That's water that's come up from under the house and seeped into the concrete floor of the garage of our new home. Our problems with the house have gone beyond the normal new home teething pains. We've had water leaking into the living space too. This sounds like a very Seattle problem, the kind I used to deal with in our tumble down house circa 1928, and something I never thought that I'd have to deal with here. Small amounts of water ooze through seams in the floor in select spots in every room and leave white crusty deposits of minerals behind. Above is what garage floor looked like in April. After a rainstorm in May the garage flooded. Since then the moisture situation inside the garage and house has slowly improved, but it's certainly not gone or watertight.
I've repeatedly complained to the builder, sometimes loudly. The builder had 4 large deep holes dug behind the house looking for water, they were dry. He had holes bored into the lowest part of the foundation hoping trapped water would flow out but that was dry too. The builder says that he's out of ideas and at this point says that it's our problem and our responsibility because he built the house on land that we purchased separately, ergo that's our water and not his so it's not his responsibility. The builder says that his preferred flooring company can take care of this, they'll move all of our furniture, peel up all of the vinyl floor planks to expose the slab, coat the slab with chemical goo sealant, put the floor back down and move our furniture back. Cost to us: $21,000, plus tax. I've had all the plumbing tested, the house independently inspected, I've talked to a lawyer, a hydrologist and various consultants, all not cheap.
I've also talked to local people in the building trades and have slowly come to learn that we are not alone, I've heard a few stories of people all over town with similarly afflicted houses, some new and some old, that have lost very expensive natural hardwood floors to discoloration and warping or had elaborately decorated floor tiles pop up and have their unique hand painted decorations on their floors ruined. Our vinyl planks are basically durable plastic fake wood and won't be harmed by exposure to moisture. What's happened to our house and others seems to be the direct result of the unprecedented record smashing wet winter we had last year. People who have lived here all their lives have told me they never saw anything like winter 2022-2023, it was one for the record books, it was wet winter without end. Water is trapped in the ground all over this part of the state and is slowly percolating up and being released as water vapor. The house is heavily insulated and sealed per code so the water vapor that comes up through the concrete slab has nowhere to go and accumulates in the house. What to do?
Cross our fingers, do nothing and get on with our lives with the hope that weather patterns and precipitation amounts return to historical norms. Summer is the rainy season here and rainfall was below normal. Still, a long term drought starting right now would be most helpful.
Have our lives disrupted and pull up the vinyl planks and seal the top of the slab with chemical goo sealant for $21,000+ as suggested by the builder and hope that it fixes the problem and doesn't cause new ones.
I've purchased some humidity sensors and can remotely monitor moisture levels in the air inside the house and garage and open windows and doors as needed as weather permits.
To make matters even worse the increase in mortgage interest rates meant that our old house took 5 months to sell. The market here got very soft just when we needed it to be as strong and robust as it had been in the last few years. But it is what it is, the sale is finally done and now we'll have the money to landscape and further improve the drainage and overall appearance of the property.
Unless derailed by something else new and out of the blue the plan now is to get on with our lives. We've been preoccupied and grounded by a succession of Covid fears, construction and new house problems for almost 4 years now and it's time to put all of that aside and bust out. We're getting old, the travel window for us will soon close whether we like it or not. Because the time is now.
We've received the keys, now for the hard stuff. Conventional wisdom says that moving is difficult and I'm here to tell you that it's wisdom indeed. We've been putting in 12 hour days shuttling anything that will fit into a car to the new house. What you get when you do that is not only bone tired, you also get 2 houses that aren't really fit to be lived in because the one that you're accustomed to has been so stripped of essentials and is left with a sad echo and the new house just has boxes of essential and familiar things strewn everywhere. We'll get it all straightened out, but it'll take time.
We had the new house independently inspected and thankfully there were no show stoppers, just some minor adjustments required. So far everybody agrees (independent inspector, local soils and drainage expert) that the wet spots in the garage are not the onset of the kind of flooding we endured most every winter in Seattle, they're the rains of last summer that were absorbed by the concrete slab during construction and are evaporating through the garage floor. Summer is the rainy season here but to be safe I went over the pictures I took of the build from last summer and sure enough, puddles and mud everywhere.
