This Old House Has 22 Ways to Go Green

The person behind the Coldwell Banker Twitter feed (@coldwellbnkr) passed along this great article about 22 Little Ways To Go Green from the folks at This Old House.

It is a really good read packed with tons of tips. Some of them are a bit obvious (like replacing your shower head to a water-saving one or unplugging your power tool) and some are unique but smart (like putting food coloring in the tank of your toilet to see if it is seeping and you are wasting water!) and some are just good solid tips to avoid waste that you may not have thought about (like mixing all of your drips and drabs of white paint--come on you know you've got them, we all do--into one can and using that to paint your workshop or garage.)

Definitely worth checking out and saving to save a few bucks in waste!

Did You Know? Credit Scores Fact vs. Fiction: Installation 2

Round Two of information provided to me by my contact at Coldwell Banker Mortgage to assist buyers in separating the FACT from the FICTION in credit scores and lending... 

Fiction: The credit score on my consumer credit report should be the same as the one the mortgage company returns.


Fact: When mortgage companies order a credit report the credit bureau will include a “mortgage adjustment” that is factored into your score. These adjustments are not controlled by the mortgage lender, but by the credit bureaus themselves. This adjustment takes a your past mortgage history into account and will reflect accordingly in the credit scores returned to the lender. For example, a customer with an extensive clean history of mortgage payments will have a different adjustment than a customer who has never had a mortgage in the past.

Fiction: There is nothing I can do to fix errors on my credit report.


Fact: If you have errors on your credit report you have the ability to file a dispute with the credit bureau to correct the erroneous information. You can go to www.annualcreditreport.com and obtain a free copy of your credit report. You will need to submit documentation supporting your claim that the information reported is erroneous, and the credit bureau has 30 days to confirm the information and update the repositories.

Fiction: My score will drop if I apply for new credit.


Fact: If it does, it probably won't drop much. If you apply for several credit cards within a short period of time, multiple requests for your credit report information (called “inquiries”) will appear on your report. Looking for new credit can equate with higher risk, but most credit scores are not affected by multiple inquiries from auto or mortgage lenders within a short period of time. Typically, these are treated as a single inquiry and will have little impact on the credit score as stated above.

Fiction: A poor score will haunt me forever.

Fact: Just the opposite is true. A score is a “snapshot” of your risk at a particular point in time. It changes as new information is added to your bank and credit bureau files. Scores change gradually as you change the way you handle credit. For example, past credit problems impact your score less as time passes. Lenders request a current score when you submit a credit application, so they have the most recent information available. Therefore by taking the time to improve your score, will put you in better position to get approved for a loan.

The Closing Process

Although a real estate agent usually handles the pricing, marketing and negotiating, there are several additional steps to closing the sale once the the purchase and sale agreements have been signed. 

Step 1--Removing contingencies: The most common contingencies are financing and the sale of thee buyer's current home.  These conditions must be removed or waived before the sale can be cloosed. 

Step 2--Appraising the property: The buyer's lender requires a formal appraisal to confim the value of the home, to be used as collateral to secure the loan. 

Step 3--Preparing closing documents: Most often real estate attorneys prepare documents that confirm the transaction, pro-rate funds and so on. 

Step 4--Signing closing documents: Even after both parties have signed closing documents and deposited funds, the sale may take a few more days to close. 

Step 5--Recording the deed and disbursing funds

Step 6--Receiving proceeds and welcoming the moving van

Step 7--Turning over the keys to the buyer. 

Kitchen is no place to skimp on lighting

Brightening tips to make cooking, cleaning even more fun

By Paul Bianchina, Inman News

When it comes to lighting, few places in the home are more important than the kitchen. From general lighting to specific task lighting, a well-designed lighting plan makes the use and enjoyment of any kitchen a much brighter undertaking.

GENERAL LIGHTING
General lighting is what comes on as you first enter the room. It should brighten up the room well enough that you can see to enter and move around the room, and to perform basic tasks, such as getting something out of the refrigerator.

In many kitchens, general lighting is accomplished with one or two incandescent or fluorescent light fixtures, or by a group of recessed can lights. The general lighting fixtures should be controlled by a switch that is easily accessible as soon as you approach or first enter the room. If there are two entrances to the room, the same group of fixtures can be controlled from both locations using a 3-way switch.

TASK LIGHTING
Task lighting, on the other hand, comes from fixtures that are strategically placed to provide good lighting for performing specific operations, such as cooking or cleaning up. Since the general lighting sources are located high up on the ceiling and behind you wherever you are in the room, your body typically blocks or shadows some of that light, which is why specific lighting fixtures dedicated to specific areas are so important. Task lighting may be in the form of recessed cans, fluorescent fixtures, halogen lights, or any combination. To conserve energy and prevent overlighting or overheating the room, activation of the task lighting is generally broken up between several switches.

To lay out your task lighting, first envision how the kitchen will be used. One or more fixtures should be located over the sink, to provide direct overhead lighting for cleanup and food preparation. Recessed lights work well here, as they can be directed very specifically to light the sink. The over-sink fixture should be on its own switch.

Cooking tasks require their own light source as well. If you have a range hood that is located above your cooktop or range, the light that is located within the hood may be sufficient, or you can add a recessed fixture to the ceiling that is located to provide as much direct light down onto the cooking surface as possible. The fixture in the hood will have its own switch, and any other specific cooking area light should be separately switched as well.

Islands can present another task lighting challenge. Here again, recessed fixtures can be used to good advantage to light up the island, or you can consider one or more hanging pendant lights over the area. Some lighting designs will have the island lights come on as part of the general lighting, but most will target these lights with separate switches as well.

