I need help with home issues. (Please be serious)?

I have a couple issues with my house.


1) Basement leaking water in certain spots -coming through the wall were down spout is at. My down spout is correctly attached. I wanted to make it livable, but that would be crazy if every time it rains water is coming in from somewhere??? 2) cracks by the windows where my chimney is located. 3) Water on the ceiling as if the roof is leaking - by the chimney 4) Drive way is cracking and the black top is starting to look gray. 5) Garage floor is cracked-bad. 6) My back yard is big and want to make it dog friendly but get it landscaped with a patio set and bench and a shade tree 7) my heat/air unit makes a loud thump when it comes on???





Now the thing is I have not been in my house long enough to build up enough to get a equity line of credit/loan. The housing market is not doing that well --house around are selling for $10K or more than the price I paid for my house.





Well....I don't mind spending time doing things myself. But I want to know what I can do myself before I get in too deep trying to fix up my home. You can email me as well. Please be serious...I'm getting a little frustrated, but I'm still smiling because some people are all flooded out and have no place to go or are losing what they actually have because of whatever crisis.|||Your water issue is the first thing you need to address. Get a ladder and some waterproof fibered sealer and seal those cracks before the water causes any more damage. The good news is that it's a fairly inexpensive fix. The yard and patio can be done later, that's cosmetic, but water leakage can cause serious structural damage so that has to come first. There's a free subscription to askthebuilder.com that could be very helpful to you. I subscribe to it and get a lot of useful information from a master builder and his colleagues. And it's absolutely free. Best wishes and good luck fixing up the house. I was in much the same situation 15 years ago. I bought an old wreck of a house and started fixing it up. It's in pretty good shape now and there's no mortgage or loans. Keep in mind that your structural issues are first priority and get it done.|||Get some splash guards( i think thats what they are called) to deflect the water away from your house as it comes out of the down spout. Or you could take some plastic tubing and run it further from your house. Get some sealer and paint those basement walls and lock out that water.





You should be able to find some concrete crack filler at a home store and thats should work for the driveway and garage floor.





Thats what i can do for ya..not enough info for the window and chimney and i'm not much for ac and landscaping.|||I completely agree that you shouldn't try to take out a loan yet, you would probably have a hard time getting one anyway. I would say priortize your list and get the "serious" stuff out of the way, and then tackle the other projects when you have the time and money to spare. This is my take on your list:


1. You need to direct the water farther away from the house. They make trays you can place under the spout to direct the water, as well as hoses you can attach to the bottom of the downspout. You may also want to consider landscaping to change the slope of your yard to run water away from the foundation. This can be as simple as building up the dirt along the foundation and laying some sod down. If you continue to have leaks, you might need a contractor, but I would try the simple and cheap solutions first.


2. Need more information. Do you mean cracks in the plaster? cracks that are letting air in?


3. Get a roofer ASAP, the more water that gets in through a roof leak, the more expensive it is going to be to fix the resulting damage. If your lucky, only the flashing around the chimney needs to be repaired, which should not be too expensive.


4. That's just age. The driveway might not have been done very well in the first place. You can either patch yourself or rip it all out and put down a new surface. I would fix the leaky basement and roof before putting money into the driveway.


5. Same answer as the driveway. If it is an attached garage, I would be a little more concerned if it shares a slab foundation with the house. Also, if you are having water pool around the garage like the basement walls, this could be contributing to the problem.


6. A good fence is all you really need to make a place "dog-friendly." Most of the landscaping you can do yourself, but supplies can still run up quite a bill for a big project. Try cutting up the backyard into smaller projects, rather than tackling it all at once so it isn't overwhelming and doesn't eat up too much money all at once. Again, I would hold off on spending too much money on landscaping until the more serious problems with the house are fixed.


7. Call an AC serviceman to come and check your system. Like cars, those systems need a tune-up from time to time. Getting to it now before anything actually breaks can save you money later. Most places have a reasonably priced service call for this kind of thing.





Good luck on your projects and try to keep smiling! As you said, there are plenty of people in worse situations, so just keep looking on the bright side.|||Ro-Bot has some good info. Leaks may be where roof is sealed at the chimney and depending on location of chimney intersect at roof, you can seal yourself. Go to local Big Box Hardware store (Lowes', Home Depot, etc.) for proper materials. These stores also offer free classes on DIY home repair/remodel. Try the DIY site and/or television channel for more ideas and repair help. I'm a single mom with my own home of 10 years. It pays to network with construction workers and have the work done without using a contractor when an insured contractor is not necessary, Wouldn't recommend this method for roofing, electric, or major home improvement/repair. Good Luck and Congratulations on your home purchase!|||Start with the easy and important stuff first... which means trying to solve your basement water problem with changing the grading of the outside yard there to make sure water moves away from the house, and that the gutters are properly discharging to the drainpipe, which is discharging as far away from the house as possible.


http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/basement鈥?/a>





The roof and chimney issues are more concerning, and need a pro to take a look at them.. My guess is the chimney flashing is not done correctly, but there could be a number of other things going on. Leaky roofs tend to move water in odd ways, so where the wet spots are may not be where the trouble is.


http://www.thisoldhouse.com/toh/roofing


http://extension.missouri.edu/explore/he鈥?/a>





Did you have a proper house inspection before buying? Are these new problems? I'm wondering about earth movement, settlement problems or other groundwater issues...





A lot of the driveway and garage crack issues can be addressed with crack filler, but you really do want to figure out what's going on and if it's just normal cracking (concrete always cracks, guaranteed) or if you've got something else going on that's putting this into the "needs to be really fixed, not just bandaids" category.





Get the HVAC company out to check the HVAC system -- I'm guessing you've got a heat pump. Get them to show you how to do basic maintenance if you don't know... things as simple as changing the filters and vacuuming the coils and keeping the vegetation away from the heat exchanger outside can make a big difference in how long a system lasts.





Backyard and driveway can wait until you've got time and energy to tackle them. Both can be DIY projects.