Section
At Home
- 849 words
Keeping a maintenance log that is worth something when you sell
Every house has a service history. In most cases it exists only as a set of half-remembered years, which is worth nothing to a buyer and very little to the owner.
- 1,070 words
Five jobs around a house, and which of them is worth paying for
The question is not whether you could do it. It is what happens if you get it wrong, how often the job comes around, and what the tool costs against how much you would use it.
- 1,141 words
The dishwasher leaked for a year before anyone noticed. Here is the bill
A slow leak does not produce an emergency. It produces a soft patch of floor two winters later, a repair with three trades in it, and an insurance answer nobody wanted.
- 1,139 words
Where the money actually goes after a flooded kitchen, line by line
A supply line under a sink produces a bill with a dozen parts, and only about half of them are the repair. Here is the whole shape of it, including the parts that arrive a year later.
- 1,460 words
Twenty-two days drying a basement, and the two readings that ended the argument
A sump failure during a storm put three inches of water across a finished basement. The repair was straightforward. The disagreement about whether it was dry took longer than the drying.
- 1,018 words
Reading a cleaning contract, and the four lines that settle the arguments
Recurring service agreements are short, and the disputes they produce are always about the same handful of omissions: what is in the scope, who supplies what, and who is liable when something breaks.
- 820 words
Six years without paint on a south-facing wall, and the bill that followed
Paint is a wear layer that happens to have a color. Once it opens up, the cost stops being painting and starts being carpentry, and it does not go back.
- 968 words
The maintenance your warranty quietly requires, and the receipts that prove it
Most manufacturer warranties are conditional on maintenance the buyer was never told about out loud. The condition sits in the document, and it is enforced at claim time.
- 948 words
What the first forty-eight hours after a leak decide about the repair
What you do in the first two days after water gets in decides most of what the repair costs. Almost none of it involves a contractor.
- 770 words
A pipe froze in a rented duplex. Who paid for which half
Two insurance policies, one lease, and a burst supply line in a shared wall. The paperwork decided the outcome, and it was written long before the cold snap.
- 1,390 words
A twelve-month maintenance list for a house you actually live in
Most maintenance schedules fail because they pile everything into April and assume a free Saturday. This one is arranged around when the weather forces your hand.
- 946 words
Eight things an adjuster asks for, and when to gather each one
Most of what decides a claim is assembled in the first week, usually by a homeowner who does not yet know which parts will matter.