Each of us has a certain amount of life energy. In Hinduism, they call it Prana. For most of us, it’s finite. If you burn it up too fast, or too aggressively, and you wear yourself out, aging faster, exhausting your enthusiasm, and wondering why you made the choices you did.
In our modern world, we may not see this, because our energy is converted into money, which is used to pay experts. We make choices that cost money. To make money, we work more. Before you know it, we’re tapped out, with a handful of magic beans to show for our effort.
I wrote this piece for first-time homeowners, as a warning and a “permission” slip. You don’t have to fix everything. It’s way too easy to get in over your head. Instead, take it slow. Think about what really matters to you. A house can overwhelm you if you get obsessed with “making it right.”
“We’re going to replace all these cabinets with custom ones.”
“This spring, we’ll tear out the other two bathrooms.”
“I hate the flooring in the kitchen, so that’s next.”
“The mice have to go. Whatever it takes.”
Having renovated many homes over my adult life, may I suggest that the phrase “the perfect is the enemy of the good,” should be chanted repeatedly when making these types of decisions.
Let me walk you through some of the common buyer regret scenarios I’ve encountered in lo, these many years as both a building editor and renovator of well-used homes.
Cabinets Schnabnets
Many people seem obsessed with replacing kitchen cabinets. I have a friend who held up construction of his new home for months because of problems with his $80,000 custom cabinet order. Delays are not uncommon, but the reason for his special order interested me. He insisted on cabinets that went all the way to the ceiling, because he didn’t want to have to dust them.
Is “not dusting” really a good value for 6 months of waiting? This kind of irrational sacrifice is all too common. People zero in on one urgent priority about something in their house and die, figuratively, on that sword.
The workaround. Most cabinets don’t need replacement. Sure, they may need a facelift. But you can buy new doors for a fraction the cost of installed boxes. Or apply high-quality enamel paints, and transform an old wood cabinet. Thousands of styles of knobs and pulls also upgrade cabinets in minutes.
Good enamel paints, carefully applied, can affordably upgrade 30-year-old cabinet doors, especially when paired with new hardware.
Double-Pain Windows
You’ve heard that it’s a good idea to upgrade all of the windows in your old house. But this may not be the best use of your energy-saving budget.
One thing rarely mentioned by the window industry is that some parts of modern windows are only designed to last 10-20 years. Just look at the warranties. This is because the spacers between the panes of glass wear out faster than the glass or the frames. When that happens, especially if you live in a cold climate, you may find your windows suddenly full of frozen condensation in the winter, losing much of their effectiveness.
If you buy a 30-year-old house with original insulated windows, you’re betting against the odds. It’s like marrying a partner with a pacemaker whose battery has already expired, who just happens to be lucky enough to still be alive. When one of these double glazed windows fails, its insulating value drops about 50 percent, down to about R-0.9, about the same low figure as a single pane of glass
Windows are one of the most expensive components of your building shell. I crunched the numbers for replacing 30-year-old, single-pane windows in a 2,000-square-foot home in the Boston, Mass, area with low-E, insulated glass. In the best scenario, you’ll spend about $25,000 for the installed replacements, with an energy payback of about 49 years.
Granted, your house will be more comfortable, but don’t expect instant financial gratification. Only after you live there 50 years can you pat yourself on the back for using less heating fuel.
The workaround. There are a few third-party companies that can drill little holes in your glass and re-create a vacuum seal, although some building experts argue that this is a “temporary fix.” It still might be worth giving this process a shot though, when you really weigh the cost of new windows for an old home. Be honest. Is this your forever home, or a stepping stone along the way?
Instead of looking at replacing all of the windows in your home, assess which windows have likely taken the most stress from sun exposure, and let the other ones ride. As glazings cool and heat on southern exposures, for example, they put a lot more aging on the spacers between the glass, raising their chances of failure. Consider replacing only the “high risk” windows. You also have the option with some brands of buying just the glazing section of the window.
Even modern vinyl or wood windows have an Achilles heel: the spacers between glass panels. They may fail in as little as 10 years, and only a handful of companies offer any type of repair.
Rodents and Other Rascals
It’s pretty common to find that older homes, especially picturesque, sprawling farmhouses, have walls, attics and basements crawling with mice, squirrels, and bats.
According to the National Pest Management Association, “More than one-third of American homeowners (37 percent) have seen a rodent in their home in the past year.”
