Costly upkeep

I have an infrastructure problem. No matter how well-kept my house looks, lurking beneath the surface, literally, is an infrastructure weakness that is going to be very expensive to fix.

The water line into my 100-year-old house needs to be replaced.  It doesn’t bother me much except when I am in the shower and someone flushes a toilet or turns on a faucet somewhere else in the house. Then I am in for a nasty surprise. The old line has gotten smaller over the years, and I know that it could simply fail, requiring an immediate repair, but still it is a shock to the budget to address this problem. A tunnel has to be dug beneath a stone retaining wall to replace the old pipe.

I’ve noticed on those real estate shows that infrastructure is rarely addressed. The people buying a house or making changes to sell a house never talk about the roof, the plumbing, the foundation or the wiring. When I bought my house a dozen years ago, the house inspector told me I had a water-pressure problem, but like Scarlett O’Hara, I decided to think about it tomorrow.

I spent money on paint and built-in shelving. Later I did the kitchen. All those things I could look at and appreciate. Now it is time to dig, and it is not going to be fun. My plumber assures me that I will be ecstatic about the results, but I know I could take a really nice vacation for what this is going to cost me.

The whole country is like me. We have spent all our money on the fun stuff: consumer products, bigger houses with nicer kitchens and bathrooms, electronics and cars. We have let slide road repair, bridges, water lines, levees and dams, school maintenance, upkeep of national parks and, more alarmingly, basic research that is the foundation of future innovation and economic growth. Like my water pipe, the cost is expensive and not much fun. 

We said we wanted the money in our own pockets, but individuals do not build roads or fix bridges. Our closets are full, but our pockets are empty, and deferred maintenance is all over the place.

People have always known that it is better to keep up with maintenance all along the way. It is a lot cheaper to have the roof redone before you need buckets to catch rainwater. Some auto repairs can be put off, but others are just going to cost you more if you let them go. And we have let an awful lot go.  Had we not done so, the economy would be in better shape right now. There would be fewer job loses, but when 70 percent of the economy is simply consumer goods, consumers can quit buying overnight. The same is not true of big, long-term projects like new bridges.

It is going to be painful getting out of the hole we have dug ourselves into. In the long run we will be glad we did it. So will our children. Don’t I wish the previous owners of my house had replaced that ancient water pipe! But they did not; they passed it on to me. I hope the next owners appreciate my sacrifice because a sacrifice is what it is going to be. Once the work is done, it should be good for another couple of generations.

I’ve been in houses where people had all the gadgets and gizmos, but there were cracked windows, rot under the porch and a roof that looked as though it needed to be replaced five years ago. I have been in countries where there was grass growing in the streets and everywhere you looked there was decay. I don’t want to be in either situation, but it is going to cost me. And you. Scarlett, tomorrow is here.

Patricia Hunt, of Staunton, is a chaplain at Mary Baldwin College.