Some of these examples are actually pretty stylish. Creative to say the least. Amazing ways trash can be used to build homes
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Friday, July 27, 2012
Green-certified homes sell for 9% more, study in California finds
WASHINGTON — It has been a controversial question in the home real estate market for years: Is there extra green when you buy green? Do houses with lots of energy-saving and sustainability features sell for more than houses without them? If so, by how much?
Some studies have shown that consumers' willingness to pay more for Energy Star and other green-rated homes tends to diminish during tough economic times. Others have found that green-certified houses sell for at least a modest premium over similar but less-efficient homes.
Some studies have shown that consumers' willingness to pay more for Energy Star and other green-rated homes tends to diminish during tough economic times. Others have found that green-certified houses sell for at least a modest premium over similar but less-efficient homes.
A new study involving an unusually large sample of homes sold in California between 2007 and early 2012 has documented that, holding all other variables constant, a green certification label on a house adds an average 9% to its selling value. Researchers also found something they dubbed the Prius effect: Buyers in areas where consumer sentiment in support of environmental conservation is relatively high — as measured by the percentage of hybrid auto registrations in local ZIP Codes — are more willing to pay premiums for green-certified houses than buyers in areas where hybrid registrations were lower.
The study found no significant correlations between local utility rates and consumers' willingness to pay premium prices for green-labeled homes. But it did find that in warmer parts of California, especially in the Central Valley compared with neighborhoods closer to the coast, buyers are willing to pay more for the capitalized cost savings on energy that come with a green-rated property.
The research was conducted by professors Matthew E. Kahn of UCLA and Nils Kok of Maastricht University in the Netherlands, who was a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley. Out of the 1.6-million-home-transaction sample, Kahn and Kok identified 4,321 dwellings that sold with Energy Star, LEED or GreenPoint Rated labels. They then ran statistical analyses to determine how much green labeling contributed to the selling price — eliminating all other factors contained in the real estate records, such as locational effects, school districts, crime rates, time period of sale, swimming pools and views.
Energy Star is a rating system jointly sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy and theEnvironmental Protection Agency that is widely used in new home construction. It rewards designs that sharply reduce operational costs in heating, cooling and water use, and improve indoor air quality.
The LEED certification was created by the private nonprofit U.S. Green Building Council and focuses on "sustainable building and development practices."
The GreenPoint Rated designation was created by a nonprofit group called Build It Green, is similar to LEED and can be used on newly constructed as well as existing homes.
The 9% average price premium from green-rated homes is roughly in line with studies conducted in Europe, where energy-efficiency labeling on houses is far more commonplace. Homes rated "A" under the European Union's system commanded a 10% average premium in one study, while dwellings with poor ratings sold for substantial discounts.
Labeling in the United States is a politically sensitive real estate issue. The National Assn. of Realtors has lobbied Congress and federal agencies to thwart adoption of any form of mandatory labeling of existing houses, arguing that an abrupt move to adopt such a system could have severely negative effects. A loss of value at resale because of labeling would be disastrous, the Realtors have argued, particularly coming out of a housing downturn in which owners across the country have lost trillions of dollars of equity since 2006.
The National Assn. of Home Builders, on the other hand, has enthusiastically embraced labeling as a selling advantage for newly constructed homes. New homes today are far more likely to be rated energy-efficient and environmentally friendly than those up for resale. But there can be an environmental downside to new homes as well: Many are in subdivisions on the periphery of metropolitan areas, and require higher fuel expenditures — and create more air pollution — because homeowners have longer commutes to work.
Kahn and Kok make no secret about where they stand on labeling: Disclosures about the green characteristics of homes make a lot of sense for buyers and sellers.
Distributed by Washington Post Writers Group
Thursday, July 19, 2012
7 Steps for Avoiding a DIY Disaster
I love DIY projects. I usually feel that if you have the time, doing it yourself adds more character, charm and can help keep some money in your pocket. BUT doing IY can sometimes lead to headache. The worst is starting something and then discovering it is out of your league. Here's a good article on instances when it may be wiser to call in the pros.
Some of us figure out our talents early in life; others take longer. But for the majority of us, those talents have nothing whatsoever to do with the construction sciences, so to speak. Nonetheless, tight budgets and hours of home improvement television watching, shelter magazine perusing and Pinterest board-fixating have stirred up the jones to do-it-yourself in many a homeowner.The widespread perceptions that contractors charge exorbitant amounts and are difficult to manage have only increased the sense that doing home improvement projects ourselves seem like the way to go.
The fact is, there are many home project that are fun and smart for a home owner to try their hand at. But DIY project veterans (myself included) can attest: DIY is by no means the no-brainer way to get every type of home project checked off your to-do list. In fact, a bad project can turn your experience of your home from an exciting project to a mortifying money-pit in the blink of an eye. Fortunately, whether your home improvement project goes swimmingly or scarily is well within your control from the very beginning - and hinges largely on making the right decision for a given project about whether to hire a contractor or go it on your own.
