inthehotsun

Can anyone give me a good recommendation to a company that helps with getting permits with the city? And assist with finding someone to do the plans?

Thanks.

Okay. Okay. I know. I should have known better, but I've been contemplating adding a room to my itty-bitty house (pier and beam) for a while. Due to work being crazy (and me needing to be in Austin for the next five months), my unemployed sister moving in to go to school and take care of my dogs, I just said, "Yes," when someone I know said they knew someone.....

Well, I got caught. I'm pretty sure a neighbor called on me.

But now I'm totally confused as to what I do.

I need to get permits, of course, but I need to all the "stuff"...but since we already started to build the room, I am totally lost as to what to do next. It literally is adding on a tiny room (13 x 14)...however, since it follows the line of the existing wall of my house, I need a firewall on one side.

Anyone know of someone who can help do all the plans and stuff that I can take to get a permit?

I'm just overwhelmed...and don't even know what to ask for, what to do...and now that the darn thing is somewhat built,...how does all that work? (We have the foundation...which I think needs to redone since they used 2 inch thick concrete blocks and i read somewhere that only 4 inch can be used)....so just....lost.

HELP!

I have several overgrown trees on my lot in the Heights, including bamboo that has crept into my yard from the neighbor's jungle.

Anyone know of a good licensed people/companies that will trim trees at a reasonable price?

I'm also giving up with the dream that I will have time to keep up with my yard. Anyone use a good person(s)/company that (again) is reasonably priced? I have a tiny lot (~2500) and most of it is taken up with my house so I'm not even sure what a reasonable price is to do yard work.

Unfortunately, the Texas Senate backed down and NOW will vote for the idiot again to be head of the State Board of Education.

On a funny note....check out this link in The Onion about Texas...hilarious....

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/texas...ource=a-section

I have an itty-bitty house with an itty-bitty yard and I bought one of this energy efficient HVAC systems. Sounded great on paper.

It appears that the unit that goes outside is too wide to get through my doorways inside the house and too wide to get to the back from the side of the house (I have little room on the sides).

The guy mentioned that he could disassemble the unit (including draining the freon) and then reassemble it in my backyard.

I worry about what this would mean for my warranty.

Any suggestions?

My neighbor on one side of me is crazy so it's not possible to use her yard to get to mine (we would have to take down the fence) and the other side of me, he has a little bit of a junkyard (too much crap). The joys of living in the Heights.

Help.

i keep seeing direct buy advertisements -- cheaper than retail, save gazillions of dollars.

has anyone used direct buy? what's your experience with quality and prices of the products they sell?

I'm back in Houston and took out my survey. How do I know what the set back line is? Is it marked somehow? I see a line with double slash marks that is different from where the property line is and different from where my house is built.

Is that the set back line?

I don't have a scanner so don't ask for me to download my survey.

Thanks to everyone who responded with ideas and useful information!

I definitely feel more "empowered" to make a decision now and consider options (fire-rated wall! who knew??) than I was 24 hours ago.

The HAIF community is GREAT!!

And is the $35/40 for just land? What is the average price per square foot for the "improvement" on the property in the Heights? It's probably hard to get an average given the two-to-three story monsters that are being built around me going for $300,000+ on itty-bitty pieces of land.

My home was built in the 20's so no clue what they did. I doubt they had to worry about things like that.

And what's a setback line? Is it clearly marked on the survey? How can I tell what is the setback line?

good points that i didn't even think about.

and for the record, i do plan to live here for about 5 more years and then I see myself moving to austin. so, while not an immediate concern (resale value), i know in five or so years, I will be thinking about it and don't want to do anything stupid now that i will regret in the future.

And before y'all think I am/was completely stupid for buying such a small house,...probably right (I didn't think about needing more space. Again, I have been living in the East Coast so it seemed HUGE to me)....

I bought it for $137,000 almost five years ago and going thru the refinancing process now and it was appraised for $185,000 so.....

It's a really cute house, lotsa charm and character, and in the Heights close to the new bike trail on Nicholson.

To answer Sidegate's question, due to the house currently sitting quite close to the property line (i guess when they divided up the land who-knows-when, they didn't care that it sat a foot from the property line), the top on the left would have to be pushed back at least 3 feet...and that would cut into the proposed bedroom.

Ideally, that's where I would want to build but I can see a bedroom with 16-18 feet x ~18 ft. being an okay size, particularly for the size of the house, but 12ish x 18 seems a little small and weirdly long and skinny shaped to me.

And if I just tear down the wall, I can still preserve the little backyard I do have, too. If I build the bedroom in the right-hand corner of the L, I basically wipe out my backyard.

the yard behind the kitchen is not big enough to build anything.

Ideally, I would like to build the bedroom in the area inside the L but again, with the limitations I have with that side of the house sitting a foot from the property line, if I had to push it back, it would probably be....maybe 12 feet...whatever ever it is...believe me, it would be small and I'm just not sure if I could justify spending that much for an addition that most people would come in and say, "wow. that's really small" when I can get that same reaction by just knocking a wall down and spending a lot less.

I'm in austin so cannot run outside to measure so I apologize for the estimates.

My house is itty-bitty so 10 feet from the front and you'll be in the common area, but your comment is exactly my concern about this plan.

i have attached a very basic drawing in Word....

top drawing is current plan; bottom drawing is what I have in mind.

