Well I thought I lived in an expensive area. Looks like according to Energy Department the most expensive area to heat a house is Boston. I guess I was right. Here's an article discussing heating costs.
Yes the northeast is not colder than Minneapolis or Buffalo. However, the cost of heating using natural gas or oil is substantially higher in the northeast. So though people in New Englad use less energy to heat their homes, their bills look disproportionately larger.
Another factor is that in New England people heat using inefficient oil. But it's very expensive to update a house and install a natural gas system. I'm fortunate in that I have a natural gas furnance and just installed a gas fireplace insert. Unfortunately I still live in an area where it costs 40 cents more a therm for natural gas heating than Minneapolis.
Hence why I complain about my $200/month electric bills for 650 KwH a month. Yet when comapred to other people who use 2000 KwH and pay $200 as well. So I'm using a lot less electricity for a the same amount of money. And why I try to buy the most energy efficient solutions because in the long term they will pay off for me.
We leave our house at 60 when not home and usually 65 when home. This year we can finally heat the bottom floor to 65! Before we left it at 50 because that's what the furnance in the ATTIC would get it too! It would struggle to push heat down 3 stories.
Right now DH is tracking our heat pumps, new fireplace, and regular furnance. We have some baseline readings but we've only done about 2 weeks. We really need the cold weather to kick in and a longer period, maybe a month before we make a determination. I'll post when we figure out our efficiency more.
Showing posts with label Home maintenance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Home maintenance. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Friday, October 05, 2007
DIY versus paying someone...
Most people would say that doing it yourself saves you a lot of money. And in general I agree. But at what point do you stop and hire someone? We've done a lot of home repair, definitely more than average and I know my DH is handy. His family did pretty much all DIY. Unfortunately they learned the hard way that you occasionally should just pay someone to do the work around the house.
For example, our condo undertook building a backyard retaining wall. Beautiful, cheap, and relatively easy. Our share was $2k, great considering the additional value. However, we also need to repair the retaining wall holding up our parking pad. That is a much larger, more labor intensive job using special tools, not just hand. Could we have undertaken rebuilding it ourselves? Yes, but the scope of the project definitely made it worth hiring not only an contractor but engineer to certify the wall.
Another example of DIY not winning out is cleaning our gutters. One of our neighbors mentioned saving $150 it costs to clean our gutter by doing it himself. We nixed the idea when because we have a 5 story house and if he fell down, he'd die. Sure we'd have insurance, but there are some cases where it's better to hire a licensed/bonded professional who can accept the risk of falling off a roof. Besides the point that they are less likely to fall off the roof because they are an experience professional.
I guess the question is how to measure when a job even a small job is worth paying for because of risk, and a larger scope job is worth investing the time to do.
For example, our condo undertook building a backyard retaining wall. Beautiful, cheap, and relatively easy. Our share was $2k, great considering the additional value. However, we also need to repair the retaining wall holding up our parking pad. That is a much larger, more labor intensive job using special tools, not just hand. Could we have undertaken rebuilding it ourselves? Yes, but the scope of the project definitely made it worth hiring not only an contractor but engineer to certify the wall.
Another example of DIY not winning out is cleaning our gutters. One of our neighbors mentioned saving $150 it costs to clean our gutter by doing it himself. We nixed the idea when because we have a 5 story house and if he fell down, he'd die. Sure we'd have insurance, but there are some cases where it's better to hire a licensed/bonded professional who can accept the risk of falling off a roof. Besides the point that they are less likely to fall off the roof because they are an experience professional.
I guess the question is how to measure when a job even a small job is worth paying for because of risk, and a larger scope job is worth investing the time to do.
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Bathroom Issue...
Sigh, I'm getting really tired of our developer. So many things happened where she shortcut problems. So we're going to have to discuss with our lawyer more issues which have cropped up. And no you cannot find this out with a home inspection unless you are prying tiles away from a shower. Also you cannot predict that when someone says they will pay for things to be repaired in a written contract that they will try to not pay. Most people do not practice those types of business skills.
