Peter A. Klein's Blog, page 17

5 reasons you should get your home inspected before you renovate

When homeowners consider a home remodel, they have a good idea of what they want, more room, new flooring, updated cabinets, etc.  But often they overlook essential components in the home that need attention to help the homes comfort and livability.

Well intentioned homeowners often start with a simple kitchen update or a room addition and then you hear this.  “What if we just updated the bathrooms or knocked down a wall or two.” And just like that the remodel bug bit you. It seems great at first, but because of a lack of planning, problems start to arise, your patience grows thin and your remodel budget, gone with the wind.  Your committed at this point and say to yourself let’s just get it all done so we don’t have to do it again.

Where Is the Property Line?

Before a remodel can start, you need to know where the property lines are. In most residential neighborhoods, you may not build up to the property line. Most jurisdictions have planning and zoning regulations that specify the setbacks from each property line for each zone.

For instance, an R-1 zone might define the setbacks as follows, and these number are made up for illustration:

            Front:  15 feet from the front property line

            Sides:   5 feet from the side property lines

            Rear:  10 feet from the rear property line

Back to School with Corona Virus

It is Back-to-School time again!  Or is it? Maybe Back-to-School-at-Home time is more accurate. The important part is students getting back to learning with guidance from their teachers and interaction with their peers. And that can happen in any environment, especially if everyone involved has the right attitude.

Parents

The number one, most important thing parents can do is to ensure that your children know that you believe school and learning are important. As parents we see a lot of mixed messaging around back to school time. I cringe whenever I see an ad where parents are so thrilled that their children won’t be around as much once school starts. What kind of message does that send? During the end of the 2019 – 20 school year we saw a lot of jokes about parents expelling their children who were acting up instead of interacting with their virtual learning. As a teacher and a parent, I get it. Suddenly being home, possibly trying to do your own work, while supporting your own children in their virtual learning was an unplanned, messy reality change. However, I also believe it is a great opportunity to get to know your child as a learner.

National Garage Sale Day: Getting Ready for Your Remodel

You are undertaking a remodel. Congratulations! Once the plans are complete you need to figure out what to do with all the stuff in the rooms that will be impacted by the remodel. Some of it will be moved to other rooms or to a storage unit until the remodel is done. You may be able to throw out some of it. What do you do with those things that you do not want to keep but you do not feel they should be trashed?

Solving the Home Remodeling Puzzle

One of my favorite business writers, Neil Senturia, had a column published in the San Diego Union-Tribune on July 13, 2020 entitled “Puzzles can take several steps to figure out solution.” He wrote,

“Problems to solve. No shortage

And, of course there are solutions. But the key piece of the puzzle is to figure out the order of events necessary to create a solution. This is not as easy as it sounds because everything is connected. You are confronted by the ‘if – then’ puzzle. The decision tree has many branches. So which limb do we work on first?”

National Hire a Veteran Day Is July 25, 2020

July 25, 2020 is National Hire a Veteran Day.

Hiring veterans does not link to remodeling. Things having to do with veterans is one of the few times I will post something that is off that target.

Why do I think veterans make good hires? Beyond the fact that veterans have served the United States, willingly, there are reasons that are not emotional that veterans make good employees. Veterans have many attributes that most employers want. Here are several of those attributes: work experience, trained, adaptable, and used to teamwork.

Smart Home Financing in Today’s Complicated Financial World

By Rosemarie Litoff, C2 Financial

National Independent Mortgage Brokers Day is July 18 this year. What is an Independent Mortgage Broker? An Independent Mortgage Broker is a person, not affiliated with a financial institution, who helps people who need financing for their real estate.

More to the point an Independent Mortgage Broker is a person who helps you when you need financing for a home purchase, remodel, refinance, retirement plan, or the peace of mind a Line of Credit can bring.

What Do You Want in a Remodel?

Why would I start a blog with an image of a washer and a dryer? A connection of mine on LinkedIn, Jerry Weitsz of Kissemee, Florida, shared a graph that showed the Top Specialty Rooms Among Millennial Home Buyers. Our tastes vary greatly. A Millennial’s lifestyle varies from a Baby Boomer (me), so the rooms in a home that they consider essential will differ. Also, our tastes and needs change. A Millennial may be looking for a large home for an expanding family while a Baby Boomer may be eyeing a bedroom that will soon to be vacated by a child who is of to college or moving to a different part of the country for a job. Perhaps that room has been earmarked to be a den or hobby room. Here is the chart of what Millennials want.

Ways to Go Green with Your Home

Are you looking for ways to reduce your electrical consumption? There are many ways to accomplish this goal. Some are easy and can be done by almost anyone. Others will take more time and expertise, and possibly a building permit.

The tasks that you choose for your home may well be impacted by how long you plan to stay in that residence. If you plan to move within 10 years, the more expensive tasks should probably be excluded because the return-on-investment (ROI) may not work out in less than 10 years. If you are planning on staying where you are for 10 or more years, you are most likely to have a positive ROI.

Building Permits and Inspections: The New Electronic Reality

In 15 Steps for a Successful Remodel: How to Survive the Process I spent an entire chapter (10) on permits and inspections. For decades, the process has been stable. As building and planning departments across the country computerized various tasks, the process started changing. More and more things were done with a computer. Two things that haven’t been computerized were the plan review and the inspections.

Plan review is the process by which the plans that have been submitted are looked over by the planners and the plans examiners. The reviewers are looking for violations of the current building codes, and zoning and planning regulations. Examples of zoning and planning regulations might note that there is not enough parking for the proposed work, or the proposed work is too tall. Building code violations might include not enough electrical outlets, no smoke detectors or insufficient insulation.