We've endured 2+ years of planning and construction and are now enduring the chaos of the big move, hopefully our last. My dream is that by this 4th of July we will have unboxed and found everything (a place for everything and everything in its place), our old house will have sold and I'll be sitting on the deck with a beer and staring off into the distance at the mountains to the north.
The outside is nearly complete, minus landscaping and a driveway. Endless winter and record rain and snow has been holding off the pouring of the driveway. Work to dot every "i" and cross every "t" on the inside continues.
When we committed to a custom house there was much that I didn't understand and much more that I could not predict. Lumber became scarce (and of course scarce = expensive) because during the lockdowns too many people decided to do home improvement projects at the same time.
The 2021 freeze that crippled the wind driven power grid in Texas rippled into a long lasting shortage of resins, and resins go into everything in home construction such as plastic pipe, caulking, sealants, adhesives, flooring, roofing and paint so all of those and more were in short supply with jacked up prices. International shipping and port problems meant that valves and other essential cheap bits from China couldn't get here. $7 a gallon diesel fuel and a truck driver shortage made moving materials from port or factory to jobsite hit and miss and more expensive. It's been a 2+ year long mess of once in a lifetime unanticipated consequences. But we're finally approaching the finish line.
Not only were there building material shortages that nobody predicted but there was also a pecking order concerning who got any of the available scarce building supplies. Tract home builders got first dibs because they bought in bulk and had existing long term contracts with suppliers. Our builder got what was left over, when he could get it.
The city building department got overwhelmed with permit requests from the big tract builders and developers so individual one off projects like ours went to the back of the bus. I know from having worked at the Seattle building department that permits are a profit center for a city so developers and tract builders got their permits first.
We had to order our garage doors a year in advance due to a nationwide garage door shortage. We applied for our construction loan/mortgage during a low interest rate driven building boom so that resulted in a multi month financial colonoscopy, the reward for that being a low interest rate for these inflationary times.
On the plus side the build has taken so long that the Covid driven appliance shortage ended before we were ready to pull the trigger on appliances. I just didn't have the knowledge or experience to be able to predict any of these things. We never did anything like this before, we were a bit naïve. I thought that you design, order and pay for a house and it gets built. Like I said, naïve.
Lights are being installed and circuits are being made hot. Behold, first light! Kitchen lighting!
The house now has heat, garage doors and openers and attic insulation. Still to come: appliances, plumbing fixtures, driveway, decking material and roof tiles.
Hurry up and wait. There's still a long way to go. The interior walls are painted. Inside there's no flooring, plumbing fixtures, electricity or lighting, appliances, roof tiles and no insulation yet in the attic. The deck has no surface, only exposed joists. Our move-in date has moved from mid January to mid February to mid March. There's supposedly still problems getting materials and labor and there's another snow storm on the way that will once again turn the construction site into a muddy mess so my personal prediction of a move in date is around April tax time.
One afternoon I was out for a walk when I got an email from my Synology NAS. It informed me that user Admin had tried to log in unsuccessfully multiple times from an IP address in Taiwan. An hour later it happened again, from a different IP address in a different part of the world. Maybe some bored kid was trying to break into my server looking for warez and pr0n.
When I got home and checked the NAS logs, they showed that I'd been under some kind of automated hack attack all day, it continued as I watched the failed logins in real time. In the NAS logs the failed Admin logins went on for page after page, they'd been methodically at this for hours. Something was trying to log in as user Admin and guess the PW, around 7-10 attempts per a minute, each time from a different IP address supposedly in different parts of the world. I guess that the only reason that I got alerted at all was that their IP address randomizer wasn't random enough and my NAS spilled the beans when it noticed multiple failed logins from the same IP address. I shut the server down for an hour, when I fired it back up the attack began again immediately. Somebody, or more likely something on behalf of somebody, was trying to guess the password of the server administrator.
