Great news! You have to start somewhere, hope it works out.
Edit:
Big facts. We're doing our best to rebuild, and I can't thank you dudes enough for the support.
A job I can mentally handle and leave bandwidth for the family will be important, especially since we have taken so many consecutive hits. I budgeted for all the emergencies I could, and we are still in this. In 5 years we have:
- Replaced a nice furnace that died due to the first owner removing literally 80 percent of the cold air intakes by volume (pcbs fried). It was well in its serviceable life but died in the middle of winter at a cost of 60 percent of a new one and more days to repair. We got the new furnace.
- Replaced the hot water heater with a new one, upward vented like the old, because it was definitely leaking and dead.
- Fixed at least 3 gas leaks
- Got quoted impossibly low on the roof, and still did it actually right. The last homeowner, with legality literally depending on what year he had it done, added a 3rd layer of shingles on the roof. The bottom layer was trimmed back to look like 2 (legal). Its not legal to go past 2 layers anymore because the plywood is Swiss cheese at that point from the number of nails. Add a full layer of lumber.
- While the roof was being done, literally during, we had to bring the chimney up to code, because the last owner raw dogged a natural gas exhaust pipe into the chimney from the basement. The chimney had to be entirely lined, or we could get a different style water heater. Guess who just paid off his new 50 gallon water heater. No other answers for hot water / not dying from monoxode, and passing an inspection is good too.
- Had to install gutters and waterproof the basement
With any luck at all this was a lot more like a 10 year plan but when your roof is leaking, that's about as literal as it gets for cashing in the rainy day fund. We found that leak returning from the one vacation out of state we managed in years.
Thanks to someone here for offering to pay a small bill, it definitely made a big difference in our spirit over here. I know a lot of people are having tough times right now so the help is appreciated. I've still got some real short term problems to solve, but it's definitely taking stuff a day at a time.