Yeah, so we have the bids in. Finally.
The first one came in a day late. The second one barely squeaked by two days late. As in, somewhere around 7 p.m. on Wednesday night. Except it had a couple of small details missing… Like, say, whether the roof needs reshingling. Also, it didn’t include whether we’d need a new A/C unit, which is about $5,000. When I wrote her back asking about it, the lady’s answer was — get this — “We won’t know until we do the A/C inspection.”
Uh, what? We’re not going to take out $5,000 in case we need it. If it wasn’t needed, the funds would be applied to our principal. But our payments would still be the same for up to 30 years. I’m good, thanks.
So I called the other place, which had a bid based on our needing a permit. They agreed to revise the bid, since we don’t, and would send their A/C guy over to evaluate the existing unit. (It would have had to be replaced for numerous silly reasons that come with bureaucracy.)
That info should come in today or early tomorrow. But since we haven’t replied to the first company, the lady wrote to see if we had any questions. When I explained that we were waiting on a last detail or two, the woman apologized again for the delay — and had the audacity to say that they wanted to be sure it was complete.
But… it wasn’t. You had two glaring items missing — roof and A/C unit — plus some other items. Like the counters in the guest house, which were the ones that NEEDED to get done. You quoted us for the main house, but not for the guest house. Friggin lovely.
Oh, and another fun thing. They estimated a refrigerator at $688. Same with the stove and the fridge in the guest house. A 20″ stove for the MIL. $688. I got on Mr. Rebates, did a search and, less than three minutes later, was staring at a $360 stove that we wouldn’t pay tax on and that I’d get 3% cash back for.
Even better, an air-conditioning wall unit for the guest house was estimated at $600. I just can’t imagine a unit covering 500 sq ft costing the same as a mid-range fridge.
So I guess we’ll be buying the appliances ourselves.
My favorite, though, had to be the $112 to install battery-powered smoke detectors in the house and guest house. I guess their detectors are silver-plated, because I checked Mr. Rebates once again and found $7.99 battery-powered smoke detectors at Home Depot.
So we’ll be doing that too, I guess.
None of this would be a problem, except this is the only company willing to scrape and retexture the popcorn ceilings. It would be just over $2,500 (including the lead/asbestos test) and that’s well worth the money to us.
I checked with our lender, and we are able to use more than one contractor. So we may just break down the contractors based on who is willing to do each item cheapest. Or we might just commission the company for the ceilings only. Who knows.
Unfortunately, unless the A/C is in good shape, we’re looking at around $25,000-28,000 in repairs. We had hoped to keep it under $20,000. We’re going to winnow it down as best we can. In the end, though, we’ll have to do what needs to be done.
I’ll keep everyone updated. I’m off to shop appliances and smoke detectors, apparently.
Catseye says
OMG on the contractors! Yeah, stay on top of them, apparently they don't understand the need to control costs. It's not their money!
jestjack says
25K for an AC UNIT! I don't live in the West but have bought my share of heating and ac units…none approached $10K let alone $25k. I would get another estimate perhaps a referal from friends or neighbors that have had good (honest) experiences with this dilemma. 12K BTU ought to do the guest house OK I'm guessing..Just make sure you have the electrical capacity. Maybe do some research on research on wall units. Like so many things in life…"bigger is not always better". Just a heads up …bought smoke detectors last year at Wal Mart (discontinued and deeply discounted)…$1….with battery…I took all three!
Abigail says
Jestjack, It's five thousand, not $25,000. Still a big sum, but not quite as bad as you were thinking!
TLC says
That's a hefty sum of repairs! Yikes! Keep us updated though!