DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... When It Rains, It Pours?

Has anyone else ever endured something similar to this? It seems like a lot of high-ticket items in your home go bad around the same time. Consider.......w/in the last six months.

--Dishwasher needed replaced---We got a state of the art Bosh replacement that was over $1,000.

--We have two HVAC units. One for the main floor and another for the upper story. The upper story unit went out and that was over $9,000.

--A week and a half ago, the motor on the pool vacuum booster pump went out.

--This morning, I went out to clean the pool and the jets were off. I checked the pump and the flow red light was on which meant it was not pumping water. Now, that needs replaced.

You can go years w/out replacing anything, but then in a heartbeat, multiple high-dollar items go out w/in a short period of time. That's a financial burden for most folks.

Have you guys ever had similar events happen to you?

That’s a rough stretch for sure ... it seems like things go in waves for me, too. New upgrades/repairs to my car, landscaping stuff, new gutters, etc. But yours is on the absurd side lol

Yes. I remember when I got shingles, someone hit my car, and my plumbing broke all in the same week.

Suuuuuuuucked.

I had that problem but it was with my body not my house

With you it wasn't, "If it rains it pours". It was, "It's been raining for forty days and forty nights".

Good thing my "dinghy" still works

Yeah but at your age it's hard to get it inflated. LOL

TMI

I know what your talking about Vers. We bought our house 2 1/2 years ago. Within about 2 years we had to have the roof repaired TWICE. Had to get a new central air conditioner. Had to replace a french door. Sump pump broke leaving water in the basement. The shower in one of the bathrooms broke TWICE, and we had to bust a hole in the other shower to get access to the 1st shower because there are no access panels. Also had to replace a broken toilet.

STuff happens, I guess.

Just under 5 years ago, the afternoon before we were leaving to meet the rest of my family in Florida for a cruise, I walked in the house at 5 pm. To what literally looked like a rain forest under deluge. (our hot water heat line - not our hot water heater - had broken.) Upstairs. Water was literally gushing into our living room and bedroom on the main floor. Got a hold of our insurance company, and they got ahold of a company to come out yet that night to tear the carpet out of our 2 rooms.

I, and a friend, moved most of our furniture into the garage in the mean time.

Company said they could handle it, 'just go on vacation, nothing you can do here, now."

Got back to the airport 11 days later to find our vehicle with a dead battery. Got it jumped, made it home. I tested the battery - it was done. Had to buy a new one the next day.

Prior to the next day, when we got home, noiced the ceiling in our living room and bedroom was gone, as well as the outside - down to the studs.....insulation in them - wouldn't dry with out removing the dry wall.

Wife took all our dirty stuff to her sis's to wash, and said she was staying there, as our house was all torn up anyway.

I went into the garage to watch the Browns game I had recorded - since that's where I watch the games anyway. Started watching. Looked outside. Noticed about an 8 foot section of our vinyl fence had been blown out. Went out, picked up the slate, which were re-usable.

Back to the garage to watch the game. Bent down to feed the cat and noticed reddish liquid on the floor in front of the freezer. Opened the freezer, and the stench was nasty. Yup, the storm that blew the fence out ended up frying our freezer. Wife had just spent over $200 on meat, etc the week before we left on vacation, plus we lost all the venison I had, all our freezer corn, and obviously everything else in the freezer.

Pulled my truck in and started loading garbage bags with spoiled food. Needed a new freezer - course, we didn't have anything to put in it.

Finished the Browns game, went to bed. Got up for work the next morning, walked out to the shop, and noticed my work vehicle sitting at a weird angle. Yep, flat tire.

To recap: In an 11 day period: Flooded house. $12,000 when that was done. Battery - $130? Fence - only $50 or so for the parts so I could fix it myself. Freezer - cost of food lost? No clue. New freezer? $800? Tire - $170.

So let's fast forward to the last 3 months or so: New mower, as the old one wasn't reparable, basically. $7000. Done ($5000 at 0%, so that's good)

Dryer quit - $325 for the part. Done.
Car - an unexpected $730. Done.
Fridge ice maker doesn't work. $900-$1000 for new. Not done. I just buy bags of ice now.
Tires on Jeep - $1100. Not done.
Foundation - I can literally remove a block. Not done - no idea what that will cost.
Daughter's surgery. Even with insurance, we're still looking at $3500 we owe.
Wife's bad back - no guess on where that will lead and what it will cost.


Had to edit this to add: Our well water line to the house was leaking this summer. Had a wet spot in the yard - to say the least. "Wet spot" doesn't even describe it.

$325 to fix. Now, I get to till our clay soil down once it dries, then haul in dirt, and reseed about 120-150 sq. feet of ground.

They say bad things happen in 3's. Except for me. They seem to come in 7's. And none of this includes things we'd LIKE to do. Like fix both drives. New windows upstairs, etc.

