Brandon Nelson
Call
FAX
Categories
- Neighborhoods
- Structures I Love
- NW Street Views
- Seller Info
- Buyer Info
- Market Info
- NW Way of Life
- NW 'Words' of Life
- Home Projects & Upkeep
- Races & Events
- Other Stuff
Neighborhoods
Bellingham Weather
Archive for the 'Home Projects & Upkeep' Category
Should Your First House Be a Fixer?
Heather and I bought our first house in 2003, in Sudden Valley. We paid $127,500 for it — a 1200 square foot split level with 4 small bedrooms, a bath and a half. The seller had lived there for 17 years and, bless her heart, had never done 1 minute of maintenance or deep cleaning. Oh, and she smoked cigarettes like there was no tomorrow.
The house needed EVERYTHING. And Heather and I had the vision, the skills, and the energy to do it. In fact, we were (read: “I was”) giddy at what a castle it was, even though you couldn’t see the paint through the yellow cigarette film plastering the walls and ceiling. I’d spend my nights and weekends fixing it up, and make it into the home of our dreams. We’d start a family there, by golly, and all would be joyous.
A full five years later, as we were moving out, into our 2nd home, we put the finishing touches on the full-gut, inside and out remodel. Five years. The work I’d “envisioned” multiplied easily five times over as we tore into the project. Nights and weekends, cold wintery months, rainy season after rainy season the work rolled on.
Meanwhile, I watched others nearby buy brand new houses with 30% more space for a couple hundred more in their monthly payments, and I second guessed my decision to go for a fixer.
Ahh… but the experience. It’s a rite of passage to either build or fully re-build one’s home, isn’t it? For me, it was. I have the tools and skills of a journeyman carpenter, and enough understanding of the other trades, to just pull it off. And rewarding it was, to see that neglected split level turn into a thing of true beauty. We still own it, as a rental now, and I take tremendous pride in seeing it brighten up the street with its new EVERYTHING.
Take on a fixer for your first house if you wish, but understand three things:
- A fixer is not just a house, it’s a way of life. It will consume you long after you’re willing to be consumed. And…
- It will take 2 to 5 times longer and cost 2 to 5 times more than you ever dreamed of.
- And therefore will likely be 2 to 5 times as rewarding.
Cost Vs. Value
For 22 years now, Remodeling Magazine has published a Cost vs. Value study where they look at roughly 20 common upgrade areas and measure the return on those upgrades. The study is separated by region, but all in all, there was only ONE upgrade they considered to return better than dollar for dollar.
First, let’s look at some of the other upgrades and their respective returns:
-
Adding a sunroom, 54.2% return.
-
Remodeling a bathroom, 77% return.
-
Remodeling a basement, 91.6% return.
-
Adding a deck, 82.1% return.
-
Adding a back-up generator, 57.9% return.
-
Adding an attic bedroom, 87.7% return.
And as far as making upgrades to the house itself, the single highest return on investment, which in Remodeling Magazine’s analysis returned nearly 130% of cost, is upgrading the front entry door. Some friends of mine made this upgrade before selling their Columbia neighborhood home. We all agreed it made a substantial impact on the presentation – and helped sell the house in 3 days.
Comments: 2 Comments »There’s a Lake on My Roof!
I often quote a renowned building performance expert named Joseph Lstiburek, on his two rules for ideal exterior design in wet climates:
One, “If you want to save cash, flash!”
And two, “Don’t be a dope, slope!”
I’ve seen plenty of instances where both rules are broken. For example, rather than flash a joint between two materials, such as where siding meets a deck ledger, some people will just intall a bead of caulk and call it a day.
Does that work? No. No, it doesn’t — it needs metal flashing.
I’ve also seen plenty of flat, horizontal surfaces that don’t shed water, such as poorly drained flat roofs. There are a lot of places in the world where flat roofs work just fine, where the rainfall is relatively minimal and the heat of the sun bakes off any standing water faster than you can say, “Death Valley!”
But the Pacific NW is not one of those areas. Here, one could almost truthfully say, “If it doesn’t drain, it doesn’t dry!”
So, if your house has a flat roof, get out the ladder and hike on up there a day or two fter the next good rain. Is there a lake up there? If so, you’ve got a situation, pardner. And you’ve got two choices:
One, fix the drainage. Are there scupper or other drain-holes for water to escape? If so, are they clogged? If there aren’t any, there needs to be. If they’re there, but the water is elsewhere, guess what? The two must meet.
Two, if fixing the drainage isn’t a possibility for whatever reason, then you need to get some slope so the water can shed, like it does on a gable roof. It’s possible to maintain the flat roof “look” of the home while getting enough slope built in to get the water running downhill and off the surface. That’s the goal.
Water that just sits on the roof like a lake will eventually find its way into the structure, where it will leak into the interior, and cause rot and mold and all sorts of nasties. And the sheer weight of it is hard on the house. A 20 foot by 20 foot lake of water 1 inch deep weighs a ton. Imagine if it’s two inches deep. Full size trucks weigh less.
