My Old House

Greetings All!

It’s been ages since I’ve posted… I know. Sorry about that, but we haven’t really DONE any home improvement in a while. Let’s face it, money has been tight in the past year!

Money is still tight tight.

But there are some things that just have to be done right now. And there seem to be a few opportunities on the horizon.

1) What little we HAVE done this year – I did have a plumber come out and do two smaller jobs for me: He installed shut-off valves on the water supplies for the sink, the toilet, and the tub in our second floor bathroom. As we get ready to hopefully remodel that room, having shut-off valves was absolutely necessary.

However, I did have this plumber do one extra thing that wasn’t really necessary: replace the only water faucet we have on the exterior of the house! (Every time we’d turn on the hose, we’d take a nice shower! And, of course, that shower would continue for another hour while I watered the lawn.)

So, those two jobs cost us $350.

2) Currently Underway: Garage Siding Replacement — Photos of our crumbling garage exterior were the last photos I posted to the site… last year! Since then, the problems have gotten worse. Rainwater continues to splash upwards from the ground and rot away the old T-111 board siding. Plus, a lack of flashing on the horizontal siding-seams on both the front and back of the garage have created holes there.

So, yesterday, our contractor, Mike Butler (who’s also a neighbor, in the sense that he lives about a mile away)… started work on tearing off the old T-111 board and replacing it. Now, while he is going to completely replace the siding on both the entire front and back of the garage….he’s going to do a cost-cutting measure on the sides: He’s going to cut off the lower 32 inches of the T-111 board and replace just that area, leaving the upper portion alone.

Mike promised us that all horizontal seams would be properly flashed this time. And yes, he will be replacing the damaged trim on the front of the garage, as well as adding trim to cover the horizontal seams that will now be on the garage’s sides.

Is he using the same T-111 board? No, he’s using a material that’s very much like it, but has been chemically protected so as to resist rot, fungus, and weather. (I think it’s called “Smart Board”. Not 100% sure of that name at the moment.)

In appearance, it looks identical….which, actually, I found out, is important in this case!:

As you may recall, our entire property (including the garage) is now a local historic landmark! From what Mike can tell, the garage was built sometime in the 1930′s or 40′s !! (Our neighbor across the street, Leah Burton, confirms that our garage was standing when she moved here in 1972 !)

So, we had to get permission from the Community Development Department’s Historic Preservation division before proceeding. They just wanted to make sure that in appearance it would be the same.

Mike began work yesterday and I’m thinking he’ll finish up sometime tomorrow or maybe even late today. Not sure.

When he’s done, then I’m planning on painting the garage to match the house.

3) Opportunities for the Future — Independence’s “353 Revitilization / Tax Abatement Program” officially expanded to include our neighborhood on January 1st of this year.

This program basically is designed to… sort of “reimburse” you if you make home improvements. Now, they wouldn’t like it for me to use the word “reimburse”, but that’s how I tend to personally think of it.

You invest so many dollars in home improvements…. you submit your receipts… and the city then WILL NOT CHARGE YOU PROPERTY TAXES ON YOUR HOME for 10 years! And then, for the 15 years after that, they will only charge you 50%. Now, you’ll still get charged property taxes on the LAND, but that is a very small portion of what you’re probably paying in property taxes.

I basically asked the City to “run the numbers for me”. Now, before I discuss the numbers, a disclaimer: This program really IS NOT DESIGNED FOR A HIGH-VALUE HOME. It’s designed to help people in homes of lower value. Those folks won’t have to invest much money in order to particpate.

Unfortunately, for us, the minimum required investment for us to participate is just over $13,000. And yes, when I learned this late last year, I was disheartened. I mentally “threw the idea in the trash”…at least for our home.

Well, it occurred to me the other day: Repairing the garage is going to cost us at least $3250. Now, if we take part of this year’s tax return and replace the living room carpeting, that will probably bring us close to $5000 spent. Hmmmm….. just $8000 left to spend. And… here’s the kicker… 3 years to spend it!

Yes, the work you must do must be completed over a three year time period. Now I can see how this can be helpful to me!

What’s the final tax benefit on all of this? Well, over the entire 25 years, we’d save over $24,000! (And remember, that’s using today’s projection of what taxes will be. Odds are, rates will go up over that time-period.)

And then I started to see a few other financial incentives fall into place:

a) There’s a new tax deduction available this year for Missouri. One can have the entire cost of a Home Energy Audit… and some of the repairs such an audit recommends…deducted from their state income taxes…. up to $1500 !!

b) A home energy auditwill help us identify little projects that we can add to this 353 program plan… projects that will hopefully reduce our heating and cooling bills! So, there’s an additional way that this 353 can potentially “pay us back”!

c) Our hot water heater is old. (I’m not sure HOW old, but it’s a “Montgomery Ward” brand, if that tells you anything.) I was planning on replacing it at some point this year anyways. The Federal Government offers a tax deduction for qualifying energy-efficient appliance purchases… up to 30% of the purchase price, I believe. (On the down-side, my initial research suggests that gas-powered hot-water heaters won’t qualify. They aren’t energy-efficient enough. Documentation seems to point one to using those on-demand, instant hot-water heaters. I’ll have to look into those. I’ve casually read about them and my initial reaction has been: expensive, fussy technology.)

So, we may be able to create a series of home improvement projects that not only qualify us for this tax abatement program, but some of those activities may even qualify for other tax benefits!

Today, I finished filling out the application for this 353 program. I’ll mail it in next week.

Now, there’s a $100 initial charge for the homeowner in that we have to pay an inspector representing the City to come out and do an initial inspection. And that inspector is going to look at certain “basics” to see that they are met. I mean, any participant in this 353 program will have to fix up anything that’s not up-to-code or really needs fixing… from a systems point-of-view…. heating, cooling, electrical. But I’m confident we have covered a LOT of that already in the past 4 years. Still, I expect there will be a few fixes we’ll be required to make and THEN we’ll be able to throw in what we WANT done.

Personally, I’m really looking forward to that home energy audit.

Well, I could talk about all this some more, but I’ll save it for future dates.

Thanks!

-= Dave =-