Our master bathroom the tiles are coming off the walls in the shower stall. This is because it was probably improperly constructed. Having been a new renovation in a former attic which was dormed, the bathroom is brandnew. The shower stall is made of marble tiles, which unfortunately were glued to sheetrock. Yikes. The developer/contractor should have used concrete or baseboard. Second mastik glue was used to attach the tiles instead of thin-set cement. However neither of these can be told from an home inspection unless you pry the tiles off the wall which is unlikely when they are in good condition. But after a few years the glue wears away and the sheetrock disintergrates, leaving a non-waterproof shower.
So basically the developer built a shower which disintergrates with water. Of course we called contractors and building inspector and was told it was improperly built and now we have to go and ask the developer for more money. If I weren't already asking for our money from the retaining wall I think I'd not do it, but at this rate, what does it matter? We're already having to get money out of her for our parking pad retaining wall (also in our sale contract), but she refuses to pay until all reciepts are tallied and she sees the final reciept.
The developer is infamous where we live for going to court and losing because she doesn't like to pay contractors. More than one contractor has filed suit against her. And yes she's very, very rich.
The cost of repairing this shower is probably around $2500-3000. One part which varies the price and is a bone of contention between DH and I is whether to replace the marble tiles with marble or with porcelain. DH wants porcelain because it's easier to clean. I want marble because of resale value. I don't want to care for the marble and would prefer porcelain but I'm not sure it's a good financial decision. I suppose we'll be tossing it to a RE agent.
Right now as it stands with our fireplace, I won the argument about keeping our original mantle when over 5 contractors and fireplace installers said to keep the original mantle. DH hates it wanted to tear it out, I said no. I don't think it's lovely or anything but it's value is in the resale. Sometimes home maintenance is not worth the hassle.
Our master bathroom the tiles are coming off the walls in the shower stall. This is because it was probably improperly constructed. Having been a new renovation in a former attic which was dormed, the bathroom is brandnew. The shower stall is made of marble tiles, which unfortunately were glued to sheetrock. Yikes. The developer/contractor should have used concrete or baseboard. Second mastik glue was used to attach the tiles instead of thin-set cement. However neither of these can be told from an home inspection unless you pry the tiles off the wall which is unlikely when they are in good condition. But after a few years the glue wears away and the sheetrock disintergrates, leaving a non-waterproof shower.
So basically the developer built a shower which disintergrates with water. Of course we called contractors and building inspector and was told it was improperly built and now we have to go and ask the developer for more money. If I weren't already asking for our money from the retaining wall I think I'd not do it, but at this rate, what does it matter? We're already having to get money out of her for our parking pad retaining wall (also in our sale contract), but she refuses to pay until all reciepts are tallied and she sees the final reciept.
The developer is infamous where we live for going to court and losing because she doesn't like to pay contractors. More than one contractor has filed suit against her. And yes she's very, very rich.
The cost of repairing this shower is probably around $2500-3000. One part which varies the price and is a bone of contention between DH and I is whether to replace the marble tiles with marble or with porcelain. DH wants porcelain because it's easier to clean. I want marble because of resale value. I don't want to care for the marble and would prefer porcelain but I'm not sure it's a good financial decision. I suppose we'll be tossing it to a RE agent.
Right now as it stands with our fireplace, I won the argument about keeping our original mantle when over 5 contractors and fireplace installers said to keep the original mantle. DH hates it wanted to tear it out, I said no. I don't think it's lovely or anything but it's value is in the resale. Sometimes home maintenance is not worth the hassle.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Fortunate in Housing???
I realized the other day we really got lucky in our housing. We have a really exceptionally cheap mortgage, and with 20% DP we bought way more house than we could have afforded without a DP. The downpayment is really important I realize because it gives you the choice of selling if you need be and taking a loss if you must.
Many people are being forced to refinance or short sell but are unable to come up the cash to do so. By having equity present we can do either without too much worries. Why am I bringing this up?