Getting rid of all of them may be much harder than you think. Trying to do it yourself is a waste of time. You’ll never get them all, and if you don’t seal up their entry points, the problem will come right back in a few months.
Also, if you’re like me, and don’t like to kill animals if at all possible, the process of humane removal tends to be slower and less final.
If you run into bats, for example, you’re facing weeks of expulsion. First, you’ll have to pay to have all that nasty bat guano cleaned out of your eaves and attic. Then you need to hire a specialist to seal off every possible entry point, and “urge” them to leave through a one-way exit. If they miss even one tiny hole, however, the bats will creep right back into their cozy nook.
The workaround. What’s the solution? First, don’t buy an old house with cracks in the foundation and crawlspaces under some rooms. Second, keep all vegetation away from the house perimeter, and don’t mulch with wood chips around your foundation. And finally, don’t obsess about every sound in the wall. Even with a pest service making regular visits, it may take months to “de-rodent” your house. You wanted a quaint old farmhouse in the country with five acres of mouse habitats, right?
Bats and other unwanted residents in your new, old house can be much harder to evict than you think.
Exteriors: Problems with Paint
New exterior paint makes a house look spiffy. But if the condition of the siding is not ideal, Paint won’t stick for long. Moisture and sunlight age wood surfaces, so the sunny sides of a home, especially, take a regular beating.
Painting a house expensive, but it’s primarily the labor that adds up. If it hasn’t been done religiously for the life of the siding, the wood may be permanently damaged. A good painter will test your exterior with a moisture meter, to see it the previous paint coating is repelling water.
Also there’s a major environmental impact when you paint your home. That “acrylic” in latex paints is actually a form of plastic. It’s been estimated that more than half of ALL PLASTICS IN OUR OCEANS come from paint that has worn off and washed into the ground (and out to sea).
Your options for an exterior facelift for a home may be limited by your budget. Here are some strategies to address a deteriorating paint job.
Prime Properly. If paint is the only affordable option, test the moisture content of your siding. If the wood or MDS material contains more than about 15 percent moisture, paint will likely fail more quickly than it should. A coating that should last 7 years, for instance, might start peeling in two or three.
Replace Incrementally. You may decide to just replace the siding. Why not tackle segments of the wall separately? Add a manufactured stone veneer up to the window height one year. Finish it with fiber cement siding a year or two down the road.
Vinyl Re-Do? Maybe. You’ll be tempted by vinyl siding. It’s relatively affordable, and you can install it in some cases right over old wood clapboards or shingles. Installed right, it should last 30 years or more. But getting it right is not as easy as your contractor may suggest. It has to be nailed properly, with careful water managing layers behind it.
Wind-driven rain tends to get behind vinyl. So you need some kind of housewrap, or better yet, a drainage barrier to move water down and out. Otherwise you could trap moisture in the walls and create mold or other problems.
My main beef with vinyl, however, is that it has a very poor recycling record. Too much of it ends up in landfills at end of life. The industry appears to be working on this issue.
Factory Finishes. Some siding products have paint coatings that last a lot longer, because they’re baked on in the factory. LP Smartside, for example should last 15 or 20 years before needing a recoat. If you buy a house that has pre-finished siding, make sure you find out the age, so you know how fast the clock is ticking on a repainting.
Stain that Fades. On cementitious or wood siding, including old asbestos-containing shingles (now banned), you have the option to recoat with stain instead of paint. I like this option for two reasons. First, you can avoid the current and future labor and pollution of scraping off acrylic latex paint; Second, penetrating stains, especially, contain a lot less plastics than acrylic pigments. You won’t be adding as much plastic to the planet.
Repainting a house that hasn’t been maintained is a losing proposition. New paint won’t last long on this degraded wood surface. You’ll need to replace or go over it with new siding.
Your Wants Amplify Your Woes
You might get the sense that I’m speaking from personal experience on some of these “red flag” house challenges. You’re not wrong. But I don’t have an agenda here—except to help you, as a new homeowner, understand some of the “hidden” costs of owning an old home.
To throw an umbrella over the whole topic, however, the struggle you experience will depend largely on your own expectations. The more you insist on certain features in the home you buy, such as more bedrooms, bigger windows, and so on, the higher the price you will pay to fix and maintain.
If you refuse to bend on making everything new again, you may never recoup the life energy you’ll spend.
Publisher’s Note: This content is made possible by our Today’s Homeowner Campaign Sponsors: Whirlpool Corporation and ProVia. Learn more about building and buying homes that are more affordable and less resource intensive.