Small, Northern Home - Maintenance?

[COcheesehead]

At a minimum, I will put a humidity sensor there that will be readable from inside the house. There is some controversy about whether venting a crawl space in the Southeastern US isn't simply drawing in humidity.

I'm also going to direct at least one of the front downspouts in a pipe to the street, though that may be a fall project.

I am in the Rocky Mountain West where humidity comes up from the ground more so than the air. So the crawl space is vented by the humidity fan and I also have it radon mitigated which is also fan driven.
The radon fan runs constantly. The humidity fan rarely.

 

[Stormy Kromer]

Seems like it used to have a garage and that was closed off to add room to the house. I see "garage like" lights on each side of the window in front of the driveway.

I think some folks snowbird and don't get the driveway plowed, saving hundreds of dollars per Winter. Once the driveway is full of snow, thieves will leave lots of footprints and have a lot of carrying to do if they want to steal stuff. Neighbors will notice.

Of course camera's (wyze , eufy) are great for remote viewing. A simply safe alarm system, and drain the water when away, open cub-boards , and turn down thermostat to 55 F. (internet one would be good).

I was a firefighter for many years in a northern climate (Minnesota). One January evening a small fire started in the attached garage of a home. The owners were vacationing for months in a warmer climate. They did not make arrangements for snow removal. We showed up with our finest firefighters and equipment and watched it burn down from 500' away because the snow was too deep to drive through with our trucks. By the time we got hoses out from the road the house was engulfed.

A lesson to all. If you go south during the winter make sure that a fire truck can get in your yard.

 

[Buckeye]

I've been looking around for a small, low cost home located near my family members in upstate NY. I plan to snowbird in the winter months.
I am from upstate NY, so cracks about snow are unnecessary, I know what to expect - besides, that climate keeps the riff raff out

I know Syracuse is known for affordability, but I can't believe the price of this home:

https://www.trulia.com/p/ny/mattyda...ydale-ny-13211--2012193441?mid=0#lil-mediaTab

One concern for me would be the maintenance. I spent my career in urban areas, so I am used to paying others for maintenance - I would need learn to use a lawnmower. Also have to contract out some snow removal.

What other maintenance issues am I not seeing on a small property such as this?

Thanks

The rain and 300 overcast days a year used to keep Seattle protected from being inundated with transplants. Unfortunately, the earthquakes in CA started the flood because I guess, Californians decided earthquakes were worse than gray days and gorgeous scenery. I would love to own a 2nd home where I grew up but not for $700,000+.

 

[brett]

We live in the snow zone. We snowbird for 2 months and we travel for another 2 months in the fall.

On retiring we downsized to an HOA area. Why? So that all the gardening and snow removal was taken care of when we are away. We do no longer have pets or plants.

Other: We turn off the water, let the toilets empty. We turn down the heat. We turn down our hot water tank. We have our furnace inspected every year...typically in early January as we are about to leave town. Our neighbor uses the same heating firm, has our credit card details, and can authorize any furnace work while we are away.

We have a neighbor check on our home on a regular basis just to ensure that he heat is still on (important if you subsequently have a home insurance claim). Neighbor also checks on our fridge and freezer to make sure that they are working and checks the hot water tank.

In 12 years of retirement we have never had a problem.

Our favorite snowbird location is an 18 hr plane ride away from our home so coming home quickly if there is an issue would be a challenge.

 

[street]

I was a firefighter for many years in a northern climate (Minnesota). One January evening a small fire started in the attached garage of a home. The owners were vacationing for months in a warmer climate. They did not make arrangements for snow removal. We showed up with our finest firefighters and equipment and watched it burn down from 500' away because the snow was too deep to drive through with our trucks. By the time we got hoses out from the road the house was engulfed.

A lesson to all. If you go south during the winter make sure that a fire truck can get in your yard.

That is important!!

I saw a house 3 blocks from the small-town fire station burn to the ground. We had a terrible snowstorm, and the trucks could not get there with all the snow and the storm at its peak. Was a horrible situation but when there are extremes things seem to fail quickly.

 

[Sunset]

We live in the snow zone. We snowbird for 2 months and we travel for another 2 months in the fall.

On retiring we downsized to an HOA area. Why? So that all the gardening and snow removal was taken care of when we are away. We do no longer have pets or plants.

Other: We turn off the water, let the toilets empty. We turn down the heat. We turn down our hot water tank. We have our furnace inspected every year...typically in early January as we are about to leave town. Our neighbor uses the same heating firm, has our credit card details, and can authorize any furnace work while we are away.

We have a neighbor check on our home on a regular basis just to ensure that he heat is still on (important if you subsequently have a home insurance claim). Neighbor also checks on our fridge and freezer to make sure that they are working and checks the hot water tank.

In 12 years of retirement we have never had a problem.

Our favorite snowbird location is an 18 hr plane ride away from our home so coming home quickly if there is an issue would be a challenge.

When I was selling a house in Canada, I turned off the water and drained the pipes by opening the upper and lowest taps, as lowering the heat for some houses can encourage pipe freezing on outer walls.

 

[JoeWras]

At least in a northern home, you get periods and full seasons of low humidity.

Let me tell you what constant high humidity (southern home) can do to a structure...

 

[Buckeye]

I have a Phyn whole house water monitor valve that can turn off the supply automatically if it detects a strange flow or you can check the app and shut off the water remotely if you see any flow when there should be none. I've also put Yolink sensors near toilets, under sinks, etc. so I will get an alert if moisture is detected. I would definitely want something like this in the house if I was leaving it unattended for long periods of time.

 

[hotwired]

Double-wide

That house has two major flaws in my opinion: no garage and no basement.

