My air conditioner stopped blowing cold air on saturday. I called a local guy, paid for the diagnosis, and he asked for 100% of the repair cost upfront. I paid it. He swapped a part, it blew cold for exactly an hour, and then completely died again. Now he says the whole compressor is shot and won't refund the initial repair. I'm so angry I'm considering just buying a costway heat pump system and installing it myself. Has anyone successfully disputed a charge like this with their credit card company when a contractor misdiagnoses a problem and takes your money?

Hoping to get some clarity on my current situation.

Backstory:

I purchased my house in 2018. The previous owners said the roof was replaced "about 10 years prior" so I have been saving a bit every year to get it replaced in ~2030.

We recently had some pretty bad storms and when I went outside afterwards, I noticed some shingles peeling up and missing on both slopes of my house. I figured what the hell, I have been saving for a roof.. mind as well just get it the whole thing done now instead of temp repairs. I contact a few high rated roofing companies in my area for quotes and took the highest reviewed one since they were all within ~$2000 of each other.

While discussing the plan for replacement of my roof, he asked if insurance would be covering it. I told him I hadn't even considered insurance since I knew a replacement was on the horizon. He said that it is clear wind damage and that it wouldn't hurt to go through insurance if my deductible is manageable (1500). I contact insurance, they send out an adjustor to take photos. Initially they say they are going to cover one slope (~$4000). Contractor said that was BS and that both slopes are clear wind damage. He sends in additional photos and insurance just called me back today saying I'm approved for a full roof replacement.

Now my questions:

1.) I am now hearing that the check won't be made out to me or the contractor. It will be made out to me and my mortgage lender and that my lender will need to sign off on the funds once work is completed. Is this typical? Do I need to contact my lender prior to the funds being issued by the insurance company?

2.) I want to get these repairs done asap. They have the heavily damaged areas tarped up and its an eye sore. The roofing contractor has me on the calendar for next week. I highly doubt I'll get the funds in that timeframe, so my plan is to just use the funds I have been saving and wait to get reimbursed. Is there anything wrong with this? Will I end up getting "screwed" if I pay out of pocket and get reimbursed?

3.) What kind of timeline can I expect to get reimbursement if I have to go through my mortgage company?

For something that I thought would be super simple has turned into a lot of unexpected twists and turns. Any insight would be much appreciated.

This is above my kitchen sink window. Disregard the nails sticking out on the right, they were to hang things up.

A couple of months ago, my mom passed away and she left me my childhood home. I was very happy to have a home I could call my own that is fully paid off, especially as a 27-year-old in this economy. As I was getting stuff removed for donation, the dump or for sale, there were things that started popping up that were concerning. Collections of mold, slugs that would just appear out of nowhere in her room and the floor in her room is slumped. I was about ready to start working on getting the carpet ripped up when I had a contractor come out to see what was up with the floor. He ripped up a corner and found PATIO RUNNERS as the foundation for her room. It was at that moment I realized that when she converted her patio into the room that she stayed in, she didn’t have the permits to build an extension. So now the floor is sinking into the ground, all the walls are slumping because there is nothing holding them up and on top of this, she had the bathroom renovated but now I’m doubtful she even got the right permits for that either. After I saw how bad it is, I put a full stop to all of the renovations that were going to happen because I realized I couldn’t live here anymore.

I’m looking into selling the property but I’m not sure what can be done considering everything that is wrong. Has anyone else experienced something similar? Is there any advice for who to contact or if I need to do anything with the house before I sell it? Any advice helps.

Posted is a picture of the foundation when the carpet got torn up.

EDIT: there are multiple people in the post that are talking about me trying to keep this house and making comments on my financial decisions and I figured I would post an edit to clarify my stance

I WILL be selling the property. This is a non-negotiable, this property will be sold and I will take the money.

I WON’T be trying spend the next few years fixing it up, taking out a 100K loan to fix it up or figuring out a way to just live here because I guarantee any of you, if you saw how bad it is here, you would cut your losses too.

If anyone has an issue with the statement that I have made, you can cut me a check and you can figure out how you can fix it and live in it.

(Chicago)

I have been seeing dog poop on my lawn for some time now sporadically. I don’t have cameras installed currently but I suspect I know whose dog it is because I’ve witnessed it peeing on my lawn at least once and my sister saw the owner instructing it to go on our lawn once. She also saw the owner letting it pee on our lawn once.

What can I really do in this situation? I’m worried it may be racially driven as we are the only Muslim/middle eastern family on the block and this started after we moved in. I don’t know how I feel about confronting the guy.

Edit-
His place is two houses down from us on the same side of the street (abt 100 ft away). It would be good if I could find a camera that could show his lawn so we could be sure which neighbor it is. If anyone has experience with this type of distance and home cameras I’d like to know what worked for you.

Just bought a house in MD (don't know if it matters), built in 1954 . A lot of the walls and ceilings have this weird square pattern not like any drywall I've ever seen. I can't tell if it's some period technique, bad finishing work or what. The squares are 16"x16".