If you’ve got a flat roof, climb on up there and check it out. If there’s a lake, and if you need a referral to a roofer or a general contractor, give me a ring. I’ll put you in touch with the right people.
Comments: Please leave a comment.This Is What Friends Are For!
Last month, we took a family vacation out of town. We locked up the house, set a few lights on timers, and turned down the thermostats on the the furnace and water heater. Basic stuff.
Our house is less than 2 years old, so we don’t spend a lot of time worrying about things going wrong with it, i.e. mechanical breakdowns, leaks, stuff like that.
But on our 1st full day gone, our friend Ruth called with an alarming message: The kitchen floor was flooded, and water was starting to leak through the downstairs ceiling! Yikes!
We’d hired Ruth to come by and clean the house while we were away, and THANK GOODNESS for that. We’ve left home countless time in the past without arranging for anyone to drop by. Her visit while we were away was purely coincidence, really, and sheer good luck!
Ruth identified the leak as coming from under the kitchen sink, so she shut the valves off there and mopped up the mess, then called us.
The next day, another friend (and contractor), Eric, dropped by to assess the damage and pinpoint the leak. We’d gotten off easy: only some paint blistering on the downstairs ceiling and heating duct chase. And the leak, it turned out, was due to a loose air-gap fitting for the dishwasher, which was still running when we left the house on our trip.
Had Ruth not gone by less than 24 hours after our departure, the water would’ve soaked into the flooring, framing and sheetrock for nearly a week, and caused a lot more damage!
My point is this: If you’re going away for even just a few days, and you have a neighbor or a friend who you could exchange drop-bys with, DO IT! Just have them drop by your house and run through it, looking for trouble. It doesn’t need to take longer than 5 minutes, if that. Have them make sure there are no leaks, broken windows, funny smells, damaged roofing from branches or trees, or anything unusual.
It’ll make it easier for you to relax during your trip, and if some mishap does occur and your friend can catch it early enough, you may save yourself a lot of money and material cost for the repair.
Comments: Please leave a comment.Video: When Water Heaters Explode
As a former home inspector, I’ve seen plenty of mis-wired, mis-plumbed, mis-vented, and just plain WRONG water heater installations. Although I did “flag” them, I didn’t fully realize the potential consequences until I watched the video below.
Whether or not you’re a fan of the Mythbusters TV show, if you value your house and your life, this is one you don’t want to miss…
This Can’t Be!
Q: What’s wrong with this picture?
A: Every house performs differently. The setting, the ground-type, the orientation… it all matters. And so does the era the house was built in, the choice of lumber that went into it, the carpenters who built it, and on and on.
It’s been said: You can take a house design, replicate it exactly just across the street, rotate it 90 degress, and it’ll behave differently. It will breathe differently, dry differently, warm and cool differently.
That’s why there are no hard and fast rules that apply to every house in every setting. Like people, every house is unique. And when you dig in and research and analyze a house, it deserves a fresh look and an open mind.
As for the photo and what’s wrong with it: That 4×4 is pressure treated, ground-contact rated lumber. It’s engineered to avoid doing exactly what it did, which is rot and crack and topple over. The posts on either side of it are fine… but this one – despite it’s intended design — was uniquely destined for failure.
Comments: Please leave a comment.The Value of Done!
Men fix things. Or at least, we like to believe we CAN fix things. It’s a double-edged sword at times. I mean, long before I became a Realtor I learned carpentry. And I still have every tool I ever owned, right downstairs in the garage. Unrestrained, I’m capable of going into full-blown carpenter-mode and building just about anything.
And that holds me back.
It’s not my “highest and best use” at this stage in my family’s life. It’s a skill I absolutely treasure and will pass on to my boy Hayden when/if he wants to learn it. But because I work full time as a Realtor and am trying to spend every possible minute with Hayden and train as an athlete and blog and keep SOME of my friends from totally writing me off… it’s not fair to those things — those high priority things (by my choice) that I try to fit carpentry into that equation as well.
But still, our house — like ANY house — needs some occasional carpentry.
And at 37 years old, married, with a kid, I’m finally able to force myself to do that until-now unthinkable four letter word that my wife, and wives the world over, have come to love:
HIRE!
It’s true. All those tools in the garage that define me as a carpenter… well they need a home, other than our garage. So I’ve been assigned the duty (by Heather) to HIRE a builder to build us a tool shed on the back of the house.
By GOD I’ve built sheds!
I’ve built sturdy 8×12′ gable roof, board and batten, 4′ door, ventilated storage sheds. I’ve built timber frame, cedar sided, copper cupola’d, plumbed and wired garden sheds. I’ve built side-of-a-mountain, sheltered-by-trees, capable of holding 6′ of snow on the roof bivvy sheds in Yosemite National Park, for crying out loud!
And now I’m forced to outsource! And for what? Why CAN’T I, capable carpenter man, erect my own tool shed on the back of my own house on my own land, to house my own tools?