Here are seven questions to ask yourself as part of that decision-making process, in order to avoid a DIY disaster:
1. What's the project? Define the project, in writing, as completely as possible. This will equip you from the very start to outsource some or all of a project that is beyond your skill set, rather than running to a contractor in a panic in the middle of a project (when you’d certainly be charged a panic premium price). Depending on your aptitude level and the time you have, what seems at first glance to be a highly DIY-able room refresh with paint and new wood floors can snowball beyond the realm of reasonable DIY-dom if you add in a lighting or plumbing project.
To do this, sit with your project, your magazines or your Pinboards for a few days, weeks or even months, keeping a running list of the things you want included in your project as you live in your house and your desired post-project lifestyle changes come to mind.
2. Does it require permits? Generally speaking, electrical, plumbing, major renovations, erecting new walls and structures and adding square footage are all projects highly likely to require permits. Hint: if you use the word “gut” when describing what you’re planning to your friends and relatives, chances are good you’ll need a permit. If you’re not sure, a quick website visit or phone call to your City’s Building Services or Building Permits Division should clear things up.
Building code requirements can be exceedingly arcane, and the process of applying for and obtaining permits if you’re not well versed in them can be tedious, stressful and time-consuming. It can also be full of unsuspected pitfalls, like doing one home improvement that triggers a City requirement to add a slew of new outlets or a new sewer line.
Call the city and/or talk to a couple of licensed contractors as soon as you’ve fully defined your project - but before you’ve started any work - and get a good sense for whether it will require permits to stay in good graces with the City.
Cities are required to grant permits to homeowners, but the more complicated the permitting process gets for a given project, the more sensible it becomes to have a professional contractor or at least a professional permit expediter involved to avoid running afoul of the city, incurring penalties for unpermitted work and to maximize your
ability to get an increased resale value for your home as a result of the upgrades.
3. Are there health and safety issues? I’m a big believer that high decks (i.e., decks, balconies and similar structures that are tall enough that a collapse would cause injuries to those standing on it), additions and gas/electrical work are things home owners should rarely do on their own. Now, I’m not saying you can’t install track lights or change a light switch to a dimmer. Rather, I’m cautioning that that if you’re doing work in these categories beyond that level, calling a contractor can avoid a disastrous outcome.
4. What are the relative hard costs? “ANYONE can paint a room,” I’ve heard time and time again. I’ve done it, so I know this to be true. But I also know that from the first time I got actual paint bids from my trusty neighborhood handyman, I have never painted a room since! In my humble opinion, the money I’ve spent was well worth the time and other resources I saved (see #5, below), and I’m certain they’ve done a better job than I could or would have. Just because you can do a project DIY, doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily the smart thing to do. It also doesn't mean that the hard, financial costs of doing it yourself are necessarily much cheaper than hiring a professional.
Don’t automatically assume that doing a job yourself is the cheap route to go, or that it will save you scads of cash. Until you’ve actually gotten 3 bids from reputable contractors or vendors, based on the full scope of the job, and have compared that with the cash you’d spend to DIY, you cannot know for certain which is the less expensive way to go. They might qualify for bulk discounts on materials that you can’t get, and you might have to rent a truck, equipment or tools that they already own. In any event, calling contractors out can be educational in terms of understanding every element of the job and troubleshooting things you might not otherwise have anticipated.
So, unless you’re uber-handy and just love to do projects, or know for certain the project will be uber-cheap for you to do, I’d strongly urge you to get a few pros to come out and give you real bids for what it would cost (including supplies, labor, any subcontracting, permits - soup-to-nuts), and compare that to your own DIY cost estimate. (Hint: I’d also encourage you to add a little buffer on the top of all the estimates - theirs and yours - for unforeseen costs that might arise.)
5. What are the relative soft costs? Cash is just the beginning of the resources required to get a home improvement project done. They also take time - which some might see as opportunity costs. Ask yourself the question: what could I do with the time I’ll have to spend on this project?
There are also the energetic and emotional resources involved. Some people simply have sharp mechanical and logistical aptitudes, have the spare time and love to use it bettering their homes and have infinite patience for figuring out workarounds when the project doesn’t go as planned. And then there are people like me! So, if you’re like me, you should definitely account for that when you’re deciding whether to do-it-yourself or whether to hire your home improvement projects out.
6. Is it really DIY-able? Remember, the ‘Y’ in DIY stands for YOURself. The decision whether to DIY or call a contractor in for a job is not based on whether your Dad, your neighbor down the street or Bob Vila made a similar project look simple. Rather, it needs to be made based on your own, personal:
If you're not excited about the prospect of doing the project, and you can afford to have someone else do it, don't let the wanna-be handypeople in your life talk you into biting off more than you can chew.
