horn4life

Trying to decide whether or not to GC myself, which I could do on what needs to be repaired. But I am contemplating shifting money into windows, a master bath and remodel, nicer cabinets and and foregoing the $10K in depreciation should I go that route. But leaving that on the table may not be worth it, with the amount I time I would personally put in to supervise all the subs and lose all my Fall fun time. I am thinking some sort of a hybrid as most likely. The estimate of course is somewhat fucked up. The dollar amount is about right from what I thought, but some of the line items make no sense. They have me laying hardwoods in the garage for like $4500, but no money for the paneling. So the garage cost is way high. But the cost on the kitchen is way low. With money to hang and install cabinets, but no money for the actual cabinets themselves. Yesterday was mostly spent desperately trying to extend my short term housing. My Adjuster farting around, nearly caused me to lose my apartment, and needing to vacate tomorrow by noon. Yes 10% profit/ 10% overage on, $68,420 is the top line number. $10K recoverable depreciation and $3K deductible subtracted from that top line number. I don't want to rip off the insurance company and having $4500 for garage hardwoods is just a glaring error. But so is not allocating money for cabinets, and granite in the bathroom. My plan was to bring the errors to USAA's attention. I guess they could be saying I need to use the fronts of the cabinets, but there is no money for build out of the new boxes and cabinet rebuild that would be necessary to create the "new" finished cabinets. But I worry about just subtracting the garage hardwoods, and not increasing the cabinet cost allocation. Anyhow, at least I sort of have a starting point from a money perspective. But I need to see if I can even extend my apartment lease past November 1, as I know they want to remodel this unit. So there is a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

Well... FINALLY got the cost from USAA this AM. Total claim is $68K, less $3K deductible, and another $10K recoverable depreciation. So a net of $55K, that I need to endorse to my lender. They will endorse and deposit funds in an escrow account, but cut me an initial check for $50K to get the work started. Unfortunately, my adjuster was not the best and I have had to ride herd on this shit from the get go. I still need to confirm I am not getting the boot Friday from my short term housing. I have been holding back on ordering cabinets and flooring until I knew I was not going to get screwed on the cost. I didn't really think I would, but the way things were working I figured better safe than sorry. Now at least I know a number. It has been terribly frustrating simply being in limbo for so long. We always love the beach this time of year, and all the uncertainty, as sort of made that not as appealing as usual. Now I guess I will just stress about, "Did we make the right decision" on colors, cabinets, flooring etc.

I would give the company you accepted the offer, a chance to match the new offer. IF, and the IF is important you prefer the first company over the second. Ultimately a large company isn't going to care one way or the other. They don't worry too much about you well being, they just want to retain you for the lowest price possible. I understand the idea of your word being your bond, and have great respect for that. However, when it comes to salary, you take the money. But like I said, I would give them an opportunity to match, then the ball is in their court. I would also look very closely at the benefits packages!!!

my guess is Lake Belton

A little bit early this year, as usually September cheers don't turn into Aggie tears until October... 😉 I guess the Ag's are fucking thrilled they got past Colorado! Sec... sec... sec

It Depends...

Well, I guess now I have to hope for 11 am... "like Larry Wildman going off a cliff in my new Maserati." I guess the best thing about a third eleven o'clock game, is that the third game prep for 11 am is a shit ton easier than the 1st game day prep for 11 am. We have been going to Port A for years on OU weekend, and an 11 am kick is fine for me coming off the beach fishing in the AM. Normally I hate the 11 am kicks, but in Port A the time is perfect. Now it will be raining like a mofo...

I just had to come look seeing Hookit's 3 am posting time! You alive So how is it in Port A? I am assuming that if the restaurants in Austin in the early hours are any indication, the kids have their parents locked into their local activities. I am hoping things are more the way I like them in October, when things mellow out and the kids keep their parents in their home towns. My original plan was to head out Friday and leave the trailer in Port A until the end of October. Unfortunately my house got destroyed with a water leak (22,000 gallons into house from toilet supply line) when we were there in July. Still no estimate from USAA but every wall is cut out and every cabinet removed. But I am fighting to go ahead and bring the trailer down with the hope of bouncing down a couple times for good weather/tides.

