Homes… Your Thoughts… Old or New?

[MossRoad]

...

The observed features are more easily explained as a result of the imperfect methods used to make glass window panes before the float glass process was invented.
...

That's what I always figured.... it was manufactured wavy, and has stayed wavy.

Now potato chips... that's another story.

 

[etpm]

A few more in nearby city historic district.
Imagine in middle of 100 acres.View attachment 3258929View attachment 3258930View attachment 3258931View attachment 3258932

The first houses are OK but I really like the last house. It's kinda ratty looking but I love the way it looks.
Eric

 

[BackRoad]

…but still had to pay fee to the city.

This is why any permit requirements beyond basic sanitary waste management are established...follow the money!

Increased taxation not requiring voter approval...

 

[WinterDeere]

This is why any permit requirement beyond basic sanitary waste management is established...follow the money!

There's also a big distinction between "in town" living and rural living, here. I've done both.

In town, there are legitimate concerns with the construction on one property affecting a neighbor, with everyone jammed onto 1/4 acre or 1/2 acre lots. And once built, even if it violated ordinances, getting it torn down is always a problem. So, permitting prevents such violations from ever getting built in the first place.

Now where it gets ridiculous is in more rural locations. There is no house in my neighborhood on less than 2 acres, and most are closer to 10 acres. Yet, now we have to do all sorts of drainage and runoff studies if the cumulative sum of all our permitted construction (driveways + patios + sheds + buildings) ever exceeds 1000 square feet. On most of these properties, that's less than 0.4% of their land.

But these drainage and runoff studies do keep the engineering office contracted by the township very busy and flush with work. It probably pays the complete salaries of at least a few employees.

 

[arto98607]

I have installed central vacuum piping twice, one in the previous house and one in our current house.

They were both weekend projects due to full time working for living at the time, and took me couple of weekends to complete.

The first house had an unfinished basement which made it pretty easy to install the piping, the current house is a two story and it was all 100% completed which made it little more challenging project.

They are not so common for some reason in USA but are lot more common in Canada.

Glad I did it.

Sorry I know this is little off the topic, but...


Woke up last night around midnight with something flying high up in the bedroom ceiling - well it was a bat that somehow had gotten into the house!

The bedroom ceiling is very high and it was obvious I had to close the door, ask my wife to stay under the covers, go get the built-in vacuum hose and four wand extensions in a hurry.

I was easily able to reach the bat with the extensions and it was sent to the central vac. unit in the garage in a hurry!

One big powerful swoosh and it was gone but I have doubts a little "hoover" would have enough suction & air volume to do it, but will never know I suppose.
Big shopvac would have worked fine, but not so practical the middle of night and never enough extensions to reach the bat.

I will spend some time investigating how the heck it got into the house, but we suspect the mb. bathroom fan and I may have to go up to the attic...

 

[WinterDeere]

Every time I've had a bat in the house, a tennis racket was a quick and effective solution. One time, home from college for the summer at my parent's house, I actually managed to "serve" a bat straight out thru the French doors to the patio, with a shot from the tennis racket at the far end of the family room.

 

[Dftodd]

Some people with large houses I know close up some rooms in the winter.

We had a 2000sqft home and we did that throughout the year.

It was just my wife and I after the teenagers grew up and moved out.

So the two guest bedrooms stayed closed and unoccupied.

I shut the ducts down so the heat and ac just barely trickled through them.

If we were gonna have guests. Then we would open one of the rooms up and I would grab the step stool and open the duct back up.

The house we are planning to build is gonna be around 1400sqft, 2 bed 2 bath and handicapped accessible with a shower in the master bath that you can roll a wheel chair into.

We're planning on dying in that home, so we are planning accordingly.

