The Woes of Home Owner 2012

What’s next?  Now that this renovated house is 27 years old everything is wearing out and so is our pocketbook!!  As I stated in this article before, I can’t remember when all our tools, appliances, etc. all were in working order at the same time.  Forever and eternally, it seems there is something that needs repair.

During the summer just past it was the water heater – got a new one and John has always been able to do all our repair work, but this time he had to call for help to do the installation.  Next we had no water – we still use well water here at the Windy Knoll.  After much checking, John found the pump was not getting electricity.  The pump is connected to the meter at the barn and, of course, the wiring is/was under ground.  Ugh!  What a mess as a ditch had to be dug and across the paved driveway.  He did get a machine to do the digging.  Back when this was put under ground in 1979 he didn’t know about special wire for such a place – maybe there was not such a thing back then.  Not only did we have to buy expensive wire, but also had to have a new switch box for the barn as well – and this is to say nothing about paying the digger.

Pump Problems

Now we’ve come inside – one night when John got up to prepare for bed, as he started down the hall he met water on the floor about to come in the den!  What a mess.  The laundry room floor was covered and anything that had been on the floor was wet, too, water had gone down the pipe, through the floor or something and we had puddles in the basement.  Here it is bedtime for this elderly couple and to be faced with a cleanup job!!  Again, what a mess.  With towels and mop we got the floor in livable condition again.  The washer had gone bonkers.  Well, to add to the misery the dryer had been making a funny noise and both had to be replaced!!

A few weeks ago, a switch on the surface unit went bad and search as we could a replacement was not to be found.   The unit was manufactured during the ‘70’s and they had quit making parts for same.  Ugh.  Okay we started looking at new surface units, or stoves as John calls it, and would you believe we could not find one that fit the hole in the countertop?  We looked and looked and they were too small or too large.  Yes, we could have had the hole enlarged, but a few years ago we had a little kitchen fire and the countertop was cracked so we opted to buy a new top while we were at it.  Our countertops are Corian and the company that put them in no longer handles Corian.  We really did want Corian because in the kitchen fire we had we believe it saved the house.  Now we found a man in Rising Fawn, Georgia who does that kind of work and he would replace it, but we had to wait ‘til he had a job down in this direction or we would have to pay lots of mileage.  Wait we did and last week this job was completed.

In the Kitchen

The Home Place

Now, isn’t this just the way of it?  We want to hang around to see what will happen next.  I’ll keep you informed, but, this also is part of country living.