Stuff happens.

This happened to us winter of 2017. 12+" of snow fall, school was canceled, Portland was shut down, several trees fell due to weight of snow and previous ice. We took our dogs out for a walk. We were out for about an hour and when we came back we were outside our door taking our snow boots off when I said to my wife "what's that noise?" we opened the front door and there was a waterfall coming from the upstairs loft/attic bedroom (1905 house w/attic conversion). I immediately ran to shut the water off, but of course it takes a few minutes for the water to stop pouring as the pipes were full and the flood was seeping through ceiling tiles. Eventually the dining room ceiling drywall collapsed due to the water damage. My son and I were literally moving about 4000 records out of a room where water had made its way. It was a disaster. No idea when it happened...could have been 10 min, could have been 50 min. But, the damage was done. State Farm were excellent. They sent somebody out in the snow that day to try and rescue our wood floors (they did). Once we had a builder/contractor set up the work itself took 5 months as many builders/contractors were overwhelmed that winter due to similar problems all across the city. But, once the work was done the finished rooms are better than before the flood.

I can definitely relate to that scenario. The day our pipe burst, my wife left at 3 pm. Nothing unusual. I got in the house at 5 pm to a literal flood.

Ran upstairs to the bathroom thinking maybe the sink or toilet or shower was the problem. Nope, nothing there.

Only other 'water' upstairs was our hot water heat. Rand downstairs, into the garage where the furnace/boiler is, shut off the 2 upstairs zones. (shut the valves that take the hot water upstairs), called the insurance company, and started moving furniture out of the living room.

The ceilings were still leaking when the company showed up 2 1/2 hours later.

Doesn't take long for water to do massive damage. Get this...a colleague of mine came home to a absolute unfathomable scenario and grave damage. They all left the house at 7am and didn't get home until 4ish. The cap on their upstairs toilet pipe (floor level pipe that feeds the water into the basin tank) had popped (WTF?!) and literally for HOURS it showered water everywhere. Insurance and plumbers said it must have been at least 5 hours of relentless water. Thousands of dollars of damage. Floors and ceiling not to mention furniture, electronics literally everything it came into contact with were destroyed. I swear that is a huge worry of mine to the point that last time we had some plumbing work I asked him to check the toilets and make sure the fittings were all secure!

No joke.

And our issue was our hot water heat pipe. Not our hot water heater that sits in the garage. Not our boiler, that sits in the garage.

A pipe upstairs burst. Pumping water out upstairs for possibly 2 hours.

When I walked in the house, the windows were covered in condensation, the floor was puddled, it was probably a balmy 80 degrees or more?

As much as it sucked, as I look back I just thank God it happened THAT day, and not 24 hours later, because we'd have been gone and no one would've entered our house until we got back 11 days later.

I cannot imagine the damage we'd have had if it had happened just 24 hours later.

Very good point and one I also have thought of. We were at home due to it being a snow day. Had it happened the day before we would have been out ALL DAY. My records definitely wouldn't have survived had that been the case (my wife reminds me about the priority I showed that day over other items such as furniture). Sofas etc. can be replaced. A record collection one has collected over the years since they were a young boy....that's priceless and irreplaceable.

All of a sudden, I'm feeling fortunate.

But yeah, it's weird how things seem to happen in bunches.

We built our house new about 14 years ago. That means all of the appliances were new at the same time which means there is a good chance they will all die at about the same time.

We had 1 of the AC units die this year, a couple years ahead of schedule but not too bad. It didn't actually die but it had the old refrigerant in it that is very expensive to replace and they could have saved it. Would have been a few grand to save it or a few more grand to replace it. I wasn't spending a few grand to save an AC unit that really only had a couple years left on its useful life.

This is the problem too, these things are all near the end of their life-expectancy so I'm really reluctant to put money into fixing them...

Washing machine is starting to have a puddle of water in it when it's done, stand up freezer in the garage just died.. other than that, I'm trying to milk it as long as I can to spread out the pain and suffering.

We sold our house a while back and moved to a townhouse.

The air conditioner went out so I called maintenance to replace it. Took 3 days in 90 degree weather. Management moved us on day one to a fully furnished townhouse so we would not get that watery stuff on our foreheads, whats it called, sweat?

I think I like this renting stuff.

9k for a unit, you must have an enormous house. That is crazy money assuming it's condenser/compressor replacement. I paid 4k for a seer 18 Trane unit, my house is 2,600 sqft

I got four estimates and that was actually the best price. It's a split-system unit [both were replaced] and I had the duct work widened that led to the FROG, and had another air return installed. And it wasn't $9K. It was close to that price. I may have worded it wrong. The split-system thing is important when figuring out the price. If we would have just had to replace the outdoor unit, it would have been similar to your price.

I was actually happy w/the price because I had all the other estimates to compare it to.