Reclaiming the Yard

Today is the first day of the rest of my yard. It's become overgrown, a little. Drawing the first design schemes for the front, back, and side yards has made me aware that the east side is impassable due to raspberry vines and the gazebo is only accessible to Indiana Jones.

I'm experimenting with parking the car just off the street to see if I can avoid the worst of the Cedar droppings. This allows some unusual shots that illustrate the driveway's relationship to the house, as well as the clumpiness of the overgrown front yard.

Besides the start of site development design, another impetus for getting out there is that the front path (for neighborhood walks and fetching the mail) is nearly impassable.

As you can see, the plants are having a fine old time. Well, not any more.

In other news, I got a notice from the county asking if I have any "Garlic Mustard" weeds and I think that's part of what I just ripped out. "If the species is confirmed WE WILL CONTROL IT FOR FREE!" my county department of noxious weed control wrote. I'm trying to decide if I should drop a dime...if you see something, say something...rat out the weeds.

Latest Zestimate tops $800,000

In the words of Disneyland cheerleader Van France, "I'm shot full of luck." Happened to pick a solid property in an upwardly mobile neighborhood. Today's zestimate is $809,613, +73% in less than four years.

I've been thinking about the house's color scheme, and this old photo on Zillow reminds me that light over dark has some appeal.

Summer 2014 at Trees House

I like the gloss white for the eaves--the primary exposure is the north side and since the house is surrounded by trees, white eaves help the lighting situation. I think the gloss white on the siding, however, looks like white-wash. I wonder if there needs to be so much contrast (or any) between the horizontal lower section and the vertical upper section.

Zillow estimates that the house would rent for $2800/mo, so I'm thinking one of three bedrooms might be a third of that? Less for a kitchenette, so...$800? ($9,600/year would be a nice sum).

Zillow's Zestimate history for the house, neighborhood, and Seattle as a whole. The green circle is when I bought.

Update 5/27/2018: Redfin's estimate is only $760,974. Way to lose almost $50,000.

Site Development Program

Front Yard

• Curb Appeal--look clean and cared for; fit the neighborhood
• Parking for a tenant--no confusion about which door to go in. One parking space without blocking access to new garage
• No steps to front doors (if possible)--okay to go from driveway to door by way of the street
• Hide trash cans
• Hide gas meter
• Fence, gate on west side yard (for a dog?) - maybe the trash cans live in the side yard
• Patio with table and 3 or 4 chairs (Peggy’s concept) - provide security so people don’t steal the furniture, privacy somehow
• Protect Douglas Fir roots under the driveway, but provide smooth drive that can be swept
• Fix the carriage light or remove the brick entry thing
• Install tasteful outdoor lighting (although no one saw it at Eagle’s Nest)
• Modern street numbers
• Maybe 817 ½? If so, add mailbox across the street

Rear Yard

East/BR1 space

• Separate east and west outdoor spaces from BR1 patio door and Family Room patio door.
• Restore the gazebo, add lighting
• BR2 window should not look into West backyard
• Decide whether to repair or remove the water element
• BR1: Lawn leading to gazebo. Gate, paths allows both tenants to reach basement stairs
• New railings on basement stairs when old deck is removed

West/BR3 space

• BR3 patio door is really only for egress. 
• Unify the various fences at the top of slope
• Patio with table and 3 or 4 chairs - access from kitchen/family room seems more important than from BR3

East Yard

• Remove metal shed (replace with storage of some kind?)
• Planting for windows, but otherwise keep the weeds off the path

West Yard

• Pave a path to BR3 door (for egress)
• Planting at BR3 window
• Garage man door?

East Side

West side

New Smart Meter

After three robocalls from Seattle City Light over the holidays claiming that the work would be done Christmas week, they installed a new electric meter on Monday, January 8, 2018.

Seattle City Light replaced the meter about 10:30am. Power was out about a minute.

January 8, 2018 Seattle City Light came and installed a new smart electric meter. The form says to contact Aclara at (844) 623-2122 if there are problems. https://seattle.gov/light/AdvancedMeters  or email SCL-Advanced_Metering@seattle.gov (206) 727-8777.

Roof Cleaning

At Mark Blue's (of Blue & Blue Roofing) suggestion, I hired Monte of Monte's Roof Service to clean my roof and gutters for $760. It took him all day, but he worked alone, so that's $95/hour. He did a great job, the roof and gutters were clean when he was done (a bit of the moss took a while to dry up and blow away, but it looked nice), but there were two problems:

1. A windstorm in early October blanketed the roof with pine needles and subsequent storms have left branch ends and more needles--no moss, but it looks as messy as it ever did.

