The first thing Tom and I wanted to do when we moved in to our new house was make sure everything was working properly and was safe. This led to a parade of service people coming in and out of the house during our first week.
We closed on the house on Friday and moved the stuff from the Pod into a storage room in the garage. On Saturday the parade started with two guys bringing a new washing machine. The house came with a washing machine but it had a rusted barrel so we decided to replace it. The delivery men took the old washer out, brought the new one in and installed it in about 30 minutes. Fast and easy. Thank you Lowe’s.
Next in the parade was the cleaning crew from BR Cleaning. We wanted to have everything cleaned before we moved anything in. The man and woman worked extremely hard for six hours, never stopping for a break. They cleaned the bathrooms, appliances, floors, walls, lights, blinds, and windows. Everything was spotless when they were done.
While the cleaners were here on Saturday, the guy from Pods came and picked up the Pod. Just as he pulled out, Extreme Clean pulled in to clean the vents. The owners before us had two big dogs that shed all over, so we knew the vents would be full of dog hair. Not only did Extreme Clean do a great job of cleaning the vents, they showed us before and after pictures. The before were definitely “yuck!” and the after were “ahhh.” Best of all, they pulled all of the stuff out of the vents and into their truck so I didn’t have to worry about the house being dirty again. Extreme Clean recommends getting the vents cleaned every five to seven years.
The parade of service people continued on Tuesday with Ivan, an electrician from Mr Electric. After our home inspection, we knew we needed some electrical work done. The previous owners paid for some of it, but there was still more to do. Ivan came out and worked all day installing an attic fan, enclosing junction boxes, adding a 30 amp line for the RV, and replacing some outlets. Some of the switches in the house were wired incorrectly, which was a second morning of work for Ivan. Mr. Electric turned out to be the biggest home-owning expense so far.
Quality Air Heating and Cooling sent out a technician to service the air conditioner. We signed a service contract with them and they will be out in a month or two to be sure the heat pump is ready for winter. The first thing he did was pull out the air filter on the heat pump which was full of dog hair after the vent cleaning. Fortunately we had just bought a replacement!
Chris and Chris Jr. from Property One Mowing and Landscaping came out to mow the lawn on Thursday. They were mowing for the previous owner and we kept them on for the rest of this year. Tom is trying to put off buying a lawn mower.
Jet Seal Asphalt gave us an estimate on fixing the driveway. Unfortunately their estimate was that it wasn’t worth spending another dime on fixing unless you replaced it. Not going to happen this year, but hopefully we can get to that next year. In the meantime, the driveway will just have to look like alligator skin.
The Dish technician came out on Sunday and installed a Dish satellite receiver on the roof. Unfortunately, because of all our tall trees, we can’t receive the satellite for the Columbus local stations, but we can get them with an HD antennae. We don’t watch much local television anyway.
Our final service person in the parade will be coming out next week. We hired a chimney sweep to inspect and clean the wood burning stove chimney. They were the only ones who didn’t give us an immediate service date.
Now that our parade of service people is almost over, all systems are ready to go in our house. I just hope they stay that way!