Habitat: Lessons Learned Over 70 Years
Anthropologists claim that we started in the trees in an arboreal region in Western Africa.[1] Our cousins show that we slept in the branches with the leafy canopy above, branches around, and gravity pulling us toward a debris strewn ground patrolled by, mostly, feline carnivores. In order to preserve ourselves, about half-way through the night, we woke up and moved, so that the Big Cats wouldn’t gather beneath us to await our awakening, of falling out of the trees in search of breakfast.
Fires, started by lightning, forced us out. We then started moving and evolving (see Heying & Weinstein, A Hunter-Gatherers’ Guide to the 21st Century, a truly enlightening book[2]), forming into nomadic groups of Hunter-Gathers, and then when we learned that certain fertile areas offered recurring food sources, so then we moved into caves, and actually started building shelters.
Shelters. What were we sheltering from? We were sheltering not only from carnivores and inclement weather, but from isolation from other humans and more importantly, sheltering into companionable families. Think about that for a moment. Away from inclement weather and into multi-generational familial, loving, relationships. A calm and protected environment within which to cogitate and produce without distractions.
I have lived in government/military housing, rental houses, rental apartments, and our own owned houses. Because we are a loving, intimate family, all of these abodes have been homes. However, some have been more livable than others. In point of fact, the only habitat that even approached livable, has been the one which my brother Joe and I renovated, and still, it was a long way from being enjoyably livable, at least as much as I wanted.
Looking back on the last 70+ years, I have now concluded that neither architects nor builders know nor care about the resident of whatever it is that they construct. It doesn’t matter whether or not it is a housing habitat, a business habitat, or an institutional habitat, e.g. school, prison, hospital, &c.
Black’s[3] does not have a definition for habitat but it does have one for habitability, p 779 9th Edition:
habitability, (1890) The condition of a building
in which inhabitants can live free of serious de-
fects that might harm health and safety.
Zillow, and the Idiot’s Guide franchise, are truly inadequate to this issue. Realtors are not interested in your comfort, just their commissions. So, I’m gonna throw in my tuppence, and write what I have learned from not being pleased with any place where I have lived, and with having actually rebuilt most of the last house where Genny and I lived, and, keeping in mind that we had the assistance and guidance of a certified Civil Engineer and Naval Academy graduate in upgrading our last house to almost livable conditions.
Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning aka HVAC
Internal atmospheric conditions, commonly referred to as air conditioning and heating or HVAC, are an item that most people think of as ‘is there any?’ Central air has an outside AC compressor which sucks air into a set of coils filled with a coolant and pushes the cooled air through conduits or ducts, and not those that one sees on TV or in the movies through which crooks +/or heroes crawl to accomplish their nefarious/heroic deeds. Depending upon the structure, it may be located on the roof or in a separate utility shed. In housing, they are relatively narrow, aluminum tubes held open by plastic (Dear Greta, plastic is a petroleum product, try living without plastic), and very flexible.
Heating may be air heated by, LNG (liquid natural gas), oil, or electricity, and pumped through the very same tubing. In offices, they are rectangular modules, mostly of the same size, and when a building requires more air flow than one set of modules can supply, then they join several modules together, BTW, that in most, but not all, cases, means that no person larger than a normal 2 year old, may fit through them.
In the house where I grew up there was a coal bin, where coal was stored and my grandfather had to shovel coal into the basement furnace, which heated the water, and, since the house was built in 1880, there was no AC. The water not only went into the plumbing, but, which allows me to put this into this section, heated water into steam which went through pipes into radiators in each room in the house, which purpose was to heat the house in the winter. As time went on, the coal furnace was replaced by an oil furnace, then an efficient oil furnace, and the oil[4] is stored in a 500 gallon underground tank with oil delivered by truck by the Dietz Oil Co. AC for this house is provided by electrically powered window units. There was no electricity until the 1920’s and although adequate for the time, I’m told 50 amps, neither the wiring nor the, when last I looked, 80 amps is adequate for today.
