The on-going chronicle of all things related to the George and Laura Roediger House (c. 1905) in the historic Holly Avenue Neighborhood of downtown Winston-Salem, NC. More info and pictures can be found at RoedigerHouse.com. [Mobile users: CLICK TO SEARCH the blog.]
Dateline: Wed 29 July. Wednesday nights are for hanging out with longtime compatriot Amy, but as July was ending the City had a catastrophic water main break that left us without water most of the day. That squeezed the meal prep window once service was restored and I figured out how it could happen even if the water was still scarce: Madeira mushrooms and Swiss cheese on grilled juicy burgers. With chips, of course!
A few features of homeownership will now get their turn among the updates on all things Roediger House, in part because they occurred so close to one another. Well, that and the fact that the blog is very much my record-keeping chronicle to help me track the events of homeownership.
While doing laundry back on March 6, I tossed the second load of the morning into the dryer and tried to crank it up but the drum failed to start turning. The washer and dryer are pretty good machines and have held up well, given that I got them in March of 2007. So, when the dryer took a turn toward the inoperable, those damp clothes then found themselves draped over all the kitchen table chairs and on the generous spread of stair railing that this old house boasts, because I was headed to Virginia the following week and there was no time to get it repaired.
Of course, the first service I called and scheduled did not show up the following Wednesday. The second company I called does not work on LG appliances. So I had to make a smarter choice and call Affordable Appliance Service and get on Mr. Rod Cory’s agenda...while working around more travel.
Mr. Cory came first thing back on March 19, diagnosed quickly that the belt had broken, and he also gave the whole dryer a much needed cleaning and tune-up. He was excellent and I’ll be happy to have him to call on again when the need arises.
The other recent service call involved plumbing. For a year or more, the main kitchen sink faucet has been swinging fairly freely because its securing nut was corroded over but was also loose. Delta had sent me a lifetime guarantee replacement, but only after they’d first told me my damage was not covered and I’d bought another one myself.
There was also a leak in the water supply lines under the wet bar sink, so that also got addressed.
Finally: with all the toilets having reached the ripe old age of 17 or 18, I wanted their innards evaluated and, where necessary, replaced. A couple of them get a little cantankerous (yes, that’s a pun) when there is a heavy presence of guests (or a houseful of amazing UNCSA film students!). I wanted them back on their game for when nature calls your name.
They also flushed the hot water heater tanks and, for the upstairs unit, that’s its first time since it was installed, so it was definitely overdue.
And since this is 2026, and not 1976, an appointment for service is not a guarantee that the service provider will follow through. It took two weeks to get the dryer fixed because of the no-call/no-show by the first appliance repair I contacted. But were you hoping the plumber would be better? Nah. That appointment was made about a week-and-a-half in advance, and two minutes after the scheduled time, as I waited outside in the morning chill to greet the plumber, I was informed nobody was coming. So that got pushed back another week.
I find it interesting that I’m supposed to understand that these things happen—that a technician might fall ill or have a sick child—but the plumbing company itself then acts like this never happens, because they have no back-up plan to manage it. I don’t think the one who runs the business is supposed to have no system in place for what the customer is supposed to accept as a matter of course.
Sometimes this is a blog, and sometimes this is an extended whine. But I can’t help but conclude that what service providers would like to pretend is a fluke begins to feel an awful lot like a philosophy.
Side note: while I very much want to patronize local businesses, that’s becoming increasingly impossible. Is there such a thing as a local business anymore?
After changing pest control companies after my long-time provider was bought by a UK global corporation, I just got word that my “new” pest control was acquired in late 2025 by Lookout Pest Control of Georgia, which owns a lot of local businesses like Ray’s. And Lookout Pest Control is a “portfolio company” of the private equity firm Percheron Capital of San Francisco and New York.
