c/atlanta-homeowners

That $600 French drain finally stopped my basement dampness

After two springs of musty air and a wet corner near the back wall, I called a company in Decatur to put in a French drain. They dug about 18 inches down, laid the pipe, and covered it with gravel for $600 total. It took them one full day and they had to move my holly bush out front to get the line to slope right. I checked the corner after our last big rain and it's bone dry for the first time since 2019. Has anyone else done one of these and seen their humidity readings drop, or did I just get lucky with my soil?

0 comments

the_alex•8h ago

My $35 moisture meter paid for itself after the crawl space scare

I was sure those handheld moisture meters were gimmicks, but after finding damp wood under the house off Howell Mill Road, I grabbed one from Home Depot for $35. The readings showed 18% in spots I would've totally missed by just looking. Turned out my gutters were dumping water right against the foundation, 3 years of that. Fixed the downspout extensions and now the meter reads 11% after two big rainstorms. Anyone else had good luck with these things, or am I just lucky mine holds a charge?

0 comments

hart.reese•2d ago

Chatting with a plumber at a BBQ made me question my whole yard grading plan

Ran into an old plumber neighbor at a cookout in Decatur last Saturday. He glanced at my downspout extensions and said they look pretty, but that I should check where the water actually goes once it hits the grass. I thought I had it figured out after reading a blog about slopes and French drains. He told me a story about a house in Kirkwood where the yard looked perfect but the water was pooling under the slab for 5 years because the grading was only good on paper. Now I'm wondering if I'm overthinking the laser level and underthinking the soil compaction. Did anyone else get caught up with pretty grading jobs that ignored the actual flow? Is the visible slope enough or have you had to dig deeper than expected to fix a hidden issue?

0 comments

the_abby•2d ago

Quit chasing painters, my $40 dehumidifier fixed my crawl space mold faster

Had mold creeping up the floor joists near the furnace for 3 months, tried bleach and sealing cracks, but only running a small dehumidifier on a timer dried the air enough to stop it, so would you spend the $200 on a pro treatment or just keep the unit running through summer?

0 comments

matthew703•5d ago

That tree service quote made me choke on my coffee

Got three bids to take down a dying oak in my Decatur backyard, and the spread was $900 to $4,800 for the exact same job. The cheap guy had no insurance paperwork and the pricey one showed up in a brand new F-250 with a full crew. Have any of you found a middle ground on tree work, or is it always this wild?

0 comments

rowan262•7d ago

Vent: My HOA is fighting me over a $40 rain barrel

I put in a rain barrel last month to water my tomatoes, and now the board says it violates the visible utilities rule. City code actually encourages them, so who has the final say here, the HOA or Atlanta? Has anyone else dealt with this gray area and how did you handle it?

0 comments

parker_patel84•9d ago

Closed on my first house and the escrow check surprised me

Thought I'd owe an extra $2,300 at closing but the final settlement came in under the estimate by $412 because the county tax proration got recalculated last minute. Has anyone else seen escrow numbers shift that much between initial quote and signing day?

0 comments

mark49•15d ago

$250 gutter job finally fixed my foundation drainage problem

I've been in my Grant Park bungalow for 6 years now and always thought the gutter cleaning companies were ripping me off. Last fall I finally gave in and paid a local crew $250 to do the whole house plus the little carport section. Turns out they found a clogged downspout that had been causing water to pool against my foundation the whole time. I had been out there with a ladder and a trowel every spring and never even thought to check the actual downspout outlet. The crew showed me how it was packed with leaf sludge and a few shingle granules from the roof. Now I check that downspout exit every 3 months with just a flashlight and my phone on selfie stick. Anyone else ever realized they were cleaning the wrong part of their gutters?

0 comments

drew_chen•18d ago

My rental's tankless heater died, bought a tiny unit from Home Depot as a temp fix and now I'm keeping it

Two weeks ago the tankless unit in my rental condo off of Piedmont Park quit on a Friday night. I needed hot water for a tenant check-in on Saturday, so I grabbed one of those point-of-use tanks from Home Depot for around $180. I figured it would just get us through the weekend, but honestly it's been way more reliable than the old setup ever was. I'm still not sure if I should push the landlord to replace the big unit or just leave the little one in place, has anyone else dealt with a similar rental repair call?

1 comments

joelfoster•19d ago

Radon test came back high in Decatur, now what?

Bought our place 3 years ago in Decatur, never tested for radon. Last week my wife got a kit from the library, free. Test came back at 4.8 pCi/L, above the EPA action level. I read that Georgia has high radon zones in parts of Dekalb, so I wasn't totally shocked. Got a quote from one mitigation company for $1,450, another said $2,100. That's a big swing for the same fan and pipe setup. Has anyone else dealt with high radon here in Atlanta? Did you go with a basic fan or a heat recovery system to keep energy costs down?

1 comments

loganm52•19d ago

Why does nobody talk about how bad peat moss is for Atlanta clay?

I mulched for years with peat moss trying to fix drainage in my Decatur yard, then a soil test showed my pH had dropped below 5.0 and the azaleas were the only thing thriving. Has anyone switched to pine bark fines or composted leaves and seen better results with clay?

1 comments

keith943•19d ago

Termite guy found a whole colony in my mailbox post

Last Tuesday I called a pest company after I kept seeing little wings piled up on my front step near Kirkwood. The inspector came out, looked at the mailbox post for like two seconds, and goes "yep, they're in there." I figured he meant the wood was a little soft but no, he tapped it and a stream of termites poured out like someone opened a sprinkler. We're talking hundreds of them over the next ten minutes while he just stood there filming it on his phone. My mail carrier has been walking past that thing every single day for months and never said a word. The worst part is the quote to replace the post was $380, not including the treatment. Has anyone else ever found bugs in somewhere you'd never think to check?

