house update

[swingchickie]

two of the three contractors came by tonight to give me an estimate on the work to be done on my house:

the pest control guy needs to practically bomb the place -- i have at least 5 types of spiders camping out, as well as a colony of carpenter ants infesting the place. *shudder* i'm looking forward to having all of them go bye-bye. cost: $320.

the tree service guy is going to rip out my 3 evil trees (the two growing into the house, plus the massive pine tree that drops sap and needles and everything else all over my driveway, and that is in danger of falling onto my roof)... plus he's going to trim up every single tree in the yard (if you've never been to my house -- that's a LOT of trees). plus, he's going to rip all the fat above-ground maple roots out (they cover a good portion of my backyard), and grind all the torn-down three stumps so i can use them for mulch. cost: $4,000.

tomorrow i'm meeting with the guy who's giving me an estimate on the house waterproofing for my moldy, icky bathroom. if i cross my fingers real hard, he'll have an opening around the same time as the tree guy, and all of my house woes will be taken care of by the 4th of july. holy CRUD that would be so cool.

as an aside -- i got all 3 contractors' names through angies list, and i can't recommend the site enough. both the pest control and tree guys were super-professional, nice, reasonably priced, and didn't push me at all. in fact, the tree guy handed me a written estimate, said, "if you decide to use us, just give a call and we'll set up an appointment", and LEFT. no high-pressure sell, no "if you book it now i'll give you a discount"... he was straightforward and not pushy in the least. even steered me away from work that he didn't feel was necessary. i could have fainted.

Comments

I almost wish I lived in Philly....

[katehaney.livejournal.com]

because (1) I'd be near you -- yeah! and (2) I'd be near your awesome contractors.

they sound like great finds!

Re: I almost wish I lived in Philly....

[swingchickie.livejournal.com]

well... the house across the street from me is for sale, for $300,000... *tempt, tempt*

and at the very least, you should try out angie's list the next time you need a contractor. and they have every type of service in there, even caterers and hair stylists.

Basements

[pjstinson.livejournal.com]

Basement's stink. We had a leak between our crawl space and our basement and the only way to fix it was to add a new french drain and sump pump. Remember, that the first key is get the water out from under and along side your house. If you don't all of the waterproofing paint that you add won't do a darn bit of good.

Good Luck!!

Re: Basements

[swingchickie.livejournal.com]

yeah, i'm getting a french drain put in and the outside of that corner of the house sealed off. hopefully that'll do the trick. i'll worry about makin gthe bathroom look good again once all that is out of my hair...

[mrlich.livejournal.com]

You probably already thought of this, but thought that I should mention it just in case- You might need someone to do some back-fill when the tree that's growing into the house gets pulled out. You're going to be drawing a lot of mass out of the earth, and with nothing there to support it, you might have problems with the wall (since, as we know, the tree has damaged).

[swingchickie.livejournal.com]

i think the tree is far enough away that it won't be an issue (the roots crawl WAY across the lawn... the tree trunk is like 15-20 feet away). that being said, i'm asking the french drain guy to re-distribute the dirt he digs out from that side, so it can all go in the right place. *crossing fingers* if not, i think you're right, i may be ordering a boatload of dirt. :)