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Any possible pitfalls?

Any possible pitfalls?

Old Nov 8th 2017, 2:06 am
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Default Re: Any possible pitfalls?

Originally Posted by Steve_
..... I used to work (for many years) in building maintenance in the UK btw, it's hard to generalize because it depends on the age of the housing stock but given that very little of the housing stock in Arizona is old, it's exaggeration to say maintenance costs are generally higher. By definition almost, the average age of a property in the UK is much older than in Arizona. ....
My house in London was 96 years old when I sold it, and it cost less to maintain than a 20 year old house in NC, so I am not quite sure what your point is.
..... Damp is the most common cause of damage and it only happens in Arizona due to plumbing leaks generally.
I don't even know what you mean by that, because I never owned or lived in a house in the UK that had a leak in the roof, or through the walls, or the windows for that matter, so inside all the houses I or my parents owned was totally dry, unless there was a plumbing issue .... which was rarer, much rarer, in the UK than in the US in my experience.

So I don't think the amount of precipitation has much relevance to the repair and maintenance of homes in either the US or the UK, with the sole exception of doors and window frames, which if made of wood will eventually rot in the UK.

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Old Nov 8th 2017, 2:13 am
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Default Re: Any possible pitfalls?

Originally Posted by Steve_
.... Houses in Phoenix generally have tiled roofs, I'm not making this up... ....
So should we believe multiple roofing companies in Arizona, or you? Hmmm.
..... New Jersey, North Carolina and Georgia are not Arizona. Comparisons you're making are not valid.
And Texas.

So experience of AC systems can be consistent all the way from NJ to Texas, but suddenly there is a whole different paradigm in Arizona?
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Old Nov 8th 2017, 2:24 am
  #33  
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Default Re: Any possible pitfalls?

Originally Posted by Steve_
So in other words they melt then, because the air temperature gets up to 120 F in Phoenix, let alone what the temperature would be on shingles. Get on top of a house in Phoenix during the summer with a laser thermometer and see what you get.

Houses in Phoenix generally have tiled roofs, I'm not making this up...
I'm not disputing the material type used in Phoenix, I haven't got the foggiest however just because bitumen softens at temps between 140 and 205F it does not mean they melt. A clumsy oick could damage very hot shingles by walking on them though. Bitumen melting point starts at about 300F however shingles tend to have chemicals added to the bitumen which raises the melting temps to somewhere between 400 and 500F.

20 years is about the average life for shingle roofs here in FL, it's actually the heavy rainfall in high heat that is responsible for shingle breakdown here, washing off the asphalt.

You may have worked in 'housing maintenance' in the UK (that means 'flipped houses' to a professional contractor) but you're not going to win an argument about roofing construction with someone who spends much of his working week roofing.
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Old Nov 8th 2017, 2:41 am
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Default Re: Any possible pitfalls?

Originally Posted by Pulaski
Er, British homes don't have AC systems and British heating systems seem to last for ever, as do British roofs.

My parents had a gas heating radiator system installed in 1976 and it is still going strong. The water heater is linked to it and the related plumbing is original to the house built in 1958. Whereas the original heating system in our house in the US was replaced after about ten years - I know that because the current heating system, which is on its last legs, is about ten years newer than the house, so our house is about to get its third heating system after only 25 years.

Not only did I never need to replace a roof on my house in the UK, nor have my parents never replaced a roof on any house they owned, I don't know a single person in the UK who ever had to put a new roof on their house. Here? My neighbor just had a new roof installed to replace one that was only 11 years old! A roof that lasts 20 years seems to have done very well to last that long.

Trust me, having owned homes in the UK and the US, US homes need a LOT more TLC, and a a LOT more money, to keep them running.
I found your post interesting. May I ask a stupid question?

Might American homes take more TLC and mote Money due to (being southern state oriented here) hurricanes, tornadoes, monsoons, haboobs, straight line winds, down bursts etc when compared to
The uk? The uk is wet, damp and dank but some stares get greater swings in climate....
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Old Nov 8th 2017, 3:27 am
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Default Re: Any possible pitfalls?