 

[Dftodd]

Growing up we never heated except the week around Christmas when the Greats would come to visit…

Oakland California has nearly perfect climate based on the number of heating and cooling days measured in major metros…

It’s easy to find homes well over the million dollar mark with no A/C…

A lot of the older homes only had side heater option on the kitchen gas range… no insulation and with single pane double hung windows…

With the push to ban gas heat almost all new installs are heat pumps requiring a service upgrade…

When you cook, heat, dry and make hot water with gas not a lot of electricity needed.

I would think the way the housing prices are in California, my 2000sqft home that we paid $125k in Arkansas for is probably comparable to a million dollar home there.

At least based on the house hunters shows my wife watches on TV.

 

[Dftodd]

Sorry I know this is little off the topic, but...


Woke up last night around midnight with something flying high up in the bedroom ceiling - well it was a bat that somehow had gotten into the house!

The bedroom ceiling is very high and it was obvious I had to close the door, ask my wife to stay under the covers, go get the built-in vacuum hose and four wand extensions in a hurry.

I was easily able to reach the bat with the extensions and it was sent to the central vac. unit in the garage in a hurry!

One big powerful swoosh and it was gone but I have doubts a little "hoover" would have enough suction & air volume to do it, but will never know I suppose.
Big shopvac would have worked fine, but not so practical the middle of night and never enough extensions to reach the bat.

I will spend some time investigating how the heck it got into the house, but we suspect the mb. bathroom fan and I may have to go up to the attic...

I have memories of dad standing on his bed with a tennis racket trying to club a bat as it flew by

 

[Dftodd]

There's also a big distinction between "in town" living and rural living, here. I've done both.

In town, there are legitimate concerns with the construction on one property affecting a neighbor, with everyone jammed onto 1/4 acre or 1/2 acre lots. And once built, even if it violated ordinances, getting it torn down is always a problem. So, permitting prevents such violations from ever getting built in the first place.

Now where it gets ridiculous is in more rural locations. There is no house in my neighborhood on less than 2 acres, and most are closer to 10 acres. Yet, now we have to do all sorts of drainage and runoff studies if the cumulative sum of all our permitted construction (driveways + patios + sheds + buildings) ever exceeds 1000 square feet. On most of these properties, that's less than 0.4% of their land.

But these drainage and runoff studies do keep the engineering office contracted by the township very busy and flush with work. It probably pays the complete salaries of at least a few employees.

They have environmental studies (act 250) in Vermont. Which can take up to a year to push through before you can even think about building.

When the city of Vilonia built a bypass around the city, they didn't take into account drainage or how the highway would effect the surrounding areas.

Some people's properties started flooding when they didn't before.

So they had to come back in and add diversion ditches and drainage to relocate the water.

We're kinda running into that now. There are two houses fixing to be built behind me.

One of the properties (4 acres) has a ditch that runs along the road in front of it. But the ditch just ends, it doesn't go anywhere.

The ditch on my side of the road actually drains off into a low spot on some joining property that's fixing to have the other house built on.

Neither ditch is on my property, but my property does drain into the one on my side of the neighbors road.

So we'll probably have to get together (all 4 parties) pretty soon and figure out what to do about it.

Its probably gonna end up being a culvert under the road to the dirch that drains. And then extending the ditch to the back of the two rear propeties.

My property drains..... so my plan is to let the other 3 parties argue it out amongst themselves. And I'll help out where I can with labor or as an operator if needed.

 

[FullMetalBucket]

I had a bat get in my prior NH house years back. It was before I put a new roof so I think it came in by the chimney flashing. Anyway middle of the night I heard a strange erratic flapping noise around the dark room. Flipped on the light and there he was flying around in circles. I tried to catch him but all I had was a towel no net . I had a towel in one hand and a tennis racket in the other lol. Managed to finally direct him downstairs and out the slider. I didn’t want to kill it because I lived at the end of a lake at the time and those guys eat a lot of skeeters. Bats are pretty much harmless. Plus I don’t want to piss off Batman.