Well our two neighbors had a complete meltdown Wednesday night, where a screaming match ensued betwween them. Fortunately we were not present although we received irate phone calls late at night from them about the other one. But they are no longer talking with each other. They are only communicating through us and they are becoming very nitpicky.
So DH says to me, let's move. Eat the loss and leave. We're losing control of our situation fast. Our neighbors are just making our lives misery, but our house is nice. When you buy a condo you never know who your neighbors will be. In a house at least you can avoid them and threaten to shoot if they step into your yard. In condo well there's no escape.
I don't think we can afford to move however. We will have a terrible time renting with two dogs and buying another place would again have to be a condo. So my vote is no we're not moving, we're sticking it out no matter how miserable they make us. I may have to grouse about it for the next two years. This is my only outlet for venting because I can't yell at my neighbors about how stupid they are.
Plus we have a phenomenal deal on our condo. We pay $2263/month mortgage with $650 going to principal. So $1600 is interest, with 25% being tax deductible because of our bracket. So in essence we're renting for $1200. Then add in our property taxes, HOA, and insurance and we're paying $425 property taxes, $25 insurance, $200 HOA. So every month were renting our place for $2250, with $500/month tax break for PITI. That means we're renting it for $1750 for a 3 bedroom townhouse. This does not include repair and maintenance of course.
However DH best friend has looked recently at renting 2 bd apartments for $1600-2000/month so I think we're ahead of the deal. Our rent for a 3 bd that we can have two dogs in is $1750. It's not apples to apples because we have to upkeep the condo. But a lot of places he's looked at are older and their furnances are inefficient so the heating bills cost more than ours for a smaller 2 bd apartment instead of a 3 bedroom townhouse Also their windows are older, and in general the appliances are older. Also most places don't have an in apartment washer/dryer/dishwasher. So we have a lot of bonus comforts.
I don't count principal paydown because hypothetically we should be saving that money even if we were renting, not using it to eat out and stuff. But $1750/month to "rent" our place is too good to pass up. Hence I feel super fortunate in housing. DH is just going to have to play mediator and we're going to try to hide from our neighbors. One day we're going to be kings of our kingdom and no one will ever bother us again.
Also as a sidenote, DH's friend might be living with us indefinitely. But I feel it's okay and good karma. He's helped us out in the past and now we're returning the favor. Plus it's good karma to return the favor. He's paying rent and helping out around the house, and very clean. He does the dishes, does his bathroom, vaccums, and will help reseal the deck, finish the backyard, and work on the painting. In exchange he was thrown over by the girl he was moving in with so now he's considering buying a condo. But the catch is it's a wait-list till next year and by living with us he's not trapped in a lease. And we feel we're going to help him get ahead so he can buy a place.
When we first bought a condo in 2002, he loaned us money because we needed more than we expected, $2k actually because our earnest money check cleared but the mortgage company lost it, and the money was already gone from our checking account to cyberspace. Good karma and now I hope he can buy a place too. I feel better because he's paying rent and at the same time potentially going to be able to buy with our help and has a plan! Plus we don't require a deposit or lease and the money he gives us is just a bonus. It's below market value but whatever. He's a good person and if he buys this place it will be an awesome way for him to get a foothold in the housing market.
Many people are being forced to refinance or short sell but are unable to come up the cash to do so. By having equity present we can do either without too much worries. Why am I bringing this up?
Well our two neighbors had a complete meltdown Wednesday night, where a screaming match ensued betwween them. Fortunately we were not present although we received irate phone calls late at night from them about the other one. But they are no longer talking with each other. They are only communicating through us and they are becoming very nitpicky.
So DH says to me, let's move. Eat the loss and leave. We're losing control of our situation fast. Our neighbors are just making our lives misery, but our house is nice. When you buy a condo you never know who your neighbors will be. In a house at least you can avoid them and threaten to shoot if they step into your yard. In condo well there's no escape.
I don't think we can afford to move however. We will have a terrible time renting with two dogs and buying another place would again have to be a condo. So my vote is no we're not moving, we're sticking it out no matter how miserable they make us. I may have to grouse about it for the next two years. This is my only outlet for venting because I can't yell at my neighbors about how stupid they are.
