Vortex

We purchased a 119 y/o single home (detached) eight years ago under a full home inspection and warranty. No major issues were drafted into the inspection report. After moving in, we immediatley noticed a bulge in a portion of the first floor ceiling. Directly above the floor was sunk down significantly. The sellers had carefully hidden this and even though we know something wasn't quite right we never pursued or even tried to figure out what was wrong. We did know that sometime in the 1960's or even earlier someone moved the stairs from the center of the house to the side in order to make a more open floor plan. After several years, I decided to tackle the sagging floor issue. I opened up portions of the plaster ceiling and exposed the beams. What I discovered was one completely broken beam surrounded by a mis-mash of randomly placed patched in joists that were either nailed in or just resting against another floor joists. I also found joists pulling away from their counterparts, etc.I had a large contracting company come in and help me raise the floor and then install three engineered beams to support the existing load points while placing end hangers on every single beam. They stated several times that we are very, very lucky the floor did not collapse and that they cannot believe it held for, from the evidence of the materials used for probably 60-70 years. They are however unsure if the damage was recent, got worse during our ownership and neither are we.

My question is partially a legal one, partially an insurance one. Is there any recourse in Pennsylvania real estate code that would allow us to seek damages? Since we have a 300K standard homeowners insurance policy with a well known insurance company is this potentially something that can be covered by homeowners? We've partially remedied the issue, are several thousand dollars already in expenses and have not even started the drywall, flooring, etc. I know that just by calling the insurance it's not just a question, it's literally starting a claim process. Any suggestions?

I find this topic so interesting (and aggravating) that I'm posting a second question since the criteria has since changed.

I recently contacted my Mortgage company (CitiMortgage) to request a PMI removal for a loan that originated in 2004. The eventual agreement between myself and Citi was to get a home appraisal by the appraisal company of their choosing. I would pay for the appraisal at a cost of $370. Once this was completed we would estimate a LTV and I would pay any difference if required and the PMI would be removed. The appraisal came back that my home value was down by $2,500 from the original appraisal. I called and offered the $15,000 cash payment on the principal in order to proceed. They subsequently (over the phone) refused PMI removal, stating a decrease in home value. I argued that our verbal agreement stated otherwise and that legally I met all of the initial requirements:

1) I have a perfect payment history

2) I have excellent credit.

3) I have since reduced my principal by $12,000 which brings me to 78% LTV by actually the higher of the two which is the loan origination.

4) The Home Owners Protection Act seems to support, by law my case.

We are now issuing a certified letter stating our intentions to file suit. I have an open case with the FTC, who forwarded the complaint to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau www.consumerfinance.gov . This office contacted Citi immediately and they have since rebutted the complaint, stating word for word what they provided in the rejection letter, as explained above. I returned my own rebuttal, stating again as above.

I see lawsuits on record that have strung on for years, I also see that in many cases including what I see in various internet forums that many people obviously do NOT meet the requirements for PMI removal. I strongly believe I do and this additional post is to both provide additional light on the subject as well as solicit for some support from Yahoo members. If you think I have no chance in hell, I'm open to that as well. My PMI is scheduled to be removed in 2016. That is over $6,000 in insurance payments. We will likely sell and have a much lower mortgage with no PMI requirement before we realize any gain from attorneys fees and Citi know this.

I got an estimate to recap my brick chimney. They stated that water was coming in from the top. I bought my own 9x9 cap and they offered to affix that while they are up there for $375. I also asked about sealing the exposed brick. They gave me a $250 estimate, sealant included. The brick is in nice shape, so I declined that price since the chimey is only about 8' x 2'. The sealant is expensive, but I still think thats too high. What do you think? Do I even need it?

I called my mortgage company (citimortgage) and asked about private mortgage insurance removal. They sent me a form and explained I needed to pay $365 for an appraisal, their choice of companies. I asked if I could just pay down the balance to the 80%, or even the 78% LTV ratio and have it removed. They told me no, if I manually payed it down an appraisal was neccessary. I'm reading that the The Homeowners Protection Act of 1998 forces the lenders on nearly all loans to automatically eliminate the PMI when the principal balance of the loan equals 78 percent of the original loan amount. So if that's the case, why are they insisting I pay for an appraisal? Can they do that? Seems contrary to what I'm reading.

I currently am replacing a porch floor, tounge and groove white pine. The porch posts are 5x5 on cleats sitting right on the floor but the hand rail in the middle is mounted through the floor. I was wondering if it was okay to pull up the entire floor, set the support posts directly on the double 2x10 frame and then cut the floor around it? My problem is not matter how much you keep on top of it, those cleats eventually push through and rot the wood. Maybe if I used another type of cleat, or one that is flat?

