I am embarrassed to say that I have put off replacing our bathroom exhaust fan for almost 10 years. The previous one made loud screeching noise, but I was not confident to do it. In the past few days, it bothered me enough to look up YouTube and tried to replace it. To my amazement, replacing the fan motor took 10 minutes. All I had to do was unplugged and popped out the out motor and put the new one in. I am beating myself up for being such a sucker.

Nutone Fan Motor Assembly cost $15.

Just spent a ton of money. Here’s the breakdown:

• Diagnosed: $105
• Replaced thermostat: $255 (labor: $233, part: $22)
• Performed coolant flush: $110 (labor: $73, part: $37)
• Replaced alternator: $700 (labor: $475, part: $225)

Total cost: $1,225

This is my second time at C&G Specialty Auto Repair and Auto Body. Its price is fairly high. I don’t think I will go back to it.

One of our toilets clogged up for several years now. I used to have to plunge it every once in a while, then every week, then several days. So I decided to replace it once and for all.

The job was quite simple. All I had to do what place a toilet over the damn hole. Yet I took me a whole day with three tries and several trips to Home Depot and Lowe’s. The first time went almost smoothly, except the color was wrong. My wife wanted the biscuit color, not white. I didn’t care much, but I don’t want to hear her complain for many years to come.

Home Depot only stocks white so I had to go to Lowe’s to get the biscuit color. The second attempt failed because the wax was broken and the water leaked. I had to unassembled everything and tried again with a waxless seal gasket.

The third attempt was getting better but the toilet was not secured tight. I had to open it up again to tighten up the flange.

I must admit I am terrible at this. Given how much time and energy I had spent, it was worthwhile just to pay $150 for the installation. Then again, I have learned how to do it through my failures. The next time will not be as bad.

After my second failure, which I followed the instructions from the toilet’s manual, I looked up on YouTube. This clip is simple and helpful.

Here’s the breakdown:

• Kohler Highline Classic Biscuit: $285
• Oatey PVC Flange: $12
• Sani Seal Waxless Toilet Gasket: $12

The last duct cleaning was done when we first moved into our house, which was 10 years ago. Today, we have another duct cleaning service by F.H. Furr. Its inspector recommended the service and we figured we might as well do it before the new baby come out.

Service cost: $455

Just signed up the annual service plans with F.H. Furr.

Plans cost: $167
Scheduled 25 Point Cooling Inspections

Still need to schedule 28 Point Heating, Plumbing, and Electrical Inspections.

I just created a maintenance category to keep track of all the maintenances. I keep lose track of all my receipts and I don’t remember what I have done. So this blog will keep everything in one place.

Our Toyota Sienna 2011 is reaching 120,000 miles and here are what we have done:

• Replaced 4 Michelin Premier tires: $800
• Replaced rear break pads: $155 ($60 part & $95 labor)
• Tuned up: $400 ($85 Spark plugs, $15 air filter, $15 cabin air filter first time fit)

Total cost: $1355

Still need to replace shocks. These auto mechanics are milking everything they can. The tires were bought from Costco. The tune-up services were provided by C&G Specialty Auto Repair and Auto Body.

I was at the dental office today to get my teeth maintenance. While the dentist worked on my nasty teeth, I realize that everything in life that you own needs a maintenance.

Your damn house needs a maintenance. If you are suck at housework like me, you will have to pay big bucks for all the maintenance. From the water pipes to the toilet, maintenance costs a fortune. Our HVAC is leaking water. There goes more maintenance.

I took our older mini-van to the dealer for an oil change on Monday, the technician recommended several maintenances that would cost almost two grants. Now I have to shop around to get lower price for a maintenance.

At work, I have to keep a maintenance of our CMS and server. Everything needs to be kept today to make sure that our sites won’t get hack. A huge chunk of my time is to maintain the content of our websites.

Relationships required maintenance as well. Our marriage will break if not well maintained. Our interactions with the people around us will lose if we do not keep in touch. Life is so full of maintenance. How do we get out of it?

I am contemplating on deactivating all my social media so that I don’t have to maintain those interactions anymore. In the near future, I will try to get rid of all the cars so that I don’t have to maintain them anymore. Once the kids all grown, I’ll buy a smaller townhouse so that I won’t need to maintaining the landscaping. The less dependent on all of these things will free me up from all the maintenance.

Since we bought our house, I have resisted to climb onto the roof, which is about 25 feet high from the ground. In 2015, strong winds blew off aluminum trims twice. I was too afraid to climb up to the roof; therefore, we had to pay $375 each time to repair and replace.

I tried to climb up with a telescoping multi-position ladder, but it was freaking scary. I felt useless for a long time and it has been one of the goals for me to overcome. As the wind has picked up recently, I noticed the nails had been loose. Sooner or later those aluminum trims will be blown off again.

On Sunday, I decided to drop by Home Depot to pick up an extended ladder. After watching a few YouTube video, I went back buy a ladder stabilizer. It worked well. I managed to get myself up on the roof to hammer in the loose nails and cleaned the gutters.

It was still pretty scary being 25 feet above the ground. I crawled and lay down on the stomach most of the time. It was such a beautiful day felt so good to finally beat my fear of heights.

The beautiful weekend has just flown by and I am exhausted from working on the house. We made some progress and I feel less stressed. Last week I was worrying that we won’t get to finish the house before the little guy sees the light. I was talking to a colleague of mine and she gave me the best advice: “Just work on the part were you can move in and continue later on.” If we don’t have enough time, I can still work on the basement later. Why didn’t I think of that?

Again, my sister-in-law and her husband had given us their unconditional support. We are very fortunate to have them around and we can’t thank them enough. Unlike me, my sister-in-law’s husband is a very skillful handyman. He could do pretty much anything around the house, yet he is so humble about it. My father, too, is very good at fixing around the house and he, too, is worrying about us not getting the house ready before his first grandchild comes out. He offers to help us next weekend since he will be off for President Day. I guess that’s family is for.

This weekend we had an electrician came in to hook up some lights for us. We originally was going to hired a friend of a friend, but he charged three times more than this guy who is recommended to us through our real estate agent. He has done a great job at an economical price. He put up all the lights we requested with minimal cut through dry walls and ceilings.

When he was up in the attic, he discovered lots of flies. Why would an attic have lots of flies? Does anyone know? Obviously it’s not a good thing. Could it be that the roof was left opened? We had the roof patched up but the problem already exist? Please let me know if you know any treatment. When he left the door open, the flies got into the bedrooms and these flies aren’t so active. I could just suck them up with a vacuum tube. Even with the loud noise, they couldn’t fly away.

The roof is fixed and seal. Most of the minor fixes inside the house are done. The major replacement is going to be the heating and cooling system. From several estimates, we will have to drop at least five grants to replace both units inside and outside the house.

We have three levels (including the basement) added up to about 2500 square feet. Sears quoted us a 3-ton Kenmore heat pump and air handler with 14 SEER for $8,446 and a Carrier model with 15 SEER for $9,480. Evercool, a local company, quoted us a 2.5-ton American Standard at 13 SEER for $4,650.

We have one more estimate coming in, but we know that we would want a 3-ton system with either 14 or 15 SEER. Does anyone have some experiences in field? We would love to hear your advices and cautions. If you have any recommendations, please feel free to do so.

Thanks to those who have offered us your suggestions in the previous posts. Your comments helped us tremendously.