Renovating and repairing old home... suggestions??

[kuhio98]

Having gone thru some renovations lately myself (on the "new" house we bought), I highly recommend hiring a general contractor to deal with all this.

I would ask all my friends, family and co-workers for recommendations on who they have hired to do their major work. Ask them if they were happy with the work. More importantly, if they were not happy. After you have 3 or 4 names, call them and get estimates for what you want done, think you might want done, or just the list of problems for them to investigate. Then get their bids. Ask for references. Check out the references. Ask them if there is a recent project you can visit. Check with your Better Business Bureau to see if they have any lawsuits against them.

It will take a lot of your time, but doing this prep work will save you lots of time and money in the long run.

When we were thinking about buying our new house, we hired an inspector to go through it to point out problems. Then, we asked him for recommendations on general contractors for some remodeling -- note, he should NOT recomend himself or a family member! Once we had 2 names, we asked our friends and family if they had used them. Turns out one of them had been highly recommended to my sister by another person but she never got around to hiring him. This guy and his team has kicked butt at our house. I'm recommending him to everyone I know -- but he's in Alaska, so that won't be of much help to you.

Ask around. If you can afford it, pay a good general contractor to do all the hard work.

Also, the very first thing we wanted to do when we bought the house was rip out the gas fireplace and replace it with a woodburning one. We are so glad that we didn't. We use the fireplace every morning and it really heats up the house. Our old house had a woodburning fireplace and we found it too much of a bother to build a fire.

[Lady's Human]

Catty1....Sorry, been there, done that.

In an old house, it is more than likely a wood fireplace that has been converted over to a gas log. It all depends on the age of the fireplace. A modern construction gas log fireplace has most likely been put in with that in mind. In an older house, however, the fireplace was more than likely constructed as a wood heat source for the house, in which case the gas log can be removed and the fireplace reverted to wood burning with little trouble. As stated in my prior post, however, an inspection and cleaning is an absolute neccesity.

[Catty1]

LH, I see what you mean. However, when they guys at our shop were putting in a gas insert to replace a wood, the venting had to be a proper vent, either natural or direct.

If whoever worked on the fireplace in Jenn's place merely put in a gas line, and then gas logs without the associated venting, it would sure give out crappy heat! So maybe that is what happened - it was a do-it-yourself job, which would be at the least not up to code.

Jenn - if your city or town government has an inspection section for gas and other installations, you might want to see if they have a record for what was done at your place. At the least - the fireplace gas line would have to be inspected in mots jurisdictions when it was newly installed.

Plumbing...I don't know anything about it, but the water pressure sounds lousy. Maybe not new pipes...but wonder if there is a way to clean the ones that are there? Might take some pressure cleaning with an anti-corrosive liquid, though I don't know if that is how pipes are cleaned, or eve if they can be.

Maybe get an estimate - my guess would be to replace main metal/iron pipes with PVC. How to find out if they are clogged, I don't know.

ETA: Found a good link on this: http://www.drainsandplumbing.com/waterpipes.html

[jennielynn1970]

Catty.... what I see at the fireplace are pipes that come up at the bottom into the logs. The logs are mounted somehow. No glass, no vent looking anything. I know there is supposed to be a flue with fireplaces, but I really don't want to feel around inside a creepy, dusty fireplace to find it.

As for installing my own replacement windows.... lol. I may be handy, but when it comes to something like a window that can leak, I know my luck, lol. There's no way I'd try to do that myself. My luck, I'd drop them as well. I actually wouldn't want to make them smaller (the larger ones) because I love the look of them, and then I'd have to change the shades and everything else as well. The shades I have in my bedroom I special ordered from JC Penneys, and are really nice.

What I'm gathering is that this is going to take an extended amount of time. I think the first thing I want to deal with is the hot water and pipes. I miss taking a hot bath. I hate wasting water waiting for it to get hot.