This was a brute force ransom attack, after they guessed the Admin password and got in they'd encrypt all of my data on the NAS, present me with a login screen explaining what they'd done and demanding payment in Bitcoin to unencrypt my data. But what these crooks didn't know was that on the advice of the Synology I had disabled the Admin account and given admin rights to a different account 3 years ago. In order to get in and hold my data for ransom they'd have to guess that username and PW. I know that I'm going to find it a pain in the ass but I also put that login on 2 step authentication.
I was still enraged, it was like watching a burglar try to jimmy open my front door and being unable to do or say anything. I eventually shut them down by denying all external requests at the firewall. The next morning when I opened the firewall to the outside world again he, they, it was gone. But I expect that they, or someone else, will be back.
Little by little our new home is taking shape. It looks big. But much of that bigness is the extra deep 3 car garage on the right. We had an extra 4' of depth added to the 2 car garage at our present house and found it super useful so we added 4' here too. So, why a 3 car garage for 2 people? Simple, while we'll be free of a suffocating HOA the CC&R for the property doesn't dictate much but they do say that a 3 car garage is the minimum for this property. The new house going up just above us is more like a small multi structure compound, it will have a 5 car garage.
So, how about the views? This will be the view from what will be large windows looking to the west from the living room (imagine no dumpster).
Here's the view from the kitchen window. There will be a post there but not the support beams that you see here. And again, no dumpster (it moves with each pickup).
Here's the view from the deck. One of the City's lakes will be visible from the deck.
In the 6 months of loan and permit prep nothing changed on the property. I was getting antsy, we had already parted with what to me was a tremendous amount of money and time and had nothing physical to show for it. I avoided walking or driving past the property, I didn't want to be reminded. The builder had placed a sign on the property proclaiming that they were going to build that gave the wrong street name, followed by another long pause. And then one day this appeared.
To me that was a sure fire sign that some kind of positive activity involving people was to follow. Woo-hoo! Here we go. And then for a few more weeks nothing happened.
But one day...
The ground was prepped and we were ready to build, right? Not so fast.
Nothing further happened on our land for 2 months. The builder again said that he couldn't get materials or labor, not contrary to what I had been reading. Trucks and building equipment run on diesel which had doubled in price. Inflation was taking off and scarce in demand workers wanted more money. We had signed our fixed price contract with the builder 9 months prior, in other words in this new inflationary world we were going to pay last year's prices for this year's house. That's great if anything gets built.
What did we want in a home? The CC&R's for the property said that it had to be a minimum of 2500 square feet and had to have at least a 3 car garage. After that it was completely up to us.
We called some local architects, they wanted around $15,000 to design a new custom home. What did we want above and beyond what we already had? She wanted a craft room, I wanted the house to have a whole house fan. My Father built one into our house when I was a kid and I knew that a whole house fan was a great way to bring the temperature of a house down with the cool evenings around here. And of course I wanted a big deck for a meal, a snack or just a snooze in the hammock.
In the end we picked a local builder and modified plans that they already had on their website. Plans in place and a down payment made to the builder we were ready to build, right? Not so fast, first it was off to the bank for a construction loan.
A construction loan is sort of like a mortgage, but for new construction. As the builder completes a stage of the build and needs more money to proceed he makes a draw on the loan. The bank sends an inspector to make sure that progress claimed has actually been made and if everything passes inspection the bank releases money to the builder. At the end of the build the construction loan turns into a 30 year mortgage.
How does one get a construction loan? Simple, you just have to go to a bank and submit to a 3 month long financial colonoscopy. Most every day the bank would send me an email detailing what financial information or documentation they required and each day I'd retrieve whatever personal financial information they requested, package it as a PDF and send it back and await the next request. After 3 months of this our construction loan was approved, yay!