Plus we have a phenomenal deal on our condo. We pay $2263/month mortgage with $650 going to principal. So $1600 is interest, with 25% being tax deductible because of our bracket. So in essence we're renting for $1200. Then add in our property taxes, HOA, and insurance and we're paying $425 property taxes, $25 insurance, $200 HOA. So every month were renting our place for $2250, with $500/month tax break for PITI. That means we're renting it for $1750 for a 3 bedroom townhouse. This does not include repair and maintenance of course.
However DH best friend has looked recently at renting 2 bd apartments for $1600-2000/month so I think we're ahead of the deal. Our rent for a 3 bd that we can have two dogs in is $1750. It's not apples to apples because we have to upkeep the condo. But a lot of places he's looked at are older and their furnances are inefficient so the heating bills cost more than ours for a smaller 2 bd apartment instead of a 3 bedroom townhouse Also their windows are older, and in general the appliances are older. Also most places don't have an in apartment washer/dryer/dishwasher. So we have a lot of bonus comforts.
I don't count principal paydown because hypothetically we should be saving that money even if we were renting, not using it to eat out and stuff. But $1750/month to "rent" our place is too good to pass up. Hence I feel super fortunate in housing. DH is just going to have to play mediator and we're going to try to hide from our neighbors. One day we're going to be kings of our kingdom and no one will ever bother us again.
Also as a sidenote, DH's friend might be living with us indefinitely. But I feel it's okay and good karma. He's helped us out in the past and now we're returning the favor. Plus it's good karma to return the favor. He's paying rent and helping out around the house, and very clean. He does the dishes, does his bathroom, vaccums, and will help reseal the deck, finish the backyard, and work on the painting. In exchange he was thrown over by the girl he was moving in with so now he's considering buying a condo. But the catch is it's a wait-list till next year and by living with us he's not trapped in a lease. And we feel we're going to help him get ahead so he can buy a place.
When we first bought a condo in 2002, he loaned us money because we needed more than we expected, $2k actually because our earnest money check cleared but the mortgage company lost it, and the money was already gone from our checking account to cyberspace. Good karma and now I hope he can buy a place too. I feel better because he's paying rent and at the same time potentially going to be able to buy with our help and has a plan! Plus we don't require a deposit or lease and the money he gives us is just a bonus. It's below market value but whatever. He's a good person and if he buys this place it will be an awesome way for him to get a foothold in the housing market.
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Unexpected home maintenance
So we are installing our gas fireplace. However the plumber is unable to tell where the gas line is (because we are a condo), hence he'd have to cut a 12" x 12" hole in the wall to check. I mentioned we were considering tearing out the mantle to either rehab it or replace it because the wall was buckling.
The wall the mantle is attached we assumed, incorrectly of course, that it was plaster chipping. Nope. We took off the top piece of the mantle, look inside the wall and determined that the drywall is coming off the studs. Eek!
Because we haven't taken off the whole piece we don't know if something is wrong with the studs or if it's just the drywall pulling off. Hence now we are going to have to get a quote for rehanging the drywall. We are considering doing this ourselves, which we've done before, however DH is worried because this drywall is easily pre-WWII. So we might open up the wall and see things we're not expecting because of the age of the house.
Hence, I am going to get a quote about the rehanging the drywall. I might rehab the fireplace because it does match our mouldings, but DH refuses. He doesn't understand why you would want to save an old mantle painted over 20 times. But we live in an area where people want the charm of an old mantle. Ugh, this is going to take a professional telling him what I'm saying for him to listen. That should happen on Thursday when the fireplace guy comes in to examine the mantle and determine if we should rehab or replace it.
This repair is absolutely necessary. We can't have our pipes burst again from the cold because of inadequate heating of our bottom floor. We left the furnance on to heat to 50, but because it has to pipe down 4 stories (attic to third floor), it was working 100% of the time and still having trouble heating to just 50 on the bottom floor. We also used space heaters but it did not help. Thus we feel our only alternative is to install a gas fireplace and attempt to heat the bottom floor as a mini-furnance (though it's radiant heat). It's better than nothing.
