It’s been awhile since I’ve mentioned how things are going with the fire claim on my parent’s house. You’ll recall that late last year my parent’s had a massive fire at their house in the middle of December and then my father passed away from a heart attack on New Years Eve. Since then, I’ve been handling all of the details for my mother to get her house rebuilt. While it’s been a lot of work, it’s also been a huge relief to work with a company like “The Hartford”. They have been amazing through the experience and our adjuster has really gone the extra mile to help my mother recover from this.
The good news is that work is steadily progressing at the house. All of the burned up contents in the garage/shop has been removed and in fact the back shop has been completely torn down. The house, which is connected to the garage, but is a separate structure was heavily smoke damaged in the fire. It has been completely cleaned and the entire house has been primed inside. All of the carpet has been removed and a bunch of the electrical system has been rewired. All of this is being covered by the insurance company. In fact, here’s a quick list of the work that the insurance company is covering:
New roof for both house and garage/shop
New sliding door in kitchen
New oven/microwave unit
New refrigerators
All new carpet inside
All new paint inside
All new paint outside
Demolition of existing fire damaged garage/shop
All new garage/shop structure
All new wiring
New furnace for garage/shop
New lighting
And everything else that was in the garage/shop
There are also things that we opted to be reimbursed for but won’t be replacing. My father had a commercial automatic glass sliding door (see pic) between the garage and shop, multiple workbenches, a car lift etc. We won’t be putting all of that back in since my father passed away. Instead, we are using that money to do some improvements in the house. Here is what we are doing to update the house:
All new windows
New tile flooring
All new doors and trim throughout the house
Extended the eaves on the house
All new bathrooms
The good news is that all of this is paid for by the money that we were paid by the insurance company for things that we aren’t replacing in the shop. It’s great to see my mom getting excited about getting back to the house. It’s been such an incredibly difficult time for her that she just wants to be home. We are hoping to get her back in the house some time this month. The garage/shop won’t be done but the house should be to the point that she can live there while the rest of the work is completed.
