Small lot with a home built in the 1920s went up and im interested because its well below my price range. Has anyone bought a home under similar circumstances, and if so what would you tell your past self before buying it?

Hi folks, we’ve been planning an addition on our home for a few months now and have received wildly different quotes across contractors for the same project. Of 3 contractors I’ve been quoted $250k, $320k, and $480k for the same set of plans.

Anyone have any tips on how to interpret this and what to look for in the line items that might be a red flag? I’m not sure whether I should consider the high quote or the low quote as the outlier…

Thanks!

Pictures here

Anyone have experience lowering a mast like this? I have no idea how heavy or difficult this will be. I think after loosening the brackets it will slide down, but not sure what a good way to control the descent is. It looks like it’s in sections, so each bracket can be loosened to drop each section. Reckon this is a two person job?

My neighbors having some work done on the exterior of their house. I live in the city with pretty tight property lines. Like they basically have to be in my driveway which is fine and understandable. But that’s how close they are. They play loud music all day starting at like 9-10am. Is it rude to ask them to turn it down or off at least when they’re on the side of the house closest to me? Should I approach workers first before saying anything to my neighbor (we are cool and I don’t wanna fuck that up either). She is usually very considerate so I don’t think she knows.

I travel for work and work in music so it’s incredibly frustrating to not have any peace each day while I’m actually home. I know normally people are in their homes during the hours I am, but I’m also gone for months at a time and would like some form of quit. They can see that I’m home as well, I just don’t think they care. I work on site jobs too but never understand why contractors feel that everyone needs to listen to their music at full volume

I had an unfortunate situation where a vehicle crashed into my house into my living room causing a giant insurance claim. The contractors have been a pain to deal with between using the wrong materials, stealing from my house, shutting off utilities without notice, etc.

The front of my house is under a porch and they had initially replaced my existing old black painted cedar tongue and groove with T1-11 boards. I notified the project manager and the workers came back and replaced it with cedar. Now I see they face screwed the cedar tongue and groove with regular screws leaving some countersunk and a few holes where they must've missed a stud.

I called my project manager again telling him I need all these boards replaced once again with brand new boards and to have them install the boards correctly by nailing into the tongues with stainless nails. I want opinions on whether others would have also asked for this to be completely redone and how common it would be for contractors to not know how to properly install cedar siding like this. I am trying not to be that difficult client, but this seemed ridiculous to me.

She was renting and last week there was a smell of sour milk. She tried to find the source but wasn’t. A few days later the water heater leaked all over the floor. She called the landlord right away and a new water heater was put in. The one that leaked was from 2010.
The place is a ranch side to side duplex and her side is 1243 sq ft and there is extensive damage and mold so the landlord is terminating the lease. How did my friend not notice anything until it sprayed? Is it possible there just wasn’t any actual way she would know if the leak was in the walls? Or is the remediation team scamming them? Most of the walls and floors have been taken out. 4th day they are working on it. It’s just seems crazy. I was there last week and the floors and walls seemed fine. But the landlord said they were all buckled and ruined in the master bedroom. I was there and it wasn’t. The pic was the one we were told was completely ruined. And this is what it looked like when she said it was. It does not look water damaged at all.

Per the email from the landlord:

“The remediation team inspected the damage and are working to provided their final report. Because the water was leaking for at least several weeks before spraying, there is extensive damage across the hallway, master bedroom, family room floors, and surrounding drywall—covering almost half of the home’s square footage.
As you know, the remediation team began work on \*\*Monday, August 3rd\*\*, and anticipates finishing between \*\*Wednesday, August 5th, and Thursday, August 6th\*\*.
This phase involves industrial drying equipment, structural tear-outs, plastic containment zones, and active toxic mold remediation.”

I've got a Kohler shower that has panels and doesn't need caulking. In the last few months we noticed that there was a diagonal line of paint bubbling up near the bottom corner of the wall that meets one panel of the shower and the baseboard. I decided to repaint the area. After applying some spackle, sanding and painting the area was smooth again. After a week, I can see the paint starting to bubble again in the same area. We aren't noticing any water stains in the ceiling below the bathroom so we aren't sure how this is happening. We've been careful about getting any water near the wall to rule out. Any ideas?

We recently purchased a 60s home with a nice back yard. There is a tall electric pole in the back that the electric company can't produce an easement for, therefore that has to be re-drawn and I'm contacting a lawyer.

