What began as roof repairs on part of my house has progressed to a room with wide open sky, ripped out walls, and partial floor replacement. As a result, much of my time has been devoted to helping that project move along as quickly as possible. .. and doing what I can myself to keep costs down.
Thus, blogging will be quite low on my list of priorities for the next week or two. If content gets a bit stale, or your excellent tips go unreported, I apologize – but there are only so many hours in a day!
You should have contracted ME.
I would love those commuting surcharges from Ontario.
Hey..If gummament consultants can do it, why cant I?
That said……….Good luck and get a roof soon.
Your project timing is perfect weather wise and possibly keeping trades people employed as well.
I hope all goes well and stay safe around the job.
Geez Kate, is there anything that you cannot do?
Kate – make sure you get every reno grant you can get your hands on.
Good luck with it!!
I had something similar if a bit smaller last year. Decided to replace the picture window and by the time the guys had cleared everything away that the ants had all but destroyed, I had a MUCH larger hole in the front of the house than I had planned on!
Here I was thinking I had the ant’s route into the house figured. Turns out they were only commuting to the wall……
Hey Kate. Wht don’t you go ask some AGW eco-freak to talk to Hansen.I’m sure he could get the hours in the day expanded for ya!!
Good luck,and as a different bob said,get every penny of your own money back through grants.
No doubt our gracious hostess is installing solar panels and windmills on her roof.
Gee; I thought we only had the Leakey Condo plague out here in the Left Coast!
Had to replace my roof after only 15 years. Seems the interim non-asbestos shingles just couldn’t cut it. New ones guaranteed 30 years. They use fiber-glass as fiber content.
“Good luck,and as a different bob said,get every penny of your own money back through grants.”
Posted by: Justthinkin at August 6, 2009 7:47 PM
Off topic but timely . . . . . .
Just a reminder to those who are undertaking home renovations in order to take advantage of the tax credit – The bill covering that tax credit has not been formally passed in parliament as of this date.
If the government is defeated before the bill is passed all the renovations and upgrades will not receive the tax break.
I’m just saying…….
No grants. And I don’t think this is eligible as it’s not a reno, it’s a repair.
On the other hand, if anyone out there was considering placing an ad on SDA, now would be a welcome time!
Kate, many of your expenses will likely qualify for the Home Renovation Tax Credit. As I understand it, you qualify based on what you’re spending money on, not whether the overall job is a “reno” or a “repair”. Check out the following site:
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/ndvdls/sgmnts/hmwnr/hrtc/lgbl-xpns-eng.html
Re-shingling qualifies, our twenty-five year shingles lasted fifteen and had to be re-shingled this spring, even if we were not in the tax credit eligible category and even if the bill passes.
And it’s a tax credit on your hard earned (sweat) income.
That is not mood lighting, that is a tarp. Good luck Kate. I’m getting my roof re-shingled. Turns out it is the same company that did the original. After many years of preventive maintenance, I did nothing and got 28 years out of 15 year shingles.
Wide open sky? Hope it’s not raining.
Louise Yeh it’s raining.
Hi kate ..good luck with your …REENNOOSS…wink wink …nudge nudge …right ..anyway do ya thing girl …good luck …if ya need anything i will drive to help you out of you can help me keep tabs on my 2 year old daughter ..lol.
Paul in calgary .
“will likely qualify for the Home Renovation Tax Credit”
Only if they get off their butts and pass the thing. Does anyone know what, or who, is holding it up?
Good luck Kate, hope it all goes well.
Our roof had to be done last year.
Nothing to advertise, but I will click on all your ads now that I understand how that works.
You describe exactly what is still referred to in our family as the autumn torment of ought-four.
The professional roofers had stalled after reshingling about three-quarters of the job, here, because the addition-part had gone past the point of simple restoration. We were left with a whole roof section stripped of old shingles, and covered with a leaky tarp…, as the roofers abandoned us and drove away.
We (brother and I) wound up having to tear apart and rebuild that whole roof section, the complete back wall, and a good expanse of the floor.
We finished the shingling ourselves and I came face-to-face with the realization of my own mortality. I’d learned that shingling wasn’t beyond our abilities, and I figured I’d be up to the task the next time reshingling was due; until it dawned on me that, 35yr shingles…! If we’re still around… Not likely we’ll climbing ladders with big bundles of asphalt; not in our 90’s.