Air delivery into the habitat, that is, the area in which you live +/or work, is through these conduits which end at vents, which is why it is called ventilation and not conduition.The placement of these vents is something that every person who is looking at a habitat, needs to be aware. If the vents are improperly placed, you do NOT want to rent or buy this property. Hot air rises, cold air sinks, if the habitat that you are looking into to buy or rent has the vents at the top of the wall or in the ceiling, it means that you will never be warm in winter, and never be cool in summer. The hot air will stay at the ceiling and build down to where the thermostat nestles on the wall which will then shut off the heat, leaving everything below and a foot or two above the thermostat, cold. In summer, it means that the cool air will sink down until it hits the thermostat, and again, the thermostat will shut off the AC leaving everything below the thermostat and about two feet above it, to fry. Look for vents at or in the floor.
Conduits along walls need to be insulated. If they are not insulated, whatever conditions are on the other side of the wall, or around them, will impact the air that flows through the conduits, they being aluminum. Builders of apartments and Middle Class housing, do not care if the air flow is seasonally appropriate. With no insulation, heating in Winter becomes extra expensive as you are heating both your habitat and the area surrounding the conduit. You could be heating both the outside, truly wasteful as well as expensive, +/or your attic or basement/crawl space. The same holds true for cooling in Summer. Interior insulation, especially in apartment/condominium building, is as, if not more, important as exterior insulation. Unless you witness the building or renovation personally, it is almost impossible to determine whether or not it is properly insulated. The best that you can do is ask to see at least two years of heating/cooling costs, and to know what is usual for similar buildings. Good luck with that, you may be able to make an educated guess by looking closely at the windows. If the windows are weather appropriate, meaning no cracks/breaks around the seating, double or triple paned, insulated with argon, &c, odds are that the rest of the house was properly insulated.
Another word on insulation. Most building codes now require that multi-family buildings have fire retardation insulation between modules, this does not mean that the unit that you are looking at is properly insulated at the interior walls, but probably is at the common walls, floors, or ceilings.
A word on windows: windows are usually the most expensive single item in new construction. Because of this, builders do NOT use the best quality window. They use ‘new’ windows whose life expectancy is between 15 and 25 years. After that, the property owner needs to buy replacement windows, oddly enough, called, ‘replacement’ windows. Although costly, replacement windows have a much higher life expectancy and, as a matter of technological advancement, are usually of a better weather appropriate quality than the windows that they are replacing. More on windows, later.
A word of caution: the Green codes that have been coming out of California and Colorado do nothing to enhance your habitat. One example, and there are many more, is the requirement that new and renovation building permits have as an electrical requirement, EV[5] charging stations.
Be warned, the reason that building codes require that garages have cement floors is because prior to that, parking a car in the garage before the exhaust system had cooled, would start the garage’s wooden floor, and hence, the house, on fire, usually at night, killing the inhabitants. Currently, as shown by the over 3.3 million recalls of electric vehicles over the last two years,[6] EV Lithium batteries are inherently unstable and spontaneously burst into high intensity fires. Beware of these Green building codes.[7]
Plumbing
Old structures used lead, a toxic substance that leaches[8] into the water, steel, or copper. Really old buildings even used wood. Of the three commonly used, copper is best. Current construction and renovation use copper or plastic in the form of PVC pipe. (Yes, Greta, the plumbing in your home country is an oil/petroleum product), I do not see one having an advantage over the other as far as habitability is concerned, but it does have an impact on future costs of maintenance or replacement.
Both still react to atmospheric conditions of cold and heat. If too close to walls or the exterior, temperatures below freezing will still freeze the water into ice, bursting the pipes. Exterior in- ground pipes should be at least four feet below the surface in order to be below the frost line. Pipes above the frost line will, if you have winter in your area, freeze and burst at some time, or shift do to earth’s natural fluidity which is exacerbated by water in the form of rain or simple gravity flow.
Governments have abrogated their responsibility for the piping in their water systems so that from the system connection to the house is the property owner’s responsibility. Over-heated water will expand the pipes and cause the joins to separate causing slow leaks or floods, depending. Water cannot be compressed, it expands as ice when frozen and it expands into steam when heated.
The major purpose of plumbing is to bring potable water into the structure and to take waste out. Some structures still use steam as the main heating source using pipes and radiators. Look closely at the wall board panels, if any, and look inside as to whether there are pipes within or heat induction lines. The same holds if there are independent floor units, check to see if steam or electric. Which is used will impact your utility costs as well as the probability of black/brown outs.
