A Very Interesting Story About Gutters
Since we purchased this house over a year ago, we have come to find that each and every time we want to start a project, we are blocked or thrown off course by a previous owner's half-assed job. I know this tends to be typical when you buy a "fixer upper," but damn, we didn't really think we had much to fix up other than a fresh coat of paint everywhere and some new floors, and even those things have been halted by uneven ground and layer upon layer of wallpaper.
Pissed off dog who does NOT want to be in this picture, thankyouverymuch!
Yesterday I called someone to come clean out our gutters. He arrived today in a big unmarked truck-- an old guy in baggy jeans, a wife-beater, and a dirty, floppy white(ish) hat. The estimate was reasonable, and so I figured the strangeness of it all far outweighed the possibility of having to call another guy and schedule another estimate. Plus this guy could do the work today.
As he inspected the back of my house to make the estimate, he questioned me about a missing endcap and downspout, and which point I shrugged my shoulders and told him he could go ahead and fix that too, if it wasn't too expensive, and it wasn't.
When he was finished the work, he came around to report that the reason for the missing endcap is because when the woodstove (which we hate and want to get rid of because it is big and ugly and we are not Add-wood-Set-fire-Sweep-ashes type of people when we have a perfectly good heater that warms the house just fine, thank you) was installed, they built the chimney right on top of the gutters. When the water, which was supposed to flow to the right, had no where to go, they simply took the endcap off the left side and figured that would be fine, as long as the water had somewhere to go.
I'm pretty sure this is the cause of the cracked cement under where (heh heh... underwear) we usually have a nice waterfall when it rains.
And because I had nothing better to do, I took a picture, along with some others, for your viewing enjoyment:
Click me to see bigger!
Click me to see bigger!
Psycho organization of kitchen cabinets as procrastination for job search
Labels: Dog, House, Organization
posted by Jess at 12:37 PM
3 Comments:
lol, i love your caption and excellent artistry for your picture(s). perhaps you should pursue a career in engineering instead of teaching!
janie - why thank you! perhaps I should just get paid for my blog!
Dude. The stories i could lay out about the ABSOLUTE SHITINESS of the construction of our house. I HATE IT. HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT.
The previous owners, like yours, must have considered himself a handyman or something because some of the crap that i find around the house just boggles the mind. For starters? There is an extension that was built on to the back of the house by the previous owners - just one room. He built it without insulation or heat. NICE. And since the extension was going to get in the way of the deck, he just kind of sawed off half the deck and had to move the stairs that go down into the back yard. HE LEFT THE SAWED-OFF POSTS FROM THE OLD STEPS IN THE GROUND. There are 8" high 4x4s sticking out of the ground that yeah, we haven't removed yet either, but COME ON.
And that's just the beginning. So i totally get it.
Being a homeowner sucks.
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