The Friday gathering – The joys of home ownership
By glblguy
I love owning a home and in general enjoy the challenges of repairing my own home, making improvements, etc. I say generally because what I don’t enjoy is the fact that most often the big problems happen at the worst times. Either that or they are beyond my ability to repair and require me having to pay a professional.
Within the past couple of weeks our dryer isn’t fully drying our clothes, the refrigerator froze up and we now have a terrible sewer smell coming out of one of bathroom sinks/cabinets in the mornings when we use the most amount of water. The dryer has a feature where it automatically detects that the clothes are dry, and turns off the dryer. This is a great feature when the sensor is working correctly. My guess is that the sensor is bad, causing it to turn off too soon. The refrigerator isn’t defrosting and I’ll need to replace the heating element. The sewer smell…I am pretty sure I know what’s wrong, but have not idea how to fix it. I think the venting system isn’t working correctly. I have a plumber coming out on Tuesday to check things out. Based on some work that seems to have been done prior to us moving in, but after the house was built, I think this little problem might have been pre-existing. Not sure if I’ll pursue this with the previous owners or not. We’ll see as it will depend on the cost to get it fixed.
Important Stuff
- Wise Bread released a new feature called The Top 100+ Personal Finance Blogs. I’m honored to be included. Never imagined that when I first started this site, I’d be included in a top 100 list!
- Free Money Finance continues March Madness and I’m included in Round 1-4. I would really appreciate you heading over and vote. My article is in game 2 and named “Appreciate”. If I win, FMF will donate money to the American Diabetes Association in honor of my 9 year old son who has type 1 diabetes.
- The M-Network (whom I am a member of) is still doing the Ask the M-Network series. So if you have a personal finance related question, take advantage of this opportunity to get answers from different personal finance bloggers.
- I’ve added banners to the sidebar for both zero percent interest rate credit card offers and free magazines. I’d encourage you to check out both of these opportunities. They are legit and credible offers. I’d never recommend anything to you otherwise. I get a number of free magazines from the same service and I recently got a Discover more card to reduce my monthly interest payments.
The Gathering
I’m starting something a little different with the gathering this week. I’m only going to select 5 or so of my very favorite posts from my blogroll going forward and I’ll additionally add some personal commentary about the article along with the link. I’ve felt for a while that my gatherings were becoming small blog carnivals and I just wasn’t happy with that.
Let me know what you think or if you prefer the old way:
- Foreclosures aren’t Everyone’s Problem – While I believe we should help each other, I am also a strong believer that we need to help ourselves first before we can help others. With the number of people struggling right now, I don’t believe we should all have to pay for everyone’s mistakes. I also think that maybe the assistance should be at the state level and not federal. Good perspective.
- I Don’t Want Your Freakin’ Extended Warranty”¦ – This is exactly why I dislike car dealerships in general and prefer to buy used cars from private sellers. Most car dealerships are professional scam artists. It’s just not worth the hassle, $8,000 dollar economic stimulus credit or not. The US Auto industry needs a complete overhaul.
- S/he’s Not That Into You – 10 Signs You May Need a New Financial Planner – Some great humor for your Friday morning. Can’t wait to hear the story that inspired this post.
- Can We Have an Economy without Losers? – I agree and it’s called socialism. We continue to creep closer and closer. By the way, Tough Money has a great blog, I strongly recommend you subscribe.
- Once-a-Month Grocery Shopping and Cooking – This is something I’m going to really look into. Given our distance to the store, this would really make sense for us. Think I’ll buy the book and give it a review.
- Zecco Review
Photo by: Myrmi
February 27th, 2009 at 7:55 am
I like the new format. I went to something similar at my site – the “fab five.” Like you, my roundups had snowballed into a small carnival.
Sorry to hear about the rash of household breakdowns. These things seem to happen in waves! Hope you can avoid any major repairs costs.
February 27th, 2009 at 10:31 am
Thanks for the shout out!
February 27th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Thanks so much for the mention, link and kind words.
February 27th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Did you get a warranty with your new home purchase? Maybe you could get some of that stuff fixed. We had a one-year warranty when we purchased our home in September. It really came in handy earlier this week. We discovered late one evening that our furnace quit working. It was 18 degrees outside and getting pretty frosty in the house. We called the hotline number for our warranty company. They had someone out to fix it within an hour, and it only cost us a small deductible.
February 27th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Just an FYI on the dryer issue. We had a similar problem with our dryer, only it wasn’t the dryer, it was the lengthy 15 foot vent to the outside. The repairman told us that a dryer vent run should be 8 feet *at most.* We has to hire a furnace duct cleaning company for $150 to clean it out. Ouch.
February 27th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Yes I second the dryer vent issue. We have a *long* run too. Not only that but it makes an “L” turn to get to the crawl space! But even a short run can get clogged. Check the point where it exits the house. Have the dryer running and see whether you feel air move. Sometimes leaves or similar debris can block it. Good to have an “appliance brush.” I just purchased one, have used it to clean the refrigerator coils and inside the dryer where the filter sets. — HL
February 27th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Two common causes of the sewer smell would be snow blocking the vent on the roof. Or partially blocking it in any case. Also, it’s possible that the vent doesn’t reach far enough up and seasonal wind changes could be causing it to not vent properly.
February 27th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Our dryer went out several months ago and when we got the quote on the repair decided it was better to buy a new dryer (and washer) from The Home Depot. Zero percent financing, no interest for one year. When Sept. rolls around they’ll be paid off.
February 27th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
Another dryer issue could be a bad fuse inside. Our fuse went out when our vent was blocked. We were living in an apartment and I repeated asked them to unblock the outside of the vent. They didn’t and a fuse went out in the dryer. Replacing the fuse was a very inexpensive fix that didn’t take very long to do ourselves. And eventually the apartment people fixed the vent (the blockage was on the exit of the vent and we lived on the second floor, it was their responsibility).
March 2nd, 2009 at 11:13 am
I think you are right on with the sensor. If you use fabric softner sheets, the sensor can get coated with a goo and become unreliable. It could just need a quick cleaning. The sensor head is located right inside the drum.