Seeing two "lovely" 11 a.m. games the next two weeks I am wondering what time you think we will kick versus OU SUCKS! With my house destroyed by flooding (toilet supply line) I just don't have time to do the analysis, so can you guys help me out here? This is also a public service for folks who have the rugrats in sports dreading the potential scheduling conflict with their 8 year olds "big game." Thanks in Advance - I did search for this topic but didn't find anything.

Look on YouTube and you will see some examples of removing and replacing the sealant. Seems like one of the key things is the UV resistance of the sealant. Dicor seems to be one of the primary brands.

Well THANK YOU DUMB ASS ABBOTT!!!! So the good news is that at least one of the people I begged to get a vaccine shot for her and her epileptic son, got the vaccine... for her son. She got covid... not sure which happened first, but thankfully the mother is OK. The bad news is our GOvernor's endless stupidity has caused three more breakthrough cases. In all three instances the vaccinated people who got sick got the disease from unvaccinated school age children. Now I will be the first to say it's hard for little kids to always wear masks. But it's fucking dumber than dumb to prevent school districts from trying to do the ONLY THING simple that works to protect our children, wearing masks. So here we are. I guess the "good news" is that more and more Republicans are dying as a percentage of the population. So Abbott is literally killing his own. Not to even mention the long term debilitation of many of Abbott's followers. Like Ron White said, "You can't fix Stupid!" But Abbott is not stupid, he is simply willing to allow covid to spread endlessly for.... the HOPE of political gain. Lives mean nothing to Abbott and his Republican ilk at this point. Anyone who thinks that Abbott's abortion stance has anything at all to do with caring about children is... well stupid. And the world keeps turning, and (some) Republican Governors simply don't care about human life. Sad but absolutely true!

The abortion thing on the one hand, combined with the clear need on the other hand to me is simply fiscal stupidity. Before addressing the intrustion by mostly white men into women's reproductive lives, these same mostly white men don't address the actual needs of children in crisis, AS A RESULT OF THE GOVERNOR AND REPUBLICAN PARTY'S CONTINUAL NEGLECT OF THESE CHILDREN. It's too expensive to take care of the foster kids, and too expensive to fix our electrical grid, but money for an ineffective border wall, bounties and court costs for Abortion hunters flows freely. I honestly wish that just once the Texas GOP leadership would actually SOLVE a fucking existing problem, than search so desperately for imaginary ones like transgender teens and bathrooms. I know the appeal will fall on deaf ears. But damn, take care of the unwanted kids you have in your custody before asking for a huge influx of more kids you don'w want to take care of.

The simple answer, "Is it is a LOT easier to talk about loving children than raising them and ACTUALLY loving them." that's the issue in a nutshell. I would do some actual research, but if I am wrong, PLEASE point out why we have so many kids (that are alive) lingering in the Texas Foster care System? And how many Republican white male representatives of our State actually care enough for the "Born" to foster or adopt a child they "so love in the womb...' Of course it's a LOT easier to pretend to care, with rallies and exhortations, it's a lot fucking harder to actually take care of a child that is unwanted. And that's where the rubber hits the road. Somebody tell me I am full of shit and tell me 20% of those that "love the unborn" that are Statewide elected officials actually foster or adopt the BORN children they pretend to care about. So why with all the GOP love is there a Foster Care Crisis in Texas? It's sort of an interesting question, isn't it? Texas foster care children exposed to sexual abuse, given wrong medication and neglected in unlicensed placements, new report says The survivor whose namesake bill tackling Texas' rape kit backlog Gov. Abbott signed into law says his pledge to 'eliminate all rapists' is 'asinine' It; really is a lot easier to pretend to care, isn't it? IMAGINE if Republican politicians loved the babies after they are born?