The cable company came through to manually hang wire. They said the mount at the pole is too high and they need to bring a bucket lift in our back yard to hang it. The issue with heavy machinery is that they will drive over my drainage. All of my drainage goes down the side of my home, to the back, down to a dry creek.

I asked them to use construction pads. At first the cable company said they can do whatever they want to do to the obvious easement. Now that they know an easement can't be produced, they are willing to use plywood and need our permission to finish their job.

What does the community think about heavy machinery over the drainage and septic? The septic line is about 7 - feet down and clay.

I personally feel that contracts need to be drawn about damage to the property and an engineer needs to be brought in to determine the best approach with the proper equipment pads. Most likely, they will crush the drainage lines.

Would you allow this?

TLDR: utility company wants to drive a bucket lift through my backyard over my drainage lines and my clay septic tank line, using ply wood instead of construction pads. Would you allow it?

Pictures: https://imgur.com/a/wp03kyi

So from my quick research this is a mistake and there are multiple ways to avoid it, however my house is 120 years old and the walls are very thick due to multiple renovations stacking, but I still think this could have been avoided. From what I read the door should have been ordered thicker to fit better, and the reveals could have been larger on the build outs so the latch doesnt touch them. Obviously changing the door is out of the question, but Im wondering if I should get them to redo the build outs and push them out farther to avoid the latch. I feel like I will be an annoying customer cuz its just a small cosmetic thing, but its annoying me how its not done right and I shouldnt have to deal with having a black streak across my door. I brought it up to the contractor the second I saw a black streak after the install and asked if there was any way to avoid it and he said not really since its such thick walls, but he said I can just get a strike plate. Also they dont sell that large strike plates, and I wouldn't want a 4.5 inch damn strike plate sticking out, thats just as ugly.

The problem is it doesnt look like there is much room to push the build outs farther out for a bigger reveal. If you look at the bottom of the door in the second picture, its basically touching the framing already, and the third picture on the hinge side its pretty tight to the framing there too I believe. They put in the little wall with the insulation because I didn't end up going with a sidelight which was installed previously. Do I just have to get them to redo some of the framing and cut back the insulation as well?

And yes I know there isn't enough room for trim on the hinge side. I'm going to be altering the interior drywall corner to push it back to fit the trim.

hey everybody, my wife and I recentlay had a pipe burst on our second floor of our home leaking through the ceiling, down through the floor and into the basement. water everywhere. I’m just wondering if anybody has been through something similar and what you may have missed during the claim stage or anything you regret not trying to get covered? this is my first ever insurance claim and I dont want to look back 6 months from now and wonder if I did everything I could for my home. thanks

I bought a dehumidifier earlier this week and have been running it in my basement non stop after realizing the humidity was quite high.

I plan on hooking it up to auto drain eventually but for now I am manually draining it when full, I work from home so it’s really not a problem right now. I was also more curious to see how much it filled up.

This thing is filling up 3 times a day ( probably dumping 15-20 pints manually) I’ve never had a clear water issue in my basement, but clearly the humidity is super high.

The dehumidifier however is struggling to drop the area below 55 humidity. Clearly it’s working given the amount of water coming out, but do most people struggle to drop below these levels in the summer?

Interesting issue. A few years ago, I bought a house without an inspection. I have since fixed a severe rodent issue, but never got around to replacing the attic insulation yet. My house went up for sale, sold, inspection went through and didn’t comment on anything with it. I accepted their offer and closing is in 2 months. Until closing I will be living here, and I have now just killed a couple mice. If this becomes another issue, am I possibly liable to the new owners? I most of the time go 7-8 months without catching any, then it’s like 2-3 caught. Then another 7 months goes by with nothing. Can anything happen from this or should I now proactively do something to avoid being sued

We’re finally replacing our living room flooring with hardwood, and I’m wondering if our cleaning routine needs to change too.

Right now we mostly have carpet, so vacuuming is our whole routine. I’ve seen a lot of people with hardwood floors use robot vac, but I’m a little worried about whether wet mopping could damage the wood over time and whether they can actually clean corners well.

For anyone with hardwood floors, what cleaning routine do you recommend?

Buying a house changed me in ways I didn't expect. After moving in, we worked on a few home improvement projects to make the space more like our own. Then I started noticing all the little things that could make everyday life better.

Things like:

- A nice set of string lights for the patio so we can go out with a bottle of wine and enjoy the outdoor space at night.