Kate, may I suggest, perhaps, another contractor. How bad could it have been before they started????
Well Kate, while you’re getting the repairs done, why not stick a few solar panels up there to do your part to fight back the CLIMATE CRISIS!!!(insert Lizzie May shriek). I’m sure there’s a grant somewhere for that!
Teeeheeeheee….
It was bad. It was a low slope roof, and some of the support 2″ x 6″‘s had completely disintegrated, along with the studs in the wall below them.
Kate, your reference to studs reminds me of a few Christmases back, when as a present, I gave my unattached mid-twenties niece a stud-finder, purchased at Home Hardware. She took it very well.
Good luck with the reno, but I hope you’ve got the tarps in place…. Gettin’ wet!
LOL !!!
ah Kate. Kate Kate Kate. that is EXACTLY what I’m doing some time or other. basically, the back ‘slab’ of my cottage style roof is shot to hell. it is the WORST roof I have ever seen on an occupied building.
right now its covered in those thin nylon reinforced tarps from a buddy who works in a lumber mill. this week I tore the panelling and rough pine boards off the kitchen walls. the pine boards will find a new life as a bench for my back yard.
thank gawd for building codes. I wouldn’t give a steaming turd for all that quaint talk about how ‘houses was builded mos’ bettern in the old ways and days’. ya, if you were a friggin millionaire and could afford the best. my place is so old the title gets a little fuzzy the further back you go !!!
LOL !!!
anyway you got good weather forecast. give us some pics b4/during/after.
Actually, the portion that was built in the 1940’s was still sound under the mess of shingles. The planks there were sound and dry.
It was the 15 year old addition that has disintegrated.
It was the 15 year old addition that has disintegrated.
Posted by: Kate at August 6, 2009 10:46 PM
Only 15 yrs? Badly done to say the least.
A messier and more time consuming rebuild, you have my sympathies.
Both weather forecasts services on Thursday a.m. said no rain for the next week, so I called the contractors to come pour me some sidewalks. At 14:00 Thursday both servcies “updated” to say it would rain the rest of the day and all Friday. Mother Nature’s a beyotch!
Kate – make sure you get every reno grant you can get your hands on.
Posted by: a different bob
Gotta love these “conservatives”… head for the public trough at the first opportunity. What would Galt do???
And you can kindly go f*** yourself, “philboy”. I won’t be getting a penny in grant money or tax credits.
@philboy
…only because she’s not eligible. lol. 🙂
It’s kind of like how Kathy Shaidle collected government grants to write poetry, and then government disability assistance when she was sick, all the while apparently turning more and more “conservative” by the day.
“And you can kindly go f*** yourself, “philboy”. I won’t be getting a penny in grant money or tax credits.”
Posted by: Kate at August 7, 2009 1:12 AM
Beautifully put Kate.
Slam dunk!
Although the tax credit boosting jobs and material purchases does have a somewhat different context than an out and out grant, as an example the rotting meat dress displayed at the National Gallery in Ottawa few years ago.
There is a difference Kate, IMO.
ah yes the experts wade in – “philboy” likely lives in his mommy’s basement, and the many critics know so much about sk winters (where is that global warming ?) – good luck with the redos kate
Kate, you might want to check with your accountant.
Some of the work or material might well be eligible. Many repairs are eligble.
Thats telling philboy, although ordinarily I would suggest ignoring the leftards. He probably would not know how to do that in any case.
Kate, that’s a pile of water damage for only 15 years service. In the 70’s and 80’s I used asphalt shingles on all my projects but now I’m re-doing them with sheet metal.
So the omnipresent troll, in an obvious attempt to give the impression of being clever, injects some mindless sarcasm into a rather innocuous discussion.
Is it just me, or has philboy degenerated from a minor annoyance to an obnoxious pr*ck?
Philboy Ever notice EI has the lowest qualification times in Liberal voting areas? Remember which gov’t changed the rules? Get stuffed.
So, when does your episode of Holmes on Homes appear?
I can just picture the look on Holmes face when you inspect his work and tell him he did it wrong.
Philboy quite clearly doesn’t understand the difference between getting Gov’t. money for no reciprocal effort, and getting an Income Tax credit for creating work for others. The only thing new about this potential tax credit is that it’s been extended to homeowners, not just businesses. (Businesses have always been able to deduct the cost of labour and material from income. It’s called an ‘Expense’).