We didn't realize this was such a huge problem. Cost will probably be I'm guessing 2x what I budgeted of $4k. So hopefully we can get away with it costing $8k?
The wall the mantle is attached we assumed, incorrectly of course, that it was plaster chipping. Nope. We took off the top piece of the mantle, look inside the wall and determined that the drywall is coming off the studs. Eek!
Because we haven't taken off the whole piece we don't know if something is wrong with the studs or if it's just the drywall pulling off. Hence now we are going to have to get a quote for rehanging the drywall. We are considering doing this ourselves, which we've done before, however DH is worried because this drywall is easily pre-WWII. So we might open up the wall and see things we're not expecting because of the age of the house.
Hence, I am going to get a quote about the rehanging the drywall. I might rehab the fireplace because it does match our mouldings, but DH refuses. He doesn't understand why you would want to save an old mantle painted over 20 times. But we live in an area where people want the charm of an old mantle. Ugh, this is going to take a professional telling him what I'm saying for him to listen. That should happen on Thursday when the fireplace guy comes in to examine the mantle and determine if we should rehab or replace it.
This repair is absolutely necessary. We can't have our pipes burst again from the cold because of inadequate heating of our bottom floor. We left the furnance on to heat to 50, but because it has to pipe down 4 stories (attic to third floor), it was working 100% of the time and still having trouble heating to just 50 on the bottom floor. We also used space heaters but it did not help. Thus we feel our only alternative is to install a gas fireplace and attempt to heat the bottom floor as a mini-furnance (though it's radiant heat). It's better than nothing.
We didn't realize this was such a huge problem. Cost will probably be I'm guessing 2x what I budgeted of $4k. So hopefully we can get away with it costing $8k?
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Gas Fireplace insert
So the cost of the gas insert into our fireplace will be $2800 + $1000 for plumbing. But it will probably run more because we have to take off the mantle and do some demolition work.
Unfortunately the gas line is not necessarily right below our fireplace. If it was it would cost $500 to run the gas line to the fireplace. But instead again our condo is giving us headaches because we can't figure out where our gas lines are. I do realize that we will not really be saving a ton of money by doing this, but I do feel we will more efficiently heat our home. Also we will be able to heat our bottom floor to a reasonable temperature during the winter instead of 50F. Even at 50F we have space heaters going to help the furnance.
Another small financially issue is that running water lines to the backyard from the crawl space could be a problem. Because of the construction of the third unit we apparently lost common space. Very frustrating.
And tonight we need to get moving forward on our retaining wall. So all in all our house is costing us a fortune. arrgh. I wish I had a single family so all the cost would be ours sure, but we'd be kings and not have to wrestle with neighbors agreeing to do the work!.
Unfortunately the gas line is not necessarily right below our fireplace. If it was it would cost $500 to run the gas line to the fireplace. But instead again our condo is giving us headaches because we can't figure out where our gas lines are. I do realize that we will not really be saving a ton of money by doing this, but I do feel we will more efficiently heat our home. Also we will be able to heat our bottom floor to a reasonable temperature during the winter instead of 50F. Even at 50F we have space heaters going to help the furnance.
Another small financially issue is that running water lines to the backyard from the crawl space could be a problem. Because of the construction of the third unit we apparently lost common space. Very frustrating.
And tonight we need to get moving forward on our retaining wall. So all in all our house is costing us a fortune. arrgh. I wish I had a single family so all the cost would be ours sure, but we'd be kings and not have to wrestle with neighbors agreeing to do the work!.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Home Maintenance...
I don't think anyone should own a house who doesn't like to do home maintenance. I have to complain about this because my parents have lived in the same home for 20+ years and have not maintained it at all.
My mom blames the fact they didn't have the money, which is an untruth. Nope, my parents don't like to do home repair. They don't do it themselves, they pay someone. But they also do not like to take responsibility and call a repair person. Truth is that my parents wish a genie would appear and fix the house.
