List Of Things To Do

[AndyD]

1. Remove leaking geyser and replace. Geyser has been dripping from the casing into the tray for about a month.
2. Remove and replace shower in 1st floor bathroom. Shower was a cheap one installed in a great hurry as a temporary measure 5 years ago to allow us to move back into the house after extension building works. It has a minor leak and it's generally cheap and sub standard.
3. Replace 20 square meters of car port poly-carbonate roofing damaged in high winds about 3 years ago. Just roof sheeting, structure is fine.
4. Repair wooden gate at side of house. It just disintegrated with age.
5. Remove and strip badly corroded irrigation enclosure, refit water pump, fertilizer pump and irrigation controls and valves into replacement stainless steel enclosure.
6. Finish porch lighting installation.
7. Finish building outside braai place.
8. Finish installing LED garden lighting.
9. Remove dead lemon tree that I salvaged from a friends house before they sold it but it subsequently died.
10. Trim trees in garden.
11. Clean up pool area and install roller mechanism for the solar pool blanket.
12. Install extract hood, stainless ducting and fan for kitchen stove.
13. Install 3-stage Everpure water filtration unit for an already existing refrigerated drinking water faucet in kitchen.
14. Service and descale cappuccino machine.
15. Finish installing polycarb burglar bars.
16. Install 100sq m of carpet in first floor bedroom and landing
17. Replace broken attic window (requires 8m of scaffold to access)
18. Clean garden flat which I use as library.
19. Service both cars.
20. Pick up dog poo.
21. Repair hole made in wall to fix plumbing leak about a year ago. (plaster and paint hole only, leak is fixed)
22. Repair 2 x bicycles with various symptoms of blatant abuse and neglect.
23. Find intermittent earth leakage tripping fault on 1st floor DB Has generally been tripping about once a month for the last year or more but is getting more frequent of late. It's tripped twice this week already....
24. Finish reinstalling laptop.
25. Install new motherboard and graphics card on lounge entertainment PC.
26. Tidy office
27. Tidy workshop.
28. Replace timer on pool solar heater pump.
29. Partition, install carpet, decorate and furnish a bedroom in the attic for my sister's arrival in March.
30. Repair mother-in-laws washing machine.
31. Replace swimming pool filter sand.
32. Finish herb garden landscaping.
33. Replace broken irrigation sprinklers x3
34. Finish repairing Hi Fi speakers x2.
35. Paint house and garage exterior.
36. Replace intermittently sticking well-point pressure switch.
37. Replace 2 x toilet seats.
38. Replace sticking wheels on kitchen drawers.

I'm sure I've forgotten a few things so I may add at a later date.

I'm looking for volunteers who have all the time in the world, don't mind doing things my way and are happy to work for next to nothing (no wages, I might stretch to buying you a Streetwise II once in a while and go some way toward covering you travel costs as long as you live within a few Km and are using public transport). I have all the materials already so the successful applicant(s) can start work immediately and carry on tirelessly all the way through the Christmas holidays and into January.


Chancers need not apply, you'll need to be highly skilled in the following fields;

• Electrical
• Plumbing
• Brick laying
• Plastering
• Painting
• Carpentry
• Dry walling
• Carpet laying
• Roofing
• Irrigation
• IT and networking
• Landscaping
• Auto mechanics
• Appliance repair
• Audio engineering
• Botany
• Public relations (able to deal with mother in law)

[bones]

how about you get your insurance up to date
and get some petrol and a few matches to
deal with that list

no skill required will turn your list into a nice
one step process

• find new home

[adrianh]

1. Remove leaking geyser and replace. Geyser has been dripping from the casing into the tray for about a month.
   ...

You should have a bring n braai. Invite carefully sected individuals to bring their tools and you supply them with food. No alcohol mind you because they may just leave you with a longer to do list than when they started.

[IanF]

Andy
With the leaking geyser you should try your homeowners insurance. They might classify that as a burst geyser and replace it as a claim.Also try them for the carport roof and attic window.

[Dave A]

Fortunately I stay far enough away from Andy not to get tempted by the Streetwise offer

My observation though is there's a scary number of "finish..." in that to-do list. My personal tactic with my home to-do list is to severely limit the number of "current" items on it. If I start a task, I do my best to finish it before tackling anything else. I don't know if it makes me more productive, but I certainly find it helps to get things done.

If I was in your shoes, I'd be knocking off the "finish" items before tackling anything else that is less that an absolute emergency.
Just a thought.

[tec0]

was on vacation then got a call to come home...

Long story short i guess some "customers" always realize "to late" why you take quality of over quantity...

Anyhow Andy if i where you "thank heavens i am not because that list is scary" i would start with the most inexpensive jobs on the list. finish them one at a time and tick them as done. The more expensive jobs that may need expert skills can be listed from none critical to critical and start with the critical stuff first. Find a few friends and bribe them with cold KFC and large puppy-dog eyes or just hand them your children's PS3 games as reward... Who doesn't like free games...

I also need to paint my house "inside and out" install new fencing and security systems but my budged demands another 2 months. Since i can do most of the work myself "plumbing, painting, wiring, building, tiling and welding" i can handle it but TIME is my biggest problem. So i tend to budged on renting heavy industrial equipment to speed up the process.