1 comments

matthewgonzalez•23d ago

My inspector's mold warning cost me $1,800 upfront

The home inspector in Decatur told me to skip that cute basement bar and check the crawlspace instead, and he was dead right. Three months later the vapor barrier failed and I found black spots under the subfloor, so I paid $1,800 to rip it out and seal it proper. Has anyone else had an inspector flag something weird that saved their ass later?

1 comments

the_sam•24d ago

Our yard flipped from dirt pit to actual lawn after one mulch delivery

Bought a house in Decatur last March and the backyard was basically a mud bowl with some sad weeds. We kept trying to seed and water but nothing stuck, the soil was just packed clay. Then my neighbor suggested we get a few cubic yards of topsoil and mulch delivered, cost us like $180 total from a local place. Spent one long Saturday spreading it all out, then laid down fescue seed and covered it with straw. Three weeks later I walked out and there was actual green fuzz everywhere, I couldn't believe the difference. Now six months on it's a real lawn the kids can run on without turning into pigs. Has anyone else dealt with that hard Georgia clay and found something that actually works better than just dumping seed down?

1 comments

xena_murphy•27d ago

Serious question, are HOAs actually keeping property values up or just nickel-and-diming us?

I see people say HOAs protect home values but my friend in Decatur pays $400 a year and still has a neighbor with a rusty car on cinder blocks. Meanwhile my non-HOA street in East Atlanta has houses selling for $50k over asking with zero drama. Are we getting conned or does it actually matter in the long run? What's your take?

2 comments

sean119•29d ago

Found a great source for bulk mulch near Stone Mountain

I went to the Stone Mountain Mulch Yard off Memorial Drive last weekend and was shocked at the prices. They sell a cubic yard of shredded hardwood for $28, which is way cheaper than the bagged stuff at Lowe's or Home Depot. They even load it into your truck or trailer for free if you just pull up. Anyone else have a go-to spot for cheap landscaping materials around Atlanta?

1 comments

jesse_burns8•1mo ago

Whole-house water filter was a mistake - here's what happened in East Atlanta

I gotta disagree with everyone who swears by those big whole-house water filters. I dropped $600 on one from a local plumbing supply place near Glenwood Park back in March. First three weeks were fine, water tasted great. Then one Tuesday morning I wake up and there's water all over my basement floor. The housing cracked right at the seam, must have been a defect. I spent the next four hours sopping up water with towels and calling around for an emergency plumber. Ended up paying another $250 just for a guy to come out and bypass the whole thing. I pulled the filter out completely and went back to just using a faucet-mounted one on my kitchen sink. My water bill actually dropped by about $15 a month without that thing restricting flow. Has anyone else had a filter housing fail on them like that?

2 comments

ruby494•1mo ago

Property tax hikes vs homestead exemptions - which side are you on?

I was looking at my Fulton County tax bill from 2024 and noticed my assessed value went up 12% from last year, even though the market around my place in East Atlanta has cooled off. Some folks say we should push for bigger homestead exemptions to cap increases, but others argue that keeps schools and roads underfunded. Where do you land on this debate around Atlanta?

2 comments

kelly338•1mo ago

Old lady next door told me my azaleas were planted too deep

She came over with a trowel last Saturday and dug around the base to show me the root flare was buried under 3 inches of dirt. Has anyone else gotten unsolicited gardening advice that actually turned out to be right?

1 comments

jesse988•1mo ago

Took me 3 years to figure out my gutters were pitched wrong

Honestly, after a heavy storm last April in Decatur, I saw water pooling near my foundation and called a roofer. He pointed out my gutters were sloping toward the house instead of away, and I had no idea that was even a thing to check. Has anyone else caught a simple fix like this that saved you big repairs down the line?

1 comments

oliver811•1mo ago

Just realized energy audits might actually be worth the hype

I was skeptical about paying $400 for a home energy audit, thinking it was just a sales pitch for new windows. But after the guy showed me infrared images of my attic insulation gaps and calculated my duct leaks, I found out I could save about $200 a year on my cooling bills. Has anyone else had an audit pay off in real savings or did I just get lucky?

2 comments

fiona_reed•1mo ago

That time my landlord scoffed at replacing a 30-year-old water heater and then it burst on a Sunday

My neighbor Bert (been in Grant Park since the 90s) told me to swap it out before winter hit, I figured it'd hold a few more months, and when it finally gave out that cold February morning it flooded half my basement and cost me $2,800 in repairs plus emergency plumber fees, has anyone else learned the hard way about ignoring old appliances in these Atlanta houses?

1 comments

mark49•1mo ago

Hot take: letting your lawn go dormant during July isn't lazy, it's smart.

My neighbor two doors down in East Atlanta started watering every single day last month when ours turned brown, and she's already complaining about a $200 water bill. Meanwhile my grass popped right back green after that rain last week, no extra cost. Anyone else just let nature handle the summer heat?

2 comments

hart.taylor•1mo ago

Finally got my backyard drainage fixed after three years of soggy grass

After every heavy rain my backyard turned into a swamp. I hired a guy from Decatur to install a French drain system last Thursday. He dug a trench across the yard and buried a perforated pipe leading to the street. Three inches fell on Saturday and the yard was dry by Sunday morning. Anyone else dealt with water pooling in their yard and found a fix that actually worked?

2 comments

morgan.nancy•1mo ago

That moment my water heater gave out mid-shower last Tuesday

I was standing in the shower off Memorial Drive when the water went ice cold at 6:15 AM, which is the worst possible timing. Turns out the 15 year old water heater finally rusted through and dumped 40 gallons onto my basement floor, flooding about half of it. Anyone else have a water heater fail on them out of nowhere and have to deal with emergency replacement costs?

2 comments