They have no idea what it means to own a house. Right now the house I grew up in has a leaking roof, a rotting pipe, tiles falling out of the bathroom, a broken window, mold, termites, etc. But do my parents care? Not really, in fact my dad says they should sell the house as-is. I get so frustrated because my parents don't care for their belongings. They enjoy buying stuff like cars/homes, but they don't bother maintaining it.
I think people need to really consider their lifestyle before buying a home. After all even if you have all the money in the world, if you do not like maintaining a home then it's not a worthwhile investment. Instead you will be living in a house you hate, not maintaining it, letting it rot. Then when it's time to sell you resent the house and the amount of work necessary to bring it up up to a reasonable standard of care.
My parents I might add are again looking at houses. They are hoping to buy another condo, in move-in ready condition. I personally think they are nutters. My mom says that we don't understand the realities of homeownership because we like taking care of our house. We enjoy home repair, not true.
She thinks that it is normal to call people to replace a lightbulb. Trust me, until I meet DH I thought that's what people did. They pay people to change light bulbs, garden, pretty much do anything. But I'm realizing that home ownership is a huge financial drain for people who refuse to view their home as an asset.
Guess people should be cautious before leaping into home purchases.
My mom blames the fact they didn't have the money, which is an untruth. Nope, my parents don't like to do home repair. They don't do it themselves, they pay someone. But they also do not like to take responsibility and call a repair person. Truth is that my parents wish a genie would appear and fix the house.
They have no idea what it means to own a house. Right now the house I grew up in has a leaking roof, a rotting pipe, tiles falling out of the bathroom, a broken window, mold, termites, etc. But do my parents care? Not really, in fact my dad says they should sell the house as-is. I get so frustrated because my parents don't care for their belongings. They enjoy buying stuff like cars/homes, but they don't bother maintaining it.
I think people need to really consider their lifestyle before buying a home. After all even if you have all the money in the world, if you do not like maintaining a home then it's not a worthwhile investment. Instead you will be living in a house you hate, not maintaining it, letting it rot. Then when it's time to sell you resent the house and the amount of work necessary to bring it up up to a reasonable standard of care.
My parents I might add are again looking at houses. They are hoping to buy another condo, in move-in ready condition. I personally think they are nutters. My mom says that we don't understand the realities of homeownership because we like taking care of our house. We enjoy home repair, not true.
She thinks that it is normal to call people to replace a lightbulb. Trust me, until I meet DH I thought that's what people did. They pay people to change light bulbs, garden, pretty much do anything. But I'm realizing that home ownership is a huge financial drain for people who refuse to view their home as an asset.
Guess people should be cautious before leaping into home purchases.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
Pellet Stove or Gas Fireplace?
We're trying to heat the bottom floor of our house more efficiently. I'm not sure which is a better way to go. Initially I thought a gas fireplace, however it was suggested to me on a frugal forum to go with a pellet stove. A family mentioned buying 4 tons of pellets for $1k and it lasting all winter.
Now that sounds like a great deal, however I'm not sure about the feasiblity of either. DH thinks the gas fireplace would be easier to install since we have a gas line for the stove. I concur. He also thinks a pellet stove might not work because it needs air to run so it would deplete the oxygen in our house and would need to vent somewhere, preferably outside. If not it would potentially lead to increased carbon monoxide in the house.
I haven't done much research but the pellet stove and a gas fireplace appear to run about the same price, especially if we get a pellet stove insert for the fireplace. However energy is required to run the pellet stove.
I also am debating between a gas log and a gas fireplace or fireplace insert. The running costs of logs is about $1000, but for a fireplace/insert it is $2500. Pellet stoves start from $1200-$3000 depending also on installation. I guess we'll do more research, but any input would be appreciated.
Now that sounds like a great deal, however I'm not sure about the feasiblity of either. DH thinks the gas fireplace would be easier to install since we have a gas line for the stove. I concur. He also thinks a pellet stove might not work because it needs air to run so it would deplete the oxygen in our house and would need to vent somewhere, preferably outside. If not it would potentially lead to increased carbon monoxide in the house.
