Yesterday turned out a little more stressful than I expec...
Yesterday turned out a little more stressful than I expected. In the morning, the foundation guy came because we've been having issues with interior wall cracking. All houses here have cracks because of the soil, but cracks were starting to form in a more scary way around the guest room windows (like the windows were planning to fall out) and there was a low spot in the floor in the middle of the upstairs that has been getting steadily worse. With the drought we had a couple of summers ago (when the whole state was on fire and most of Bastrop burned down) a lot of people I know were having foundation issues, so I decided to go ahead and get it looked at.
The result was actually reassuring. The low spot is actually a piece of badly installed subfloor that can be easily corrected whenever the carpet gets torn up. The foundation problem is normal for a 46 year old house on this soil, and can be corrected with some digging and piers inserted around one side and the back of the house. No floors or anything need to be torn up inside. It'll still be expensive, in the 1000s of dollars expensive, but not nearly as expensive as it could be.
(Relevant to this, here's a link The Financial Reality of a Genre Novelist. Basically, if you were ever considering buying one of my reprint ebooks, now would be a good time.)
Then in the afternoon the heating and cooling guys came for the heater's annual checkup. They were replacing a couple of small parts, then they found a gas leak in the attic. Not sure how long it's been there. The attic is vented, so it could possibly have been there for a very long time. It might still be there, because one of the guys couldn't smell it. The other apparently had Gus from Psych's super-sniffer, and convinced him that they should test for leaks, for which I am extremely grateful.
After they left, I ate a bowl of chocolate cake batter. Now I'm waiting for my foundation estimate.
Links:
* American Indian Youth Literature Award List
* Book View Cafe: His Majesty's Elephant by Judith Tarr, now in ebook!
* The Lorem Ipsum Bookstore Fundraiser
* On David Anthony Durham's blog: No Return by Zachary Jernigan I also blurbed this book, and I highly recommend it.
Meant to link to this to: A short CBS news video about a man who risked his life to save someone who fell in front of a subway. Seriously, holy crap this guy was brave.
The result was actually reassuring. The low spot is actually a piece of badly installed subfloor that can be easily corrected whenever the carpet gets torn up. The foundation problem is normal for a 46 year old house on this soil, and can be corrected with some digging and piers inserted around one side and the back of the house. No floors or anything need to be torn up inside. It'll still be expensive, in the 1000s of dollars expensive, but not nearly as expensive as it could be.
(Relevant to this, here's a link The Financial Reality of a Genre Novelist. Basically, if you were ever considering buying one of my reprint ebooks, now would be a good time.)
Then in the afternoon the heating and cooling guys came for the heater's annual checkup. They were replacing a couple of small parts, then they found a gas leak in the attic. Not sure how long it's been there. The attic is vented, so it could possibly have been there for a very long time. It might still be there, because one of the guys couldn't smell it. The other apparently had Gus from Psych's super-sniffer, and convinced him that they should test for leaks, for which I am extremely grateful.
After they left, I ate a bowl of chocolate cake batter. Now I'm waiting for my foundation estimate.
Links:
* American Indian Youth Literature Award List
* Book View Cafe: His Majesty's Elephant by Judith Tarr, now in ebook!
* The Lorem Ipsum Bookstore Fundraiser
* On David Anthony Durham's blog: No Return by Zachary Jernigan I also blurbed this book, and I highly recommend it.
Meant to link to this to: A short CBS news video about a man who risked his life to save someone who fell in front of a subway. Seriously, holy crap this guy was brave.
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