Because my wife understands something us not-quite-as-evolved men still struggle with:
The Value of Done!
I’m hiring it out despite my skills and tools because if we pay a professional builder to build it, it’ll actually get DONE in a non-geologic time frame. And the value of that exceeds the cost of paying for his labor, mark-up and profit. It lets me focus on my full time job as a Realtor, and as a dad, and an athlete, and a husband… not necessarily in that order.
Men who fix things — or think they can — are also men who tend to step over dollars to pick up nickels, and let things go un-done for way too long because we know WE could do it, and we don’t know the Value of Done. But at 37 years old, I’m starting to see it, the Value of Done. And my, my… it is a BEAUTIFUL THING!
What un-finished project are you unable to let go of and outsource to a pro? Is it time to defer to the Value of Done? I bet the wife says, “YES!!!”
Comments: 1 Comment »Should You Wait for 2010?
Money’s tight in ‘09 for a LOT of people and businesses. Maybe MOST people. Definitely MOST businesses. But that coin has a flip-side in that it is a bonfide “buyer’s market” in most sectors of the economy.
“Prices are down…
Incentives are high…
Drop what you’re doing…
And Buy! Buy! Buy!!!”
Sorry, I couldn’t help myself there. Seriously, though, there is a list of home upgrades for which, if you can scrape together the money THIS YEAR AND NEXT, ‘09 -’10, you can get some serious kickbacks! The reason is because there are a number of different incentives and rebates available for such things as:
- Windows and Doors
- Lighting
- Appliances
- Heating systems of many different types
- Roofs (weird but true, click here!)
- Insulation
- Water Heaters
And a list of other, less-traditional components like solar panels and windmills, solar water heaters, geothermal heating systems, etc.
I’m working with some clients right now who are looking at $900 in federal tax credits and another $1000 in rebates from Puget Sound Energy because of a window upgrade — about 25% of the total job cost, all told.
It’s worth a few minutes of research. Here are some links to related major websites with more information:
Be sure to check the manufacturer of ANY item you’re considering replacing or upgrading, as they may have additional rebates available. And DO YOUR HOMEWORK! Ask a ton of questions before just buying any given vinyl window or a truck-load of insulation. There are specific criteria that must be met in order to qualify for certain credits and rebates. My client’s windows, for example: They chose to spend 10% more on a qualifying window, in order to save 30% on the total invoice. That pencils all day long!!!
So give us the scoop: Are you going to make some upgrades and take advantage of these incentives? Share your story…
Comments: Please leave a comment.Trade old-school light bulbs for CFLs at Bellingham Lowes this weekend!
Are you still making spending 90 cents of every lighting dollar creating heat instead of light? If you’re using incandenscent bulbs then that’s EXACTLY what you’re doing! It’s a fact: 90% of the electricity used to “light” a Thomas Edison-style light bulb is wasted creating heat. It’s a crime and a shame.
But this weekend you have the option of changing that with a quick trip to Bellingham Lowes, located at 1050 East Sunset Dr.
FREE BULB EXCHANGE!!!
The event is called “Rock the Bulb” and is presented by Puget Sound Energy (PSE). On Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., you can trade out up to 10 incandescent bulbs for 75%-more-energy-saving, 10X-longer-lasting CFL bulbs.
You have to be a PSE customer to participate, and they’re encouraging people to bring a PSE bill for faster processing. They’re also offering snacks and games, and have a drawing to win part of over $45,000 in prizes.
Events like this are your basic “awareness campaigns” and go a long way to help educate the public about how EASY it is to reduce energy consumption, and therefore global warming. It’s easy-peasy stuff, but it really works! Click HERE to read more tips on how to be an “Energy Super Hero!”
See you at Lowes!
Comments: Please leave a comment.You may have Asbestos in your Bellingham Home
Three different houses I was involved in this past month had asbestos -containing materials used in their construction. These included siding, asbestos-wrapped heating ducts, and vermiculite insulation in the attic. Despite the fear struck in many people’s nerves when the “A-word” is mentioned, all three situations were managed and the buyers and sellers moved forward with confidence. Let’s take a quick look at this material, what it means to a homeowner, and how to manage it.
Asbestos is a group of minerals with microscopic, fibrous crystals. “Small” doesn’t convey the fibers’ miniscule size… we’re talking 1/18,000 of a human hair. A single asbestos fiber that falls from a ceiling can take most of the day to hit the floor. And these fibers are tough! They withstand heat, have high tensile strength yet are soft and pliant, resist chemical damage, and on and on. Ancient Greeks called asbestos the “miracle mineral.” But because of its small size and resistance to deterioration, when it gets inside human lungs in mass quantities, it can cause tumors, cancer, and ultimately death.
Don’t plan on running away from that 1925 Craftsman just yet, though. It’s estimated that EVERY human adult already has tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of asbestos fibers in every gram of dry lung tissue. Read the rest of this entry »
Comments: Please leave a comment.