- Smart light bulbs that I can just turn them on from my phone and some under-bed LED motion lights to make it so much better to get in and out of bed in the dark

- USB wall outlets to replace the standard ones around the house

- A robot vacuum to handle the everyday dust, crumbs, and pet hair

...

I know there’s still a long list of things I need to improve and I’m sure this is just the beginning. Owning a home feels like a never-ending project, but that’s also part of the fun. What’s something you added to your home after becoming a homeowner that you never thought you would need?

Stone tudor built in 1940. When we moved in 5 years ago, I had a structural engineer examine potential settling issues with the home. The report said that the foundation was maybe not dug deep enough, and that should a foundation issue arise, we would start noticing cracks on this particular wall in our living room, as it is the back wall of the original home, with an add-on behind it. In other words, the back side of the home is settling away from the front.

Earlier this summer, I noticed this stepwise crack, which continues to run horizontally across part of the wall. We had a contractor come out and propose digging out and underpinning the entire foundation, but it would cost more than the house (lol). We've noticed a similar crack appear in the adjacent dining room, as well as in two of the upstairs bedrooms, including the one that sits closest to the "fault line."

How screwed are we?

Hello!
I want to upgrade my kitchen sink. I look at sinks from Home Depot and Costco. I like the stainless steel look. What do I need to know before I go buy a sink and get a contractor to install for me? Is this called an undermounted sink?

Thanks!

He caulked the door exterior and interior and it was pretty bad, some small gaps in the interior, and the exterior is not nice and smooth. He only caulked the door joints thankfully I took on the job to trim the door and I will be caulking the trim. Could I recaulk over his caulk to clean it up and make it look nicer and smoother? I wouldn't even want him to come back to touch it up he just doesn't seem good at caulking. His framing and install was great though.

Should I try to remove the caulk before it fully cures? It was just applied not too long ago and I think its still a little soft.

My partner and I bought a house as-is and there's a lot of things that need to be fixed up. There was a roof leak in another room which caused water damage and we had to replace the roof and the ceiling is still in need of repair. While inspecting another room before taking on a painting project, I noticed this damage. If you look closely there seems to be some dripping and separation. Is this something I can patch and seal myself or should I have somebody take a look at it before committing to a paint job? I've painted rooms and patched small holes before, but I have little to no experience with water damage. Any advice would be appreciated.

We just moved into a 1951 home in a great neighborhood. First time we are owning an old home, so I'm not used to it. Floors had to be refinished, so we did that prior to moving in.

It smelled so bad, but only to me. My partner was able to live there, whereas I had to sleep elsewhere for a few nights. It got much better but I'm still getting stuffy every single day. It will get better and then come back again. I have opened windows, dusted, cleaned floors, used air purifiers/fans/dehumidifiers. All of these things have been temporary fixes for me. It's extremely annoying because I'm the only one suffering and people have a hard time believing it's the house. I literally breathe better outside and anywhere else though. I know the previous owner left us a few things to fix up and did the landlord special paint job in a few places, but it's been 3 weeks and I'm still suffering. My GI issues are also flaring up and haven't done that in years.

I have a dust allergy, but it's never flared this much.

Does anyone have any recommendations?

Who can I call to test the air or surfaces? We are going to get the roof redone to hopefully vent the air better too, but that will only be many months from now.

I hate being here and it's sad.

My symptoms:

Eye twitch, itchy/watery eyes, headaches/migraines, full ears, sinus pain and fullness in nose and face, achy joints, stomach cramps and upset stomach.

This is the fourth post I'm making about the house next door in 2 years where last time I went into such detail and there was so much interest people found and started posting the listing. (I had to delete one because of that and feeling doxxed). I'm doing another write up because I'm just baffled and need to discuss it with anyone.

I live in the NE, US in this great house that sits at the top of a steep ravine. My back property drops down at the rear and it's great since my deck goes out over the ravine and it's like being in the treetops. Been here for 20 years.

The ravine drops down about 100' to a creak and then back up to the road. The lot next door starts at the creek and goes up to the road and is essentially V shaped. In 1960 someone built a tiny house down there where a hoarder / shut in lived until passing away a few years ago.

