What do you do when their isn't enough money for house repairs?

First: I'm very sorry - but welcome to home ownership Time to get good at home repair.

my4littlebuffaloes said:

our house is 35 years old and I the people that lived here the whole time didn't do much to it. No updating at all (not necessary for us to live here) and bare minimum on upkeeping the essentials. So the roof has a leak over the garage and really needs to be replaced all over. It is the second layer and is pretty old. We had someone look at it and we were told it wouldn't last much longer and of course it has the leak.

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If the only place leaking is over the garage, then go get a package of shingles that nearly match, some roofing nails, and a ladder. Read up on DIY info about how to replace bad shingles. Pull up the two layers of shingles over the leak, put down new shingles. Test with a hose.

The fireplace is extremely drafty, there is literally a cold breeze blowing through the den all winter. We keep a big moving blanket over it, which helps, but that room is so cold. We looked at getting a new damper that would seal it up perfectly and installed it will be $500. Dh wants to do it himself, but we don't have a big enough ladder to do it, so we would have to buy it, which brings the total back up to $500. But I would rather have a ladder than not, so it would still be better to do it ourselves rather than pay someone.

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The wind is coming down through the fireplace, is that it? Do you use it regularly? Is it the damper that is leaking, or is it the seal around the damper? You could, for the time being, put a plug in the chimney unless something else is also venting out of the chimney - until you have money for repairs. You'll have to live w/o a fire though, until its fixed.

Then the driveway is a complete wreck. The kids can't really play on it it is so torn up and riding scooters is impossible and bikes is a little dangerous. The kids can (and do) literally pull up strips of the ashpalt. We are in the middle of getting estimates to replace it and of course the whole thing needs to be dug out and redone. The lady called and the city has a rule that if you do that you have to replace the drain pipe that runs under the driveway, which of course really adds to the expense.

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Of course the contractors say it has to be redone. Go to Home Depot and get two or three buckets of asphalt sealant and rent a pressure washer. Clean the driveway, give it a coating of sealant (sticky work), and save the money to have it redone.

So we have all these big expenses looming and virtually no money to cover them. What would you do? Pull some from the EF?

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ABSOLUTELY NOT. HOME REPAIRS ARE NOT AN EMERGENCY. Ok, they CAN be - but these aren't - emergency = oh my god we need a plumber here right now the water is pouring out of the oven. "Oh we need to fix this sooner or later but we don't have it this minute" is not - repeat - NOT an emergency. You've had time to plan - you have time to patch it up for short term.

How do y'all handle times like this? Thanks!

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Exactly what I said - do it yourself patch until you SAVE the money for the job to be done right. You can learn, and it will save you a BUNDLE.

Oh I'm so mad ...power surge knocked me out right before this posted! Ok back oon topic.

The roof: Growing up around roofing I can tell you getting the leak fixed is the #1 priority. This should be a fairly cheap and easy do it yourself project....unless the plywood sheathing underneath the shingles is already rotted. Have you hausband check for this very carefully. Check from the attic if you have one, feel for "sponginess" when walking on it, and of coarse look under the shingles. Most leaks usually happen at the seams around vents and such. That could just be a good thick coat of tar sealent on the seam.

Ok now if the sheathing is already rotted your project just got a little more complicated and you'll want to do a little more research.

Once the leak is fixed SAVE for a new roof. If you are going to get prices and your husband is handy at all, get estimates for an already stripped roof. Have your husband "rip" the roof. Maybe invite his friends and cook for them. A double roof rip is heavy labor but not hard to figure out. You just need men, shovels, and a large dumpster. By getting the estimates this way You'll save not only the labor cost but also the BIG extra charge most roofers add onto the dumpster fee. You're absolute best deal on this will be to find a roofer that will work up a supply list for you so you can buy the material yourself and will just charge you labor be the "square". If he's a good roofer he'll have a cheap helper load the roof for hom and feed hom the shingles. The two of them will be able to get the "pre-ripped" roof on in one day. You'll get a good job and a good price. He'll get an easy day's labor because you've done the hard part for him.

The damper: Save for the damper. Have your DH borrow a ladder and do it himslef. By not paying installation or for the ladder you'll probably cut the price in half. Someone you know or is in your neighborhood probably has one and would probably willingly let you borrow it when you offer them a batch of fresh cookies for the use.

The driveway: Our asphalt driveway here was beyond sealent repair here when we moved in 8 years ago. Our kids have pulled up chunks and been grounded for it. It is finally on the agenda for spring 2010 (new garage/driveway). Other things were just bigger priorities. A driveway is not an emergency. If it's sealable, great. It will still be sealable next spring. Both the roof and the damper sound like bigger priorities to me.

whoosh...sorry for being so long winded. Hope that helped.

Thanks for all the replies and the input. It all really helped! My dh is very handy, so that helps. He found a place online that he can order the damper from (it actually goes on top of the whole chimney Rachel) and we can rent a longer ladder for $31. The total for the whole thing will be around $200 which is what we have saved for it.

As for the roof, dh had told me before that there was really no way to patch it, so it was good to hear that can be done. So I asked him about it and he said he could do it. But rooted nomad - the plywood underneath is rotting and it is spongie when you step on it. Basically we have 2 roofs and the upper roof's downspout was spitting out right on this spot on the lower roof. We have since put an extension on the spout to take it all the way to the gutters and had a fan going in the attic a lot last summer which helped dry it out, but still the whole thing needs to be replaced.

We contacted 1 roofer and he wasn't willing to let us rip it off, we had looked into that ourselves. I think we will contact other places though and see if we can find one that is willing.

I know the driveway will have to wait a little longer. Thanks again for all the great advice.