Facing the surprise costs of home ownership
<br><br>As I was tending my backyard garden patch this summer, I noticed several cracks squiggling down the concrete foundation of our house. Although I did not see any water leaking into our unfinished basement, I decided to call in some experts to check it out before the onset of colder weather. We discovered that the foundation of our 30-year-old home had developed, through the course of settling, eight cracks that needed to be repaired. There was, in fact, in one dark corner of the basement I had not closely inspected, a small puddle. In the three years that we have owned our home, we have not had to do any major repairs. This week, we will be shelling out $4,500 on a maintenance project for which we have not planned or budgeted. <br><br>
As I was tending my backyard garden patch this summer, I noticed several cracks squiggling down the concrete foundation of our house. Although I did not see any water leaking into our unfinished basement, I decided to call in some experts to check it out before the onset of colder weather. We discovered that the foundation of our 30-year-old home had developed, through the course of settling, eight cracks that needed to be repaired. There was, in fact, in one dark corner of the basement I had not closely inspected, a small puddle. In the three years that we have owned our home, we have not had to do any major repairs. This week, we will be shelling out $4,500 on a maintenance project for which we have not planned or budgeted.