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> "Your roof is shot." The lowest bid is $15,000. Check is due before they leave your property.

When you buy the house, you should have had an idea on how much it costs, and saved for it. $15K over 30 years is nothing.

Also, of course this depends on where you live and how big your roof is, but for my house, $15K is overpriced. I recently got bids and while the numbers varied quite a bit, $11K was more typical. Of course, there are people who quote as high as $25K - learn to shop around.

And none of them wanted all the money up front.

> And what you learn is that it's a special type of gas water heater that costs $2500 and up.

I think $2500 is a fairly standard price.

One definitely needs to research these costs before buying! Especially for:

Roof

Garage doors

Water heater

Furnace

Central AC

Any pending yard work (like dying trees)

Any kind of code related work you may need to do (asbestos, old electric wiring, etc).




Move the decimal one place to the right if you're DIYing.

Most people are going to DIY 1/3 to 3/4 the stuff on that list depending on whether or not their checking account is fat enough to easily write the check in the first place.

Edit: move the decimal left.


> Move the decimal one place to the right if you're DIYing.

I’m not sure of this is a mistake or commentary on the cost of not doing it right the first time.


Meant to say left.

In my experience you can screw things up several times over before you come close to the cost of paying someone else.


Would not recommend if it's plumbing related. That's one of those things where a screw up could cost a lot more than calling a plumber in the first case.

Not to mention going days without water because no plumber is available.

Not an experience I want to repeat.




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