On Fri, 18 Oct 2013 21:50:21 +0100, Orchid Win7 v1 wrote:

>>> The walls are made of cardboard, so you can't actually attach anything
>>> to them. (Not if you don't want the entire wall to crack in half,
>>> anyway.) So everything has to be bookcases and the like.
>>
>> Ah, yes, paneling - we've got some of that in our place - it's attached
>> to sheetrock, but I could see that being a problem.
> 
> Basically each wall is a sheet of plasterboard. So, looks pretty, but no
> sound damping, and you can't make any holes in it. (It'll just snap in
> half.)

I imagine the landlord won't let you put holes in it, though it certainly 
is possible to drill holes in it.  But hanging stuff from the holes can 
be a bit tricky unless you use an anchor. :)

> My mum's house is made of, you know, BRICKS and stuff. At night I do
> feel a little bit vulnerable sitting in this cardboard display case with
> no curtains and nothing but some plaster between me and the big bad
> world out there...

Yeah, curtains should probably be on your "to buy" list sooner rather 
than later.

>>> I'm hoping this place will be cool in summer - the Sun never faces it.
>>> But it's not very warm right now with no curtains... I'd turn the
>>> heating on more, but without curtains I'm just pouring money down the
>>> drain.
>>
>> Are the windows single- or double-glazed?  Curtains may not make that
>> much difference if they're double.
> 
> It's all double-glazed. Never the less, the bedroom is significantly
> colder than the rest of the flat. And the single tiny radiator there
> takes much longer to get warm - presumably since it's at the opposite
> end of the building. So right now my kitchen is like a sauna, but the
> place where I actually want to sleep is still too cold. (And cools down
> rather quickly once I turn the heating off, which is the alarming part.)



> Having said that, it's warmer since I turned my PC back on and set four
> instances of POV-Ray running. (I've lost about two weeks of render time
> due to this move...)

That's one way to get the temperature up.  What kind of temperature do 
you find you sleep best at?  After growing up in Minnesota with my dad - 
"the miser" (he grew up during the great depression) - he'd turn the heat 
off at night.  I froze my butt off every night, and swore than when I got 
my own place, I'd not turn the heat off.

Wouldn't you know, I couldn't sleep with the heat on?  I have to have it 
around 55 degrees F in order to get a decent night's sleep.

>>> The flat comes with an owner's manual of sorts - a folder with
>>> sections for everything you would ever need to know. Trouble is, it
>>> was clearly compiled by the builders. So it contains the manual for
>>> the boiler they installed, not the new one it was replaced with.
>>
>> Got a model number and manufacturer for the new one?
> 
> Well, I found the manual for the actual boiler laying around in a
> cupboard. I still don't have a manual for the timer controls though.
> 
> Weird thing is, it says Honeywell on it - I thought they went out of
> business about 30 years ago...

Nope, Honeywell is a Minnesota-based company, in fact - I went to middle 
school ("Jr. High" as we called it then) near one of their manufacturing 
plants.  They make pretty decent thermostats.

Some programmable thermostats have a removable front panel that has basic 
instructions on it (we've got two that are like that, but different makes/
models).  If anything, there'll be a model number on it somewhere that 
you can get to without taking it off the wall.  Usually there's a 
battery, too (unless in the UK they run off a 220v circuit, which seems 
unlikely), so sometimes looking inside the battery cover might help find 
that info.

>>> No matter what your woes, somebody else always has a bigger problem.
>>> Why, I just spoke to my ex-girlfriend, and her sister died yesterday.
>>> What do you even SAY to something like that??
>>
>> "I'm sorry for your loss" or "Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that" is usually
>> a good place to start.  That is sad news indeed.  I find that some
>> people enjoy talking about the person who passed away, others want to
>> be distracted.  Listening is usually good.
> 
> When I heard she had leukaemia, I wasn't sure what to say. A few months
> later they diagnosed liver cancer. Last week they added brain cancer to
> the list... There's really not a lot you can say to that. And now she's
> actually dead. Everyone responds differently; I think Lynn just wants to
> be left alone right now. She's probably got a dozen people offering her
> their sympathies.

Yeah, there really isn't much to say about it beyond "I'm sorry to hear 
that, let me know if there's anything I can do for you".  While she may 
have lots of people offering sympathies, it generally never hurts to 
acknowledge other people's pain.  Sometimes not doing so can be seen as 
being unsympathetic, too.

> On a happier note, she visited my flat last weekend, and seemed
> impressed with it. And hopefully I've got another visitor tomorrow...