Well you just can't get beyond the stupidity of not taken a proven vaccine. No matter what the fucking excuse is, the stupidity costs lives to some small degree, but allows a lot of folks to become debilitated. Plus I assume a lot of the same folks that won't get the vaccine probably are not very well insured. So the extra bonus of pissing money away unnecessarily to try to save the stupid, is just the cherry on top. Not to mention the folks who die from non-covid related things like heart attacks. Sadly a buddy of mine's girlfriend's mom when from face timing 3 days ago, to "get things in order." Sad that it was unnecessary, and everything I said above applies. A friend of my wife who refuses to get vaccinated was actually complaining to her the other day, "That the vaccinated folks are the ones spreading the disease." Which honestly is indeed partially correct. OF course why should smart people have to stay home and hurt the economy and live shitty lives when they were the smart ones? The logic is just well... the sort of logic you get from folks who won't take a free vaccine that will help them, protect their fellow citizens, and help the economy. But NOOoooooo... "i saw on facebook" moronic musings are the "real" smart sources...

Pm sent- I still don't have the Estimate back yet but any day now.. Got the glue removed and all the tile using some hispanics from the Apartments I am short term renting. I speak enough Spanish to strike up a conversation and saw they were leveling and laying floor in one of the adjacent units. I need to go back and look but I think I saved around $2000 for their $1500 of work. Gotta supervise to some degree as I want quality not just cost savings, but that's a new front door, or tile for shower. The one interesting thing was that I had a portion of my hardwoods buckle about 2 years ago. I thought I must have done something wrong, but I was pretty sure I laid the floor down properly. Turns out I have a leak in the slab. I would not have noticed the damp spot without them leveling that area as the concrete color and smoothness is pretty varied. Shut off the water and sure enough the darker (damp) area disappeared. So I am gonna cut that out and get that leak repaired. I can likely do it myself but want to pay a plumber in case the fix fails at some point in the future. I also will need to move some gas line into the attic for an A/C move, and plumb for a potential on demand gas water heater so definitely need to find an affordable plumber. We finally settled on some natural hickory hardwoods, and I should start getting some of the cabinet pricing back in the next few days. And starting to narrow wall/cabinet colors. Thanks for the input guys

Hope Hookit and the locals ride the storm out without too much damage. I worry about the flooding mostly with everything so low lying. So fingeres crossed and prayers for Port A. I definitely have noticed a changed in restaurant patterns in Austin, that indicate to me that the kids are back in a lot of their activities and their parents are tethered accordingly. Doubt I will leave the trailer down there the entire month of October as originally planned. Especially with my house flooding, and riding herd on that being a distracter. But definitely will make it for a few good weather/tide timed trips.

That's why you will never ever see me at the lake or beach on Labor Day nor Memorial Day. But to fucking Kody's... holy shit.

I assume that this season for the Aggies will be like every other Aggie season that the living have ever seen. September Cheers will become October tears....

78759. I am thinking a no on my friend, as he is also my SIL's Dad. I would sort of like to dump the job on somebody else, but I am saving a couple grand of labor with google translate on the glue removal and leveling the floor from my original bid. My understanding is that as long as I spend the dollars on the described damage (via the descriptions on the invoices) and the house ends up being made whole, AND I have proof I spend my deductible I could recover the "recoverable depreciation." IF i ever get a fucking estimate...

So... I may be S.O.L. with my contractor friend. As they put their house on the market last week and are planning to move ASAP. So.. anyone know of a good contractor? I still don't have a damn estimate and that is beginning to simply piss me off. Now I am starting to worry about other potential supply chain issues because of hurricane Ida. It will all work out...

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." If you are looking up the quote I am laughing. Could we get the Guillotine... of course. But we also might seize the day. I expect a performance on par with optimistic expectations. I would not be surprised to see us rally from behind. However.... This is not the shit show that Charlie or Tom inherited. There is a base and a sense of standard. It will actually be a good test. Could we shit the bed? Yeah... but I expect a pulling away at the end dominance. With of course Kirk Herbstreit, later explaining this was a "Easy game and an expected victory.. but a long way from how Ohio State dominated Minnesota a few days before...

Surly says.... My penis is a pressure reducing valve!