Water may be the most destructive of all forces. Water leeches out all sorts of chemicals from just about everything or wears it down to particles that are easily washed away. When inspecting a habitat, always be looking for discoloration of any kind, and in all locations. Ceilings, walls, floors, windows, vents, shelves, everywhere should be closely looked at. Moisture on a shelf may mean that there is a temperature gradient causing internal precipitation, or a leak from a pipe. Water rusts all metals, including over time stainless steel,[9] and softens and rots almost all woods. Paint peeling or bubbling up may mean water underneath and failed wooden supports, either studs or joins.
Heat dries everything, thus check for a system humidifier. Most heating systems have one on the main air pump near the air filter. The ones that I have seen take the humidity from the surrounding air as the system is usually housed in the basement. If there is a reservoir, it must be checked regularly, we did it quarterly when we changed the air filter.
Changing the filter is a matter of geographic discretion. When living in Kansas City, we changed the filter quarterly, used the expensive 3M fine filters, and our humidifier simply used local air as the system was in the basement which was always humid. In Denver, we used a coarse Wal-Mart Best Choice filter and a reservoir system as Denver is in a desert, the air always filled with sand and dirt grains and 11% humidity is considered high.
At one point we had to have the reservoir system blown out as the sand particles had clumped and blocked the flow causing a minor flooding problem. We changed filters monthly with the least expensive store brand. Done with your location in mind, you will reduce the dust and dirt in your inside air, and be pleasantly surprised at the reduction in sneezing, eye redness, and overall respiratory health, if you notice it at all.
If in a multi-unit building, do NOT rely on maintenance or building management to do this for you. Our experiences with facility’s maintenance & management is poor at best, and down-hill from there.
A consideration few note is that of the corrosive nature of dust and dirt. If you have ever had a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman stop by, you are always impressed by how he will always take your vacuum, Hoover if British, and vacuum a specific spot. Then, he will vacuum over that spot with his new super-duper vacuum. The new model will always pick up what is missed by the first sweep. What you are missing is that this dust and dirt are sitting on the floor and constantly sawing apart the threads and materials in your carpet.[10] The dirt and dust in the carpet is the major reason you have worn spots. Not only are you wearing out the carpet while walking on it, but you are sawing the small granules against the fiber thereby tearing it apart only to be vacuumed up later. The cleaner the air, the fewer granules, the longer your carpet will last.
Electric
Sigh, another kicker, mostly because it is hidden from sight except at the junction box.[11]
My limited knowledge in this area is mostly from doing renos, and from books. There is a National Electric Code available through all book outlets, mine is from 2008 and cost $125 + tx, and worth every penny. Still, take everything below with more than a dozen grains of salt.
There are two basic junction boxes: fuse and breaker. Normally located in the structure by the local building code, and it as close to the meter as possible, this is where you start. Now, once found, you should go outside to where the electric meter is as this is where the real start is.
First, is the lead from the company’s juncture to the meter in the ground or is it an aerial line?
An aerial line runs from the electric pole to your structure and by eye you can determine how close your juncture is to the nearest transformer. The stretch of line alongside your structure’s wall should be encased in a protective metal tube with a cap at the top to prevent fluids from entering. Keep in mind that there are two flows of electricity, Edison’s Direct Current, DC, used for long distances, and Tesla’s Alternating Current, AC, used for local power, hence the need for a transformer. If your structure is in a weather zone that has ice storms, even if only of the ‘100 year’ variety, aerial power lines will get covered in ice and at some point will break apart leaving ‘live’ wires on the ground.
Live wires kill.
If the line to your meter comes up from the ground, again this line should be encased in a protective tube leading into the bottom of the meter, it needs to be four feet down so as to be below the frost layer, and should then run to the utility’s junction box which supplies you and your neighbors’. It is highly unlikely that you will be able to determine where the nearest transformer is, but it won’t be too far away and is most likely on an aerial master line.
Go back to the junction box. Is it fuses or breakers? If fuses get rid of it and have it replaced with breakers. Also, if fuses, then the chances are that your structure is underserved and you should upgrade your line. Costly, when we did it, it was over $15,000, but we never had an electrical problem after that.
