The original impetus for crap going south in my recent relationship was getting the news from the credit union on refinancing my house; this is something I have to do to take Somara off the mortgage as per the decree.
The appraisal came in lower than what Travis County believes in their fairy-tale math, thus, it lowered how much I can borrow. Not the potential, worse, what I was aiming for.
A deciding factor was the foundation as there a signs of the house shifting, a common issue around Central Texas given the land being a few inches of soil resting on clay. The clay is what sucks and causes all the trouble. This led to me having to bring out an inspector to assess how awful the situation was.
It wasn’t all bad news, I think it was mostly good. The inspector said I could press with the credit union about the foundation passing as the back end hasn’t sunk that much. I did ask for a ball-park guess on what this would cost and what would be utilized (I researched a little bit online). He said $1500 and he’d go with reinforced concrete to shore it up.
Phew! I feared the damage would be more in the five digits and the house would need something dramatic, like steel rods or mudjacking (it’s how we solve it in the Midwest).
The inspector’s other encouraging advice I put off years ago was to install gutters. I said, I thought the drought was the problem. He said, not so much, it’s the rain and based upon the crappy roof design, some of the runoff is concentrated enough to be a pile driver hammering away at the nearby ground.
Here’s to the next step in getting all the nasty crap in my life into the rear-view mirror.