I have a 118 Y/O victorian house. It has a half basement half crawl space, first floor, second floor and walk up attic. The attic has a tounge and groove wooden floor. The entire attic floor plan is like a T-shape with three windows on each of the ends. The pitch of the roof is pretty steep and is supported by 4x6 oak timber at about 19" O/C. The ridge beams are closed with no ventilation. A chimney comes through and has a slight leak which I am going to seal up. So far I've added R19 (no the correct rating but was free) paper faced insulation and want to haul up that really thin 1/4" drywall that home depot now sells. The problem is that if we are not very careful, humidity rises to the attic, traps in the upper rafters and I've actually had to eliminate a little bit of mold. This is an unheated space so it seems to really attract condensation in spring and fall, during the summer I just leave the windows open with a small vent fan in one of them. What would be the best way to control humidity while not bringing in excessive cold drafts? Do I need to use green board or will an oil based paint on regular dry wall suffice? I can install ridge vents or ceiling vents with no problem but I am really worried about moisture building up between the roof and inside dry wall and causing a mold disaster.

If you have never worked on small engines, please move on. I have an Evinrude 18 HP FasTwin that I think is around a 1972. It looks like it hasn't been run for 30 years but is extremely clean with all of the components looking like new. The upper plug was kind of dirty, the lower plug was caked with gummy residue which tells me the owner probably didn't have the correct wrench to get it out of it's tight space - I wonder if this would be why it was set aside. There was no fuel or obvious deposits in the entire fuel system although I have not removed the carb. The throttle, the linkage, lower end, shift mechanism, etc are totally free. It looks like it never saw salt water. It has strong compression with no signs of cylinder rust. I checked for spark and got results on both wires. I shot straight gas into the plug ports and pulled the starter and the engine fired after a few pulls and died. Satisfied with that, I went out and bought a brand new external fuel tank, the correct hose with fittings, premium oil mix and brand new gas. I mixed up the fuel 50:1, pressurized the line, set the adjustments and pulled like hell. The engine wouldn't start. I primed the plug ports with ether and gas. The engine fired. I then kept fuel pressure while pulling, with full choke while adjusting the injection ports. I now get an engine that wants to start, wants to start usually after I let off for a few minutes, runs for a few seconds and quits, backfires once in a while and that's it. They key words here which is why I probably need to pull the carb and clean it up is that it backfires which is a key indication of a stuck float, clean the needle valve, float, etc and hopefully not have to buy a whole kit. Is there anything else, anyone knows that I can try before I do this? Just a mention - I bought the motor for $20, the gas tank and line and lower end oil was $130! Thanks for any input although I'm sure I already know the answer.

I recently re-arranged our kitchen cabinets and bought new HW flooring. The reason for this is because the previous owners created a huge middle counter that took up nearly half the kitchen. I removed a corner, slid the middle over to the wall and cut the counter top to fit - it's now an open kitchen with L-shaped counter space. To replace the center workspace, I actually found an identical cherrywood center island that needs a top. My question is - would you, from a buyers perspective rather have the center island on hidden rubber casters so you can unlock and move it or would you rather have it fixed into the floor, electric running to it and the new wooden floors installed around it? Keeping it mobile means it could be moved to the wall and a small kitchen table and chairs can go in the middle, with a nice open feel. Permanently installing it would still be fine with plenty of room to walk around and still have a work area but there would only be enough room for a few wooden stools for the kids. I finish the project tonight...thanks.

I rebuilt a T40 machine that came with XP pro. I replaced the keyboard, added another 512MB of ram and built it to Windows 7 Professional. The overall condition is excellent however I noticed the AC adapter input is loose but still seems to work. The problem I'm having is that during use, the video freezes after about 15 minutes which requires the machine to be shut down by holding down the power button. When it is powered back up however, there is only a black screen and this problem lasts for hours. The cooling fan works fine, reseated the internal DIMM and all other connections. Only once did I get a beep code which translates to system board, poorly seated video cable/LCD problem or DIMM. Out of desperation I put XP home on it to see if the generic video driver (mobile radeon is th correct type) that was available for Win7 was causing the problem would fix it, not a chance. I already have time and money spent on this thing but a new laptop is over $350 and I only have $50 invested in this machine. Should I spend more money on this thing or just part it out and buy something new. HDMI out with wireless N card, wider screen and bigger storage would be nice.....

I installed the first two sheets of green board in my bathroom but brought it in backwards and there wasn't room to turn around so I just installed the green paper on the inside. An electrician who came in to finish up the wiring said I had to take it down and turn it the right way or it won't work. I'm no expert but it doesnt look like it should make a difference, it's just green paper after all. Can anyone confirm this or set me straight? I don't want to have to do this all over again for no reason but will if I have to. My second question is this - I am planning on having green board on the wall behind the free standing claw foot tub but the walls that are on the ends of the room I would like to just use regular dry wall. There will be a high CFM through-wall fan to vent the bathroom. Any advice is appreciated.