I haven't done much research but the pellet stove and a gas fireplace appear to run about the same price, especially if we get a pellet stove insert for the fireplace. However energy is required to run the pellet stove.
I also am debating between a gas log and a gas fireplace or fireplace insert. The running costs of logs is about $1000, but for a fireplace/insert it is $2500. Pellet stoves start from $1200-$3000 depending also on installation. I guess we'll do more research, but any input would be appreciated.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Being a good condo neighbor
Last month during the extreme cold front that came through NE, the valve on my refrigerator broke and water went pouring into the downstairs unit of our condo. There are three units, two side by side townhouses and 1 basement unit. The basement unit's two bedrooms and living rooms were damaged.
We were gone during this time, and while the heat was set to 50, unfortunately the design our house is poor. The hvac is in the attic and must pump down three stories to heat the bottom floor through only 1 vent. This vent is in the living room/dining room combo and the pipe/valve in the kitchen is exposed to an outer wall, another huge flawed design. Anyway the insurnace did not find us liable, so it is not going on our personal insurance and according to the condo by-laws it is covered by the master condo policy.
So we will not have a claim against our personal insurance. That being said, there is $1k deductible, which the condo association must pay. The question is should DH and I offer to pay the entire deductible because it was our condo? Or should we just allow the association to pay? Second it is not our fault, our neighbors about 3 days later did not have running water in their kitchen (ours was working), because of the cold, and they leave their house at 70.
The main problem is the flawed design of the heating and the kitchen is poorly planned for cold weather.So I know we can pay the money. But we are also worried if we admit to guilt then if something else should happen it can come back to bite us later. And we're very conscientious about our liabilities. Should we just ante up and say it's our fault? Should we not admit guilt but say it was our condo? We're going to mull this over this weekend. The damage was pretty extensive around $60k to repair everything. The floors have to be redone, the basement unit HVAC replaced possible because water went down the floor vents, walls, closets, bed, our floor, wall, etc. So making a claim was necessary we couldn't foot this out of pocket.
We were gone during this time, and while the heat was set to 50, unfortunately the design our house is poor. The hvac is in the attic and must pump down three stories to heat the bottom floor through only 1 vent. This vent is in the living room/dining room combo and the pipe/valve in the kitchen is exposed to an outer wall, another huge flawed design. Anyway the insurnace did not find us liable, so it is not going on our personal insurance and according to the condo by-laws it is covered by the master condo policy.
So we will not have a claim against our personal insurance. That being said, there is $1k deductible, which the condo association must pay. The question is should DH and I offer to pay the entire deductible because it was our condo? Or should we just allow the association to pay? Second it is not our fault, our neighbors about 3 days later did not have running water in their kitchen (ours was working), because of the cold, and they leave their house at 70.
The main problem is the flawed design of the heating and the kitchen is poorly planned for cold weather.So I know we can pay the money. But we are also worried if we admit to guilt then if something else should happen it can come back to bite us later. And we're very conscientious about our liabilities. Should we just ante up and say it's our fault? Should we not admit guilt but say it was our condo? We're going to mull this over this weekend. The damage was pretty extensive around $60k to repair everything. The floors have to be redone, the basement unit HVAC replaced possible because water went down the floor vents, walls, closets, bed, our floor, wall, etc. So making a claim was necessary we couldn't foot this out of pocket.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Heat Auditor determines...
Our house is super inefficient! Woohoo! That explains our heating/electric bills.
Okay, so today I had a honeywell heat auditor come out to our house to determine how efficient/inefficient our heating system and house is. He laughed when he saw our house. First of all our furnace is in the attic. Yep it has to pump down hot air through three stories of our townhouse with only 1 vent. Thus why our bottom floor never gets warm. And why it is absolutely necessary to use electric space heaters.
But what do we pay for heat? We use on average to heat our house only 424 therms/year. Low right? Well we also pay $2/therm so about $850/year for heat, not including using electric space heaters. Also because we use keyspan our heating bill will be going up by 40% in March, since they were currently bought out.