One kitchen lighting area that is extremely important but often overlooked are the counters. Between the combination of your body as you stand at the counter and the bulk of the wall cabinets, much of the counter area is severely shadowed, and yet this is where much of the work in the kitchen is done.

To overcome this, specific under-cabinet lighting is used. Perhaps the most common source are shallow fluorescent fixtures that are mounted to the underside of the upper cabinets. These under-cabinet lights come in a number of different lengths to make it easy to match the fixtures to the cabinet layout, and you should use an adequate number of them to provide even, shadow-free lighting on all the counters.

Small halogen fixtures, typically called puck lights for their resemblance to small hockey pucks, are also sometimes used in these areas. Puck lights are brighter, but may put out too much glare or too much heat in some areas, so take that into consideration as well.

Here again, you want to divide up the under-cabinet fixtures onto one or more specific switches. What usually works best is to envision how the counters will be used, and then group the fixture switching so that the desired counter or group of counters are lit at the same time. For example, if you regularly use one section of counter for food preparation, all the under-cabinet lighting over that section of counter should be on the same switch.

All of these fixtures should be available from local lighting stores, electrical supply retailers, and home centers. Remember to use only UL-listed fixtures and parts, and always consult with a qualified electrician for assistance on any wiring project you're not comfortable with.

Does My Attic Have Adequate Ventilation?

Calculate how much you need with simple math
By Paul Bianchina

Remember how hot your attic was when you went up there to check the antenna wire last summer? Remember that ice dam on the roof? Proper attic ventilation can help with both those problems, but how do you know how much you need -- and just as importantly, how much do you already have?

Determining what you need is simple -- all you need is the size of your house and a calculator. Attic ventilation should equal approximately 1 square foot of vent area for every 300 square feet of attic, so figure out roughly how many square feet the footprint of your attic is, and then divide by 300. To ensure effective air movement throughout the attic, the total vent area should be split approximately evenly between high and low vents, so now divide that number by two to get a rough idea of how much low ventilation and how much high ventilation your home needs.
Finally, since vents are measured and sold based on square inches, you'll want to convert from square feet. To do that, take the total amount of ventilation you need in square feet and multiply by 144 to convert it to square inches.

DETERMINING WHAT'S EXISTING

In order to determine how much ventilation you currently have, you need to measure the sizes of the existing vents, and then make a few adjustments in order to figure out exactly how much air is able to actually get through them.

Let's say you have a 12-inch-by-18-inch gable-end vent. That equals an area of 216 square inches (12 x 18), and that's how much ventilation area you would have if you left the hole wide open. However, to prevent animals, insects and rain from getting into your attic, you would need to install a gable-end vent, which has a screen and louvers on it. You have now reduced the amount of area that the air can pass though by the amount of area taken up by the screen, the louvers and the framework of the vent. The remaining open area that the air can actually pass through is called the net free area (NFA), and that is how vents are rated.

If you are purchasing new vents, the NFA should be printed right on the vent itself. If it isn't, or if you are trying to figure out how much vent area you currently have with your existing vents, here are some common vents and their approximate net-free area:

• 7-inch round roof vent: 30 square inches
• 8-inch round roof vent: 40 square inches
• 9-inch round roof vent: 50 square inches
• 12-inch x 18-inch gable vent: 96 square inches
• 3.5-inch x 22.5-inch soffit vent: 40 square inches
• 5.5-inch x 22.5-inch soffit vent: 72 square inches
• Continuous ridge vent: 11 to 16 square inches per linear foot

For other types of vents, you can calculate the NFA using the following formula: Gross vent area / area factor = NFA. The area factor is how much of an adjustment you need to make for the screen and other obstructions, based on the following approximations:

• 1/4-inch screen: area factor = 1.0
• 1/4-inch screen with louvers: area factor = 2.0
• 1/8-inch screen: area factor = 1.25
• 1/8-inch screen with louvers: area factor = 2.25
• Louvers, no screen: area factor = 2.0

So, using that formula, let's say you have a big 12-inch-by-24-inch gable-end vent with 1/8-inch screen and louvers. The gross size of the vent is 288 square inches (12 x 24), and the area factor for 1/8-inch screen with louvers is 2.25. Divide 288 by 2.25, and you can determine that your vent has approximately 128 square inches of net free area.

ADD MORE VENTS AS NEEDED

If, after all this math, you determine that your attic does not have enough ventilation, you need to give some serious thought to adding more.

Separate what you need into high and low, and decide how many of each type of vent you need. Remember that the half and half ratio of high to low is only an approximation -- if you have almost enough low vents and are short on high vents, you can add a little more high-vent area than you need to make up the difference.Hardware stores, home centers and lumberyards all carry a wide variety of vents for different applications. You can install them yourself, or contact a licensed roofing contractor to have it done for you.

How to Hire A Chimney Sweep

I received the following information from my friend, Kyle Saker. Kyle runs Complete Inspection Service and is a great resource that I can not recommend any higher.

Anyway, I thought that this is very timely, helpful information that any homeowner with a fireplace should definitely pay attention to:

How to Hire a Chimney Sweep:

The Chimney Safety Institute of America (CSIA) recommends people take a few steps when considering a chimney sweep for an annual inspection and cleaning.

1. How long has the company been in business?

2. Do they offer references?

3. Do they have unresolved complaints with the Better Business Bureau?

4. Do they carry liability insurance to protect your property from accidents?

5. Do the ensure that the sweep is CSIA certified?

There are over 1900 CSIA certified chimney sweeps in North America. To locate on in your area go to http://www.csia.org/ or call (800) 536.0118