I am in the finishing stages of repairing a pre-1900 floor that was chopped all to hell in order to fit in plumbing. A surface mount cast iron tub was then fitted over the holes so they never bothered to close them up. After securing the loose floor boards (6" tounge and groove) I then added cross braces and fitted in 1/4" plywood. I now have a floor with lots of small gaps/holes, slight dips and valleys and to a large degree spaces between the floor boards. I am limited on how thick I can go, otherwise I would have thrown another 1/2" of ply over all of that but I'm preparing to use 1/4 redi-board instead. My question is do I have an alternative to leveling cement? I don't want to wind up troweling a ton of crap into the ceiling below nor do I want to have a big mess around the plumbing holes, etc. The goal here is to have a very stable and non-flexing platform for 6" tile with flexible grout that can support a 51" cast iron antique tub and all other appliances.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

We have two credit cards with Chase. One (was) two years ago 6.9% fixed APR and the other was 7.9% fixed APR. After the crackdown on creditors, we of course got sucked into the "let's pass the crap onto the customer" vacuum and regardless of our good credit, one card was jacked up up to 25% and the other was jacked to 14.2% variable APR. I paid off the higher interest rate card and sent C/S a message telling them that although we were not going to cancel the card they could basically stick their rate where the sun doesn't shine. The 14.2% card was paid down as much as possible and hasn't been used since. So, I just called C/S and asked for a review of the interest rate and was flatly told that "Chase does not review interest rates on request and that this is done automatically on a yearly basis". I told him we will not be using the card and will pay it off as quickly as possible due to them doubling our rate for no reason. No late payments, credit score in the 800's, no other credit cards. Anyone have insight or advice or a good experience they can offer in the way of getting a better interest rate on a domestic card?

Thanks

but there is an airplane on a long runway with a full tank of fuel. Would you get in and try to fly it or stay put?

We live in the northeast US in a very old neighborhood. The houses are close together and the front porches are only about 8 feet from the front sidewalk. My question relates to a huge oak tree that is growing right between the street curb and the sidewalk. The trunk is about 5 feet wide and the tree is about 80-100 feet tall. It is clearly dying out and branches are falling off of it. On cars, on my house, etc. The township says it's not their problem, neighbor doesn't want to hear about it.

I have a house, built in 1894 that was retrofitted over the years and this includes the upstairs bathroom. We decided to gut it and as it stands there is now and empty, narrow room with holes cut in the 6" wide floor boards where the plumbing was routed and the corner was replace where the toilet was. I have bought and restored a porcelain sink and claw-foot bath tub so the most difficult part of this project will be to replace the floor and make it look good since it will be almost entirely exposed. Options being kicked around range from laying 1/2" underlayment with another layer of wonderboard and then tile. Another option that I like is 1/2" underlayment and then go over with original or antique looking wide wooden hardwood flooring and then sealing it with tung oil - both options require I rip up the entire floor. The walls will be insulated, sealed with plastic sheeting and then redone with green board and then wainscoting from floor to ceiling. My question here is, does anyone recommend against doing anything like I've mentioned? Anything I'm not realizing that could cause problems later?

I have an outbuilding that is wired with 110V / 100 Amp service. I built a large compressor out of spare parts and wired it up for 110/115 dual phase motor. The problem is it pulls over 22 amps at around 60lbs and pops the circuit so I really should run it on 220V so it pulls less amperage at higher voltage. The problem is I don't have any more open slots on my panel to wire in another 220V service line and run it 60 feet out to the shop and it will cost over $1500 to upgrade if an electrician completes the work to finish. Therefore, since I will only be running the compressor once in a while, could I theoretically run a 60 foot extension line out to the dryer and swap the plug in for the compressor when I'm working. I can wire up my own extension and bury the line in very little time. Anyone have any reason why shouldn't do this? If I had two extra slots to run another line, it would have been wire permanently anyway, right?

With all of the recent news regarding Facebook privacy and even groups of people who plan on quitting the social site at the end of this month, I was wondering who here shares the same plans. For the record, I am an IT professional and my profile is locked down quite well.

I just picked up an antique white porcelain tub at a farm auction and although the price was only $30 the thing was extremely dirty. The stains wouldn't come out with chemicals so as a last resort I found that wet-sanding with pumice cleaning bricks (the type that you clean grill tops with) took that stains out but left the finish slightly dull. I used a high-speed buffer to bring it back but my question is - will this hold up or should I have a professional shop spray enamel over it? Right now it looks brand new but taking off the surface gloss will probably cause it to harbor stains.

I have a 30 gallon air compressor that I built from spare parts. Everything works flawlessly until it reaches 70 PSI on the gauge afterwhich the motor slows to a crawl and then eventually stalls out, tripping the circuit breaker. The motor is a 115/10 AMP 1/2 HP with a capacitor and auto brake which starts and runs very strong until 70 PSI. In order to correct this problem I have swapped it out with a few other motors in the same class that either won't even start or simply just won't run it fast enough. I would like to get a 2 HP air compressor motor from Harbor Freight or a similar outfit but am afraid that the problem lies in my 100 amp service and not in the motor(s). If the thing was lighter I would load it up and try it on another power source. Can anyone advise me if they feel that the stalling issue could be related to insufficient power and not a weak motor? I do not want to invest $130 in a new motor for an air compressor I threw together for less than $20 and still have it stall out. Thanks.