Home Improvement costs in Second 1st

The talk about putting our money together went well. It was really just me saying why I want to and him agreeing. Went to the bank yesterday and made the new account. One of the things I need to do today is name the account and get my paycheck changed over to it.

It feels like yesterday was a completely awesome homeowners experience day sort of. Yet, now…
Rocky had a project manager come out from Hiller about some projects:
Replace all drain pipe: 7474
Replace Heater/ AC unit, 10 yr parts + labor: 6550
As far as making an access panel, they don’t do that but the access pipe would be part of the drain pipe rebuild. We would have to remove our deck in order to do this. This makes me a bit sad because it’s a very large deck. We will get it figured out. We could remove half of it and it would still be big enough for a grill, table and chairs. The 6550 for the heater is NOT in the budget because we had other things we wanted to do with tax money as well. Thanks to the girl who loves love for the heads up because I felt no sticker shock. She told me so I knew ;). We did have a guy come out to check out our current unit to find out whats going on with it. That was suggested by the project manager and was considered complimentary because we had a guy come out in November who apparently didn’t do the whole job we paid him for. Steve, who came out in November when we bought the house, did a check on the AC and the heat according to paper. The guy who came out yesterday said that our defrost wasn’t kicking on when it should and that our R-22 (for the A/C) was low by a couple pounds. So....
R-22: 210.00
Capacitor: 162.00 (needed before we use A/C)
Defrost Board: 468.00
So new unit=6550 or stop gap @ 840
Whenever Rocky gets up we will talk, I expect it to be short … being the stop gap and waiting for taxes.

Rocky decided to talk to the neighbor real quick about the offer of a tree guy he knows.... and he ended up coming out yesterday evening. Luckily he was here before Rocky fell asleep. We walked around the property and talked about each tree… each bush … cost to maintain or remove and suggestions. Very informative. All told we are looking at about 10,000 to fix the yard how we want it. There will be more calls… and some of that we can do on our own so it would be reduces a little. I’d like to go to Lowe’s or Home Depot to see what kind of equipment we can rent.
Very Large very leany live pine removal because dangerous: $2,500
Very Large not as leany live pine: $2,000
Dead and dangerous tree: $1,500
Brush in back: $250
Good pine but has a lot of broken and falling branches, clean up with other service: $400-$500
The good one needs TLC it’s right next to the dead one and has a the potential of also needing to be removed. Top portion looks great, bottom looks dead. So, that doesn’t seem like wrong statement. However, removing the brush and the dead tree next to it would help restore the health. Other large tree in back is good :). I would be very upset if it needed to be removed, if it was in danger, that one is gonna be my fave.
Front yard. He actually told up we are going to want to wait on almost all of that to watch it bloom before removing anything. The one tree is a Dogwood but it’s right under the drop power line to the house. The one in the middle of the yard he swore was gorgeous when in bloom and all the annoying bushes up front are apparently roses. I’m not sure I care yet. I don’t have a green thumb and I’m really just looking to make it easier to mow and maintain. There are 5 Holly bushes along the front walk. The 2 on the ends have grown to be a nice size, Rocky has decided he wants to keep those and he can maintain them but the three smaller ones I’d prefer gone.
Removal of Dogwood and 3 bushes: 500
Stump grinding for dogwood and stump of dead tree we knocked down when we moved in: 200
These things will be done over time. None of this was on the tax list. While talking to the tree guy we mentioned that this was the third guy we’d had out there today and what for.... he said he laid pipe too. We will be making an appointment with him today for this next Tuesday to check out the drain pipes and get a quote from him. I suggested to Rocky that we line up a couple tree guys to come out Tuesday as well because we could split up with that. We have both talked to Hiller about what we would get from them and we had both talked to the tree guy so if we had 2 services there at once we could split up. Not sure he went for it but we will go over it again today.

I think that about covers the home expenses that we will have to save hard core for......

Oh the neighbor (Eddie) walked around with us. Said he’s lived here 16 years and seen 3 families go in and out of here. No one has ever done anything to the yard really. Especially the back yard.
Another entry after this in just a bit but if you found this completely uninteresting … the next one will probably be too.