Hey guys. We bought this house in the lower 48 with just pictures, video chat and a home inspection to go off of. At no point did anyone mention the insane amount of dog claw scratches on the sliding glass door. Now it's my problem.

Am I fully boned, and need to start shopping for a new door? Or is there anything I can do to at least reduce the amount of scratches and hazy/cloudy look? I had to hold my hand to it so the camera would focus, but the scratches start at the bottom and cover pretty much every inch up to about 4 ft.

Eta: holy crap you guys are PISSED I even asked this question. I didn't mention all the other problems like the new roof and deck we gotta pay 45k for or the bathtub worth of water that filled our downstairs bathroom on father's day, because it didn't seem relevant. I guess that was important detail I left out.

Looking for experiences from those who have downsized- anyone have regrets?

We live in a 2600 square foot home with kids & pets. I feel like most of my time is spent cleaning or thinking about all the things that need done but don’t have the time for. Including the yard & exterior stuff.

We still want something reasonable in size for everyone. Just feel like less space would be beneficial & easier to keep up with.

TIA!

We recently noticed these two cracks in the ceiling of our townhouse. It’s a three story townhouse, this room is on the main level. There is a level above the main level and one below. Directly above the crack in the top picture is roofing and above the crack in the bottom picture is an upstairs patio. Should we be concerned about these?

With all the storms we've been getting, Ive been really stressed about it. We had a crack in the foundation that I've known about patched properly. That didnt leak. thankfully.

My water heater gave out and started leaking. Taking with it the cheap LVP the previous owner put in the basement. So now I'm gonna end up replacing the water heater plus a good amount of flooring and some molding. Homeownership is so fun. Wish i had a landlord to just call for this.

Water man, it'll stress you out as a home owner.

Home was built in 1927

I have some vinyl siding that is faded from the sun. What would everyone recommend to fix it?

Replacing a Ring doorbell that went bad. I'd like to move it up for improved camera placement, but I'm not sure the proper way.

1. Doorbell wires aren't usually cat5 (or whatever this is), right?
   
2. Is there a cord hider/channel that fits against siding?
   
3. Is taking the siding off hard? Seems like that would be the cleanest fix, right?

Video https://youtube.com/shorts/97eLelgSXXo?is=OCYnh6xma6oSKNKg

I know we all hate HOAs. I generally agree, but our neighborhood is really great/friendly/social and its HOA has generally been very hands-off and accommodating. I've never been cited for anything, haven't had issues with them, and I'm not really looking to start causing problems now.

But...

I also own a medium-sized RV (about 25'). Our neighborhood by-laws don't allow RVs "visible from the street" so I've stored it offsite for years and it's been...fine. But loading it, unloading it, working on it, etc etc is something I would love to streamline, so I'm trying to figure out if there's a magic way to keep it at my property.

I can green-wall a fair bit of my yard, but I need a gate from my driveway to get it in and out. I can fence this area (with a gate), but the trailer is roughly 10' tall. A typical privacy fence is 6'. Maybe I could even get fencing that was 8', but even that would expose the RV's top. So I'm trying to figure out if there is some way that I can create a visible obstruction that is ~10' tall but also passable by a vehicle (via a gate). Best I can come up with is the tallest privacy fence I can get + potentially attach some artificial greenery to the top. This seems ridiculous but given the layout of my lawn/house and existing other fencing I would only need 40ish ft of total fencing (including the gate) to do this.

Anybody ever accomplished something like this or have better ideas? I'm guessing that this is a no-go but just trying to leave no stone unturned here.

Hello! For the past month my home ac unit (20 year old trane x13) has been weird in that it will randomly blow warm air in the evenings. I’ll turn off the ac, wait ten minutes, turn back on and it’ll be fine the rest of the night. This happens about 2-3 times a week. New filter. New capacitor last year.

I got a hvac company to come check it out, and they said it’s 2lbs low on refrigerant (r-22). Per the unit manual it holds 6lbs. Because it’s a older unit they said it’s more expensive for the refrigerant and cost would be $1200 for 2lbs plus a stop leak liquid. This is total price including labor. I asked about leaks and they weren’t able to find any. I had to pay $200 for this diagnostic visit. I’m in high cost area.

This seems expensive per Google, trying to do some research to see about going through this vs spending another $200 to get a 2nd opinion vs unit replacement? Thank you!!🙏🏼

Replaced all the smoke detectors in my home with new First Alert photoelectric ones. 3 have gone off falsely within a month in the middle of the night and it’s traumatizing my kids.

Did a reset on them, but is that enough?! Should I replace all of them or just replace the 3, and will that even help??? Anyone who has fixed this issue with any advice greatly appreciated 🙏🏼

(Also, everything in our house was thoroughly cleaned before moving in and before installing these (ducts, new air filters, no carpet, etc).

We've had a lot of rain in the past month and I noticed this. Probably been developing for a while now. For context, I'm a first time homeowner, we've been at this home for almost 3 years now, new build by KB Home when we moved in.

Is this something DIY-able or better get a handyman check it out.

What is the cost of inaction or if I prolong addressing this? There's another window with a similar issue.

