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Has Achieved Nirvana |
Sounds like this has house has more than its share of problems. You are wise to be most concerned with drainage issues.
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
We used to see cedar shake houses up in Door County. They had chronic problems with woodpeckers putting holes in the siding. Bugs live in dead wood and cedar shake shingles are dead wood... https://www.allaboutbirds.org/...t-can-i-do-about-it/
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| (self-titled) semi-posting lurker Minor Deity  |
Yeah, it's one of the big issues. If the backyard continued to slope down away from the house, maybe. But you could see the rise... oh and there was a drainage thing... not sure what to call it, but there was a dip with rocks to make it not look bad, and there as a very wide corrugated pipe there, and part of it was shared with the property next door (the sketchy house). I'm not explaining it well, I should have taken a photo of it. But that was another red flag. Any problems with that thing and you have to deal with the neighbor to resolve it... WTG, re that article you posted, yikes! This house was a two story house, and the hole we saw today was pretty high up. I would hate to have Mr. SK needing to go up on a ladder all the time to deal with plugging up those holes! I bet that's how the bat got in too... SMH
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Huron house is sided in Cedar. I know it’s supposed to be a sign of quality but I can tell it’s going to require a ton of maintenance.
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Door County is home to pileated woodpeckers. They are about the size of a crow, so they're pretty big. They like cedar:  We used to see holes like that in trees when we walked down our street in Door Cty. We also had a neighbor who had cedar shake siding, and one year they had an enthusiastic woodpecker banging away on the side of their house. Steve, take heart. From what I see, Cleveland is not home to pileated woodpeckers...
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana  |
we have pileated woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, flickers... all manner of wood chomping birds. None have pecked holes in our house. There is one hole in the garage trim. We have an old standing tree in the back yard that the previous owners left for the birds to nest in. It is riddled with holes. So maybe if they are given an alternative they leave the house alone?
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| (self-titled) semi-posting lurker Minor Deity |
Maybe? But then maybe if something gets them started, it’s probably near impossible to get them to stop.
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
The squirrels ate our cedar siding when we lived in Oregon. I had to get this special capsaicin paint to put on them to stop it.
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Jodi| (self-titled) semi-posting lurker Minor Deity |
Did it work? We looked into those kinds of options when squirrels were eating the banisters on our front porch (which weren't even wood! Maybe they were just teething). Anyway, what I was reading was that those things were hit or miss. Since the problem we had was contained to a specific location (the bottom of the banisters) our solution was to put bird spikes all around the banisters. Which worked. But you can only do that in a limited set of circumstances.
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| (self-titled) semi-posting lurker Minor Deity |
New question: We're going to look at a place tomorrow that doesn't have a basement -- IOW no place for an exercise room. But there is a nice backyard... How much do you think it would cost to set up a room in the backyard, with just electricity (but no plumbing), to make an exercise space. Maybe it would be like the writer's room that IIRC pique made? I think a generic shed wouldn't have enough space, but a double sized shed would...
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Costco carries sheds...just for instance...(you'll have to copy and paste the links to see them...there are special characters in there that truncate the URL... https://www.costco.com/stonecroft-12'-x-10'-wood-storage-shed-%e2%80%93-do-it-yourself-assembly.product.100161778.html https://www.costco.com/berkdale-14'-x-8'-wood-shed-%e2%80%93-do-it-yourself-assembly.product.100358683.html Home Depot: https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ha...ft-19481-8/315698518 https://www.homedepot.com/p/Ha...ft-60609-0/205922153 These sorts of structures are pretty popular these days. I'm certain there are companies in your area that handle the whole project for you.
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana |
minimum $10k, if you buy and insulate a cheap shed from a box store. i could not possibly afford to build that backyard studio again at today's prices. ETA: in addition to the price of the shed, you have to factor in excavation and foundation work, insulation, interior drywall, electrical work, and digging a trench to get power to the shed. Then unless you want to install it yourselves, you'll have to pay for someone's labor. You could look into rehabbing an old shipping container. People are turning them into tiny houses now. Might be a fun project. I'm thinking about getting one for an ADU on our property.
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| (self-titled) semi-posting lurker Minor Deity |
Pique, thanks for the comments! WTG, thanks for the links (I couldn't open the Costco ones but the HD worked) We would want electricity and be able to install a mini split for heating and cooling, but maybe the inside wouldn't need to be very fancy.. If we could keep it under $20-25k, that would be pretty doable (given the house we're looking at tomorrow which will be under budget)... a lot more than that and I'd need to think about it more.... Also we need to think about the footprint/size of the room... 10x10 probably isn't big enough...
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
The Costco links truncate because there is a special character. Just copy the whole link instead of trying to click on what's there. You can see the underlining stops well short of the end of the URL... Or just use this, which takes you to all the "large" sheds that Costco is currently selling. https://www.costco.com/sheds.h...100%2Bsq.%2Bft.%2529
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Beatification Candidate |
I have a 14'x20'shed in my backyard that I had installed about 10 years ago. Erected on a concrete slab, it cost me about $16,000 complete. It's a very nice shed, but that's all that it is. I think that to insulate it, finish the interior, and electrify it would probably double the cost. If you added in a heat pump for year-round use, add another 50% for a total of around $40K or perhaps more with recent inflation. I think Steve may have a better idea of construction costs than I do. Big Al
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