PF Plumbing was founded in 1985 by Paul Freer, but in 2023, the company was acquired (in whole or in part?) by Hidden Harbor Capital Partners and its large corporate entity Air Conditioning Specialists of Georgia. Is that in any way noted or prominent on the PF Plumbing website? Of course not, but if you click on their “Privacy Policy” link, you’ll find yourself magically transported to an ACS page.
Even my love-hate relationship with long-time HVAC provider Webb Heating & Air Conditioning appears to have begun the courtship and dance with being subsumed by a much larger entity: Turnpoint Services, which itself is owned by OMERS (originally, Ontario Municipal Employees' Retirement System) Private Equity of Ontario, Canada.
From November 27 past the middle of December, our area underwent a prolonged unseasonal chill, with below-average temperatures every single day, save maybe one. It reached its nadir in the wee hours of December 15, when the house weather station recorded a low of 14°F. That’s certainly inhospitable, but the injury added to the insult was that the front of the house got down to 56°F, even though last February I had a completely new HVAC system installed.
When the tech from Webb Heading & Air Conditioning came out that Monday morning, his all-too-speedy verdict was that the filters on the new system (which were supposed to be good for 6 months; they’d been installed in August) were blocked by...candle soot.
This has long been a candle-burning household but this is also a house that’s almost 5000 square feet. I am having trouble wrapping my mind around two or three candles burning several days a week bringing my system to its knees in about three months.
But apparently that’s the price of progress, when looked at a certain way: advances in filtering technology mean a whole lot of stuff you don’t want blowing around your house, or passing through your system, might also include some trade-offs. The comfort specialist who did the original design of the new system and the service manager from Webb Heating & Air Conditioning came out just before Christmas and worked me through the options for striking a better balance on maintaining the system’s integrity and functionality while also living a normal warm-scented life in a candle-loving household.
We’ll have to experiment with less efficient filters and I’ll need to look at how to manage their cost better, but I appreciated the cooperation and collaboration to figure out how the dilemma could be navigated.
Among the to-do items that recently got to-done was getting and setting up a dehumidifier for the cellar. And what a workhorse it has been, pulling a stunning amount of water from the air down there, which initially required me to empty its bucket three or more times a day. A better solution was going to be essential.
When I bought the Roediger House in 2003, I was still going to the laundromat and didn’t get around to buying a washer and dryer until 2006 or 2007. Following the example of the previous owners, these were installed in the cellar, where a drain line allowed for the exiting washer water. (Once the kitchen addition was completed in 2009, those appliances were moved up to the new laundry room.)
There was also a disused sump pump in a mortared bowl on the floor, also tied into that drain line. I’d never cleaned and tested it but often wished it worked...especially when I was shop-vac’ing the water that had seeped in if we’d had a particularly heavy rainfall.
That’s how I came to rig a water pump to a garden hose...
...that I routed out across the cellar and through the crawlspace to a foundation vent...
...to empty into one of the yard drains I installed (from my marvelous Quarantine Jar Task List!).
When the new HVAC system was installed at the start of the year, I’d taken to heart the service techs’ recommendations about lowering the humidity so that the equipment would undergo less strain. I’d worn out at least one condensate pump with the old system, plus I’ve got plenty of things stored in the cellar that don’t need to be quite so moist all the time! (There is also such a thing as mold, mind you.) And while the original set-up for the downstairs HVAC system had the condensate pump draining into that cellar line, new codes required that it instead be routed and drained outside into the yard.
Which brings me back to the new dehumidifier and the need for a manageable drain system that took advantage of what was already in place. In my mind was a scheme to extend the drain line, rebuild the P-trap with fresh components, and install hose connections for more secure and leak-free water removal.
The measuring, cutting, assembling, and cementing got completed just as we hit the middle of August.
I’d ordered a utility table to elevate the dehumidifier so that gravity could work its magic, and once the new lines had cured for a couple of days, I hooked it all up and waited for clues as to the success or failure of my amateur shenanigans.
The final report? So far, so good.