Another point our house is cold. Period. We leave it cold because getting it warmer is not possible. How cold? We leave our house to 50 when we are gone, 68 only when we're home, and 62 when we are sleeping. That is cold, most people leave their homes at 72 when home and warmer when gone. But for us getting the third floor to 60 is next to impossible.
Also this winter in the NE has been very mild even compared to last winter. Thus our bills have reflected this by a substantially decreased need for heat. So I expect if we had a terribly cold winter our bills would be double what they are now.
Second our house is entirely electric. Yep, our washer/dryer and water heater is run on electricity. Woohoo. And we have gas in the house, which makes it more unbearable to have an electric water heater. Our electric bills run about $156/month for an average usage of 836 kWh/month. Meaning we pay about 18.6 cent/kWh. The average cost of electricity in the us is 6.66 cent/kWh. Yep we pay 3x that on average.
So overall we pay approximately $300/month all year long for gas and electric on a newly refurbished 1900 sq ft 3bd/2.5ba townhouse. What were his suggestions?
1. Insulate the attic pulldown staircase, $200
2. Caulk flooring
3. Insulate all wall outlets
4. Install gas log in fireplace to heat bottom floor, $4k
5. Heating unit in basement for bottom floor, $40k
6. Install water heater in attic using gas instead of electric
7. install ceiling fan in bottom floor
8. Suggested a different energy efficeint light bulbs
9. More ducts from attic to bottom floor ($20k)
The company offers financing at 3% for 10 years up to $15k to do these renovations to your house. Will we do any? I have no idea, I am guessing we are going to do the caulking and pull down of the attic and insulating the wall outlets. One consideration will be that we may end up installing the gas water heater, which will cost about $500.
Okay, so today I had a honeywell heat auditor come out to our house to determine how efficient/inefficient our heating system and house is. He laughed when he saw our house. First of all our furnace is in the attic. Yep it has to pump down hot air through three stories of our townhouse with only 1 vent. Thus why our bottom floor never gets warm. And why it is absolutely necessary to use electric space heaters.
But what do we pay for heat? We use on average to heat our house only 424 therms/year. Low right? Well we also pay $2/therm so about $850/year for heat, not including using electric space heaters. Also because we use keyspan our heating bill will be going up by 40% in March, since they were currently bought out.
Another point our house is cold. Period. We leave it cold because getting it warmer is not possible. How cold? We leave our house to 50 when we are gone, 68 only when we're home, and 62 when we are sleeping. That is cold, most people leave their homes at 72 when home and warmer when gone. But for us getting the third floor to 60 is next to impossible.
Also this winter in the NE has been very mild even compared to last winter. Thus our bills have reflected this by a substantially decreased need for heat. So I expect if we had a terribly cold winter our bills would be double what they are now.
Second our house is entirely electric. Yep, our washer/dryer and water heater is run on electricity. Woohoo. And we have gas in the house, which makes it more unbearable to have an electric water heater. Our electric bills run about $156/month for an average usage of 836 kWh/month. Meaning we pay about 18.6 cent/kWh. The average cost of electricity in the us is 6.66 cent/kWh. Yep we pay 3x that on average.
So overall we pay approximately $300/month all year long for gas and electric on a newly refurbished 1900 sq ft 3bd/2.5ba townhouse. What were his suggestions?
1. Insulate the attic pulldown staircase, $200
2. Caulk flooring
3. Insulate all wall outlets
4. Install gas log in fireplace to heat bottom floor, $4k
5. Heating unit in basement for bottom floor, $40k
6. Install water heater in attic using gas instead of electric
7. install ceiling fan in bottom floor
8. Suggested a different energy efficeint light bulbs
9. More ducts from attic to bottom floor ($20k)
The company offers financing at 3% for 10 years up to $15k to do these renovations to your house. Will we do any? I have no idea, I am guessing we are going to do the caulking and pull down of the attic and insulating the wall outlets. One consideration will be that we may end up installing the gas water heater, which will cost about $500.
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