My advice is quit fixing stuff when only a minor problem remains. You don't know what will unlock afterwards.
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Old Nov 8th 2017, 5:38 am
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Default Re: Any possible pitfalls?

Originally Posted by AZgal
I found your post interesting. May I ask a stupid question?

Might American homes take more TLC and mote Money due to (being southern state oriented here) hurricanes, tornadoes, monsoons, haboobs, straight line winds, down bursts etc when compared to
The uk? The uk is wet, damp and dank but some stares get greater swings in climate....
You're talking about general maintenance, not catastrophic repair, so no - I doubt it.

It's more to do with the construction materials: wood just doesn't last like brick does - rot, fungus, termites etc. can take hold very quickly. Also, the stucco and dry wall on the wood frame are very susceptible to cracking if the soil expands/contracts regularly so can need a lot of repair.

We bought our house 5 years ago and it was built in 1958. It had a clean termite report when we bought it but we recently had to pay $4,000 for general wood repairs and termite treatments. The sewer was the original one when we purchased... we replaced the lateral line at a cost of $5,000 when we moved in, and just last week had to replace another section (which had disintegrated under the house) at another $5,000 cost. There's only one original section left, and it's under the part of the house that's on slab foundation - when that goes (and it likely will within the next 5-10 years), in order to replace it they'll need to jackhammer up the slab from inside the house so heaven only knows how much that will cost.

So, in 5 years that's $14K on large repairs. There have been multiple other smaller maintenance costs - $1K here to re-stucco an exterior wall, $500 there to fix an interior water leak, $800 to fix a refrigerant leak in the AC system, $400 to fix a major leak in the irrigation system... it all adds up. We're lucky - the roof was new the year before we moved in, so we may get another 15 years out of that.

Speaking of which, there seem to be so many more things over here which can break down and need maintenance. Automatic garage doors, waste disposal units, irrigation systems, air conditioning units, ice makers in fridges etc. You'll quickly learn to save yourself a lot of money by diagnosing and fixing a whole host of minor issues using youtube videos
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Old Nov 8th 2017, 12:47 pm
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Default Re: Any possible pitfalls?

Originally Posted by Wintersong
You're talking about general maintenance, not catastrophic repair, so no - I doubt it.

It's more to do with the construction materials: wood just doesn't last like brick does - rot, fungus, termites etc. can take hold very quickly. Also, the stucco and dry wall on the wood frame are very susceptible to cracking if the soil expands/contracts regularly so can need a lot of repair.

We bought our house 5 years ago and it was built in 1958. It had a clean termite report when we bought it but we recently had to pay $4,000 for general wood repairs and termite treatments. The sewer was the original one when we purchased... we replaced the lateral line at a cost of $5,000 when we moved in, and just last week had to replace another section (which had disintegrated under the house) at another $5,000 cost. There's only one original section left, and it's under the part of the house that's on slab foundation - when that goes (and it likely will within the next 5-10 years), in order to replace it they'll need to jackhammer up the slab from inside the house so heaven only knows how much that will cost.

So, in 5 years that's $14K on large repairs. There have been multiple other smaller maintenance costs - $1K here to re-stucco an exterior wall, $500 there to fix an interior water leak, $800 to fix a refrigerant leak in the AC system, $400 to fix a major leak in the irrigation system... it all adds up. We're lucky - the roof was new the year before we moved in, so we may get another 15 years out of that. .....
Thank you for sharing that, it is a very interesting summary. I am sorry to hear of the expenses you have had, but unfortunately I can't say I'm surprised.
.... Speaking of which, there seem to be so many more things over here which can break down and need maintenance. Automatic garage doors, waste disposal units, irrigation systems, air conditioning units, ice makers in fridges etc. .....
This is undoubtedly true, there are so many things to go wrong in US homes.
You'll quickly learn to save yourself a lot of money by diagnosing and fixing a whole host of minor issues using youtube videos.
This certainly makes sense if you have the ability and interest in doing so. I do many minor, and some not-so-minor repairs and upgrades myself, and have a large, and still growing, collection of tools for undertaking many repairs myself. I find that most tools pay for themselves with a single use, and even the most expensive tools only take maybe three uses to pay for themselves. I recently bought a set of pipe threading dies to repair and reconnect a burst pipe and despite being a nice set of dies good for all common pipe sizes from 3/8" to 1½" it still cost less than the basic call out fee for a plumber.
Originally Posted by AZgal
I found your post interesting. May I ask a stupid question?