That sounds good. :)

>>> Sometimes I like to think of moving from one American state to another
>>> as being like moving between European countries. I gather they're
>>> approximately the same size...
>>
>> Depends on the state.  Here in Salt Lake City (and the surrounding
>> towns)
>> there's about a million people.  Seattle's about the same size, but
>> different politics, climate, ... pretty much everything. :)
> 
> ...just like another country. ;-)

Yep. :)

>>>> That's one of the nice things about owning a place and fixing it up -
>>>> you can make money on it when you sell it. :)
>>>
>>> Interesting. I assumed that you always lose a huge chunk of money when
>>> you sell a property - pretty much like anything else you can buy...
>>
>> Oh, no, property values can (and do) go up.  I bought my first place
>> out here in the mid-90's, paid about $89K for it (well, the bank did,
>> and I paid them back when I sold the place and we moved in 2001.  The
>> new place cost roughly double that (I think about $160K when all was
>> said and done), and our realtor tells us that we should be able to get
>> about $325K for it when we finish the last few little things that need
>> finishing (a couple hardwood floors to professionally clean and
>> refinish, and a little bit of painting).
> 
> How does that work out after you correct for inflation?

I'll still end up ahead.  We'll have about a year's worth of spare change 
in the bank.  The thing is, when you take a loan out for property, the 
loan is for the purchase price, and that doesn't adjust with inflation.  
So, we moved in here 12 years ago and had a loan for $145K or so (we had 
enough of a down payment from the sale of the previous place that we 
didn't have to borrow the entire amount).  Today, we still owe on that 
initial principal - about $120K or so, as I recall.  So, when we pay the 
loan off with the proceeds of the sale, we'll have about $200K from which 
we'll pay the realtor's commission (about 5%-6% of the sale price 
normally), a chunk comes out to pay off the equity line of credit that 
paid for the roof and some of the other stuff, some to pay off other 
debts we have, and our moving expenses.  We figure we'll have enough to 
replace our 14-year-old car as well and to pay rent on a flat in Seattle 
that we think looks good to us for about a year - if I don't work at all 
in that year (which I will).

We'd keep the car going if we could, but the brand was discontinued a few 
years ago, and our mechanics (who used to work for the dealership we 
bought it from) have said they're now starting to have trouble finding 
parts.  It's entirely possible we'll sell it to them to use as parts, but 
I don't expect we'll get much for it.

>> A lot of it has to do with supply and demand.  Right now around here,
>> it's a seller's market (there are more people wanting to move in than
>> are wanting to leave), so you can ask a higher price.
> 
> I figure if you buy a property that's almost brand-new, once you sell
> it, it's not brand-new any more, hence drastically less desirable. Also
> half this block of flats appears to be empty currently, so...

So you shouldn't have many noise complaints from your neighbors if you 
decide to listen to some music or watch TV. ;)

Our house was built in 1912, with an addition added in the 1960's.  Real 
estate valuation is different than, say, a car (which generally 
depreciates).  Again, it's supply and demand.  If there are 10 people who 
want to move into a neighborhood where there are only 3 houses up for 
sale, those 10 people will determine the value of the property simply 
because there's more demand than supply.  That can actually drive 
property values up.

But there are other things that add to property value - local schools, 
available public transport, crime levels, access to parks and other green 
spaces, "walkability" (ie, can you get to the shops by walking or do you 
need to drive somewhere to get your groceries?), proximity to local 
employers, and so on.  The value isn't entirely in the specific property, 
but in the surrounding neigbourhood.  That's one reason why a real estate 
agent will pull "comps" - prices on nearby "comparable" properties that 
have recently sold.  That gives the agent an idea as to what the going 
prices are for houses like yours.

Then, too, there's improvements (as I mentioned before).  The house I'm 
in was built in 1912, but the roof was added in 2005 or so.  The addition 
was put on the house in the '60s, but we redid the floors, repainted the 
walls, and modernized it.  We fixed bad wiring (in fact the last of the 
electrical work we need to do was done today), added an electrical sub-
panel and outlets to places where there weren't any previously.

So the outside walls are 1912, the floors are 1912, and many of the 
interior walls are 1912, but some of the flooring is 2012/2013, some of 
the interior design work is post-Y2K, we have original 1912 windows 
(extremely rare, I understand) that were bricked over that we opened up.  
There's a lot of space, and it can sell as a 4-bedroom house with a full 
bath and two half-baths (no bathtub, just a shower in the two halves).

Also, not everyone wants "new".  Some people prefer an older property 
with "character".  So value is also assigned based on what people want - 
do they want to restore an old home, or live somewhere modern?  We 
actually *thought* we wanted to do a restoration, and we did (well, our 
neighbor did a lot of the work, but that's another story), but it turns 
out we want something modern and energy-efficient - and with a secure 
entry area so strangers aren't coming up and knocking on our doors (like 
happened yesterday, in what we can only work out was an attempt to see if 
anyone was home so they could burgle the place - which is yet another 
story).

Jim

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