I don’t wanna get shot!
True. And have them install new false walls every month.
That would be amazeing.
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At one point I think France was giving away castles. Probably no AC though, although I don’t know how much you need it in a stone building like that. I’m sure the pipes were not new, and you needed a plan (and funds) to maintain the castle to be granted one. I think the estimate was in the vicinity of €1,000,000 a year in maintenance, but it varied by size.
I found one for you
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I have friends that have done quite well on real estate they weren’t living in as an investment. Can be great, but it’s generally not for me. Leverage can create some amazing returns, until suddenly it doesn’t and it’s a real problem.
I’ve done well financially with the houses I’ve purchased as a residence. I’d only buy with something I intend to hang onto for at least a few years and preferably at least several. If you bought a house 3 or more years ago with a fixed mortgage you are probably pretty happy in terms of market value and current rental rates. As others have pointed out, timing is everything here and if you have to exit early it can be a bitch.
I don’t “mark it zero”, but the estimated/paper value of my current residence is somewhat irrelevant if I plan to live there a while.
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Oops, no, it was Italy.
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Speaking on the closing/opening pools from above.
Was proud of myself for turning on my lawn irrigation this year and saving $50 with a screwdriver. Learned a bit about the plumbing too. Will still be paying to winterize it since it’s more expensive to buy an air compressor than a screwdriver. Maybe one day will fully handle it. Not now.
I had sprinkler systems in two homes in Portland and had no idea you were supposed to do anything to winterize them other than fully turn them off.
Never had a problem. Even after the ice storm in 2004. I guess the winters were still mild enough to not cause whatever damage is caused by not properly winterizing. (I assume water left in the system freezes and expands and breaks something?)
I’ve been told that I got lucky.
water freezes at normal pressure, and is one of the few liquids that expand when it becomes a solid.
If your pipes are strong enough, the water can’t expand into it, and will remain a liquid even at below freezing point (high pressure). If your pipes aren’t strong enough, they will burst when water turns into ice.
Yes, I think that’s pretty much exactly what I said.
Typically if the ground is warm a snow/ice storm is okay for sprinklers not blown out. If it drops to 15 degrees or so though you might have some damage without getting the remaining water blown out.
Yeah, when I lived in Denver I’d often wait until we got snow/frost before I blew out the sprinklers. It takes a decent freeze to freeze pipes that are 6" or so deep. I suppose there is some risk in cracking a sprinkler head but that never happened and would have been cheap/easy to fix.
Nowadays, no sprinklers to worry about.
I assume you bought the house with them. It’d be super unprofessional to not tell you that if you got it installed. Besides, they make money off of doing that, it’s like $50-60 a pop I think for 10 minutes of work + drive time.
Turning it on was pretty easy, I just missed one turn of a valve so had it pumping out of the front-side spigot into the dirt for a couple minutes. Winterizing is a bigger pain, I’ll likely pay for it forever.
It’s not too hard, but requires owning an air compressor. I paid for it one year to watch and make sure I knew how it was done, and then did it myself since I already had a compressor.
Yeah, in both cases the sprinkler systems came with the house. I wouldn’t have had any idea who to call to do the winterization.
One guy in our neighborhood bought an air compressor a few years back and does everyone’s for $25. I’m sure he makes off well on it, but it’s cheap enough that I don’t mind paying for it.
Dealing with a leak in my upstairs bathroom. Involves the drain pipe through which all three places send the outflow: toilet, tub and sink.
Currently have a 4x4 hole in my living room ceiling and now I have to take out part of a wall. The pipe is in such an inconvenient place. Have to cut the wall upstairs, too.
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Holy crap, that’s no bueno. I hope you caught it before there’s any severe water damage, and that maybe you just have to replace the wye and not the entire drain.
Have to do a new Y connector or whatever shape it is.
I hope.
Fortunately, my plumber is my buddy and I get the “friends and family” rate.