Might American homes take more TLC and mote Money due to (being southern state oriented here) hurricanes, tornadoes, monsoons, haboobs, straight line winds, down bursts etc when compared to
The uk? The uk is wet, damp and dank but some states get greater swings in climate....
As Wintersong said, I am talking about regular repairs, and failures due to the way US houses are built, the materials and design, and the wear and tear caused by the everyday environment, not catastrophic damage by extreme weather. We don't get extreme weather where I live, and are protected from almost all wind by trees on all sides - our home is effectively built in a clearing in the woods, and is also much lower than the land on two sides, so almost in a hollow.

The only plus I see compared to the UK is that most things in the US appear to be designed so that repair is possible - they can be unscrewed or unbolted, whereas things in the UK I remember were more commonly riveted together or otherwise permanently sealed making them effectively unrepairable. I replaced the bearings in our washing machine, see attached picture, which was quite an adventure. The cost was about $70 for new bearings, but paying some one to do it would have been uneconomic and a new machine would have cost around $900.

Consequently the US "equivalents" to B&Q and Homebase have massively greater ranges of tools and supplies for electrical and plumbing work, as well as timber construction, tiling and flooring, repairing yard equipment (mowers and chainsaws, etc.), roofs and guttering, etc. Even small towns will usually have specialist plumbing and electrical supply companies with even greater ranges of tools and supplies.
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Old Nov 8th 2017, 1:51 pm
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Default Re: Any possible pitfalls?

Originally Posted by Jerseygirl
What you pay per year was what we almost paid per month.
You pay $2000 a month in property tax...your serious???????
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Old Nov 8th 2017, 1:54 pm
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Originally Posted by AndyMan74
You pay $2000 a month in property tax...your serious???????
We used to...
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Old Nov 8th 2017, 1:56 pm
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Default Re: Any possible pitfalls?

Originally Posted by Twinkle0927
Give me a cool, autumnal day over the desert any time! What do you mean "the weather in the U.K. for the most part now"? It's always had a cooler, wet climate. For centuries and centuries. I only moved away last December and from memory summer 2016 was very pleasant. But I was in Dorset. I'm sorry to hear you're in the Midlands.
Ha...Not just the midlands but the top end in the High Peak where its always colder wetter and windier than most other places except Scotland of course. Well when I said cool and wet all year round we did use to get a summer in summer...you cant tell me that you have not noticed this change in the last 10 years or so or maybe Dorset lives in a good weather bubble I guess.

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Old Nov 8th 2017, 2:15 pm
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Default Re: Any possible pitfalls?

Originally Posted by AndyMan74
Ha...Not just the midlands but the top end in the High Peak where its always colder wetter and windier than most other places except Scotland of course. Well when I said cool and wet all year round we did use to get a summer in summer...you cant tell me that you have not noticed this change in the last 10 years or so or maybe Dorset lives in a good weather bubble I guess.
I don't know how old you are, but IME weather has always been a cräp shoot in the UK.

When I was a child my parents took the family each year, to Anglesey and later the central Welsh coast and south west Wales, and after that, Cornwall. We went for two weeks during the school summer holiday, and we always took thick sweaters and overcoats, and used them for several days every summer, we also had warm sunny days too.

