thesesimplewords

Just wanted to say thank you. We're all counting on you. Good luck.

Quick anecdote from a handyman. I bought an old poorly insulated house from 1970. The windows were wood with aluminum tracks. They were in really bad shape. The previous owners said they typically went through about 550 gallons of oil per winter. I bought in June. Before winter hit we took the insulation in the attic from about R13 to about R50. We also insulated the floor (which wasn't) and replaced all the windows with very efficient replacements (with argon between the panes). Sounds expensive, right? The first winter we only burned 200 gallons of oil. We only stayed there for a little over 4 years and all of that renovation paid for itself in oil savings. Really, I did the math.

I looked at a house recently that had very poor grading on the land plot. It was a foreclosure, and though I'm not afraid to do some work on a house, this was just too much with a baby on the way. We passed it up. Anyway, when it rained the entire side yard was swampy with standing water. It was built on a slab with no crawlspace. How bad is that for the foundation? What sorts of problems have you seen with poor grading in the past? This house was built in 1998.