More Crazy Weather and the House
We woke up to another snowy scene this morning. It was very wet though and quickly turned to slushy rain.
Even though the snow wasn’t terribly bothersome for most people, it ended up causing the roof of our biggest stadium, BC Place (where the opening ceremonies for the Olympics are going to be held) to collapse this afternoon. We had a lot more snow during our last big snowfall, so I don’t know why it happened today. Whatever it was, we came home tonight to discover that a similar thing was happening here – the kids’ bedroom roof was leaking again. My husband replaced the roof over their room just last winter, but it’s flat and collects the water and snow. That room is an addition, and the people who built it never bothered to tie the roof in with the rest of the house like the architect’s plans showed, so it’s been an ongoing problem.Lately we’ve been debating whether to try to fix the problems our house has, or just cut our losses, take the money we’ve made on it, and build our perfect little eco-home somewhere else less expensive. Tonight we’re feeling overwhelmed and frustrated, and option B is looking pretty good! The problem with that plan is, whoever buys this house will probably just knock it down if we leave it as it, and I hate that thought, but there’s a high probability that it’ll be demolished regardless of it’s condition – almost every small house in the neighborhood has been sold and torn down to build a huge monster of a house (there are some nice views to be had around here if your house is tall enough). I guess the deciding factor will be whether or not we can borrow enough money to do everything that needs doing. Tonight we’re sitting here listening to the wind roaring around the house again, whistling through the windows and around the doors. The weather that we’ve experienced this winter is out of control. We dominated Environment Canada’s list of top weather stories for last year.I’m crossing my fingers that we don’t lose our power before the woodstove is installed!
It’s raining here. We’ve only had 3″ of snow this winter; we should be buried in white stuff, not rain.
Can you pull down your house and put your dream house on the same lot?
Nio – I’ve heard that it’s been really warm back east this winter.
Unfortunately we can’t afford to build here. Everything we’re doing to the house we’re doing ourselves, but demolition and rebuilding would probably require more than the two of us. 😀
Yes, the wind last night was horrible. And this new cold snap is just that a snap into reality.
I feel for you and your house with all it’s problems. Is there anyway to make improvements on your existing house of is it too much?
Cheryl, old homes can be very frustrating. I hope you can muddle through your decision on “stay or build” — I suspect your home has lots of charms too as the old ones often do so it’s hard to “give up” on that, isn’t it? Good luck in both the long and short-term.
I hear ya, regarding the quirkiness of your house. We didn’t do anything to our house for YEARS, because we didn’t intend to stay here. Things started “going”, and once we started fixing them, the flood-gates opened. We’ve replaced and fixed most of the things that were bad, including insulation, waterheater, septic system, roof, and we remodeled one of the bathrooms.
The irony is that we’ve found a house that is closer to what we would build ourselves, and it looks like we did all that work so that someone else can have a nice place to live ;).
I heard about BC Place first thing on the news this morning. That’s crazy. We’ve been having a case of the “the weather” as well. We had about 30 cm of snow in the last 24 hours. It was a real blizzard yesterday. Sorry to hear about your house woes. Old houses can be real $ pits. It’s hard too if you’re just patching problems…my experience has been that that doesn’t usually last long. But this too will pass. Good luck.
Chelee – Yes, there are definitely ways to make improvements, I think we’re just feeling overwhelmed at the scope of it all (and the resulting financial implications). We’re thinking of putting in a basement, which would solve several of the problems in one go.
Lu – It would be hard to give up on this place, but old houses are just one surprise after another!
Wendy – Wow, I’m glad you found something you’ll be happier with, but that must be hard. I hope you’ll recoup some of that investment!
Carla – I was just talking to my dad and he mentioned that you guys have been getting a lot of snow.
No kidding about the money pit thing. The frustration with the roof was that we did take the time to strip everything off and redo it properly instead of doing a patch job, so we were left feeling like we had just thrown that money (and time off) down the drain. Fortunately, I think we’ve got it figured out.