And that wasn't any different from my experience as an adult - I have a picture of my wife taken when we visited Hastings in the afternoon of July 4, in the summer of 2001 I think, and she is wearing a thick parka with the hood up, it is blowing a gale, and there are black clouds behind her.

I still lived in the UK I went to several of the rock festivals held at Castle Donnington, in Derbyshire, and it usually rained, and that was in August IIRC. In fact I remember reading that it rained on 8 of the first 11 festivals. Some years it was damn cold too!

So if you think there was a golden age in UK of warm sunny summers and crisp cold winters, then I can assure you that you are sadly mistaken!

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Old Nov 8th 2017, 2:20 pm
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Default Re: Any possible pitfalls?

Originally Posted by Pulaski
I don't know how old you are, but IME weather has always been a cräp shoot in the UK.

When I was a child my parents took the family to Anglesey and later the central Welsh coast and south west Wales, and after that, Cornwall. We went for two weeks during the school summer holiday, and we always took thick sweaters and overcoats, and used them for several days every summer, we also had warm sunny days too.

And that wasn't any different from my experience as an adult - I have a picture of my wife taken when we visited Hastings in the afternoon of July 4, in the summer of 2001 I think, and she is wearing a thick parka with the hood up, it is blowing a gale, and there are black clouds behind her.

I went to several of the rock festivals held at Castle Donnington, in Derbyshire, and it usually rained, and that was in August IIRC. In fact I remember reading that it rained on 8 of the first 11 festivals. Some years it was damn cold too!

So if you think there was a golden age in UK of warm sunny summers and crisp cold winters, then I can assure you that you are sadly mistaken!
The last holiday we had in the UK was approx 25 years ago...Devon, Cornwall and Cotswold on the way home. Winter clothing all holiday.

Around 10 years ago I went back to the UK for the month of August. July had been a lovely month...so silly me didn’t take winter clothes. I had to by a coat, sweaters, jeans, shoes. Never again.
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Old Nov 8th 2017, 4:30 pm
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Default Re: Any possible pitfalls?

The housing maintenance costs are all relative though, aren't they? I mean, we are selling our UK home right now for approx $250k. A small 3 bed, end of terrace house, less than 1100 sq ft in size even with an extension, wood framed (think those 70's style houses with white fronts). We had to replace the boiler, the electrics and both front and back flat roofs in the 12 years we owned it, replaced the kitchen and had to repair internal damp several times due to the poor construction of the extension - a mix of rising damp and condensation.

Where I am now, that same price would buy me a 4 bed detached home in a resort style community with about 2,500 sq ft of space and a double garage that can actually fit two cars. Not far off the construction method used for the Uk home I am selling, the roof will be a it bigger than the two flat roofs combined and I'll need to replace the A/C within 10 years or so (assuming I live in it that long), along with higher wear and tear costs, I accept. But, I could just as easily spend $100k less and get my UK house here, put the money aside and soak up the rays knowing over the time I would probably live in the house I'd probably come out even, if not a little ahead.

Eyes wide open and all that. I can either trade-up in size and style, but know my maintenance costs will peak a bit (although my tale suggests only in some ways) or I can stay as I was, enjoy the weather and afford the maintenance.

But my case is individual - as are many others. I know plenty of houses in the UK that suffer damp issues, need re-wiring, boiler replacements (not least because legislation change meaning old ones can't be repaired usually anymore) and so on.
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Old Nov 8th 2017, 4:32 pm
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Default Re: Any possible pitfalls?

Forgot one thing, my external cladding was shot in the UK, caused me to accept a lower price for the house as a result.
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Old Nov 11th 2017, 12:49 am
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Default Re: Any possible pitfalls?

Originally Posted by AndyMan74
My council tax is nearly $2000 a year for a small property
$7500 a year for me here in Maine. To get a property tax rate of $2k in my town you'd be living in a 1-bed apartment valued at $110k... if you could find one...
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