Owning a home can turn into a string of ridiculous moments.
If you don’t know the term “money pit” or the movie that made it famous, it’s worth a watch. Our little money-pit story isn’t exactly hilarious, but you might leave informed and a little amused.
By the end of it, we’d poured more than $10,000 into a perfectly fine old house. Not a fortune, and we didn’t end up with anything glamorous like a bidet. But some things—like emergency systems and mold fixes—are worth the price.
Our drama began with a classic old-house problem: water in the basement. After a heavy August storm, my wife and I came home to soggy, spongy carpet in the finished basement. Too proud (and broke from our honeymoon bills) to call someone, I tried to fix it myself.
One weekend I dug up the front flower beds, laid heavy plastic against the foundation, glued it on, and shoveled the dirt back. We felt secure. Then it rained again. The basement flooded. That’s when I gave up and said, “We’re getting drain tile.”
Fortunately, the contractor thought only half the basement needed drain tile—great news, since that saved over $5,000 and meant we didn’t have to tear out drywall and tiles on the finished side. We paid $2,500 for the drain tile and sump, then $800 for new carpet. The basement finally felt right, and I even repaired some drywall myself. Total so far: $3,300.
But drain tile can bring another issue: radon. If you haven’t heard of radon, it’s an odorless gas that can seep through foundations and cause lung cancer. The EPA’s action level is 4 pCi/L. After the drain tile went in, our required radon test came back at 11 pCi/L; a follow-up was 13. Time for mitigation.
Radon mitigation is basically installing a pipe that pulls air from under your slab and vents it outside—like sucking the fizz out of a soda forever. Running PVC from the drain tile up through the house and out the roof, plus the attic fan, cost $1,600. The fan uses about $5 a month in electricity. System costs depend on house size and layout; ours has a 2-foot PVC stack poking through the roof. The installer swapped in a lower-powered fan later to avoid creating too much negative pressure, which can mess with gas appliances. Ten years later, the system still hums. New total: $4,900 (not counting ongoing fan power).
A side effect of the mitigation was a drier basement—nice. The downside: the system pulls air out of the house, creating negative pressure that can make gas appliances backdraft carbon monoxide. We keep a low-level CO detector near the laundry room as a precaution.
The radon fan also made the house draftier in winter. With newborn twins, we weren’t willing to live with that. The contractor’s fix was to drill softball-sized holes around the outside walls and blow in newspaper insulation. It made the house feel like a warm blanket—furnace runs less, and winter isn’t as dry or drafty. Cost: about $2,000. New total: $6,900.
But tighter walls meant less air exchange, and suddenly our windows fogged up with condensation. Too much indoor moisture is a problem. The solution: an HRV—heat recovery ventilator. It brings in fresh cold air, transfers heat from the outgoing stale air, and keeps ventilation without wasting energy.
The HRV fixed the moisture and brought in fresh air during cold months when viruses spread. It also helped counter the negative pressure issue from the radon system, reducing the CO risk. You might ask why not just open a window—true, but to beat condensation we’d have needed to open all the windows and run the furnace fan constantly. The HRV lets us ventilate efficiently. Our heating bills dropped by about a third, and sleep improved across the household. An HRV also helps clear indoor pollutants like CO, cooking smoke, and even diaper odors, and it adds another layer of radon reduction. Cost here pushed our total to $9,500.
We also installed a range vent over five years. Having proper venting greatly improved indoor air, especially important with a gas stove. That was a DIY effort, though I’ll admit attic work was miserable—the hot attic, chiseling framing to fit a duct elbow—no fun. I bought a used vent, and having an electrician hard-wire it was half the cost. That project ran about $500. Total: roughly $10,000.
Homeownership isn’t cheap. A single moisture issue led to a chain of fixes you don’t always see coming. With a perfectionist streak and a “do-it-yourself” attitude, things got complicated fast. Still, I believe that $10,000 likely added equal value to our home.
If you’re thinking about a second home or cabin, pause and make sure you have the patience—and the cash. You might need drain tile, a radon system, an HRV, insulation, or a range vent to keep things dry and healthy. For now, we have the freshest air on the block, a cozy, well-insulated house, and no lingering mold worries. With kids in the mix, clean air and safety matter more than ever.