City bureaucrats suck donkey rear end. They clearly are forgetting whom they work for and who provides the dollars to pay their wages.
We got a call from the contractor this morning. Brad went to get a permit for the roof, but was told that we had not had our septic inspected in too long. Too long in this case means 3 years (it has been 3 ½ years since the last inspection). Consequently, before the city will allow a roofing permit, the septic must have a successful inspection. If the septic fails that scrutiny, we have to hook up to city water. Immediately. We are looking at a 350-foot connection between the water main and sanitary sewer, and the house, at an indefinite expense between 10 and 20 thousand dollars. We are waiting for a septic service company to become available to inspect the drain field and tank. The question is, just what in the @&%#@ does a roof replacement project have to do with a septic tank? Absolutely nothing.
What is happening is that the city is trying to force everyone onto city water immediately, due to the large number of city bonds outstanding. We already paid the $17,500 cost for the city assessment. Our portion of the bonds is already paid. In fact, we paid the assessment within five days of issuance of the bonds.
We are waiting to be scheduled for an inspection, which may take a week. Then, we will wait about a week for the inspector to give the results to the city. In the meantime, the contractor is near to finishing the last job before us on his schedule and the roofing was supposed to start on Monday of next week. We are being bumped back on the schedule at least a few weeks due to that delay, and the setback while we wait for the results of an inspection.
We are being held hostage by city bureaucrats. We have to have a new roof this year, before winter, due to the ice dams that build up to depths of a foot or more. (How much do you suppose a sheet of ice a foot thick on your roof weighs?) The roof replacement is not optional, nor is this a voluntary upgrade.
Before we bought the house, we hired a highly recommended home inspector, part of a franchise called Gold Key Home Inspections, to examine the house. Feel free to NOT hire them to check over your house. I can only assume that the “experienced professional” who inspected our house did not know what he was doing or what he was looking for. He never noticed that there are virtually no functionally effective soffit vents and too few roof vents. I didn’t know much about home ventilation three and a half years ago, but today, I am nearing expert status, due to the progressive decline in the condition of the roof and the kitchen-living room ceilings. This deterioration is due to poor and inadequate ventilation, the fault of mistakes or shortcuts by the homebuilder, whoever that might be.
Regarding Gold Key Inspections, they checked out the roof and told us that the roof was in good condition. The fact is that the guy was incompetent, inexperienced, or both. He missed the two most serious flaws in the home's construction, the lack of soffit vents and the inadequate roof vents. Today, we are looking at a roof replacement cost of about $11,500 and also may be forced to spend $10-20,000 to hook up to city water BEFORE we are allowed to repair the roof.
We got a call from the contractor this morning. Brad went to get a permit for the roof, but was told that we had not had our septic inspected in too long. Too long in this case means 3 years (it has been 3 ½ years since the last inspection). Consequently, before the city will allow a roofing permit, the septic must have a successful inspection. If the septic fails that scrutiny, we have to hook up to city water. Immediately. We are looking at a 350-foot connection between the water main and sanitary sewer, and the house, at an indefinite expense between 10 and 20 thousand dollars. We are waiting for a septic service company to become available to inspect the drain field and tank. The question is, just what in the @&%#@ does a roof replacement project have to do with a septic tank? Absolutely nothing.
What is happening is that the city is trying to force everyone onto city water immediately, due to the large number of city bonds outstanding. We already paid the $17,500 cost for the city assessment. Our portion of the bonds is already paid. In fact, we paid the assessment within five days of issuance of the bonds.
We are waiting to be scheduled for an inspection, which may take a week. Then, we will wait about a week for the inspector to give the results to the city. In the meantime, the contractor is near to finishing the last job before us on his schedule and the roofing was supposed to start on Monday of next week. We are being bumped back on the schedule at least a few weeks due to that delay, and the setback while we wait for the results of an inspection.
We are being held hostage by city bureaucrats. We have to have a new roof this year, before winter, due to the ice dams that build up to depths of a foot or more. (How much do you suppose a sheet of ice a foot thick on your roof weighs?) The roof replacement is not optional, nor is this a voluntary upgrade.
Before we bought the house, we hired a highly recommended home inspector, part of a franchise called Gold Key Home Inspections, to examine the house. Feel free to NOT hire them to check over your house. I can only assume that the “experienced professional” who inspected our house did not know what he was doing or what he was looking for. He never noticed that there are virtually no functionally effective soffit vents and too few roof vents. I didn’t know much about home ventilation three and a half years ago, but today, I am nearing expert status, due to the progressive decline in the condition of the roof and the kitchen-living room ceilings. This deterioration is due to poor and inadequate ventilation, the fault of mistakes or shortcuts by the homebuilder, whoever that might be.
Regarding Gold Key Inspections, they checked out the roof and told us that the roof was in good condition. The fact is that the guy was incompetent, inexperienced, or both. He missed the two most serious flaws in the home's construction, the lack of soffit vents and the inadequate roof vents. Today, we are looking at a roof replacement cost of about $11,500 and also may be forced to spend $10-20,000 to hook up to city water BEFORE we are allowed to repair the roof.
Essentially, what we are looking at is that we absolutely must fix the roof, may be forced to connect to city water, and then may not be able to afford to even stay in the house anyway, unless I work a second job. Big deal, right? People do it all the time.
My job precludes working a second job, simply because I am on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, every week, including holidays. How can a second job be possible with that condition? I am also a full-time student and a parent. We have already cut expenses and discretionary spending severely. I am looking at working two jobs, while a full-time student, so that we can assuage the asinine capriciousness of free-spending city bureaucrats. I have heard from many people in the area who are being forced out of their homes due to rapidly rising costs, driven by citiots (idiots from the Twin Cities) who have second, or third homes in the lakes region. You know, these are the jackasses who drive like they do, in fact, own the road.
If we are ultimately forced out of our home, the dollar amount we can expect to get from its sale would not cover the cost of the repairs and city water connection, on top of the mortgage. We couldn't even consider selling the property without repairing the roof and connecting to city water immediately, while demolishing the septic system and backfilling the resulting hole next to the house. The appraised value of our home increased by $25,000 this year, despite the fact that we have not done a single, solitary thing to improve the property. In five years, this will work in our favor as our improvements are completed and then-current appraisals reflect the modifications. That is tomorrow. Today we are damned no matter what we do.
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