7. What could go wrong? If your project is uber-simple, like replacing a toilet or painting a wall, there are a limited number of worst-case scenarios which might be annoying and inconvenient, but are far from the end of the world. The kitty-cat wallpaper might be harder to get off than you thought - that sort of thing. But as the project grows larger in scope or more complex, the more potentially disastrous your worst-case scenarios are - and the more costly calling someone in to fix a DIY-gone-wrong will be.
Generally speaking, I’m not one to advocate worst-case scenario thinking. But when it comes to home improvement projects, the many moving pieces and relative inexperience of the average home owner suggest that an abundance of caution is just plain old smart. If your project’s DIY worst-case scenarios conjure up visions of bodily harm to your family members, buckets catching the rain or virtually anything caving in think long and hard before you take it on yourself, versus calling in a pro.
ALL: I'd love to hear your DIY stories - from fantastic to disastrous. What projects have you found yourself well able to do? What projects did you take on that you ended up wishing you'd called a pro out to handle?
P.S. - You should follow Trulia and Tara on Facebook!
Some of us figure out our talents early in life; others take longer. But for the majority of us, those talents have nothing whatsoever to do with the construction sciences, so to speak. Nonetheless, tight budgets and hours of home improvement television watching, shelter magazine perusing and Pinterest board-fixating have stirred up the jones to do-it-yourself in many a homeowner.The widespread perceptions that contractors charge exorbitant amounts and are difficult to manage have only increased the sense that doing home improvement projects ourselves seem like the way to go.
The fact is, there are many home project that are fun and smart for a home owner to try their hand at. But DIY project veterans (myself included) can attest: DIY is by no means the no-brainer way to get every type of home project checked off your to-do list. In fact, a bad project can turn your experience of your home from an exciting project to a mortifying money-pit in the blink of an eye. Fortunately, whether your home improvement project goes swimmingly or scarily is well within your control from the very beginning - and hinges largely on making the right decision for a given project about whether to hire a contractor or go it on your own.
Here are seven questions to ask yourself as part of that decision-making process, in order to avoid a DIY disaster:
1. What's the project? Define the project, in writing, as completely as possible. This will equip you from the very start to outsource some or all of a project that is beyond your skill set, rather than running to a contractor in a panic in the middle of a project (when you’d certainly be charged a panic premium price). Depending on your aptitude level and the time you have, what seems at first glance to be a highly DIY-able room refresh with paint and new wood floors can snowball beyond the realm of reasonable DIY-dom if you add in a lighting or plumbing project.
To do this, sit with your project, your magazines or your Pinboards for a few days, weeks or even months, keeping a running list of the things you want included in your project as you live in your house and your desired post-project lifestyle changes come to mind.
2. Does it require permits? Generally speaking, electrical, plumbing, major renovations, erecting new walls and structures and adding square footage are all projects highly likely to require permits. Hint: if you use the word “gut” when describing what you’re planning to your friends and relatives, chances are good you’ll need a permit. If you’re not sure, a quick website visit or phone call to your City’s Building Services or Building Permits Division should clear things up.
Building code requirements can be exceedingly arcane, and the process of applying for and obtaining permits if you’re not well versed in them can be tedious, stressful and time-consuming. It can also be full of unsuspected pitfalls, like doing one home improvement that triggers a City requirement to add a slew of new outlets or a new sewer line.
Call the city and/or talk to a couple of licensed contractors as soon as you’ve fully defined your project - but before you’ve started any work - and get a good sense for whether it will require permits to stay in good graces with the City.
Cities are required to grant permits to homeowners, but the more complicated the permitting process gets for a given project, the more sensible it becomes to have a professional contractor or at least a professional permit expediter involved to avoid running afoul of the city, incurring penalties for unpermitted work and to maximize your
ability to get an increased resale value for your home as a result of the upgrades.
3. Are there health and safety issues? I’m a big believer that high decks (i.e., decks, balconies and similar structures that are tall enough that a collapse would cause injuries to those standing on it), additions and gas/electrical work are things home owners should rarely do on their own. Now, I’m not saying you can’t install track lights or change a light switch to a dimmer. Rather, I’m cautioning that that if you’re doing work in these categories beyond that level, calling a contractor can avoid a disastrous outcome.
4. What are the relative hard costs? “ANYONE can paint a room,” I’ve heard time and time again. I’ve done it, so I know this to be true. But I also know that from the first time I got actual paint bids from my trusty neighborhood handyman, I have never painted a room since! In my humble opinion, the money I’ve spent was well worth the time and other resources I saved (see #5, below), and I’m certain they’ve done a better job than I could or would have. Just because you can do a project DIY, doesn’t mean that it’s necessarily the smart thing to do. It also doesn't mean that the hard, financial costs of doing it yourself are necessarily much cheaper than hiring a professional.
