Siding Sighting

Back in May, we had our siding power washed because it looked a little dingy:

 But then this happened in July:

Interior repairs were done a little after Labor Day but you may remember a hint from the end of this post that there were still some exterior issues. Between September when the contractors "finished" their work and November when we made them come back to fix something we weren't happy about, the exterior looked like this. Can you see the problem? It's pretty subtle, which is why I'm posting a bigger-than-usual picture:

Can you find the problem? Does this remind you of those Highlights magazines from when you were 8?

How about now?

They used different siding than what we already had - instead of just coming down just shy of vertical, it comes out at a sharper angle and then goes to vertical. They warned us that they couldn't find identical siding "anywhere" but that they would be able to blend in the replacements. We didn't feel like they blended in well enough and we were pretty annoyed.

So after a bit of finagling with our insurance company and then some scheduling difficulties with the contractor, two months later they were back on the job, to replace all the siding in the whole cut-out area so that it matched.

 We still aren't really thrilled with the results. At least it all matches on all three sides. It doesn't match the siding anywhere else on the house, but there isn't too much and it won't typically all be in view at the same time (remaining siding is on both sides of the house plus some outside our sunroom).

It looks much better than during the two-month interim, and we think that one day we'd like to replace the whole thing with Hardie Board. The thing that made us most mad was this: We didn't actually discuss with them in advance what kind of siding they would use (besides that it had to be white), assuming they were making the closest match they could given the age of our home.  But after they were done the job (which took a whole day, surprisingly) we did a little research of our own and found Home Depot sells siding identical to ours, in shape, if not size (we didn't actually measure). It's just order-only and not in stores. When we mentioned this to the contractors, they made some kind of lame excuse about it not being in stock when they stopped there that morning to buy it. But they knew for at least a month that they would be doing the job.

Well at this point, we're done for now. I don't really want more people wandering around on our slate roof and it looks better than before. But we certainly won't be using the same people again for future repairs. They were nice enough and did an ok job, but just had no eye for detail. At least finally, four months after the tree hit our house, the repairs are done. Now we're just still wrangling with the insurance company for our final pay-out!

Filing an Insurance Claim

Our insurance company escaped paying for new gutters in the back of the house when ice brought them down. They also saved money when our copper gutter was smashed by a tree. The logic has always been that we'd keep a very high deductible and only use the insurance when we had a large loss. That way we can keep our rates as low as possible. In our (double digit!) years of renting and owning, we have never filed a claim.

Thanks to our recent house robbery, we broke our streak.  My initial instinct, as usual, was to not file a claim because the computers that were taken were rather old and their market value wasn't substantially higher than our (high) deductible. Then I realized we are paying an extra $100/year for actual value replacement. In other words, if a five year old laptop got stolen, we would get reimbursed for the closest brand new equivalent. Also, the stolen bike backpack had a surprisingly valuable amount of biking-related items inside.

So we filed. While it took nearly a month for the claim to be (mostly) settled, we got a fair outcome from our insurance company. Two things really helped our claim:

1. A police report that listed the items stolen
2. Proof of ownership of the stolen items

It really helped that we took pictures of our electronics and because we are heavy internet shoppers, receipts could be retrieved for many of the stolen items. In general if we had a receipt or photograph of the item, we got reimbursed. The overall process was fairly straightforward:

1. Tell insurance we were robbed and give them the police report number;
2. Fill out a lengthly report detailing exactly what happened to our house, what was stolen, when we bought and how much we paid for the stolen goods, and document any home security updates we had to do to re-secure the house - including having to buy new locks;
3. Wait for claim resolution.

I was hoping we would get the full reimbursement value for everything up front, but what the insurance company did was give us the current value. Which is is calculated from today's retail price minus depreciation. So, for example our PS3, which cost us $350 years ago, currently sells for $250. Because video game consoles have a steep depreciation we got reimbursed about ~$70. So when we buy a replacement and submit the receipt we can get the $180 extra. That was a unique case, though, because PS3s are still available and cheaper than when we bought ours.

We made out better on the laptops, because the models that were available years ago are no longer available, so we essentially got a free upgrade in the process. As long as we bought something similar (i.e. brand, same hard drive capacity, similar performance, etc.), they paid the whole amount back to us, eventually.

The initially approved amount got transferred into our bank via a online transfer. As we submit receipts for replacement items we will get the remaining money we are owed. Given that we have heard so many horror stories about insurance reimbursement, we are pleasantly surprised at the result. I assume having receipts and photos of our most valuable items is crucial to getting a fair reimbursement. For the future we need to keep documenting our valuable items with videos and photos.