The junction box should have two or more rows of breakers. If you’ve never seen one, go to Lowe’s or Home Depot and have one explained to you. If you live in an area like New York City or California where all electrical equipment and tools are locked in a cage and available only to employees and licensed electricians, you can still ask to see one for educational purposes.
At the top of the box should be a printed note as to how much amperage the house takes. Pasted on the door should be a map of the board. Each breaker slot should be noted as to what electrical line the breaker breaks or that the line feeds or both, depending upon how professional the last and first electrician who worked on the house was. Notice that certain appliance breakers will have different amperages noted on them. (Somewhere on the appliances themselves should be UL[12] labels that tell you the same information, energy efficiency &c. Pay attention to what goes to what as mismatches may cause line failure or fire.) The box amperage at the top is the total amount of amperes that can run through the box at one time, hence what should to the total structure usage, AND what the appropriate wiring for the structure should be.
The amperage listed on the breaker is the maximum amount of amperage that may run through that breaker at one time. An overage will trip the breaker shutting off electric flow. Also, and this is very important, wiring is encased in a non-conducting substance and color coded so that you know what the maximum amperage the line is meant to carry. This is another clue as to the professionalism of the electrician. You don’t want the line to be able to carry more than the breaker will allow even though there is an argument that this will protect the line and the structure in the event that the breaker doesn’t fail when it should. My position here is that correct lineage indicates correct breaker placement. A 30 amp line with a 20 amp breaker is confusing. A 20 amp line and a 30 amp breaker means an electrical fire inside the wall when the line fails and sparks fly.
With two people and cell phones, if necessary, one person at the box should read the map and on/off the breakers while the other person goes to the location listed on the map to check whether or not that line is in fact that line. Care must be taken to make certain that you’re not turning something off, like the furnace, without it being turned back on. If you’re with a competent realtor or rental agent, this should not be a problem, if it is, be warned.
Electricians are professionals, look for certifications by well known authorities. My personal experience is that anyone certified as a Journeyman by the IBEW or CWA (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers or Communications Workers of America. If your electrician learned his trade in the military, ask about his MOS[13]) should be your standard.
When looking a property over, look at all of the outlet plates. Some are in the floor, most are low on the walls. Check the plates for cracks, the screws for scratches, and does the plate and outlet fit together properly. Look for wall board patching around the plate, a sure sign of prior problems.
Consider the number of outlets available in each room and apply that number to what the room is to be used for as a room used for an office, needs many more outlets than a typical bedroom, yet will probably not need additional amperage. If there are not enough built-in outlets, you will want to buy extension cords and multi-pliers. Also, in older houses there will not be enough outlets. When buying, consider paying a little more and get cords with USB and phone charging ports, but make sure that it is surge protected. [14]
Behind these plates is supposed to be a small junction box where the wires are spliced together and joined with plastic caps. Unless the plates are damaged, you won’t be able to get in there until you are doing your due diligence walk through. Until then, you will have to rely on the condition of the cover plates. Don’t be afraid to look behind the plates! If the electrician who ran the lines was cheap, he may have not allowed enough slack in the line to allow for expansion and contraction. An overly taught line may split, and, again, you will have an in wall electrical fire which will completely destroy the structure.
Switches are to be treated in the exact same manner as outlets, as, they are in fact, outlets.
Look at where the light switches are. In Denver, our ‘luxury’, and overly expensive, apartment complex has light switches in locations where when you opened the door to into the room, the light switch for the room was behind the door. Also, every room has switches where one of the switches turned off all of the outlets in the room, a reason for which I do not fathom.[15]
Windows & Doors
Windows and doors are the weakest parts of the structure, both internally and externally. Both come inside of frames that are seated, balanced, and sealed into a wall.[16]
Look for water and weather damage on all outside windows and doors. Bubbling and peeling of paint indicates water or sun damage. Replace or repair, simply scraping and painting over will not correct the underlying problem, it will simply recur. With our last house, we decided to go to Hardy Board, which is cement, which not only fixed the wood/weather problem, but defeated the local woodpeckers and the local insect, ant & termite, infestations. Fixing these things reduced our utility bill, but to be completely cost effective, it would have to have been amortized over 30 years, and the cost was not recovered in the sale of the house.