Above you can see the television upgrade that sits in daunting repose on that terrific entertainment center my good friend and UNC suitemate Ronnie built for us.
That rascal looks huge and hulking to me, in all its svelte thinness (when viewed from the side). But it’s sort of a monstrosity, as I consider what it looked like as the delivery guys brought it in, and then as it sat waiting to be unboxed and set up.
The visiting crew from Oklahoma talked us into upgrading to Apple TV for managing our streaming as well. After two Amazon Firesticks that never met expectations, and with which we could never get the audio to sync, this was an overdue reckoning.
While I find it pretty troubling how short might be the lifespan of major electronics, and knowing we might have limped along another year or so or more with our current LG OLED TV, its screen had developed some annoying green line burn-ins and some major green splotching across multiple areas that did not seem to be remediable. Costco happened to have a nice price on this model with a larger screen (83 in) for less than I’d previously shelled out back in 2018 for the departing model (55 in), and a summer special on Costco Direct added mightily to the savings.
I have to say: I would love for this to be the last TV I have to buy, but that’s a ridiculous wish. I definitely can’t imagine thinking any larger than this would ever be needed even in the generous spaces of the mancave. (And yes: it's diagonal measurement lets me pay title tribute to my high school graduation year.) Just having to dispose of all the styrofoam might be a sufficient disincentive!
But the three hours it took once it was plugged in and turned on to properly log in, to load all the apps, to sign in to all the streaming services, to manage Smart connectivity, to go in and out of menu options and settings and aborted configurations, to get booted out of the LG app every time it told me to connect to some other app’s features (and then to have to start all over again)...to have inexplicable “unverified errors” even from the Apple TV set-up...
It was one of those evening’s to regret that I mostly have given up drinking.
The first mowing of the season finally took place last Sunday afternoon. I’ve not gotten to spread seed nor fertilizer so it was spottily overgrown and I’ve got too many weeds trying to get a foothold. Ah, but I do like it when it is freshly shorn.
A second chore that day was blowing all the spring tree detritus off the driveway and into a scoopable pile for disposal. It’s not hard work but it does take time.
There was one other major chore but here comes the backstory. A bit down on his luck, held back by a drinking problem that might be marked more by surrender than battle, a former neighbor’s need of water for his problem-plagued station wagon was instrumental in leaving the outside faucet running after he filled up his jug. That is why I also got to spend Sunday afternoon running the shop vac to get rid of the flooding in the cellar during our short record-breaking April heatwave. Hey: at least my pumping situation still worked like a charm because otherwise that would have been a lot of buckets to tote sloshily up the stairs and out the back!
Water in the cellar: not guaranteed with every rain or snow system, but a recurring issue nonetheless: see 2010, 2013, 2020, and 2024. The dilemma usually is not manmade, though!
Oh, this winter, with its persistent sub-normal temps! While this season of chill and dark still rages, the misery of a failing HVAC system finally reached its concluding chapter. With no heat at all downstairs during Presidents’ Day week, the main hallway hit a low of 52°F overnight on Tuesday; above you can see the condensation on the inside of the kitchen windows from the previous Saturday morning.
I was at last able to accept that no other course of action but a full replacement of the HVAC system was available to me. The extended period of time that it has been undependable, with the added expense of regular service calls and a handful of replaced blower motors, compounded on top of all the moments of angst and worry that it would be in failing mode for an event or gathering or special occasion, or when friends might be here to stay: it was a contract that had to be signed.
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| Out with the old... |
With the good news that an appointment opened up a couple of days earlier than scheduled, the install team from Webb Heating & Air Conditioning was at the house bright and early last Tuesday morning. It was an all-day job, of course, and they were not finished until well into dinnertime. A new hybrid furnace and air handler, a new heat pump outside, a couple of snazzy smart new thermostats, plus two new carbon monoxide detectors outside the bedrooms: consider the Roediger House upgraded now!
