Repairs to my home

[mintz]

I have some major expenses to pay out this month and not sure what to do. Some companies are willing to work with me. My pool has a hole in it and we patched it $300 and now it is still leaking and needs a new liner. It will cost $3500. The pool company will allow me to pay $500 a month. I am sure our water bill will go sky high when we have to refill it.
We also need gutters that are rusted through and air that comes sweeping through our front door and rear and we need to replace them as well.

It seems it never ends, does the maintenance on our home count as a "monthly" bill?

How does it work?

[keepmine]

I doubt a $3500 pool liner is going to be a necessary expense. That's something you take care of after discharge.
The other stuff, use your tax refund to repair those.

[mintz]

The issue with the liner is if we do not fix it the pool with cave in. Our other option is keep filling it full of water and have a $500 a month water bill. Kind of under a rock...

I am not sure if we will be getting a tax refund yet.

[AngelinaCatHub]

Mintz, I am sorry but I just cannot feel sorry about your pool leaking. Now about the doors blowing cool air, if you have a hubby, does he not own a hammer? Can he not get weather strips and if he does not know how to do this, Home Depot has books.

I do not mean to be rash here, as this place to me is hallowed ground, but you do not have problems. If you were not eating, or cold due to no heat, I would feel different.

I am probably the most understanding person on this forum, or at least one of them, but I do not empathize with your pool leaking. ‘Hub

[mintz]

It is ok HUB, he is disabled and we had a door person come over last week and paid him $45. He said the double doors are just worn out and warped. They are wooden. On the bottom they will not close all the way and you can see day light even after the guy added weather stripping

[AngelinaCatHub]

It is ok HUB, he is disabled and we had a door person come over last week and paid him $45. He said the double doors are just worn out and warped. They are wooden. On the bottom they will not close all the way and you can see day light even after the guy added weather stripping

[mintz]

The pool guy has put two patches on it....it is an underground pool and I tried the concrete block and that actually made it worse because I dropped it and it landed on the corner. I have called two companies and they both claim that the patch may not last. I am losing about an inch of water a day so my hose runs for about 2 to 3 hours a day.

What about other repairs in the home? It is tough with a hubby on disability who can not do much. I love him dearly and he tries to do what he can

[hereforinfo]

Can you just drain the pool for now and leave it empty? Then save the money to have it repaired properly. If it's drained, then you don't have to worry about it leaking, getting worse, and running the pump and filter.

[mintz]

Two pool companies said that if I drain it the walls may cave in. I am not a pool person so I can only take their advice. If we do file, it will be months to come. Its the CC;s that have us over a barrell

[AngelinaCatHub]

Can you just drain the pool for now and leave it empty? Then save the money to have it repaired properly. If it's drained, then you don't have to worry about it leaking, getting worse, and running the pump and filter.

Ms. Mintz is right, you have to have equal presure against the weight of the water on the inside, so the ground on the outside must equal that pressure. If the pool is drained it may cave in or worse, if the water table is high it can float out of the ground and would be a total loss either way. If the leak is at the bottom, I would think a rubber sheet and some bricks over it could help. If the leak is near the top then the water if it is down only 24 inches, should be safe to leave it alone. Any lower and again that outside pressure could crack it more. 'Hub

[mintz]

That is exactly what the pool guy said. The leaks are at the bottom of the pool and it has a patch with a big concrete block over it but water is still seeping through. The water table here is kinda high and what he was afraid of if we get that 100 year old rain (that we get every year) sometimes more than once. It will float out. He said I had a 50% by 50% chance. If we wait it will cost mega bucks to repair.

If we file, we will not do it for at least 6 to 12 months down the road. We want to try and make it work with just the foreclosure on our credit but with all these medical bills and cc bills it is tough. Like I said earlier, I am ready for my bailout

[fltoo]

Do you have a lot of equity in the house and is it exempted in your state?
and...can you afford the pool repair in your budget at 500. per month?

P.S. I ran across another post of yours where you said you think you have 50,000 equity. Definitely get a real estate agent to give you market value. You might be surprised at the price.

If you are even or upside down, I would foreclose on that prop also and go rent a house and file for BK soon. When I walked away from my condo, I was even, in the last year it has depreciated another 50,000.

[deepend]

Mintz, I had the same problem last year; I sympathize entirely - you are really between a rock and a hard place. If it were a concrete pool you could maybe drain it and postpone doing anything about it, but not with a liner.

I had multiple repair people out and no one could find the leak(s) nor patch them well enough to stop the leak(s). I was paying a fortune in water each month and even made some calls to get an estimate on how much it would be to have the pool filled in and forget it about it forever, even though this subtracts from the value of the property and I wasn't sure what my mortgage company would do if the pool just disappered?

Also, the leaking water might potentially be doing damage to your property in ways you may not see initially. I was losing 2-3 inches of water a day, and that leaked water contributed to foundation problems under my home which surfaced a few months later, resulting in 8 piers under my house costing 4k. With the water bill, the foundation damage, the attempted patch repairs and the new liner and installation racked up about 11k in debt that helped put me over the edge of the debt cliff.

The overall cheapest (yikes) longterm solution was to replace the liner. I shopped around and got several estimates, but the lowest was 3k installed.

I'm not an attorney or anywhere near as experience as others here, so all I can offer is my own experience, and you should check it with your attorney as well. Because of the damage, the greatly increased water costs, and risk of caving in,to my mind - getting the pool fixed should be an approved home maintenance expense.

Just my 2 cents

[mintz]

Thanks deepened for your reply. The water damage is already costing me another $1200 to repair a slab of the decking around the pool because it ate out the dirt under it and cracked it in several places. You can also hear a hollow sound when you walk on it and other areas. The quotes I have gotten is $3500 for the new liner.

I am NOT moving out of my home...no way!!! I have three children who have lots of friends here. The only way I can afford to pay for the repairs is to defer payments on my automobiles with my credit union. I have already spoekn to them and they can do two months at a time, then I have to pay a month and they will go two more months. Not sure how often I can do that. I have two vehicles with them. One I am upside down on about $10,000 and the other I am about $10,000 to the good.

[BKOnce]

Ah... what da heck with it... just let it cave in & walk away ...