Old House Needed Some Emergency Repair

Total cost $423 plus the cost of new wall and insulation and the new storage shelves.





Much of this lumber is useable so I have to find a place to store it. Problem!

Got all the shelves torn out


Jane starts de-constructing the storage shelves
Our house was built in 1922. We think it is a pretty neat old house. We have insulated, rewired, added on, re-roofed, resided, re-landscaped, repainted, carpeted, re-plumbed, new septic tank and added a new septic tank and drain field and ... Well you get the picture. May have been better to have bought a new house instead of the country hovel in 1972 that cost us $11,500, but, we have country charm and it is "our" house in every sense of the word. We even had to cement part of the basement floor. Half of it was just dirt. I even killed a snake on the basement floor in the early years. Than can't happen now, but we still get mice. This story begins with J sorting her fabric and organizing it and storing the fabric in plastic sealable containers. In the process she started to find some wet fabric. Not good. The leak was as bad as it can get. The old cast iron (old as in 87 years old) sewer pipe leading from the bathroom outside to the septic tank had sprung a foot long crack and leak. The pipe walls are only an eighth of an inch thick. I was surprised. I thought cast iron pipes would have much thicker walls. With the price of everything my first reaction was there goes the plan to replace the living room windows this year and take advantage of the government's $1500 tax incentive to do so. The repair bill was not as bad as I first feared. Our third generation Weiser Plumbing plumber, Jeff, charged us $383 at fifty dollars an hour for labor. We had to dig out the pipe on the outside. We needed a hole five feet by 3 feet and three feet deep. My wife was adamant that I would not get to do that and she called Tom the Handyman. He came out and said he would charge $15 an hour to do the job. I don't like hourly rates and figured I would have to ante up about $80. He dug the hole and refilled it for $35. I could hardly believe my ears. I gave him two twenties. Let me know if you need a good handy man and I can give you his phone number.

Got to run, got work to do as you can see by the pictures and have to get ready to teach a fly tying class Tuesday evening,
PapaCoyote