That evening, the kitchen zone rebounded quickly and was once more comfortable. I was so glad to be back to my joyful labors in that happy place. The front of the house, and the original old drafty rooms, took longer...but it too is once more habitable.
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| ...in with the new! |
Here is what I cannot reconcile, though (and this is where you can stop reading if you’ve even come this far; I’m going to vent a bit...and yes: that’s an intentional pun):
The ongoing succession of problems that have necessitated call after call to the HVAC techs has resulted in a trip charge each time (wasn’t that charge originally imposed because of high gas prices, which are no longer so high?), plus whatever additional labor or parts go along with it. Even though the multiple blower motors blowing out was an issue well before the system had that much age on it, Webb Heating & Air Conditioning never really diagnosed its source and therefore never determined a remedy. I did what they asked, for instance, and had electricians evaluate it for power spikes; we recently installed a surge protector as well.
I repeatedly paid them to come and get the heat or A/C working again without the issue ever being resolved. The last occasion, the tech didn’t even test both zones...I came home to find he pronounced the system working without ever turning on the kitchen zone. Of course, it didn’t work. But I sure got a bill for $152. I’m glad my long-stored DēLonghi space heater could be cleaned up from 15 years of cellar dust and that it was up to the job of warming the master bathroom (and then even the huge kitchen space!).
Over these last couple of years, the entrenched verdict was that I can’t expect a system that old to be fixable and the problem could not be solved until I bought a new one. That’s the advice I was finally willing to take: that to have a dependable HVAC system, I would replace the old one. I acted on their advice and then chose from among their recommendations, because Webb had made clear that was the only dependable way to restore service.
The evening after installation, while the front zone labored in the old drafty part of the house to overcome the low 50s temps to get back up to the target of 67°F, the rear kitchen zone shot past its thermostat setting. The kitchen got up to 73°F and still heat was blowing through the registers.
So I sent a nice note to Webb indicating that this seemed to be a hindrance to considering the installation process finished and asked for them to come check it. “But the install did not involve anything to do with the zone dampers,” I was told, as if all the ductwork cutting and refitting could not possibly have had any effect at all on the components adjacent to the work zone.
(Cleaning up their workspace on the driveway where I park my cars was definitely a part of the install job they did not do.)
The instantaneous instinct to set up a revenue opportunity, that trumps the “service” part of HVAC service, is galling. It’s the height of irony for the people who keep charging me for doing nothing keep looking at me as if I’m demanding something for nothing. The right attitude would be: “Let’s look at it and see what the problem might be, and maybe it’ll be our responsibility or maybe it will be yours.” But no: before even examining the system, the folks from Webb made clear that it was impossible for the problem to be connected in any way to the installation that was supposed to be the only way to resolve the system’s problems.
Perhaps it is my own fault for sticking with a company that includes “gremlins” “wood sprites” amongst its shoulder-shrugging tech diagnoses. After all the times I have paid Webb to leave the problems in my system undiagnosed and unremediated, after replacing blower motor after blower motor before I could even get them to break one down to see if they could learn why I had that repeated issue, after these last few months when techs would come and restart the system and charge me to say: “We don’t know why it stopped working”...it seems to me that they might entertain that the installation of a whole new system in the cellar might have jiggled the zone damper portion enough to say: “We care about customer service and satisfaction enough to make this right.”
Or, perhaps Mr. Webb is another company magnate who thinks I have too much money, and he doesn’t have enough.
The rosier ending to the story is this: the install manager was dispatched the following day (ahead of our small snow event!) and he began with that same oppositional stance. But then he examined the zone damper, determined the actuator motor is failing, and replaced it without adding charges beyond the parts. Is this the first time a member of the Webb team acted with consideration for how they have regularly charged me full price while delivering substantially less than resolution? As a homeowner, I know that Webb is likely as good as I’ll be able to get, and I really have liked the guys who’ve been on the job here...but I’d like to not have to work so hard at helping the company be better than they are.