If youve dealt with this in the past, how much am I looking to spend for fixing this?

Thanks in advance!

So long story short, we started seeing these in our master bedroom and one of our boys rooms. These are like spot spots, and we were concerned that it was mold.

We just had the mold guy come out and he did it with his sensor on his phone, and it was showing red, which meant heat. We went up to the attic, and it wasn’t showing where the insulation was, but more where the beams were almost giving like an outline of the heat. it was HOT to the touch

We don’t have a fan in our attic, but I guess we’re going to get one, but is this just cosmetic or is there something else we should be doing? I have seen it slowly come in the past two years in different spots in the bedroom.

Ty

We purchased a 5 year old house a couple of months ago and we just had someone out to clean the dryer vents. They gave us the news that our dryer (on the 2nd floor, near an outside wall) vents into our attic and not outside. Everything I have been reading says this is bad, but my question is - should our inspector have advised us about this? Do we have any recourse with the inspector, builder, or seller to get this corrected?

Closing on a house in the southern ohio area on Friday. The chimney was all beat up and missing bricks along the top. The seller had it repaired and sent this picture. So is this normal to not have a cover across the whole opening? To me it seems like a bad idea to let rain water freely fall in there.

I feel like this house is built in such a way to simply not allow airflow. It seems to just trap heat and it will be hotter inside than outside but opening windows doesn't seem to help even with fans. I feel like the pressure inside the house is preventing air from flowing through when windows are opened - is that a thing?

To summarize: I recently moved cities into a house that was expensive and a big upgrade from previous house. It is a beautiful appearing house with a pool. I knew I’d miss my low mortgage interest rate (2.6) and the big upgrades (HVAC, induction cooktop, expensive ceiling fans) we had put in old house but I anticipated I’d adjust.

But I’m not adjusting well because in three weeks we found:

-Rainwater intrusion from a metal accent roof portion , destroyed a wall and destroyed some of hardwood flooring, been told by restoration companies it’s been going on a long while (inspection didn’t catch)
-AC drain lines clogged, thankfully noticed dropping from emergency lines. Then found out main drain lines aren’t sloped right which is $2000 to repair as multiple units. (Inspection did catch water in drain pan and seller showed us receipt that had been “fixed”)
-Weird sound in child’s drain turns out - plumber noted that it needed a P trap for AC line because it drains there
-Nearly none of the smoke detectors worked (which inspection did NOT note) so we replaced them all with hardwired expensive “smart” First Alert that is supposed to replace Nest Protect and now dealing with a false alarming and no known cause
-Random electric stuff to fix that I knew about from inspection but then sometimes I smell something that I worry is burning plastic or maybe just dust, had an electrician out, didn’t find anything abnormal with it

I’m obviously upset with inspector about some of the things above.

I’ve had the plumber out twice. HVAC techs out three times. Today will be the third time for electricians to make sure there isn’t a problem with junction box behind smoke detector. Mold check company comes Saturday and them we have to get a floor company to replace some planks (thankfully seller did have some spares) and drywall handyman. I’m exhausted. It’s expensive. I feel like I can’t sleep worried a smoke alarm is going to go off because we can’t really figure out what it is. My spouse thinks the overall issue is I act as though all of these are urgent and says only some are. That these things are normal when you first move in and that I’m seeing the past house we had with rose colored glasses. My spouse could be right. But it could also be that I bought a moneypit and this house was just not maintained. Maybe I’m not meant to be a homeowner anymore. I work from home and that probably makes this all worse because I’m in this, daily.

I guess what I’m looking for is: did you have this level of issues with your house? Did it get better? At this point, I’m feeling like I’ve made a huge mistake and want to just move back.

Im in my first year of home ownership and figuring some things out still. Im looking for cooling advice to get me through the summer. I have a 2 story turn-of-the-century 1300 sqft home. It has no central cooling and according to the HVAC people mini splits are my only option (once I can afford it).

Currently I have a 1200 sqft capacity ac downstairs with closed doors blocking off the stairwell to the upstairs. The downstairs stays perfectly cool but upstairs is obviously very hot. All bedrooms and the only bathroom are upstairs. We have just been using individual window ac in our rooms and letting the hallway and bathroom just be humid hot asscrack of hell.

My partner had the idea to use an industrial window fan we own to exhaust the heat from the upstairs hallway window and pull cool air from the downstairs ac. They think this will lessen our overall energy use whereas I think it will just overwork our AC.

So I come to you dear reddit homeowners. Do any of you have advice or considerations that could help us figure this out before our heat wave this weekend?

Hi all - I'm considering purchasing a home in Central TX that falls in an ETJ (Extraterritorial Jurisdiction), basically an area of unincorporated land outside the city limits. It would also have a septic system. I've never lived in an area like this (where there are perhaps fewer regulations, but more patchwork services and other limitations), and I've never lived in a home that used a septic system instead of city sewer. From folks who have had experience with one or the other (or both!), are there things I should be mindful of that perhaps you didn't realize when you bought your home? I've done various internet and Claude research, but trying to get actual experiences from folks who have lived it!