Category: home improvement

Picking up Truck parts; RV-Life

On By JohnIn home improvement, travel, vehiclesLeave a comment

When you’re a one-vehicle family and do your own vehicle maintenance, you gotta have a plan. And a bicycle. And bungee cords. Today’s lunch break was a quick trip to O’reilly to pick up a starter for UPGRAYEDD…then a sprint back home for the next meeting.

We’d originally planned on just swapping it out at a rest stop during this weekend’s relocation (no maintenance in the RV park!) to Las Cruces, but the solenoid had gotten worse this morning, so, had Champs Auto in Goodyear work in the replacement last-minute for us.

Objections, Part 2

On By JohnIn home improvementLeave a comment

We objected to their objections. There was the usual back and forth posturing between our realtors:

  • this is unreasonable
  • that’s unsafe
  • your client’s a big doody-head
  • I know you are, but what am I?

…and, thus, an agreement was made.

We’ll credit the buyer $2k at closing toward a new furnace. A replacement unit for our, “” unit will only cost about $1k, but the removal, installation, disposal, and inspection costs will be a few $K more. $2K seems reasonable to me.

I’ll do some repair to the cooler and demonstrate it does, indeed, actually work – never mind that we had only turned off the water to it while we were away for five days as we don’t leave water on while we’re gone for more than an overnight… by the way, you also do turn off the water in your RV whenever you leave, right?  Right?

I’ll also add another smoke and carbon monoxide detector in the basement. I could just relocate the ones that are down there already, but I believe their proximity to the actual sources of carbon monoxide (in the utility room) is safer than anywhere else. So, I’ll just put one outside the bedroom like FHA recommends.

And, while not in the final contract, I’ll also correct a wiring issue in an unused, unfinished space.

Inspection

On By JohnIn home improvementLeave a comment

We know there are still some things that the house needs and a few things still in need of repair–yet a “perfect” house in this area sells for even more.

But the buyer objected and insisted on some remediation: new furnace and swamp cooler, replacing aluminum wiring… Things that, while achievable, aren’t on our personal roadmap.

No, I think we’ve done quite enough to the house and it’s time for somebody else to pick up where we’re leaving off.

Yes, we can negotiate the price a bit, but I’m afraid we don’t have the time or resources to attain somebody else’s goals just now.

Busy day!

On By JohnIn home improvement, outdoors, techLeave a comment

In no particular order:

Got the trailer spare replaced–actually, it’s the road rim that’s been in spare-duty for 6 months. The whole process of replacing the spare could’ve been so much less headache-inducing if the retailer had their logistics sorted out. But at least it’s done now, so I can swap them out tomorrow.

Got the hiking shoes replaced so we can be a bit more prepared for the coming deer season.

Also for deer season, we picked up a larger cooler. Quite possibly guaranteeing that I don’t get a deer.

Swapped out some stuff in storage.

Coordinated the fifth wheel hitch and air springs for the next trailer–and optionally a Sidewinder pin-box.

We also got the tablets set up on a new carrier today. We were going to port our mobiles over, too, but it turns out that our current carrier has a painful process to port out, so we’ll just wait three weeks for the contract to expire the we’ll just term the old account then swap the new SIMs in.

Then there was also the stop to pick up a priority backup solution for my work laptop: $90 for a 2TB USB drive sounds reasonable to me.

Emptied the PO box of he last two weeks’ mail.

And now, we have a 2.5hr drive back “home”.

Yep, busy day.