This is very helpful especially a powerful water blaster that is strong enough to send the old paint flying from the walls. "previous paint job not done by me" is a peeling disaster so it will not take time. And me messing about with a little scraper with the sun on my back isn't going to happen...

Still maybe there are a few jobs where you can benefit from over-sized industrial equipment? Perhaps readdress the topic about child labour... After all that new Playstation or Phone somehow just became a motivator and not a gift...

Best of luck to you sir

[AndyD]

I forgot I'd posted this, it was late and I was doing various things whilst browsing the forum and used the text box to make the list because I was too lazy to open a Word document. After it was done I was feeling sorry for myself and thought I may as well give everyone a laugh post it as a thread.

@bones, I'll tell you the story one day of how when I was a teenager a friend of mine ended up 6 months in jail for driving his car into a local river so he could report it stolen and claim the insurance.

@Adrian, I've used that trick before and most of my friends are wise to it. Usually they'll only come braai at my place if wifey is organising it

@Ian, the insurance already paid out nearly a year ago for the broken window and the car port roof. My particular policy doesn't cover the geyser unfortunately.

@Dave, some of the half finished jobs are because I was part way through them when something more urgent cropped up unexpectedly. Some of them are kinda linked to other jobs such as the garden lighting can't be finished until the landscaping around the herb garden is finished and that can't be done until the braai area is finished. Same with the porch lighting can't be completed until the braai is finished. I hit a bottleneck with the braai area because I spent a whole weekend building the pillars and my No1 son used them as an anchor point for his slackline (tightrope) even after explicit instructions not to and reduced them to rubble. I immediately lost motivation and interest in the entire project and it's been at a standstill now for 8 months.

@Tec, The issue isn't the finances although I could do without shelling out R9K on a geyser this time of year, it's more about time and motivation both being in short supply.

The next job is the geyser because the leak is getting worse and given the national water situation I'm motivated by guilt....and the fact I'm going to notice the extra consumption soon on my water and electricity bill.

I've had bad experiences with the Kwikot steel cylinders before, I was looking at a copper cylinder but they're about R10K which is more than I really wanted to spend. I've seen a fibreglass cylinder that looks promising at around R6K, has anyone had any experience with them?

[adrianh]

Why don't you just pay people to do these things for you. Your time is worth more than dealing with this stuff. There are lost of skilled people that will sort the issues out for you in no time. You must remeber that if you pay people a fair wage to handle this stuff then they win and you do to.

[bones]

@bones, I'll tell you the story one day of how when I was a teenager a friend of mine ended up 6 months in jail for driving his car into a local river so he could report it stolen and claim the insurance.

and who has 6 months to waste
in jail i guess you can call in the
professionals make it there
problem

that is what i would do get 2 or
4 quotations and pick the best
service for your money

just dont go cheap you will
regret every minute of it

[AndyD]

Some of the jobs I was intending to get contractors in to do them. Painting the house, installing the carpets and replacing the shower I wasn't intending to do myself. A lot of the jobs it would take a contractor longer to arrive on site and set up his equipment that it would to install 4x carport roof sheets for example. Also some of the items are non-standard installations such as my geyser which has a home made heat pump installed on it and as soon as the installation is non-standard you need a contractor who can think on his feet and has a wider understanding of his trade than your average installer who's use to working to a template.

Maybe just for fun I should pick a local electrician and ask him to come sort out my intermittent earth leakage tripping problem.

[Phil Cooper]

Geyser will almost certainly be covered under your Buildings Homeowners insurance.

[Houses4Rent]

I've had bad experiences with the Kwikot steel cylinders before, I was looking at a copper cylinder but they're about R10K which is more than I really wanted to spend. I've seen a fibreglass cylinder that looks promising at around R6K, has anyone had any experience with them?

If you see Kwikot, run as far as you can. I renamed them Kwicrap as in Quick Crap. I have seen their geysers not even lasting 3y warranty which used to be 5y before they re-labelled them. I have a City Heatsince many years, but heard they are out of business. Very odd that your insurance does not cover geysers. Even more the reason to buy quality. Did you look at Tecron? I also heard of Duratherm as being better as it has a liner inside I belive.

[adrianh]

This post reminds me of a great song:

[AndyD]

I checked Phil and the geyser isn't covered, it was an option that carried an extra premium and we chose not to cover it. The extra premium worked out to roughly the price of a new geyser every 4 or 5 years so we've come out on top in the long run but obviously now we need to foot the bill

H4R, I looked at the Tecron copper geysers and they're good looking unit but not cheap. For a 200l 4 Bar copper cylinder you're in the ballpark of R10K materials only which is probably to be expected with copper prices being what they are. At the moment I'm leaning toward one, I'd rather pay the money and only have to do the job once. I haven't checked out the Duratherm yet, I haven't seen them in the local plumbing suppliers so I'll have to track them down and go look at one. Have you got first hand experience with them?

[Phil Cooper]

Andy: with respect, you are probably with one of the cr$%py Insurers for buildings. Or your bond holder.

I know on NO insurer who charges for geysers on the Domestic side - only Commercial risks.

And even then most include automatically on most classes of insurance.