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Termyn8or -> RE: heat pump? 4k ~? (5/29/2008 8:19:58 AM)
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Heat pumps are not a good idea in your neck of the woods, we are too far north. Geothermal is a good idea almost anywhere but you are not going to build any kind of substantial sysem for four grand. You might get something if you completely design and build it yourself, but hiring anyone would kill the profit.
But there are things you can do. If you have an induced draft furnace (most are now) you can duct a source of outside air to it. Reason ? The thing puts so much out into the chimney or whatever flue you have that it causes a negative air pressure in the house. This is what makes drafts. You can do the same for your hot water tank and clothes dryer.
The effect on a small house can be significant, but is dwarfed in a larger abode.
Don't be a fool and part with your money soon. Weigh in all the options. Maybe it would be better spent on a more fuel efficient car. I don't want to be insulting, but I consider those Luminas to be shitcans, not that I wouldn't drive one or haven't, and not even that I wouldn't again. But the construction and just how it is, I think they are shitcans.
If you want some modicum of luxury in a car, bigger cars are not all that less efficient. But if you give up on the idea of luxury and like shitcans, a Honda might be a good buy. Gas is not going down. These days enough "foreign" cars are built here, and there are so many foreign parts in American cars that you are not betraying the country or anything.
When my Mother showed up years ago sporting her newly aquired Honda I was messing with her, you lucky you divorced buying a Jap car, she retorted "It was built in Tennessee". It was. Or was that VA ? doesn't matter.
We buy so much imported stuff now that the sale of one car is not significant.You have to think about what is important to you. This also depends on how much you drive, will the gas savings be worth it ?
I used to be able to put central AC in a house for less than two grand, but I haven't done it for awhile so I don't know what the prices are like now. Alot of times this requires a new furnace. That might help as well, but don't discount the efficiency of old furnaces unless they are not functioning at peak efficiency.
Roof in good shape ? Put a roof on it. Sounds silly on the surface but let me add this, put WHITE shingles on it. The lightest color you can get. Stark white that hurts your eyes would be the best to reduce cooling costs. Heating season it doesn't matter, if the house is properly insulated there should be a nice blanket of snow on the roof in the winter. Need I mention insulation ?
I did that last year and my heating bills stayed about the same, but wait, the rates went up. So what WOULD I have paid ?
There are many options, to be complete I would have to come over there and see the place. I know the money is burning a hole in your pocket, as well it should ! Believe it or not, that is true. Every fucking day it is worth a little bit less it seems. Anytime you can invest it and hedge against that it is good. Even better if you can make your money work for you.
Y'know Hunk, we were almost neighbors. A couple of years ago we looked (online, never went there) at a property in central PA. It had a bar with a valid liquor license, apartments over the top of that, and this huge barn. The price was incredibly low, I mean low enough to pay cash.
The family's money would be involved of course, so the bar would have to be operated for profit, but the barn was what attracted me. I envisioned a bed and breakfast because that would be a good way to get business in the semi-remote location. What's more I wanted to claim the upstairs of the barn for another private enterprise :-) The Upstairs, a dungeon. Oh, all them rafters and beams and shit, we don't need to build no goddam frames.
That little project, well I would have to pay rent, to the family, to the till, into the kitty, whatever you want to call it. But then there's a bar pretty much across the driveway, and if anything like a breakfast is dealt with it could be well stocked. And there is skiing relatively closeby.
By the time we saw the ad there was already an offer on the place, and I am sure it went. The price was so low that just getting a fresh liquor license would probably cost more. But it came with it.
Place had some potential, but someone beat us to it.
Sorry about the hijack, but really for someone like me to come in and figure out how best to insulate the house and all that would cost money. But if I lived down the road I might do it for a case of beer. The thing is, it could have happened.
T
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