Don’t automatically assume that doing a job yourself is the cheap route to go, or that it will save you scads of cash. Until you’ve actually gotten 3 bids from reputable contractors or vendors, based on the full scope of the job, and have compared that with the cash you’d spend to DIY, you cannot know for certain which is the less expensive way to go. They might qualify for bulk discounts on materials that you can’t get, and you might have to rent a truck, equipment or tools that they already own. In any event, calling contractors out can be educational in terms of understanding every element of the job and troubleshooting things you might not otherwise have anticipated.
So, unless you’re uber-handy and just love to do projects, or know for certain the project will be uber-cheap for you to do, I’d strongly urge you to get a few pros to come out and give you real bids for what it would cost (including supplies, labor, any subcontracting, permits - soup-to-nuts), and compare that to your own DIY cost estimate. (Hint: I’d also encourage you to add a little buffer on the top of all the estimates - theirs and yours - for unforeseen costs that might arise.)
5. What are the relative soft costs? Cash is just the beginning of the resources required to get a home improvement project done. They also take time - which some might see as opportunity costs. Ask yourself the question: what could I do with the time I’ll have to spend on this project?
There are also the energetic and emotional resources involved. Some people simply have sharp mechanical and logistical aptitudes, have the spare time and love to use it bettering their homes and have infinite patience for figuring out workarounds when the project doesn’t go as planned. And then there are people like me! So, if you’re like me, you should definitely account for that when you’re deciding whether to do-it-yourself or whether to hire your home improvement projects out.
6. Is it really DIY-able? Remember, the ‘Y’ in DIY stands for YOURself. The decision whether to DIY or call a contractor in for a job is not based on whether your Dad, your neighbor down the street or Bob Vila made a similar project look simple. Rather, it needs to be made based on your own, personal:
- skill and experience level
- aptitude for whatever sort of work you’re completing
- patience level
- frustrate-ability
- spare time available for the job, etc.
If you're not excited about the prospect of doing the project, and you can afford to have someone else do it, don't let the wanna-be handypeople in your life talk you into biting off more than you can chew.
7. What could go wrong? If your project is uber-simple, like replacing a toilet or painting a wall, there are a limited number of worst-case scenarios which might be annoying and inconvenient, but are far from the end of the world. The kitty-cat wallpaper might be harder to get off than you thought - that sort of thing. But as the project grows larger in scope or more complex, the more potentially disastrous your worst-case scenarios are - and the more costly calling someone in to fix a DIY-gone-wrong will be.
Generally speaking, I’m not one to advocate worst-case scenario thinking. But when it comes to home improvement projects, the many moving pieces and relative inexperience of the average home owner suggest that an abundance of caution is just plain old smart. If your project’s DIY worst-case scenarios conjure up visions of bodily harm to your family members, buckets catching the rain or virtually anything caving in think long and hard before you take it on yourself, versus calling in a pro.
ALL: I'd love to hear your DIY stories - from fantastic to disastrous. What projects have you found yourself well able to do? What projects did you take on that you ended up wishing you'd called a pro out to handle?
P.S. - You should follow Trulia and Tara on Facebook!
Monday, July 9, 2012
Secret passageways
I used to babysit for a family that had a secret parlor tucked behind a bookshelf. It was so cool. Here's some other's...
A hidden room or secret passageway isn't any fun if it's not hidden well. MSN gathered images of entryways hidden in all sorts of homes. Take a look at these pictures and see whether you'd know there was more than meets the eye.
Thursday, July 5, 2012
emPowerSBC Homeowner BBQ & Workshop-Eastern Goleta Valley
Free Homeowner BBQ and Workshop in Eastern Goleta Valley!
Enjoy a BBQ with your fellow community members while learning how you can be more comfortable in your home AND save money with home energy improvements! Click here to RSVP.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Free Annual Pick-up!
Single family residents with trash service have a great resource in the
FREE Annual Pick-up.
Have you ever wondered what to do with that pile of palm fronds, the old mattress or that broken refrigerator? Your trash hauler will provide you with one FREE annual pick-up of any items that you can't fit into your trash or recycling containers.
To schedule your annual pick-up call MarBorg at 963-1852 and tell them what you need them to haul away. If you live in an apartment, condo or represent a business CLICK HERE for more options.
Results from the E-Waste Collection Event
On April 27 and 28 2012:
Environmental Services hosted a very successful
E-Waste collection event, which resulted in the recycling of 116,677 lbs of E-Waste from
Santa Barbara.
The Environmental Services sponsored E-Waste collection events are FREE to residents and businesses in the
City of
Santa Barbara.
Our next
E-Waste collection event will be held in November 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
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