Quote:
Originally Posted by JustinHEMI
I own my home but I hate being a homeowner. I hate maintenance, lawn care, etc.
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I was brought up by parents who refused to spend a dime to use local "trade" workers for anything. I can do carpentry, electrical, repair a furnace/boiler, plumbing, landscaping, pour concrete, and helped lay a foundation over a weekend once. Heck, I did a DIY central AC install two years ago!
When we bought our house, I carried that same mindset for the first 10 years. Then, I realized that I had become a "house hostage" with an insane routine maintenance list. It took a 7-week hospital stay to make me wake up and realize that paying local "trade" people is not a bad thing! This is our second year paying a local small business landscaper to take care of the lawn, and three years of paying a self-employed neighbor to plow the snow. Guess what? The world didn't tilt on its axis, and the sun didn't supernova!
Our copper pipes are being eaten alive by the clear liquid that comes out of our well, and I *really* want to yank all of the copper out (for scrap) and install PEX everywhere...with plastic fittings and a centralized plastic distribution manifold with individual per-fixture shutoff valves. Not being able to physically do that kind of work any more, I asked my DW to check around the local trade web services and get me a quote to shotgun replace the whole house in one shot. We live in a small, one floor house with basement access, and I am at the age where writing the check is much easier than doing the work myself.....