I guess I'll have to also look into getting some of the plastic stuff to put over some of the windows that are super drafty. I do keep the doors closed to the rooms that aren't being used, and I put the magnetic sheets over the vents in those rooms as well so that it push the heat back to the other rooms. I have small electric heaters in the 3rd floor for the kitties up there since it doesn't seem to stay as warm up there (or the wall vents don't seem to get the heat all the way up there).

I like the idea of the wainscotting for the walls. That might look really nice in the dining room. I can't see me ever trying to make this house look contemporary, it's more historic, so I think the wainscotting would be a nice touch.

I'm not sure how I'd insulate the kitchen... I'd have to ask someone about that. The guy who built my deck also does regular construction, roofing and things like that, so maybe he'd know about the insulation. Not sure about the windows. The guy who installed my hot water heater has his own small company and does handyman jobs and plumbing. I'll have to find his card again. He was really nice. He worked at Home Depot, but drove me to Lowes to pick up my hot water heater, and even changed the pipes and hooked up the electric for the hot water heater cause the previous one was gas (and Home Depot and Lowes installers wouldn't do any of that for me).

So much to do. Expensive too. Sigh. Part of me wonders why I stopped renting . I miss having things fixed for me by the landlord, lol.

[Lady's Human]

But when you own your own house, the renovations go toward your equity in the house. All your rent does is go into the landlord's pocket.

You're probably going to have to replace at least some pipes. With the cost of copper at the moment it's guaranteed to be damned expensive, but it's worth it. Most codes in the northeast don't allow PVC for supply lines due to bursting issuesin cold weather, but will allow Cpvc (PVC lined copper). The problem with Cpvc is that you have to re-plumb whole areas of the house with it as opposed to merely fixing the problem areas.

[Freedom]

So much to do. Expensive too. Sigh. Part of me wonders why I stopped renting . I miss having things fixed for me by the landlord, lol.

As LH says, it all builds your equity If you haven't already, make sure you set up a file folder and place ALL the receipts for every single renovation in that folder. Some day in the far future when you sell, you will need all that info!

I keep a folder for each job, so I can get the warranty, phone numbers, and so forth, easily if something develops. Then I photocopy the receipt or cancelled check or credit card bill with the payment and put THAT in the equity folder. However you do it, doing it on an ongoing basis will simply things when you sell.

[catnapper]

Oh Jenny do I know what you're saying!

We have many of the same issues.... I think we're living in the same house!!! I can take a hot bath, but if I want hot water from the sink, which is a whole 2 inches away, forget about it! And if the washer is running, we get a trickle coming from any other faucets.

Last week, we had no heat. None. The utility guy came out to fix it. He said he fixed the furnace this time, but we'd need a new one soon, maybe stretch til next year if we're lucky. Thats an easy $3,000 It might as well a million right now because we can't get that kind of money.

We also need a new roof soon.... talk about a chunk of money there!!!

[jennielynn1970]

Kim, your house reminds me soooo much of mine... looks and all!! They've gotta be the same era. Mine was built in 1904. I'm in the semi-historic district (they're working on getting this area/block included with the area across Hamilton Street). So much work. So much money, which I definitely don't have. I can't budget to save my life, and have someone working with me on refinancing my 1st, 2nd and 3rd mortgages/lines of credit. Why they gave me the last one as a VISA card, I'll never know. Way too easy to use the money, and I should have used the majority of it for repairs, which I intended to, but then other things in life got involved. I'm 37.. I should be better at budgeting and stuff at this point.

[Rachel]

When we were thinking about buying our new house, we hired an inspector to go through it to point out problems.

If you didn't have an inspection prior to buying the house, you may want to consider one now to determine which things are health and safety issues and which things could wait.

Also, the very first thing we wanted to do when we bought the house was rip out the gas fireplace and replace it with a woodburning one. We are so glad that we didn't. We use the fireplace every morning and it really heats up the house. Our old house had a woodburning fireplace and we found it too much of a bother to build a fire.

I agree whole heartedly. The hauling of wood is a real pain and we had our wood burning fireplace converted to gas for the same reason. Since you don't know the condition of the chimney or where your damper is, don't use the fireplace unityou have the thing inspected. Also I would want to have a plumber check out the gas line, etc.