of the tub that gives you full access to the inside of the wall and a linen closet behind the sink wall.

First choice family owned plumbing business who works with historic houses were booked out 2 weeks to even make a service call so went with big company

Big company plumber:
Tried to snake it and couldn’t get it past the tub connection- j-trap behind the sink disintegrated and broke through, clog is hard stop so needs to be cut out.

Prognosis- they are going to have to rip out all the tile along the wall to access the line, rip out plaster and cut framed in the hallway at the hatch door (which matches all the doors and trim in the rest of the house) to cut out the pipe- no, they don’t do finish work so I would be left with a full disaster- suck to be you. $3.6k

Talked with wife about waiting the two weeks for the good company to give estimate and we agreed to brush our teeth in the bathtub.

Good company comes and says they can cut a small 8x8 hole in the plaster in the linen closet, can pull the pipe through the hatch after cutting the section out that was clogged and have it all done in a day- but they were 3 more weeks out to do the work- $1.4K.

Work was don’t flawlessly, didn’t lose any tile, didn’t cut any plaster or trim work other than the hole in the bottom of the linen closet. Installed clean-out in closet opening (bonus), all work done quickly and they actually only charged me $1.1k as it took less time than they estimated.

 

A good watch or some nice watch service could be had for that kind of money!

 

plumbers always seem to need to cut huge holes for tiny repairs, or ignore easier ways to access the problem, ask me how I know

 

Yup! The “correct” and least invasive way took a little more creativity, a two man crew and a knowledge of what to expect hidden from view in the walls from experience dealing with houses from this era.

 

Oh man, that sucks. I have a lot of younger coworkers who are very fixated on buying a house. I'm always like, 'be careful what you wish for.'

This year we: replaced a dishwasher, a water heater, a washer and dryer set, our fridge, had to open up two walls to deal with plumbing emergency, and had to install a fancy pressure control doodad (our water pressure was like 140psi for some reason!?).

The good news is we're almost out of appliances to replace! As per OF tradition, I calculated the cost in watches.

 

Has anyone tried changing the lightbulb yet?

 

The Central Services guys "fixing" the plumbing scene from Terry Gilliam's movie Brazil comes to mind, "Ducts!" Now can I find it online?

C'mon google ....

Gaaahhhrr. Hey, get a copy of the whole movie. Brilliant!

 

I bought my first house in 2020, and before the year was over I had over 15k in plumbing repairs… I feel your pain

 

Yes, that I did on my own... to no avail.

 

A home has lots of intangible benefits that make ownership desirable, but a home is a terrible investment. If you want to accumulate wealth, rent a modest residence and put as much money as you can into equities. Over the long term, you’ll come out far ahead.

 

Done right, buying houses can make you a lot of money, especially if you are renting, cash out refinancing, and repeating. Once you get past the first couple of properties it’s relatively easy to keep it going. But I agree that it has a lot of unforeseen costs that first time homebuyers have no clue about

 

I had a flakey switch in my bathroom (original to the house and makes the click-clack). Took it out (after cutting the breaker- remember you are the path of least resistance), and cleaned it with some electrical contact cleaner. All better.

 

Truth except... rent seldom is stabilized.

 

Especially in Miami atm, rents went up 40-50% last year! Was wishing I had a 30 year mortgage locked in lol

 

True, but neither are the costs of maintaining a home. Real estate taxes, along with other costs of ownership, increase every year

 

True, but when I hear what people in the area are paying for rent these days I am horrified- my mortgage/tax/insurance would get me an efficiency in DC, in a marginal neighborhood.

 

No doubt... real estate taxes are something we are also feeling hard this year as the sellers had been here for 26 years and the tax assessor was salivating when he stopped by last Fall to drop the axe on us.

 

Yeah a lot of people dream of home ownership.
Over the last 2 years had to completely replace the whole kitchen due to a high pressure hot water leak.
Replaced 2 hot water cylinders, one of them twice!
Had to replace 2 bedroom ceilings due to header tank failure then the next year a one in a hundred year rain storm with gale force winds. 1 other bedroom wall due to said storm, not to mention other minor maintenance issues that any home has. Thank god for insurance or I would be out more than 50K in just 2 years!

 

They reassessed our property values in 2008 right when the market was at its peak and we were hit with the taxes the following year after the crash. There was mass revolt through the city- my house wasn’t worth the $400k they assessed even at the peak- they intentionally high balled everyone. They reassessed the next year and came back with an assessment of $199k on mine which was about $100k less than actual comps value at the time…I didn’t complain.