r/HomeImprovement

No, I don't really have anyone to ask for suggestions. I just had one guy out here and he just walked around and threw out a number ($20k) to do the soffits, facia and gutters. I had a company last year quote $18k for roof, gutters, soffit, facia and was willing to go through insurance but I lost their number/name.

I called someone else and they prefer not to go through my insurance. The issue is, I don't have $10k+ to pay out of pocket. If the work is promised to be good, then sure I'll wait and do it but the guy was going on and on about how he gets a ton of calls and it's almost always a waste of time. I don't have money to waste. The house is over 100 years old, needs exterior work then interior work. I'm overwhelmed and the advent of bots to give good reviews makes this 100x worse.

Bought a house last year with an ugly rusty chainlink fence separating us from next door...we're in the back yard all the time, and the previous owners of our house were never in the back yard. The two senior ladies who live next door, very pleasant, but distressed at suddenly having us sit and be active in the back yard. They were accustomed to more privacy. So 2 months ago, I suggested I replace the rust, bent and disrepair chainlink with a new roll from Home Depot, and paint the posts with rust paint, so it would be good as new. Cost, $400, and I'd pay for it. The next day, she offered to put up a 6 foot wooden fence, and said, "Since you were going to pay $500 anyway (!), just pay that towards the new wooden fence and we will call it even" I had the money transferred before she even got back inside. She ate the $8,000 cost of the wooden fence. No complaints from me and everyone is happy, and they have their privacy back.

We had our house painted two years ago and recently I've been noticing a lot of small chips (baby and we're both a bit clumsy), but I've started to notice from seemingly little taps and rubs that pieces are chipping.

The painters used a mix of emerald and duration paints for the house (at least the cans they showed up with were branded as such), and I was told that these are both quite durable paint wise, but now I'm second guessing it. Could they have duped the paint? Or are the 3 of us just a bit too rough?

For example, I'm talking a baby gate resting against or barely tapping a wall, or a plastic bin lightly rubbing.

Thanks!

Ed: think I got it, thanks all. Previous owners also painted and the chips coming up show white and not their paint. My guess is bad prep on their part, esp as you can tell they home gamed it.. badly.