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Home > Our house is falling apart - Part 2

Our house is falling apart - Part 2

July 26th, 2009 at 04:22 pm

Several months ago (January, I think) I posted an entry entitled, "Our house is falling apart."

Six months later, we've fixed several things on that list, though not all of them. In the meantime, a few new ones have cropped up.

We had to have our oven repaired not long ago. I went to bake pizzas one night and the oven warmed up but didn't get to anywhere close to 450 degrees, so we ended up with warm but not fully cooked pizza. When the repairman came out, he was able to fix it but advised us that it is 20 years old and it probably won't last much longer.

We've had a recurring problem with carpenter ants and have had the house treated a few times over the years. This being ant season, they came back last week. The exterminator came out and retreated but discovered some moisture damage in the wall where the paneling is bowing and cracking. So now we need to have a contractor come out, rip out that paneling, see what kind of damage exists behind it and fix whatever needs to be fixed.

Now, our stovetop, which is just as old as the oven, is on the fritz. I was helping DD cook some potstickers last night and even though the burner was only set on medium, it got red hot and burned the food.

So it looks like we need to go shopping for a new oven AND stovetop. Oh, and replacing the oven means having the contractor rebuild the wall (it is a built-in model) because our oven is 26" and the standard now is 27" so it won't fit where the current one is. Also, the current unit is a combined oven and microwave (that died a couple of years ago) so we want to rebuild the wall to fit a new oven and build a cubby to put our free-standing microwave and get it off our countertop (that will be nice). Besides, we've always hated our stovetop. It has 4 burners, 2 small and 2 large, but they are too close together so you can't actually have 4 decent size pots going at the same time. I'm sure the end result will be a more functional kitchen, but we just weren't planning on spending any big bucks on renovations at this point in time.

Oh well, such is life.

Posted in Cooking/Household Stuff | 9 Comments »

9 Responses to “Our house is falling apart - Part 2”

  1. creditcardfree Says:
    July 26th, 2009 at 06:30 pm 1248633022
    1248633022

    Wow! You do have a lot going on. I'm sure you have the money to handle it, even if it wasn't the plan.

  2. whitestripe Says:
    July 26th, 2009 at 06:38 pm 1248633526
    1248633526

    i always complain about how many plug in the wall appliances there are for things now (pie makers, pizza makers, fairy floss makers, crepe makers etc etc) but in your case these might actually be useful! well, except the fairy floss maker...

  3. Ima saver Says:
    July 26th, 2009 at 09:22 pm 1248643335
    1248643335

    I feel for you. all of my 13 year old appliances have given up this past year, the refrigerator, dishwasher, stove top and now the washing machine. The only thing that still works is the oven. Lucky for me, my husband can install appliances!

  4. fern Says:
    July 27th, 2009 at 12:40 am 1248655221
    1248655221

    I have carpenter ant issues, too. IMO, professional treatments were too expensive and didn't work anyway. I read up on carpenter ants and did what they say to do, that is, at night, go out with a flashlight and check out trees on your property that may have some rot in them. Ants love moist wood, and they over colonize in a tree, for instance, in a v-shaped crotch that collects rainwater. Anyway, finding the mother colony is the key. I buy carpenter ant bait pellets online and sprinkled them around the colony. There's a good chance you've found a colony if you see a fair number of ants on the tree branches. I still need to reapply every few weeks, but i don't believe the Terminix guys could do it any better.

  5. baselle Says:
    July 27th, 2009 at 02:04 am 1248660242
    1248660242

    At least you can cover it and you can get exactly what you want, instead of working around the issues. I know what kind of stovetop you have, I have the same type and I hate mine too.

  6. whitestripe Says:
    July 27th, 2009 at 05:48 am 1248673729
    1248673729

    are carpenter ants ... termites? the little white ones? or are they something different?


  7. cylenchar Says:
    July 27th, 2009 at 01:49 pm 1248702549
    1248702549

    Ouch, I understand the built in oven issue: My parents had the same issue a while ago, the oven they had was 23 inches and a built is, so something they could not replace when the heating element went(I believe theirs was almost forty years old, I think it was their when they bought the house in the early 70's). They ended up getting a all in one and just adding shelved to the old space for the oven to hold the large pots.

    Whitestripe, carpenter ants are big black ants (I've sen close to half an inch long) that will chew holes in rotten wood.

  8. disneysteve Says:
    July 28th, 2009 at 01:07 am 1248743224
    1248743224

    Wow cylenchar. We complain about our 26" not being big enough. 23" would really suck. We have a couple of pans that barely make it into our oven. They'd never fit in that one.

  9. thriftorama Says:
    July 28th, 2009 at 02:47 am 1248749225
    1248749225

    It could be much much worse. My first house was built in 1865. In the heat and humidity of New Orleans. (Can you say Formosa termites?) You wanna talk about constant (major) repairs. Now, I look at things like appliances as no big deal. As long as is not structural it isn't too serious.

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