Have you ever heard a story of something that happened to someone and say to yourself, "What? I've never heard of such a thing."? I have, but I didn't think it would ever happen to ME.
A couple weeks ago we were contacted by our homeowners insurance company. They stated that they needed to send someone out to do a 4.1 inspection on our house. This inspection is pretty common in Florida and is required for all homes over a certain age when you first get your policy. For those not aware, this inspection looks at the main (aka. expensive) components of the house: the air conditioner / heater, plumbing, electrical, and the roof.
Although our house was originally built in 1970, there were many updates to the house before we moved in. We knew the electrical and plumbing had been updated in the 90's and the roof was updated around the same time. We knew the roof was getting old but were told when we bought the house a couple years ago that we had maybe 5 years left. So our big concern was the air conditioner. Hubby has fixed it to help limp it along for a while and we were worried the inspector would say it's too old. When he didn't even look at the air handler (the thing hubby fixed), I thought we were in the clear.
Unfortunately, that was not the case. The middle of last week we were informed that if we don't repair 3 things, our insurance will be dropped. The first thing mentioned was that we needed to power wash the outside of the house. Say WHAT?!?!? Yep, they will cancel our policy if we don't power wash our house. And yes, every time I think about that my mouth drops.
The second thing is that we have 2 very large trees in front of our house and some of the larger branches reach over the house. That one's legit. In fact, we started work on it last fall but haven't finished. So now we have the incentive to finish sooner rather than later I suppose.
The third and final thing is that we have to replace the shingles on our roof. Like I said before, we knew it was coming. We just thought we had a few more years. So when I was informed last week that we had till Aug 2 to get everything done, my heart skipped a beat (or three). You see, with hubby being without work for a while, we had to dig into our savings and we haven't been able to replenish it back to the point where we could redo the roof and still have money left in savings. That means we have to get a home equity loan of some sort. Those take time. I've been told it could take up to a month to get approval. Umm... that takes us beyond Aug 2 right there! So I explained to the lovely people at the insurance company that there is no way we can get it done that quickly. They were SO generous (insert sarcasm here) and extended the repair date to Sept 9.
Needless to say, I've been on the phone a lot the last few days. Scheduling contractors for bids. Contacting the county to see about whether we want to do it ourselves. Contacting the bank to get the home equity stuff rolling.
Contractors start coming today, so hopefully we will know how much it will cost soon. First thing on the list is working on the branches (that way if they damage the roof, at least it wasn't the NEW roof). We can do this ourselves while we wait for the home equity approval too. Then we deal with the roof. And after all the roof work is done, we can power wash the house (I'm sure the roofing will add some dirt and grime so might as well clean that off at the end).
Now I'm off to have a little lunch before the first contractor of the day shows up. Wish us luck!
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