Now we're ready to break ground and build, right? Not so fast, now the City's Building Department has to get involved and approve the plans because no construction can take place without a building permit. We were told that between Covid and a crush of new construction the City's Building Department was seriously backed up. Eventually the City wanted some minor changes and they also has a bizarre proposal from the Fire Department that we kill the view and build our home close to the street and build a road with a traffic circle on the hillside view part of the property big enough so that they could turn around a fire engine. That's kind of above and beyond our civic duty. We said no.
After 3 months stuck in building permit purgatory the City gave us our permits and we were ready to break ground and build, right? Not so fast, the builder said that due to inflation and supply chain snafus he was unable to get construction supplies or labor. Concrete was being rationed and he couldn't get any, he said. Could we pick our garage door now? That's because it could take a year to obtain one. He also suggested that we start shopping for appliances immediately as they were nearly un-obtainable. I started to get the feeling that we were building a dacha in the Soviet Union.
We have a nice house in a nice neighborhood. But some of our neighbors got homesick and sold their homes and went back where they came from.
The neighborhood changed further when Covid arrived. This was when people started to disinfect their groceries and Amazon deliveries. People were afraid. I was afraid. Interaction among neighbors on the street was reduced to awkward conversations at the mail kiosk when people stood 20' apart and loudly asked how each other were coping with the threat of the virus and the isolation of the defacto lockdowns (there were no official government mandated lockdowns here). More than once I concluded these conversations with, "OK, see you next year!" I was only half joking. We had a nice house but eventually whatever cohesiveness this neighborhood had succumbed to Covid.
Meanwhile, Covid was no joke. Several people in this neighborhood got it and had long hospital stays and longer recoveries. One of my wife's friends died.
I began to think that I was getting a preview of our later years, when we will further bow to Father Time and have slowed down even more. What if Covid never stopped and we had to spend much of time self confined? Wouldn't it be nice to live in a house to prepare for that time? We looked at a few homes about 20 miles away, many had sewer grinder pumps (meaning no connection to city sewer), no natural gas connection or no cell signal.
And then this piece of land became available.
Standing on the land we had just purchased. Click here for larger picture
It was 3 blocks from where we were living
It had a view. The homes across the street are restricted from building up by their HOA.
Nearly an acre so we'll have plenty of lebensraum from neighbors and street traffic.
Had municipal water and sewer, high speed Internet access and natural gas hookups.
But that was only the beginning. In early 2021 the economy was still wobbly. To sell or to build? We spent a few months waiting to see what would happen and finally decided to build a new home on the land. First we had to figure out what kind of home we wanted. And then we had to find someone to build it.
I knew that whatever we build we'd need to have a deck and big windows in order to capitalize on views like this. If I'm going to spend a great deal of time as a homebody because of age or infirmity I want something better to look at than Netflix or Prime video.
Click here for larger picture and to see the snow capped peaks
Most people aren't directly touched by Obamacare. They get their health insurance through their employer, Cobra, Medicare or for veterans Tricare. Health insurance is mandatory now. The only health insurance that my wife can purchase is Obamacare on the Federal Exchange and at $1378 per month for their Silver plan it's unaffordable. There's no competition, take it but under IRS penalty you'd better not leave it. This is not a political fight for us, it's fixed income survival. Unchecked Obamacare will kill us. Best case: Obamacare cripples us.
Figuring 15% to 50% a year in premium increases we could be out a quarter of a million dollars (possibly more) by the time my wife becomes Medicare eligible in 8 years. And that's just for the mandatory insurance. Because Obamacare includes big deductibles as standard equipment actual health care for most things not catastrophic is an additional cost. I try to realize that Obamacare is working for some people but that's only at the expense of others. There are winners and losers with every government program and in this one we're big losers. I'm angry at the democrats for creating this nightmare for us and I'm angry at the republicans for teasing repeatedly that they'll modify or gut it and then not doing squat. Here's my Senator John McCain when he was running for reelection last summer:
Maverick my ass. He told us what we wanted to hear. Once he was reelected (I regret my vote for him) all of that was forgotten. I want Obamacare done away with, it sits over our heads like a sharp sword. I feel like a chump because I carefully planned and saved for retirement and in doing so set us up for this while others who pissed their money away are getting cheap or free rides. We're the broken eggs in someone else's omelette.