I believe this is a double wide. (Fancier mobile home). No basement is such a great advantage. The logic of putting an excavation that attracts moisture, radon etc directly under the house is so illogical yet so expected it passes under the radar.

Id want to have a weatherization test done, make sure it's solid enough. The picture tells me what you have here is a well staged mobile home

 

[COcheesehead]

I believe this is a double wide. (Fancier mobile home). No basement is such a great advantage. The logic of putting an excavation that attracts moisture, radon etc directly under the house is so illogical yet so expected it passes under the radar.

Id want to have a weatherization test done, make sure it's solid enough. The picture tells me what you have here is a well staged mobile home

It has a crawl space.

 

[Calico]

I believe this is a double wide. (Fancier mobile home). No basement is such a great advantage. The logic of putting an excavation that attracts moisture, radon etc directly under the house is so illogical yet so expected it passes under the radar.

Id want to have a weatherization test done, make sure it's solid enough. The picture tells me what you have here is a well staged mobile home

The details in the listing state it was built in 1953. I don't think it's a double wide - that would mean it was 70 years old.

 

[JoeWras]

On the subject of mobile homes and modular homes...

Mobile homes are typically built with cheaper materials. Drywall may only be 3/8" instead of 1/2". Sometimes studs are 1.5x3.5 (actual, 1.25x3). Electrical uses special low weight push in switches, which don't last. Older mobile homes were able to dispense with necessities like shut off valves at the sink and toilet. A true mobile home in a designated mobile home park must also leave its tow frame exposed, so you have the ugly triangle frame at the front.

Modular homes can vary from mobile home quality, to fine home building. Most modular homes are built with normal building materials (true drywall, true electrical boxes and switches). Modular homes are usually placed on a decent foundation. Modular homes won't have the tow frame exposed.

However, a modular home is towed to site and typically carries a sturdy steel I-beam or two underneath. If you have a modular home, you'll find these I-beams in the crawlspace. There's nothing wrong with that except it makes for difficulty in crawling under the house.

I'm not a home building expert, I only speak from what I've seen in my disaster relief volunteering. I've worked on way too many mobile and modular homes, and crawled under a handful - each one a unique and miserable experience since they were flood homes.

If I were looking at buying a modular home, I would look at two things:
- Is the foundation proper. Because of the I-beams, sometimes the builder cheats.
- What kind of flooring? I'm talking sub-floor. This would require crawling under and looking at the sub-floor and joists. Some modular makers cheat a bit in the quality in this area.

Since this is a 1953 home, it probably isn't modular since that industry really got going in the 60s.

My dad's first plumbing job was in the late 40s with a company called "Home-ola". Think of a jukebox, "rock-ola". "ola" was a suffix that came to mean "automated" until automated bribery payments came into being and "ola" got a bad name. Anyway, what dad did was be part of a cog in an assembly line, just cutting pipe to a certain length. The job workers would swarm the site and work on 10 homes at once, each one a bit farther along than the other. This was during the post WWII housing shortage. They would do the same job on one home 10 days in a row. It was an assembly line in place. These were essentially modular homes built on site! Over time, they were then built off-site at a factory.

This home could be similar to that.

 

[Morgan22]

Many stick built homes in New England and upstate NY are built over ledge. The ledge may be 2 to 4 feet under the topsoil, therefore a crawlspace is used instead of full basement. Blasting ledge is usually too expensive.

 

[Out of Steam]

I believe this is a double wide. (Fancier mobile home). No basement is such a great advantage. The logic of putting an excavation that attracts moisture, radon etc directly under the house is so illogical yet so expected it passes under the radar.

Depends on where you live. Basements are reasonably functional if you have a low water table and sandy soils. Where we live in Virginia, with clay soils and a high water table, I saw only one reasonably sound one when house shopping--and that was newly renovated.

The advantage of a crawl space over on-slab construction is that your house is several feet above ground in case of a flood. The old objections to on-slab construction of having to dig up leaky plumbing are greatly lessened with today's effective concrete saws and plastic pipe.

 

[OldShooter]

... No basement is such a great advantage. The logic of putting an excavation that attracts moisture, radon etc directly under the house is so illogical yet so expected it passes under the radar. ...

Omitting a basement IMO is so illogical that it too passes under the radar. We have two houses with completely dry basements, no radon issues, excellent storage and workshop space, space for HVAC and water treatment equipment, and easy access to make wiring and piping changes in the structure above. I would never willingly own a house with no basement.

 

[SJhawkins]

We live in a northern winter climate, have an idea what it's like. Someone noted you can find a similar home with a basement for the same dollars, if that's case I would spring for a basement.

We live in a ranch and don't do much in the basement but it's nice for the occasional tornado hide out and I dispise working on my back in any crawl space, it's like working under your car with a creeper, not a fan, prefer a hoist.

I also enjoy working on our home, it's nice to be able to reach everything with a step ladder!

 

[Out of Steam]

We live in a ranch and don't do much in the basement but it's nice for the occasional tornado hide out and I dispise working on my back in any crawl space, it's like working under your car with a creeper, not a fan, prefer a hoist.

Fortunately, the crawl space in our house is tall enough to work sitting up, and with 12 mil plastic on the floor, entering it is no longer a dirty job.

 

[harley]

I was a firefighter for many years in a northern climate (Minnesota). One January evening a small fire started in the attached garage of a home. The owners were vacationing for months in a warmer climate. They did not make arrangements for snow removal. We showed up with our finest firefighters and equipment and watched it burn down from 500' away because the snow was too deep to drive through with our trucks. By the time we got hoses out from the road the house was engulfed.

A lesson to all. If you go south during the winter make sure that a fire truck can get in your yard.

We had an old cabin on the Shenandoah River that was so far away from a fire station that we told our neighbors that if it caught on fire, not to worry about calling. Just bring marshmallows.