I reluctantly paid the guy's guy 1/3 down. He told me his guys would be here the next day (which was yesterday). Surprise, surprise - nobody showed up. I will say he did reach out to me to tell me that they would be here either today, tomorrow, or the latest Monday. We'll see.

My next door neighbor is digging holes all over his front yard. I went over to see what was going on and he told me he was leaking 40,000 gallons of water a month

He came by to tell me next weekend. At least he's communicating I guess.

Not going dark is a good sign, boat. Good luck with the lift.

i dont ever pay in advance for work. if i do have pay for something to be delivered it is only with a credit card where i can stop payment.
too many dont show when ahead of you to make it a good decision to pay in advance.

That's almost impossible with these guys.

Someone could make an absolute fortune here doing this if they did it right.

My wife's real estate fiasco just got more fiascoee. Is that a word?

Apparently, her client got a friend of his to call the buyer directly to tell him that he (my wife's client) has a health condition and cannot move because of it. He asked if it was possible to buy out the contract. My wife knew nothing about this until the buyer's agent called her.

My wife then called her client to find out what was going on and he proceeded to tell her the same story. Now he has a "health problem", that nobody knew about until now. Obviously a lie.

The buyer's agent told my wife that the buyer is not going to back out of this and that they will definitely sue for damages if my wife's client doesn't go through with it. This is not an adversarial relationship between the buyer's agent and my wife, though. Everyone involved knows that my wife's client is pulling stuff without my wife knowing about it. In fact, the buyer's agent said if they sue, they will also sue for damages in favor of my wife (get her lost commission). It is still taking a toll on my wife, though.

It's crazy. The buyer's agent's broker has been in the business a long time and has never seen this, nor has my wife's broker.

the pool company in florida did just that and took tons of deposits and never did the jobs. just because of things like that i dont pay in advance without at least the materials on the job. and only with a credit card then as i can then cancel if they dont perform.

the real estate deal isnt clear what is going on to me.

i dont know what buying out a contract is. if the buyer wants out he forfeits his deposit. and the seller can sue for specific performance to have the sale completed. but rarely will.

being sick or whatever doesnt change any conditions of the sale or whoever contacts whoever.

if the seller wants out he can just not sign but then the buyer can sue for the sale. but most times a judge wont force someone to sell something as there isnt usually a provable damage to the buyer.

The seller wants out.

We believe he's finally resigned to the fact he cannot get out of the contract. The buyer and his agent are going to sue him if he doesn't go through with it.

So the seller has now given the title company all they need to finish the transaction.

I've decided to take on the dock. The middle beams holding everything up are in bad shape. One is cracked all the way through and the other is bowing very badly. My neighbor has offered to help me shore those up but that's a really short term solution as there are many rotted areas.

One of the posts is pretty shot as well.

My plan is to take the railings off and some of the decking to see what is going on underneath.

My hope is that i can keep the pilings and just replace support beams as necessary. The decking will have to be replaced as well.

If i hire someone im figuring around 20 grand, maybe more. I'm going to try myself. What's the worst that could happen?

I started demo yesterday.

I took a few planks off and a lot of the stringers look pretty good. However, I'm concerned about the support beams that are bolted to the pilings. The bolts look pretty corroded. I think i might bite the bullet an take the whole dock apart and put new bolts in. We'll see.

One interesting thing. The decking is 2x6. Thats pretty heavy. I won't go that thick.

I got the railing off one side. It was pretty tedious. But I like to remove all nails and screws before i stack it. I might decide to reuse some of it.

They managed to use every type of fastener available. Phillips screws mixed with star head screws. Nails, lag screws, and bolts. Im constantly grabbing a different tool.

I don't know what they were thinking on the walkway. There is a second decked walkway under the existing one. Hopefully the picture can show this.

20 grand for a dock itt. My first house, a block from Barton Springs, cost less. (late 70s lol)

Has the weather cooled off any, or are you out there in the heat?

From how I read the RE post, it sounds like things are back on the rails with Mrs. Boat's miserable old bastard client? Maybe she'll get the worst out of the way first time.

On the dock, you seem pretty handy and knowledgeable, you can do this.

It's a little cooler but still warm. I kinda need it to stay that way because I'll eventually have to be in the water to work on this.

The cost of materials is absolutely ridiculous now.

Yeah, I think he's finally gone to the last stage of grief, acceptance.

I think I can do this, but man oh man, it's getting a lot harder to do as I age.

Finished up removing the railing. The posts still standing are bolted on so I'll have to get in the water to get them off.

Speaking of water, part of the challenge is to not drop stuff in. I've had to fish a few boards out, but so far i haven't had to go in the water yet. I dropped a screw bit but no tools yet. I'll get the bit later. I know where it landed.

I took a pic of some of the hardware holding things together. I would estimate about half of the screws I tried to remove have just disintegrated.

Does galvanized hardware fare better in salt air/water?

At least you only found one nail. Good luck, interested to hear how this progresses.

you cant use galvanized if its going into pressure treated wood. you need special coated screws and bolts. unless you go at least 1/2 inch.

galvanized will do fine in regular wood even in salty conditions. they all have a shelf life in bad salt.

and you want two by's if your walkway if 4 foot unless you have a center support.

i would go down to the metal supports and do what they did for the first course. if thats not metal you really need to tear it all out at least anything with rot.
but that goes later on and you cant get to it.

if you want to go cheap just scab on new supports and put new boards on top replacing the punky ones. that will get you a decent amount of years.

pay now or pay later

We'll see. I hope to take most of the decking off today so I can get a better look at everything.

Ha. There are so many nails it's not funny. They have obviously just added more fasteners to existing problems as bandaids. One of the railing posts had a lag bolt, a lag screw, 2 regular screws, and 8 nails holding it to the dock.

Well, at least it's easy for you to improve the situation by doing it right(er).

Reminds me of my neighbor. Dog pushes on gate, knocks off a few slats, and escapes. Can't figure out why he's out there a few times/year nailing on new slats.

i do suggest two buys for decking unless you use trex or something like it. one buys rot out too fast and you end up not saving any money anyway as installing them with the extra stringer and screws negates much of that.

For a second there, I thought you were suggesting he buy twice as much decking as he needed. Presumably for replacements after the inevitable rotting.