Look for where the hinges are located on doors, the ease of opening and closing windows & doors. Doors open into the space where the hinge is. In considering security, hinges, and hence doors, are easily removed and will allow anyone to enter, so consider where bedroom and bathroom hinges are. Consider same for all windows.
A special point on the ease of opening and closing of windows and doors. Difficulty will give you a clue as to the settling of the building and the condition of the foundation as well as structural integrity.
Look for cracks and drywall patches.
Buy a small level at Lowe’s or Home Depot. Use it on all surfaces, tops, sides of windows & doors, counters, door jams, pretty much all level surfaces. Finding out after you move in while carrying something in both hands that a door will close +/or hit you all by itself will become very annoying. Having eggs routinely fall off of the kitchen counter and break on the floor, is more than annoying.
When checking exterior windows & doors, look for awnings, and which direction they face. How effective are the drapes and shades? Working in a kitchen with a South-West facing window at sunset while fixing dinner or cleaning up afterward is a big challenge. The same applies to bedrooms and all other areas. Watching a sporting event and having a big play missed because you were blinded by sunlight hitting the screen is very annoying. Although, in more Northern climes, having your driveway facing South is a big plus when the sun melts the snow and ice so much that you don’t have to shovel!
Hardware should be checked on windows & doors. Is it loose? Is it easy to tighten, because they all become loose at some time or other. What kind of hinges do the cabinets have? Look to all of these things as they will require adjustment at some point in time. What kind of levers are the door handles on your doors? What kind of latches? Are they into a jam or a stud and how worn are they? In some locations, residents have simply attached bolts to the jam giving the impression of heightened security, but a jimmy, crowbar, or FUBAR will simply spread or broach the jam and allow easy entry.
Check to see how many panes make up the windows and if they have argon or nitrogen as an insulation buffer. Check all doors, exterior especially, to see if they are hollow or solid. These things make a difference in both security and utility expenses. The garage door and the door into the garage, if your garage is attached, should be checked as well. Having a secure structure but a cheap, easily breached garage door and a weak interior door, is an invitation to invaders. Treat the garage as if it should be a separate structure to your habitat.
Rooves
The first thing to know about rooves is that most of them are not attached to the structure. Single family, and most multi-unit housing structures, simple have the roof placed on them with eaves to keep out the vermin. A simple triangular structure, often built separately, is lifted up and placed on top of the top floor, often bolted or nailed to the ceiling joins of the upper floor, and then insulation is placed or blown into the space. Sometimes plywood is placed over some of the joins to allow the builders to move about “securing” the roof.
Usually, the roof is plywood with a waterproof skin placed on top and then a roofing material on top of that with gutters on the down slope to catch and move rainwater away from the structure.
Look to see if you’ve a chimney or a sun-roof breaching the integrity of the roof. If so, then you should go up and look to see if there is evidence of water damage or separation around the flashing. If so, you’ve got water damage inside, and possibly insect or varmint problems. Mice, rats, squirrels, and birds as well as all sorts of insects, can squeeze through some improbably small spaces.
Look for small dents and other evidence of hail damage, bird poop, hollows and dents. Most such indicators mean that the plywood underneath or the support beams themselves are damaged and will require replacement.
Placed over the waterproof membrane is the actual roofing material which is your major protection against the weather. Shingles are usually a petroleum product but may be wood, such as “shaker” shingles. Shakers are extremely flammable, composite shingles have fire retardant in them. (My last ‘Greta’, rooves are mostly a petroleum product, how about you go without a roof?)
Some more expensive houses have copper rooves. As far as my opinion goes on their habitability is that the noise of rain hitting them is mostly nice, but they conduct heat and cold, and are a conductive metal, so what does that mean re lightning?
Floors
Personal preference is my opinion. Except for those areas where I walk barefooted, I prefer the current technology that allows for wood. Current technology has wood that you can mop and clean without degrading either its beauty or integrity. Carpets or rugs for those very few places where I walk barefooted.
Why? Tile has grout that is impossible to clean and will change color unless you get the newer color impregnated grout. Dirt, spills, dust, &c., will accumulate in it. Tile breaks, cracks, splits, and shifts.
