Coastal homes

19 Mar

Posted by Admin as Real Estate

jacksonvillecoastalhomes.com » Blog Archive » Ashton Hills
Help-U-Sell Coastal Realty. Concrete block construction. Duration : 0:1:3. [youtube neaXpgS4qp8]. This entry was posted on Friday, March 19th, 2010 at 6:50 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through … read more…

jacksonvillecoastalhomes.com » Blog Archive » Grow Your Business …
Thousands of Vehicles from Jacksonville, Palatka, St. Augustine and coastal Florida towns pass this location daily, as East University Avenue is the major thorofare to Gainesville from all points east. Just a few blocks away is downtown … read more…

jacksonvillecoastalhomes.com » Blog Archive » The Peninsula Condo …
Animals · Automotive · Autos · Cats · Economy · Education · Fantasy Sports · Football (American) · Friends · Garden & Landscape · Home Improvement · Home Schooling · Housing Market · Howto · Maintenance & Repairs · Military … read more…

From Google Blog Search

The Chinese Drywall Problem
Chinese drywall refers to a tainted drywall. It’s synonymous with a toxic drywall material. Chinese sheet rock is another term used to describe a toxic drywall material. Chinese drywall emits gases t… read more…

Buy Cheap Houses In Portland…Where Do I Find These Kinds Of Properties?
A common question among investors is when and what is the next best thing to buy. It is often thought that if a house is cheap you should buy those cheap houses in Portland. This is not always a good … read more…

Static Caravan Insurance Protects Your Holiday Home
People who choose to live in a static caravan or own one as a holiday home will need to obtain the adequate amount of insurance to protect such a great investment.

This is especially true to protec… read more…

From GoArticles.com

Open Question: $740 Electric Bill With no AC!?
I purchased a house in a coastal community in San Diego in October of 2009. After installing my new energy efficient washer dryer my bill was a steep, but not incomprehensible $135. I have no central air conditioning or heat, but occasionally use the gas furnace at night. With no change in my everyday activities my bill suddenly came in at $350! I asked the electric company what could be causing this spike, and they told me to “cut back on my energy consumption.” Wow, great advice.

They credited my account about $100, and apologized, for a faulty meter read, until last month’s bill just came it at $750!!! I personally don’t even know how I could accumulate this bill if I left all the lights, TV, and did laundry 6 times per day.

I moved from an uninsulated home in a warmer area of San Diego and blasted the AC around the clock and never went above $500/month. I’m just worried b/c I own this house, and I only use energy efficient bulbs and always turn off things when not using them. Any advice or stories would be greatly appreciated. Could my meter be broken? I’m stressing out. If my bill doubles again it will nearly be the cost of my mortgage!!!

Open Question: What can I do to cool my house that has no insulation?
I rent and my rent is very cheap (renting from family who are willing to lose income on the rental because they got burned too many times by tenants who trashed the place). The house is in OK condition but is old. It has ABSOLUTELY no insulation. Getting better windows and wall insulation is NOT an option (we can’t afford it and neither can the family who owns the place - we have cheaper rent here than we would elsewhere in town and more space). We have old wooden framed windows that can be hard to open (no ropes, just sliding wood on wood). Two of our windows, bathroom and kitchen, are jalousie style (http://www.hometips.com/images/hyhw/shell/144louvered.gif). We have rubber seals for the edges but that just seals part of the draft. Our front door has such a big gap under it that leaves blow in under it. We can’t add any weather sealing to the bottom because the carpet goes too high immediately on the other side of the door.

The crawlspace has zero insulation - many repairmen/cable guys have commented on it, the walls have nothing in there either (plaster walls). We have one of those spinning vents on top of the house and a wall heater in the living room.

During winter, we have space heaters to heat individual rooms and the wall heater does do an OK job on the rest of the house. It has 3 modes - on, off w/ pilot, and off without pilot. So we let it get ‘too hot’ then turn it off and let the drafts cool the room back down. Its managable in winter. We live in coastal, central California so its usually in the mid 40s and rarely gets down in the 30s.
It doesn’t even get too hot most of the year, the problem is that the house gets very hot inside. We can’t leave windows open when we aren’t home and it takes a while to cool it down when we do get home. We bought a portable AC unit last year out of desperation, but you only feel the effect if you are sitting within 4 feet of it.

We have animals at home in the daytime and we’ll put ice in their water, check on them at lunch etc but I’d like to find a better solution to cooling our house. We don’t have the skills to do a lot of work ourselves and don’t have the money to hire someone. The family who owns the house lost their own home in a local wildfire and are very strapped for cash as they try to rebuild (and honestly if they were going to do work on this house, they should probably start with the termites and not worry about replacing windows etc just yet). This area is too expensive for us to buy just now, the prices didn’t come down much with the crash and a mobile home costs $500K minimum. The nearest towns are 1hr+ commute but there is only 1 way in and out of town so the smallest accident can make a commute 2-4 hours easily and the houses out there are $400k-800K easily. We both work in this town and moving is probably inevitable long-term but we have very good jobs and this economy is not a good time for both of us to be looking for new jobs just to move.

Any thoughts/suggestions??