Now the squirrels that broke into my house were a different story. I had zero tolerance for those little jerks. I had to have all the insulation removed in the attic, hepa vacuumed all their droppings, and sterilized and replace the soffit they chewed through. Cost several thousand.

 

[arto98607]

....................snip.................... Bats are pretty much harmless. Plus I don’t want to piss off Batman.

Now the squirrels that broke into my house were a different story. I had zero tolerance for those little jerks. I had to have all the insulation removed in the attic, hepa vacuumed all their droppings, and sterilized and replace the soffit they chewed through. Cost several thousand.

Not trying to be alarmist, but some bats have rabies and if you accidentally get scraped by one, enough to break the skin (or bitten which may be rare?) I think you may change your mind...

Nothing against bats, as long as they are not inside my house.

 

[FullMetalBucket]

Not trying to be alarmist, but some bats have rabies and if you accidentally get scraped by one, enough to break the skin (or bitten which may be rare?) I think you may change your mind...

Nothing against bats, as long as they are not inside my house.

I know but it is less than 1%. Mosquitos carry all kinds of nasties too and I’ve been bitten by a lot more of those.

 

[ultrarunner]

I would think the way the housing prices are in California, my 2000sqft home that we paid $125k in Arkansas for is probably comparable to a million dollar home there.

At least based on the house hunters shows my wife watches on TV.

Fair bet on one of the metros…

During Covid I saw a 1920 one thousand foot bungalow that had been foreclosed twice in Oakland sell for 920k


Couldn’t believe it myself… no garage either.

Now it’s estimated to be 800k but still unbelievable for a home that sold for under 3k new.

 

[Dftodd]

Fair bet on one of the metros…

During Covid I saw a 1920 one thousand foot bungalow that had been foreclosed twice in Oakland sell for 950k


Couldn’t believe it myself… no garage either.

Now it’s estimated to be 800k but still unbelievable for a home that sold for under 3k new.

Its also tiny..... Back before covid you could buy a McMansion with a large 3 car garage for $300ish here.

Daughter just bought a 2400sqft, 4 bed, 2.5 baths, w/ pool on a fancy walking trail in town for $325k.

Which reminds me, I'm gonna have to go over in a couple weeks and help her husband figure out how to open up the pool and get the chemicals right, as well as Cypher out the pool controls

I did mention that it might be a good plan to talk to the local pool company and see what it would take to convert it to salt water.

 

[NUTTERDW]

I bought some land thinking when we move in a few years I don’t want to buy someone else’s problem and I’ll build new. But now now prices are so high on new construction, you’ll spend 400k building a 300k house. I may have to rethink my plan.

My two sons and my son in law and I found 25 acres of land in 1999 and divided it up and we built our own homes, so we know the quality of the construction. It was a fun time even though all of us were working 40 hours a week on public work. We finished my wife and I's house in June of 2004 which was the last one to be built. During that time we had to install 2500 hundred feet of water, gas, and sewer lines as well as build the road. When we moved in the houses were totally finished. WE got a finished house for about half of what a contractor wanted to build one.Our house is a story and a half and about 2400 feet on the main floor and 1400 one the second floor. WE had two children and their six children who lived out of the area so the second floor made sense when they came to visit. It has a separate heating and cooling system so we don't keep it heated years around.

 

[ultrarunner]

Memory a little rusty but here is the home…

https://redf.in/9FnNoQ

 

[bigtiller]

WOW!!

 

[WinterDeere]

When the city of Vilonia built a bypass around the city, they didn't take into account drainage or how the highway would effect the surrounding areas.

Some people's properties started flooding when they didn't before.

That's understandable. A highway with 3 lanes of traffic in each direction has an impervious surface near 320,000 square feet per mile! That's more than 7 acres of asphalt per mile.

The little 600 square foot garage that I want to erect on a property of several acres of open lawn and trees shouldn't require the same level of scrutiny.

Memory a little rusty but here is the home…

https://redf.in/9FnNoQ

That entire house would fit inside my dining room. Literally.