The tiles themselves can be cleaned by simply sweeping and moping. If you like Swiffer ™ that works, too. It also works on the wood. Vinyl will warp and peel, scratch and tear. Also, with a home office, your work chair moves sooo easily over the wood surface.
Technological advancements have made it possible to do all sorts of things, but, cleaning your floors should always be a consideration.
Personal Choices & Preferences
Firstly, don’t get trapped into the reno trap like we did.
We planned on staying in our last house until we were carried out in boxes. Didn’t happen. We redid almost everything except the exterior cement work, only to take a huge loss when Genny got transferred to Denver. Do not redo a building beyond what the going price in the neighborhood is. Take the last five sales and average them, then estimate how much it will cost you to do things, and go from there. And, consider that moving to a new location, even locally, will cost you at least $10,000.
Bathrooms: after many years of simply accepting tile, tight plumbing, and where the builder had put things, we reno-ed our bathrooms. We put in functional vanities and closets and best of all, got Bathfitters ™ to do the hard work. Commodes are modular so replacing an old high flow to low flows was simply a matter of turning off the water and unbolting the old ones, re-sealing, and bolting in new ones. And consider getting a good walk-in tub.
DIY stores have goodly selections of product if you want to do it yourself, otherwise, ask around for references. We’ve had very mixed results using Angi/Home Advisor, your preference. But, …
Your bathroom is a place where you will spend time doing very personal things. Look to see where the toilet paper roll is placed. A luxury apartment where the TP is behind the plane of the water tank means that you will be very uncomfortable every time that you reach for it. Is the commode truly accessible? If located in its own cubicle, can you move and turn around in there? Is it too open for comfort for you, as in, can the neighbors see in from their patio? Many people don’t like it when someone else is in there with you. Are the colors and styles to your liking, and if not, will you or someone else be changing them?
Most importantly in my opinion, can you reach everything that you want from where you are when you want it? Must you leave grooming[17] tools out on the counter/vanity or is there both ample and ready storage? Do the doors and drawers collide with other fixtures? Can you get in and out of the shower or bath easily?
Lighting: pet peeve of mine. Like light switches, our ‘luxury’ apartment has lighting in the ceiling in every room. Sounds good, ya? The apartment lighting is all in the center of the ceiling in the center of each room. Even standing under the light, there is always a shadow in front of you so that no matter where you look, you need additional light. The track lighting is the same. Even moving the lights means nothing because the light source is always from the center of the room. Working in the kitchen means that under-cabinet lighting is always on in addition to the overheads. Using free standing lights means space lost as well as an unnecessary expense.
Note also that this peeve is in the Personal Preference section. You may feel very differently about this issue than I, but it does need to be mentioned when considering habitability. Keep in mind that this habitat is for YOU and YOU should be most comfortable in it.
Windows are where you will get most of your light. In the Northern hemisphere, more light comes from the South; Southern hemisphere, the North. The light attitude is important to where you want your bedrooms to be, where you want your actual work space to be, and to where you want your entertainment area to be. And, if in a snow climate, your driveway!
The Kitchen: Gotta tell ya: As personal as the bathroom, more than the bedroom. Gotta be easy to keep clean, and don’t get cheap appliances. Don’t get a side-by-side refrigerator, get one whose freezer goes completely across, and don’t be distracted by electronic extras. If you can’t get your Home Run Inn ™ frozen pizza in it, keep your Tillamook ™ ice cream frozen, and milk & coffee creamer cold, what good is it? We like the modern glass-topped induction heating stoves. Not only are they electric, but once you get accustomed to them, easy to clean and keep clean. Professional chefs can prefer gas as much as they want, but, … . And, make sure that the micro-wave is NOT directly over the stove, if at all possible. Best to have as deep a sink as possible, a double with a food disposal of ample horse power, too. As large a pantry as your kitchen foot-print allows!
Tools: Yupper, y’er gonna need’m. Depending on how involved you want to get, you will need at least some screwdrivers, both flat head #2 and Philips #2, a small and medium vise grip, and a set of Allen wrenches. Personally, I suggest that you get an electric drill driver and screwdriver set with bits, lugs and wrenches. I personally have a Milwaukee ™ tool set, but de Walt ™ is as good, it was just that the Milwaukee set was on sale.