The Feds pay during Obamacare open enrollment time for something called Navigators. We made an appointment at the local hospital to see one and during our meeting quickly established what I already knew, their expensive threadbare and mandatory insurance was absolutely unaffordable. She told us that it was mandatory, I refused and only half in jest I invited her to visit me in Leavenworth. Not because I hate the government but because their health insurance in addition to my Medicare plus supplements would exceed $20,000 for 2018 and will only go up. She said that she understood and told us that most people who come in for these meetings who don't get a subsidized ride leave angry and without buying insurance on the federal marketplace. The upshot is that 2 weeks after the meeting with the navigator where we turned down their insurance we got a bill for $1140 from Blue Cross of AZ for a month of Obamacare. I guess it really is mandatory. I refuse to pay. Leavenworth here we come!
So what about that subsidy that we don't qualify for? Maybe we're rich and deserve to pay full freight. Hey man, no tax cuts or subsidies for the rich! Here's how the subsidy works for 2 people. The eligibility is figured using your gross income, the figure before all the common deductions for stock losses, mortgage interest, medical bills, personal exemption and state and local taxes etc. Have a gross income of $65,000 or less a year? Good news, you get a giant subsidy! Have a million dollars in the bank? You still get the subsidy. Have a gross income of $65,001? Nothing in the bank? No subsidy for you! That's it, $65k gross is the subsidy limit for 2018, that's why exceeding it is referred to as going over the subsidy cliff. Because of my pension and the bull stock market we're just slightly on the wrong side of the subsidy cliff. I'd rather be rich but over the course of 8 years this is guaranteed to make us poor, to possibly force us out of our home and to leave us with nothing but Social Security and cat food.
Not buying insurance on their marketplace opens us up to a fine of 2.5% of our income from the IRS. But there are ways around that. I have to submit paperwork to the IRS documenting that their insurance will cost us in excess of $6000. We've also joined the Christian Healthcare Ministries, by doing so we should get a religious exemption. Thank you Jesus.
OK, so now what? I had a 3 hour phone conversation with an old friend, he's retired and plays with the tax code and Obamacare just for kicks. He told me that due to quirks in Obamacare's ham handed regulations and the way AZ handles them Arizona is probably the worst state for Obamacare. He told me that in AZ there were no alternatives to the Federal Health Insurance Marketplace.
I even broached the subject of divorce with my wife. If we were no longer married she could get any job and get a big subsidy and our retirement funds would remain intact. We'd see a lawyer first so that nothing would change other than the ripping up of the marriage certificate. I've read of couples in our situation who have done this. She wouldn't hear of it. She is once again looking for work. It's slim employment pickens here but supposedly the economy is better now and if she hits the jackpot and gets a job with employer health insurance we can forestall the erosion of retirement assets. Meanwhile, she's making challah at $6 a loaf. Obamacare Silver goes for $1378 a month here so that means that for 2018 the break even point is 230 challahs per month.
A neighbor my wife's age who just quit her job and is facing the same problem as we are called and said that she had answered some junk mail from a salesman who said that he had a way around Obamacare. The salesman was to come to their house to make his pitch, wanna come over and listen? I listened. It's flimsy and legal for them to sell but possibly illegal for us to buy. It's from a company I've never heard of that's owned by Kemper Insurance. They use the Christian Healthcare Ministries as a fig leaf of legality. Thank you Jesus, after a second meeting I bought the questionable insurance because it was a little more than 1/3 the price of Obamacare silver and I felt like I had my back to the wall.
I'm afraid of testing this insurance (it kicks in Dec 1). I'm afraid of the IRS. I'm afraid that the Republicans won't repeal or gut this financial cancer upon us and I'm afraid that the Democrats will again scream that to alter it in the slightest is heartless, cruel and will mean that innocent people will die. They're both full of crap. We're just collateral damage.
