Home Maintenance

[Cumberland]

Do you pay for termite protection? What about have your AC serviced every year?

I got estimates for both and the termite protection was just shockingly expensive- like over $1000. The AC check up was $100 but in general we have 20 things that we need to spend $100 on before we do that one.

What about adequate insulation? We are low and it shows in our bill every month but it is another 1000 bill we are putting off.

[Sheherezade]

Ugg. This is my life right now. These kind of decisions. We do pay for AC servicing and furnace servicing. $129.00 a year with 20% off any repairs and emergency service 24 hours a day. Can you tell we were paranoid when we bought the 95 year old house that had been on the market a year? We do not have termite coverage and your estimate has scared me away from that. I still might have someone come out and tell me the ants I keep finding in the house aren't carpenter ants. I hope. We are going to install more insulation in several areas of the house ourselves before next winter. Ditto new windows in some areas. That became a priority after the $600 month heating bills in Jan, Feb and March. Sadly, we have these gorgeous leaded glass original windows in two rooms and they are leaky as he**. I just might have new storms made for those. Hmmmm. Joy, joy. More cash out.

[Vanquisher]

I too had an esitmate done for termites, and when they left, I thought, oh well, I hope the little bugs don't get us, because if they do, we are screwed.

They say it isn't if, but when you get termites here. I guess I am hoping when is after we move. There is no way I can afford $1000 + for termite protection plus (PLUS) yearly mantainence fees that top $100, which can go up on a whim.

Which expense do I pay, which bill sits in the "next month" pile. Eenie meenie, minee, moe!

Termite coverage is out. It isn't happening here.

Um, so so glad we don't have termites here. Apparently they are more of a problem on the other side of the river. Who knows why, but thank goodness I don't have to shell out $1000 to deal with them!

We don't have a/c, but if we did, I would probably service it and the furnace at the same time. Unless you did last year. Who knows when the previous owners did. If that isn't in the picture for you, I would suggest replacing the furnace filters and similar parts on the a/c (if they have them). I'm sure someone at Home Depot or Lowe's could tell you what kind of things you could do yourself.

As to the insulation....we are in a similar boat. We don't have enough. Oh, wait, that's right, we didn't have ANY in the walls. There is some in the attic. When we had the kitchen remodeled, I had them add insulation to the walls they ripped out and add some around the kitchen venting in the attic. We'll see if that helps. Now we have about 1/5 of our exterior walls insluated. I have heard that the walls, crawl space, and windows are a big source of leaks. Just doing the walls (having it blown in?) and the crawl space would be at least a couple thousand, I think. And the windows.... . It's not as bad as $600 heating bill, thank goodness! You might want to check into energy assistance credits for insulating. The Oregon Energy Trust (or something like that) reimburses part of the insulating expenses. I'm going to check into that to see how it works.

[Amiens]

We haven't moved into our house yet. Don't know about termites, but that price would shy me away from having it done. About the A/C- I know that next year we will be having the A/C and heating vent/ducts cleaned out- we both have allergies. Yet another expense to think about.

I thought when Matt signed his contract- who would ever need such a large sum of money and where will it go--- now I know.

Crystal

Do you pay for termite protection?

Yes. We pay $125/yr and then every 3rd year it is $390- but they drill holes at the base of the foundation and fill it with toxins to keep the little buggers out. It has done an excellent job on the fire ant trouble we had last year after the hurricane....the invaded our oldest room, he literally had ants in his pants one morning....poor kid. Anyway, a few hundred dollars a year (in our case) is better than a few thousand(or more) if termite damage is found later.

What about have your AC serviced every year?

Yes. Although, there is no one here that does a yearly contract with scheduled maintenance. I guess they can get more $$ by having people just call in when they are already in trouble than making calls to prevent that trouble. Where we are now, we have already had the a/c on since the begining of March, it gets a good workout nearly year round. Another preventative payout versus a large payout for a new A/C unit.

What about adequate insulation?

I think that we are good there. When our home was built it was at the top of the required regulations and was billed as an "Energy Plus Home"....I am guessing that means it is pretty efficient....for the most part, I would say it is....thank goodness for ceiling fans though!

We are signed up for annual termite inspection. We pay $150 a year and that includes an insurance policy equal to the cost of our house should we ever have any termite damage (assuming we continue to have the inspections done annually). I'm not sure why it is so cheap here and so expensive in your area...we do have a big termite problem in my area. A house down the road from us had so much termite damage that it was cheaper for them to tear the whole house down and rebuild than to just fix the damaged areas.

Since our house was new, we had a 1 year warranty on it and that covered the a/c servicing for the first year. Our warranty just expired so I've been getting quotes on a/c servicing and in this area it runs about $200 a year.