This Old #%&@*$ House

So, my update on my Old #%&@*$ House . . .

It's paid for.

The kids are home from college, so, after a lovely Thanksgiving dinner, we put a bottle of chilled Taittinger champagne in a bucket, went into my office, and paid off the mortgage.

Free and clear.

Wow I can't imagine that. My single biggest bill, about 1/3rd of my take-home pay gone. Congratulations!!

Congrats!

Nice!

I dream about that day. Congrats!

Gratz!

I feel like I’ll never pay ours off.

Funny story: my Dad also marked the day with a bottle of champagne. My Father-In-Law though? He only realized he’d payed off his mortgage when the bank sent him a check that he’d overplayed them.

Congrats that's a major accomplishment!

We paid off our previous house and then sold it and bought a house twice as big that needed to be remodeled. Spent about 170k on remodeling. We have a nice big house with almost an acre in south Denver metro but now I owe 190k again after we refinanced before rates went up - 2.35% on a 15 yr mortgage.

My wife wants a video camera doorbell for Christmas.

Any recommendations?

mudbunny wrote:

My wife wants a video camera doorbell for Christmas.

Any recommendations?

I definitely recommend getting her one.

I like the Wyze stuff simply because it's so much more reasonably priced, and they don't automatically share with the cops. Also they're not in the Google or Amazon ecosystem.

The same is true of the Ubiquiti hardware (except for price), but that is significantly more overhead on setup - it's basically "run your own cloud service for the videos" level.

Yeah we have Wyze that we used as baby monitors and they have been great. Not sure about doorbell specifically but their cameras and app are solid

I've had Blink (from Amazon) but it's just ok.

Have been looking at the Nest series because of the integration with all my other Alphabet stuff.

We use Wyze as well and they have been mostly fine but their customer support is total sh*t. You get what you pay for in that respect.

We have Ring for the doorbell. If you're ok with a subscription and cloud storage, and all the privacy concerns that entails, it works great. It replaces your old wired doorbell seamlessly, and will even use the old hardware bell chime.

I installed Reolink IP cameras with an NVR this summer, and firewalled them so they don't send anything out that I don't approve. A much better solution for what I want, but requires more setup.

I'm thinking of replacing the Ring with the new Reolink doorbell that just came out so I can manage all the cameras from the same app and ditch the subscription. Gotta make sure my wife is on board first. She likes the Ring.

We use the Nest and love it. It has face recognition so can tell you if someone you recognize is at the door. It's also only $60 a year to cover unlimited devices. Other than the Nest doorbell we have 2 cameras. It also does neat things like tell you when a package was left at the door as well as picked up.

We had a Ring doorbell in the past. It just stopped working. We called Ring and they offered us a discount on another one. Since it just died and is not exposed to rain or extreme elements due to an overhang on our front door), we moved to Nest and have loved it for the past few years.

I have the original Nest doorbell and it works great AFTER I got a closer WiFi AP setup. The signal directly from the router was good in that spot outside with every device I tried but I guess not good enough for the Nest doorbell to keep a consistent signal.

I'm also still on the legacy 24/7 recording plan for $50 or 60(?) per year. I think for that price you only get event recordings now, but as Dethroned mentioned that can cover multiple devices if you have them.

Any dishwasher recommendations from the collective here?

Consumer Reports had a Bosch model ranked #1 that I'm leaning toward but wanted to see what other here think about brands, installs, and anything else we should consider?

For context, this house is 20 years old, is our first home and the dishwasher came with the house. So I've never bought one before.

I bought a Frigidaire dishwasher about 6 years ago and I've had it repaired twice and recently replaced. So far the new one has been working with no problems. I will say that the regular wash cycle is very long - not sure if it matters to you but keep that in mind. It's also noisy.

My sister recently bought a dishwasher and didn't have a dry feature which I wasn't aware was an option - I need it myself.

Bosch was always ranked number when I checked reviews and I've never heard anything bad about them. I also can't say I know many with Bosch appliances.

Ours is a 10 year old GE with the house. Works pretty good. It's had a couple times of not draining but I was able to youtube and figure it out without replacing any parts. But it always gets things clean. The couple of times detergent didn't release was my own fault stacking something awkwardly against the door. Doh.

I have a Bosch dishwasher that’s been working solidly for the 4.5 years we’ve been in this house. It’s relatively quiet (so, quiet compared to previous dishwashers I have known, but still loud). No complaints from me.

Bosch is good. So is Kitchen Aid from my experience.

mudbunny wrote:

My wife wants a video camera doorbell for Christmas.

Any recommendations?

We have an Amazon Ring. Love it.

From my experience, I can only NOT recommend Whirlpool appliances.

I've had a Bosch dishwasher for nearly 2 years and it's been fine. The Frigidaire it replaced was such garbage. Fixed 5 times under warranty. I fixed it myself twice after that. Third time I said it was out.

+1 for Bosch dishwasher. We got one for our last house, loved it for 2 years then had to move. Now we have a Fisker Paykel and its terrible (it came with the house). We're getting a Bosch when we get around to replacing it.

It was deadly quiet and super effective. Dunno what model but it was about $800 installed

LeapingGnome wrote:

Bosch is good.

It is. We replaced a whirlpool rebrand with a Bosch about a year ago and have been very happy.

When we were looking, Bosch and Miele were the top two brands.

LeapingGnome wrote:

So is Kitchen Aid from my experience.

The Kitchen Aid we had was a whirlpool rebrand. I fought that thing constantly after the first couple of years of service. We had plastic parts break, annoying stuff got clogged, the replacement for the broken parts broke. I would not recommend.

Phishposer wrote:

When we were looking, Bosch and Miele were the top two brands.

I've been a Miele fan since 2005. Owned 5 in various different abodes over that time frame and always been happy. They're very quiet and do a good job cleaning. Only down side seems to be a long wash cycle.

Another vote for Bosch, so quiet and cleans much better then the piece of junk that came with the house.

Installed our Bosch dishwasher almost exactly two years ago. Zero issues, very quiet compared to our old Samsung POS. Definitely recommend! If you're looking to save a few dollars, check out the Bosch selection at Lowe's -- we got ours from there and it was slightly less, as they have a Lowe's-specific model that (from what I could tell online) the only difference was that it didn't include noise insulation.

Going back one topic about doorbell cameras: avoid the Eufy/Anker brand, as their device security and privacy leaves a lot to be desired - https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/30/...

Going back one more topic about snowblowers: I bought an Ego snowblower last winter after many years of owning an Ego lawn mower. We have a small slice of suburbia, only ~30ft of sidewalk frontage, probably another ~30ft of driveway, and a ~20ft walkway. That Ego snowblower is easily one of my favorite home power tool devices/machines. Surely my back has thanked me.

We bought a Bosch at the old house and loved it so much we almost wanted to buy a cheaper one to replace it with so we could take it with us. We have a GE Signature that came with the new house now and though it is nice, we still miss the Bosch.