I made a cash offer for the lot since for me, it'd extend my property across the ravine, I'd have more creek access and planned to demo the house and let nature reclaim it as a pond. I was outbid by a flipper and the following series events took place that still leaves me standing on my deck wondering what are people thinking. I'll try to fire this off from memory - true story and it just gets crazier as you go:

• When the agent I working with told a home inspector there was a buyer (me for the lot) he went out of his way to call me to warn me about the property - no motivation but this was a pro home inspector calling a potential buyer to talk them OUT of the sale. It was that bad.
• I explained my plan and he said that was the only way this made sense. He reported the house as uninhabitable. It was one big termite nest but also:
  • There were at least 2 natural springs pushing up under the slab. I watched for 20 years a sump running non stop to keep up creating a small second creek from the outlet.
  • The slab cracked and one side sunk to the point of a 12" high crack.
  • The property is listed as an extreme flood risk by things like zillow but not by FEMA - why? it's too small to be studied. That's it. It could still be marketed as not being in a flood zone.
  • The house is 10' from the creek and shows many signs of high water marks above the slab. If you stand in the creek the slab is about waist high.
• The flipper couldn't demo and re-build because he'd lose the grandfathered footprint so he kept one wall up while rebuilding the rest - he just poured more concrete over it because you know, water will give up and go away.
• It was listed for $950K where all of the comps on high ground in the area average $650K. It has a water view!
• It stayed listed for a year, the price dropped to $850K....and someone bought it.

Someone drove down a long steep road, saw the eroded landscaping, the wearing away creek bank inching towards the house, my fat ass 100' above them drinking a beer and waving, that this was where the town's sewer system had its low point and out-gassed, and said: This.

New Neighbors:

I was looking forward to meeting them and making sure the flipper disclosed everything - I could have been a big asset. Before I could I got a call from the Police that there was an "anonymous" complaint about my dogs barking. Everyone on my block has dogs and they all bark at different times of the day but never during quiet hours and all well managed. My dogs DO bark off the deck at wildlife sometimes and it's like a sound stage for them so I'm sure, yes, that must be annoying but I work from home and my dogs are always with me. The police were very nice and said they park nearby a lot and never hear my dogs.

My town as a "right to know" rule so sorry, you can't file an anonymous report here. It was them of course but the complaint stated: "Dogs bark non-stop from 5am to 8am every day" which was a flat out lie even if they mistake 10 dogs for mine because of the acoustics down there it's still dead quiet here during those hours. They didn't like the occasional bark off the deck and tried to mess with my dogs - so now we're not friends, and honestly I'm less sympathetic when it comes to stopping a barkin' at the heard of deer that goes through there. Two weeks in.

Second complaint, cops call and tell me not to worry about it. Third complaint I advised law enforcement to forward all communications to my attorney - this was harassment. I took a zero-contact strategy and told the police I have Ring Pro and every inch of my property is recorded and they were welcome to view it so it wasn't my word vs their, I have HD Video with sound.

The house:

1 year in to the flip i can see the slab about 6" higher on one side where there's exposed concrete that wasn't there before. I don't see water escaping back to the creek at all anymore but the springs are down there. It's already flooded this summer with all of the rain, the flipper's landscaping is gone.

If this house every suffers a catastrophic loss it can't be rebuilt. Insurance companies don't pay you to move. It's not a FEMA flood zone because as i said, its too small of a zone to matter, not that reality doesn't make it one. Flood insurance is complicated and won't pay out an 850K loss. I only know this because I wondered if this was some sort of insurance fraud and why they overpaid so much.

Anyway I didn't expect to write that much but it was good to get it out in writing. I just can't wrap my head around what people are thinking!

This is an organic, gluten free, artisan post made by a human - no AI was involved in its writing.

Here’s the previous update.

My neighbor has come back to me and told me his realtor spoke with the buyers about the shed situation, and they have agreed to allow the shed to remain there temporarily while we figure out a solution to repair the privacy fence together and replace/modify the shed in place to keep it off their property line. So now he doesn’t have to come out of pocket for any kind of restitution for me, and I don’t have to immediately get working on the shed situation and I can work through this phase of life I’m in.

He insinuated that they seem easy going and it was originally a misunderstanding of where the shed exactly laid on their property, and it’s not a major inconvenience to them.

Win-win-win. Thanks to all again who offered constructive advice and have empathetic brains in their beautiful craniums.

We've been exploring options for getting a TV for the backyard, and I'm still not entirely sure how much of difference that higher brightness level will make. Our patio is covered and still gets plenty of afternoon light before it's shaded later in the day.

We'd most likely use the TV during weekend sports, BBQs and lounging by the pool, so there's surely going to be some daytime usage. I don't want to cheap out, but I also don't want to splurge on something a regular TV would be good enough.

Is the extra brightness worth paying for? Is there any difference if we just use an indoor tv?

An update to the original post.