Sorry - my angst is as much making sure I like the ultimate outcome. My greed wants to have the insurance company pay to some degree for the upgrades. My angst also is I still do NOT have an estimate so the amount of money I have to spend (+ my $3000 deductible). The 24,000 gallons is based on 27,300 gallons in a month were we were not in the house for 10 days and we normally use 3900 gallons a month. In Austin you can document the cause and they will adjust the bill after a few months. So I just paid the high bill and eventually I will get a month or so of prepaid after the adjustment. Basically the water supply line plastic nut failed. Shooting 90 psi through a 3/8 inch supply line for some days. I am going to slightly upgrade my flooring, but going with and engineered product rather than the plank strand plank Eucalyptus. That shit was hard as tile and cutting notches and trimming plank lengths was a mofo. I put all this shit down myself and I did a hell of a job. Basically I am going to do some of the work myself, and have the subs bill for some of the work I did and have them do the additional work I want done. I could do every bit of this work myself, and know it's done right, but fuck that. I think most of my angst was that I just did not understand how the insurance would work, and my desire for quality upgrades. The good news is I can remove the walls I want to in the bath room, and the custom cabinetry I am going to do there will likely be less than my container store inspiration. My main limitation may be moving the plumbing a bit. I for some reason was thinking we needed to have everything done to get back into the house. After speaking with the desk adjuster my understand is that once we get the hardwood back in the house will then be livable and they will want us to move back in. Which is fine with me. The kitchen cabinets won't be in, but I can wait on that and would much prefer to be back in the house. I can sort of control the timeline here by choosing the lead time of the hardwood I like. The wide plank Hickory I really liked was not going to be in until Mid October, but I am going to seek out an alternative I can get faster. It will all work out in the end, and I will get the recoverable because I am going to spend every dime as well as my deductible. The whole house is going to look a lot different than it did early in July. A little stressful trying to make all the choices, triple checking the measurements, for the cabinets, and getting everything in motion without a firm estimate of the repair costs. Only really time sensitive thing would be to get the plumbing done before laying all the hardwoods. Just because it's will be messy if they are having to move the toilet. Thanks for the replies guys! I guess I will take some pics of the way things are now, and then the after photos when the job is done. Then you guys can shred all my choices and criticize my every decision!

Well... having had 24,000 gallons of water dumped into the house while we were on vacation has put me into unexpected remodel mode. With every wall in the house cut out as well as portions of three garage walls, it's going to be a bit of a project. I am hoping to get the initial estimate this week from USAA. The good news is that in the end I will have a complete remodel. The bad news is... supply chain issues like 16-20 weeks on some cabinets (Lowes), flooring I like is end of October, no 1 x 4 finger joint base trim at BMC (guy says it's like Christmas if it shows up). So concerned on the one hand on the timeline, on the other hand the timeline might provide some opportunities to make some changes we wouldn't have made without the hell torn out of everything. My buddy owns quite a few homes and has been through this a few times and he is suggesting I might simply hire the subs, get the work done, and upgrade things I may want to, and forgo the recoverable Depreciation? I guess ultimately it is math, and if the number is big enough I could do some upgrades with the excess margin. I could also have a buddy of mine be the contractor and I could have him invoice me at the end, and he could pay me as a sub for the work I am considering doing. My quote on flooring was upwards of $18K, with nearly $5K being grinding off the hardwood glue and leveling the floor. So basically prep. Not sure what the sheet rock, hand texturing and paining every wall will cost, but I could do the rock and re-insulate the place over a few days. I could do a lot of the work, but the Insurance company does NOT pay the homeowner to save money. Not being in the insurance industry I understand that I am going to get a number on the estimate, and if I spend every penny of that money on the allocated ,costs I can have my contractor recover the Recoverable depreciation. With the place torn to hell we are thinking of knocking out some bathroom walls, adding some electrical for extra ceiling fan, point of use tankless water heater, and wall mounted connections for TV. Tear out tub and replace with shower, do maybe $2K in plumbing. Tear out some entry hall flooring and replace with more hardwoods. And whatever other upgrades we decide on. Anyone been through this? I can see at least $10K I could knock out myself with rock, paint and trim, while I am waiting on cabinets. But every penny of that would get eaten up with the additional changes we would want to make. I can do anything I want if I do NOT want to try and get the Recoverable depreciation. But if that recoverable number is pretty large, I may have to rethink. Or have my subs simply have the descriptions of the work match up with the insurance estimate regardless of what work they do as long as the numbers add up? So... learn me on this stuff...

The Dagwood at Hut's Hamburgers, Jake's fried oysters, and an Austin's Favorite at Mad Dog and Beans....