The little hash-marks are my "attempt" to show where the entries are.

House_Idea.doc

I have a small Heights bungalow with an even smaller backyard. One side of my house literally sits about a foot from the property line. I was thinking of adding an extra room in the back, but a neighbor told me (who has experience with building "stuff") that if I were to get a permit, I would have to build the room 3 feet from the property line, which would basically make the room not worth building due to its size.

So, here is what i was thinking:

When you come into my house now, there is a hallway with my bedroom to the right and then the livingroom to the left. adjacent to the livingroom is a diningroom and then the kitchen.

If you continue down the hallway from the front of the house, there is the bathroom.

My house is almost shaped as an L with the lower part of the "L" being the one bedroom. (It used to be configured where the livingroom and the diningroom where the bedrooms, but I like having dinner parties.

Anyway, this is what I am thinking of doing...when you come into the house, on the left and the right will be the two bedrooms...when you continue down the hallway, the wall between the current diningroom and kitchen will be knocked down to create one big common living area (livingroom, diningroom and kitchen). It won't be a "huge" area but it's okay-sized. (I lived in the East Coast and by those standards, this would be a mansion.)

Would it be weird to have the bedrooms in the front of the house and the living space in the back of the house? How will that impact resale value?

I don't want to totally mess it up but at the same time, it's the only way I can afford to make an extra bedroom given the contraints I have of (1) no backyard; and (2) house sits too close to existing property line so building extra bedroom in the only "free" space will be too small due the 3-foot limit.

I cannot afford to build a second story nor can I afford to sell my house....I couldn't afford a house in the Heights at this point in time.

I've used a guy for a couple of years now named Greg who has his own company ADR. His number is 2813574299.

One of my friends used to live in some condos in midtown and he was one of the AC technicians the managing unit recommended.

He's very honest, dependable, always early to appointments and decent prices.

That may not be true. If you have your original foundation design that you could submit to an engineer, you could probably get a quick answer. It also depends on the soil conditions around the home. Is the foundation currently in good condition?

I live in a 1920's bungalow in the Heights. I'm sure the foundation could use some work, but the house is sound...slight sloping in some areas of the house but nothing that you really notice. When I got the house inspected, the guy said that this was normal for a house that old and nothing to be overly concerned about. (I hope he was right.)

Okay, if you would look to see all the random questions I post on this forum, ...sheesh.

This is my place to think aloud and brainstorm with the experts (or at least, people who know more about home repair than I do).

Okay. My yard (if you want to call it that) is challenged so I am thinking of ways to create more usable space in the backyard. Of course, a tankless water heater is #1 on my list but my ugly air conditioning unit "thing" also takes up space and is noisy. I was wondering if there was a way to make some kind of structure and have it on the roof...away from the yard. Would that be problematic?

And second,...I want to do an addition but basically have no yard and don't want to spend that much money. I made an assumption that adding a second floor would require more money than just adding an addition and would require some foundation work. And this is potentially a really stupid question but if I were to add a second floor to only part of the house, would only that part of the house's foundation need to be reinforced? or is it more complicated than I am thinking?

thanks for the suggestions.

as far as the weather causing my door to not close, should i be worried? is that a sign of some foundation issues? i know one part of my house, the floor has a slight slope so i probably need to get that checked, but this part of the house, it seems okay.

i just worry if i just get the termites (possible ants) dealt with and don't do anything about the door, it will get worse.

I recently noticed little small insects with wings in my bathtub. I believe these are termites. Soon after, I noticed that my back door doesn't close anymore....or at least, the bolt does not align with the "hole" on the side of the door jam.

I obviously have some foundation issues and termites...could the shifting of my house cause the termites to come out? Ugh.

Not good.

anyone know of a high-quality, reasonably priced termite company? I live in the Heights. I have a 1920's bungalow. wood.

I did get my house sprayed a few years ago (three, I believe) and then they came back to inspect the house for termites. However, they did not go underneath the house and seemed to do just a brief examination of the outskirts house that I did not feel confident in their ability to spot termites if they appeared...and didn't want to pay money for that so I nixed on their offer to come out last year.

And now this.

RedScare, thanks so much for all those wonderful suggestions. Most of them, I didn't even think about.

I'm so glad I found this site. I really am a novice when it comes to real estate, home repair, etc. so all the help I've received on this site is appreciated.

VicMan is mostly correct. HISD has some great schools in poorer communities, but they are generally the exception. HISD also has some of the best schools in the country. They have at both ends of the spectrum and a whole lot in the middle.

VicMan is correct in saying that a lot does have to do with parents, parent involvement, wealth, etc. However, this is not just a factor in impacting student scores in HISD; this is a factor for ALL school districts. HISD just happens to have a large majority (almost 80%) of its students considered economically disadvantaged.

My point is that it's easy to pick on public schools. However, like most things in life, it's always more complicated than what people read or hear about in the media.

Most school districts (no way in heck I'd ever defend districts like North Forest) are doing a pretty good job at stretching a dollar...

Get the facts.

HISD doesn't do a good job at anything. That's a fact.

That's an opinion, actually.

Being able to differentiate between a fact and an opinion is a skill schools teach in...oh, about the first grade.