My only advice Kate, on the reno, is make sure the contractor allows for a LOT of air flow between the underside of the roof and top of the ceiling insulation…2″ minimum air space, and vents!
And you can kindly go f*** yourself, “philboy”. I won’t be getting a penny in grant money or tax credits.
Well good for you. Not knowing whether or not you would be partaking in Steve Harper’s borrow and spend, winner and loser picking, rec room reno subsidy, my comment wasn’t aimed at you, but at different bob, whose first instinct is to recommend a stampede to the trough, conservative in good standing that he is.
Philboy quite clearly doesn’t understand the difference between getting Gov’t. money for no reciprocal effort, and getting an Income Tax credit for creating work for others.
Oh I understand the smoke and mirrors of borrowing money to artificially create economic activity in one sector at the expense of real activity in other sectors and expanded debt and defecit.
I lived through, and paid through the nose for, Grant Devine’s rec room reno subsidy of the 80’s. It was a bullsh*t scam then and it’s a bullsh*t scam now.
**artificially create economic activity in one sector at the expense of real activity in other sectors**
Incentives to have renoos done now rather than later to employ otherwise idled tradesmen????
Philby is an aspiring sophist……
“I lived through, and paid through the nose for, Grant Devine’s rec room reno subsidy of the 80’s”
I just knew it was coming….another predictable shot at Grant Devine. What’s wrong philboy? I suspect that living rent-free in mom’s basement leaves no need for a renovation grant. Personally, I didn’t take advantage of Devine’s program either, however that doesn’t give me reason to condemn something that many Sask residents were very thankful for, including hard-core socialists.
Not just tradesmen, Sasquatch, but all the laid off workers in the building materials sector as well, and the laid off restaurant employees, etc. etc.
Philboy really doesn’t get it. The Fed’s scheme only gives you a credit against Taxes you owe/paid; nobody’s getting a free lunch here. It’s just a reduction in Income Tax, and isn’t that a Conservative pov?
This year we’re installing a new effecient (insurance/greenie approved) wood burning stove,
Will be allowed? If so yeah, if not we’re doing it anyway.
All kinds of tax credits we’ve not been eligible for in the past, the three decades we’ve been working and owning homes, so certainly for the working class home owner to get a one time break on a very important and usually life long financial investment is great, and the libtards are all in a stink about it. And how much of it that tax credit will wind up going ‘on the kids’ of these responsible home owners anyway?
Renovations usually lead to increased home value, increased assessment and hence higher property taxes. I’d think philboy would appreciate that.
Why not spur economic activity in buggy whips and giant fans? That’ll get some idlers working.
My gawd, just how shallow IS the small dead mind?
another predictable shot at Grant Devine
It’s a shot at yet another scam on the public purse.
The question is, why are you unable to criticize the Dear Corpulent Leader under any circumstances.
You’re the problem, sasquatch.
No, Philboy, YOU’RE the problem. Your lack of understanding of how an economy works is breathtaking in its naivete.
Well, then tell me Dan, in all the Trudeaupian, interventionist, econ 101 you’re capable of imparting.
My, my my…there ain’t no hypocrite like a right wing hypocrite.
There ain’t no dead mind, like a small dead mind.
Laughable, pathetic.
Don’t mind pillboy. He lacks basic understanding of economics as demonstrated by not knowing the difference between a grant and a tax credit.
Comparing the Sask PC’s plan to the CPC is dumb.
Devine’s plan was matching dollars, or a grant.
Harper’s plan allows you to claim some costs tax-free.
For your edification pillbox, a grant comes from other taxpayers, a tax credit comes from your money.
Just another standard ID10T error.
Are you kidding, Cheers lance? Whether the kickback comes in the form of an out and out grant or a tax refund, the cost to the treasury is the same. One is tax money expended, the other revenue foregone. And somebody’s got to pick up the tab.
The only difference between Devine and Dear Leader Steve is the richness of the plan, Devine’s outlaying $1000.00 for $1000.00 expended, Steve’s kicking back $150.00 for $1000.00 expended.
Both are being funded on borrowed money.
Devine’s did, and Dear Leader’s will, subsidize activity that would be taking place anyway.
Nice try, Opie. Putting in a hot tub, perhaps?