2. Monte didn't want to be paid in cash, but he did want to collect 10.10% sales tax, adding $76.76 to the total. I resented paying $836.76 when that's not what we discussed, so there went his tip.

Moss-covered roof with clogged gutters. Mid-September 2017

Unnecessary garden protection. Large compressor.

Monte's Roof Service
Cell: (206) 713-8200

New Roof Estimate

Mark Blue of Blue & Blue Roofing came by and looked at my moss-infested, aging roof. He said that the roof has a few more years of life and suggested that if I'm doing any work such as extending the garage, I should wait and install the new roof all at once.

Mark emailed a proposal that day for $23,104.49. That would include removal of the existing roof and gutters, 26ga drip edge, step flashing, pipe jacks, and "w" valley; continuous CertainTeed ridge venting; unspecified edge venting; "Wintergard" ice and water shield around all protrusions and in valleys; "Diamond Deck" synthetic underlayment by CertainTeed; CertainTeed Landmark shingles; new continuous aluminum gutters and downspouts.

The bid does not include dry rot repair ($57.50/man hour + materials) and it mentions that the gutters and down spouts are by Andy of Rain City Gutters (but they are included in the price).

The proposal is $4,701.27 for gutters, $18,403.22 for the roof, both prices including 10.10% sales tax. They want 10% down, 40% on start, 50% at completion. CertainTeed gives it a 50-year warranty, and Blue & Blue warranties their work for 10 years.

Blue & Blue Roofing, Inc.
P O Box 65139
Shoreline, WA 98155
(206) 523-7343 or 367-2601

Furnace replacement

May 30 and 31st, 2017 I replaced the furnace so that Trees House once again has central heat. I have been without central heat since September 3, 2015 because I didn't want to choose a system without regard for the total remodel. Instead, I've used an array of electric heaters and paid a premium for 21 months of this stupidity. (It's hard to say exactly, because I wasted a lot of electricity on the leaking water heater for the first few months of 2017.)

The new furnace, a Lennox EL296UH070V36B-62W88, is much smaller and 96% efficient.

I chose Ballard Natural Gas for the installation. I paid $466.75 extra to have the ducts cleaned. They did a cursory job, and I plan to complain. Cody spent exactly an hour hooking up a vacuum hose and spritzing compressed air in one or two vents.

Jack followed a half-hour later and worked 8:30 to 4:20 that first day. I didn't see him take a lunch break. He was back the next day and worked 8:30 to 6:30, alone. About 10am on 5/30, Garrett showed up with the new furnace. Other than that, Jack did the whole job. The Plumbing Inspector visited on 5/31 at 10:35 and seemed to know Jack. About 5:30pm on 5/31, the new furnace started producing heat.

Cody hooked up the vacuum and spent an hour supposedly cleaning my ducts.

The total cost, $7,297.16, is payable on an interest-free 12-month loan from Wells Fargo. I figure it looks good on my credit report to pay $609 twelve times. I'm due a $350 rebate from Puget Sound Energy for installing an Energy Star furnace and $175 from Lennox, making the actual cost $6,772.16. That cost includes an Angie's List discount of $150. Not for nothing, Seattle gets $669 in sales tax out of this.

Jack wrestled the oil furnace out, brought the new furnace down and unboxed it.

By the way, the vent in BR2 was apparently return air, and Mr. Leddusire hacked the ductwork in order to heat his greenhouse. Jack was perplexed, but the bottom line seems to be that the vent is no longer connected, so we'll close it up.

The old furnace still had years of life, but there is no market for used oil heaters, apparently. Sooty old thing, anyway.

Mr. Leddusire hacked a hole in the wall to let heat escape into his greenhouse. Uh...no.

Jack installed new ductwork from the ceiling down and positioned the new furnace with the service access facing west (estimator Geoff Wood's idea). Ductwork on the right is the return.

The nearly finished installation. Apparently, the return duct didn't fit, so Jack improvised with a rubber adapter (upper right).

Jack solved the greenhouse heat vent issue very cleanly. The black line is for condensate and the plastic cover hides the vent and the makeup air intake.

I wish Jack had aligned his pipes better. The gas meter out front is on an angle now because of Jack's plumbing, and he sprayed his black pipe gray, but it's the wrong shade. The PVC pipes at the furnace aren't parallel. Oh, well.

The new Lennox iComfort thermostat seems fine. It is programmable and uses WiFi to communicate with the app on my phone. Unlike a Nest, it doesn't learn from me, but I think I can program it once and forget it.

The newly retired army of heaters.

Ballard Natural Gas Service
4758 Ballard Avenue NW
Seattle, WA 98107
206-784-8101

Sales rep: Geoff Wood