PSA: Cold Snap This/Next Week

Will you be redoing it with PEX? Stuff is easy to install, doesn’t burst when it freezes and comes in two versions for Hot and Cold water lines.

1 Like

We just got PEX in our attic today. :crossed_fingers: for next time this happens.

Most probably.

I just wanted to second @coloneldan 's experience with USAA insurance. We’ve had several claims for car and house and all went smoothly. We use the banking service as well and it’s the only “bank” that approaches our level of satisfaction with our credit unions. Anyone who meets the eligibility requirements should sign up for USAA, even if only to have them for an option.

3 Likes

Another thing we are not hearing much about yet: how many lawns have been killed by the cold?

USAA says they also service the children of veterans. My father does not patronize them. I do not know whether has had a bad experience with them or he just refuses to join an “auto club.”

Can my siblings and I get USAA or does Dad have to be a customer first?

As long as the serving Vet is alive, you should qualify. (Had a friend try join after father died, then it was too late. But once in, you’re in. My sister joined based on father) All I can say is it is not very common to have someone say they had bad experience with USAA.

Last year because of Covid, driving was down, the amount people drove impact USAA’s losses which dropped significantly, I got three credits towards my auto insurance probably equal to 25% of the premium. That excludes money I got back on my subscriber’s account and a senior member (meaning I’ve been with them 40 years - that was another 30%).

When you join USAA they create a Subscriber’s account. At the end of the year, they look at total losses and then give back anything not needed. They deposit that into the subscriber’s account each year until it gets to a certain level, then you’ll actually start getting a check or credit against premiums for the excess.

This is how they fund their reserve requirements. You can’t withdraw it until you either leave USAA or in most cases … pays to your estate since few members leave. So the early years that account builds. Rates are very competitive without the subscriber’s account. But if you stay with them it pays. But it is the service and claims processing that impresses people. As you’ve heard people speak up.

Give them a call: USAA.com

2 Likes

I’ve had a bad experience with USAA, but it’s because they let me sign up as a non-vet for an account and then everything I could do with the account was locked down because I wasn’t a vet and am not related to a vet.

I had a bank account with them, and they didn’t have any banks in my area obviously. I specifically picked them because they had a workflow for depositing checks by phone (it was back in 2011 when that wasn’t common). I got all the stuff set up with them, installed the app on my phone, and it wouldn’t let me upload checks. Had a couple hour long phone with their tech support about it where they tried to blame it on me for OS versions, android vs iOS etc, and then at the end they said, oh. You’re not a vet, sorry that’s a vet only feature.

Otherwise it was a fine account, good rates/interest etc. The debit card was functional, all the normal bank things, but it just seemed silly that I was some sort of sub-customer class even though I was a customer.

Was this for financial services or for insurance? If insurance, I didn’t realize they let non-vets or non-related join. When I joined in 1977 only commissioned and warrant officers were eligible. At some point later they opened it up to all ranks.

One thing that folks on Active Duty like is they are really good at handling moves and such especially when overseas - just over them phone. I did banking with them for years, switched when I started working for a bank (kind of frowned upon).

Just financial services for me, insurance was one of the things they kept advertising to me in the banking portal but when you looked into the details another vet-only service that I wasn’t eligible for.

I just felt like I wasn’t part of the club you know :wink:

Yeah, the Vet’s Club is something you have to be willing to die for if required. Many find the price of admission too high.

1 Like

Oh, no, I don’t want to be a member of that club, I just meant like the paying customer of the USAA club.

I feel like should either let you be a customer or not, but this weird halfway thing where I’m allowed in the building, can use the restrooms, and the vending machine, but can’t talk to the person behind the counter is just weird.

Maybe it was a compliance thing where they only could start a bank if it was open to everyone but then they just intentionally treated the customers they didn’t want to keep poorly? I dunno, it rubbed me the wrong way.

More like a credit union or the way they used to be, you had to have some affiliation in order to join. For USAA Insurance it was service.

Kinda sounds like they got some sales idiot trying to boost their customer base without considering that they were basically setting up people for a bait-and-switch type thing. I mean, you probably could have found out how much of the stuff was limited to the vets by reading the entire document. But it wasn’t stated up front.

I run into similar situations with Block. Some sales fool will come up with an ad campaign that says “you can deduct widgets!!”. And they come to me, and I say, “are your widgets in excess of $12,400?” And the answer is no, and they are disappointed.

Ugh, this is one of those random fears i have. I’m glad you seem like you are okay now. Happened to a house around the corner from me as a kid.

Out of curiosity is your house on a corner, curve or straight?

Also did they just repair the hole or did they check for other problems? I have been by that house since my childhood and it has an unbelievable amount of cracks on the outside compared to all the other houses in the neighborhood.

I remember that year. Pipes in my shower froze up. That was my first crappy apartment
a block off campus.

( B.S. Physics 1989, M.S. Physics 1993, both from ETSU. )

This time it was the pipes from the ground to the eaves of the house - for the geothermal heat pump.
Not fun. Whole house generator is in my near future.

Corner, 4-way intersection.

They checked for other structural damage, it’s nearly all back together. Long backlog for getting the three different windows that were damaged - supply chains messed up due to Covid. But nothing like plumbing shortages for water heaters and such.

You may be thinking of another house. The cracking is minimal, not visible from street, and you have have to be very close to see the hairline cracks

Time to have a couple of huge boulders dropped off in your yard.

1 Like

Ah, yeah the house when i was a kid was a 4 way stop too.

For the cracking i was referring to the one that was hit similarly when i was a kid. The cracking wasn’t noticable when i was a kid, but when i drove through 15 years later it was very noticeable.

I wasn’t referring to yours, i have no idea where you live. Hopefully when you get all the materials everything will be good.

I second the decorative boulders, or tree, whatever is allowed.