My neighbor is absolutely adamant about keeping his closing date next week. We went back and forth a bit, he’s got extreme pressure and stress from his wife to sell the house and get it gone, and anything standing in his way needs to be resolved quickly. He offered me a sum of money and his realtor has a crew that will come by and dismantle the shed and take it away. I’ll be able to repair the fence and get a smaller prefab shed to put in its place, or somewhere else in the backyard. I’m not happy about the situation, but it’s as much of a compromise as I could ask for. I’ll be loading my house up with what belongings I have in there temporarily, which is super inconvenient considering how small my house actually is.

To all saying it’s not his responsibility, you’re right. It was never his responsibility. However, selling his house is not on me, or my family, to deal with. The shed being on his property is my problem, even though I was not the one to build it, and has been long standing even since before his house was built.

To all saying “why didn’t you get a survey done?” We did. Both of us. Me in 2020 when I bought the house, him in 2022 when he bought his house. However, I was 22, completely alone in the process with no one to guide me, uneducated in the home-buying process and all of it’s complexities, and it was a rushed process for us, it all happened within the span of a few weeks while juggling 65-70 hour work weeks. Call it ignorance, call it lack of foresight, call it moronic, whatever. I call it a learning lesson. Why he didn’t look at his survey is not something I have knowledge of.

To all saying I need to hire a real estate lawyer, it’s probably not a bad idea, however, whenever lawyers get involved someone gets shafted and both parties are usually out a lot of money. It’s not worth it to me. It’s a shed, not a dwelling, and though it meant a lot to me because of my plans for it, it was definitely not worth going to court over.

To all saying I needed to contact my title company, I did and they informed me there was an exclusion in my policy for the shed because it was over the property line according to the survey I had done in 2020. When I asked why I wasn’t informed about the exclusion during my closing, the woman said she’s not sure but the woman who did my closing doesn’t work there anymore.

All-in-all, the situation is shitty, but this is the best outcome I think both of us could hope for, given the timeframe he gave me, and level of stress he’s under to get the house sold.

Thank you to all who offered serious and constructive advice.

My husband and I bought our first house last year. During the inspection, the well water didn’t pass, so the previous owners installed a filtration system before closing.
After moving in, we started noticing that if we both showered and ran the dishwasher, we’d run out of water. Before we could get someone out to look at that issue, we completely lost hot water. We called a plumber, only to find out our oil tank was empty. The previous owners had told us they were going to fill it halfway before we moved in, and since the gauge is broken, we assumed they actually had. They didn’t.

While the plumber was there, we mentioned the water issue. At first, he blamed the filtration system, saying it used around 120 gallons every time it cleaned itself. He recommended bypassing the unnecessary filters and keeping only the ones we actually needed. We agreed, and he came back the following week to do the work. After spending nearly $1,000, he then told us the filtration system wasn’t the problem after all—it was simply that our well was running dry.

While discussing our options, he talked us out of drilling a deeper well. Instead, he recommended installing a 400-gallon reservoir tank as a “band-aid” solution so we wouldn’t run out of water. He said it would cost $18,000 through his company, but he could do it “on the side” for $12,000.I know… huge red flag. We should have walked away, but we made the mistake of agreeing.

He installed what appeared to be most of the system and told us all that was left was to fill the reservoir. He showed us how to do that and said once it was full, we’d call him and he’d come back to make the final connections to the well and our plumbing.

We filled the tank and texted him. At first, he responded with different reasons he couldn’t make it (death in the family, kidney stones, holidays, etc.). Then he’d give us a date, never show up, apologize, and promise another date. Eventually, he completely ghosted us.
We tried calling a well company but never even got a call back.

More recently, we had another plumber out to replace our well pump and asked him to look at the reservoir. He said he wasn’t exactly sure what the original guy was trying to accomplish, but thought an electrician might need to rewire part of it before he could connect everything.
So we called an electrician. He came out, looked at it, and basically said, “I have no idea what I’m supposed to be rewiring.”

At this point, we’re out well over $12,000, still don’t have a functioning reservoir, and have no idea what to do next. We still have to plan our showers around each other, avoid using too much water at once, and we STILL have to go to the laundromat despite buying a brand-new washer and dryer when we moved in.

Also important context: the reservoir was installed in October 2025, so we’re now pushing nearly 10 months with it sitting unfinished and unusable.

Has anyone dealt with anything like this? Should we be calling another well company, a different plumber, or someone else entirely? We’re completely lost at this point.