Exterior: Truly personal. Do you garden? Want a croquet pitch? A putting green? Flowers? Your house to stand out by painting it flat black or iridescent purple? Look for trees, bushes, cracks in cement or brick, and often overlooked, the condition of the grass and for mole tunnels.
In all of this, you want a place where YOU and YOUR FAMILY are comfortable and will function as both a physical and spiritual sanctuary. Truly, YOUR castle.
[1] Although, given discoveries in the PRC, especially in the Three Rivers area, and the fact that a carbon layer of burnt forest has not been found, it may be that Man started in China. With the PRC destroying so much of their own heritage, who knows?
[2] Although I recommend it, I do not agree with all of their conclusions, oh, so definitely not.
[3] Black’s Law Dictionary; regardless of the adequacy of Webster’s, New Collegiate, &c., if one becomes involved in a dispute and must go to court or arbitration, Black’s is the dictionary definition that the magistrate/arbitrator will use to come to a conclusion.
[4] Hey, Greta, this is known as ‘home heating fuel’ or, in the business, Diesel #2!
[5] Electric Vehicle
[6] See the recent blog post of the article from The Wall Street Journal. A further aside re EV’s, the business model is changing. You can ‘buy’ the car, but only ‘lease’ the battery. And, a recent article about buying a used EV had it that the used EV cost $14,000, a few months later the battery crapped out, and the replacement battery cost $17,000. Hmm. (Ya, in The Wall Street Journal!)
[7] Another point on this: these Green codes are designed to eliminate single family housing. They are designed to force all except the elites into large apartment complexes. Colorado passed such nonsense and now has no affordable housing for its people, and worse, as one of the results of the Marshall Wild Fire, those people burned out of their homes cannot rebuild or repair their housing, and further, none of them carried sufficient home-owner’s insurance that would cover all of the new Green requirements, much less anything close to any reasonable replacement cost.
[8] Isn’t it Detroit that has this problem and now loads of lawsuits and very ill taxpayers???? Incompetence, thy spawn is politician!
[9] Take two really old stainless steel knives, rubber band them together, and place them in a covered dish of tap water. Leave it on the counter-top at room temperature. Open after three months and separate the knives. Corrosion and rust, oh my.
[10] An interesting engineering point, here. All of that stuff sits either directly on your floor or in the weave of the carpet’s foundation. Your vacuum simple beats the carpet stirring up the dust and dirt where the vacuum can suck it in. Even the most powerful vacuum will leave something behind, either because the range of the vacuum isn’t a complete 1440 degrees, or the driver, ie, you, are missing spots or the wall or furniture is in the way. Regardless, there is always dirt and grit in your carpet.
[11] Ya, when was the last time that you actually went outside and looked at the meter? Never have, heh?
[12] Underwriters Laboratory. Like many private testing companies, the insurance industry does a lot of testing in order to determine risk and premiums. The Free Market, what a concept!
[13] Military Occupational Specialty. A listing may be found on-line, and an especially fine source is www.bls.gov for definitions, competencies and wages & compensation in your area.
[14] Also, for those of us considering the EMP problem, there is a producer of building and auto protection against electro-magnetic-pulses. www.empshield.com if memory serves.
[15] I was informed by the rental agent that this was done so that you could plug all of your lights, printers, &c into the outlets and turn them all off or on at once. Since turning off many devices this way is harmful to them, I do not understand. Just as an example, if you turn off your printers in this fashion, your printer will not cap the ink wells thereby leaving them open to dry out, and require you to replace them more frequently, and expensively.
[16] The BBC series, Fawlty Towers, has a bit in the first episode that so clearly shows the importance of the proper placing of doors and windows!
[17] I’ve gone to Manscaping ™ , so sue me! Or is this TMI?
Justplainbill's Weblog 
Aestimare #002, Habitat
Habitat: Lessons Learned Over 70 Years
Anthropologists claim that we started in the trees in an arboreal region in Western Africa.[1] Our cousins show that we slept in the branches with the leafy canopy above, branches around, and gravity pulling us toward a debris strewn ground patrolled by, mostly, feline carnivores. In order to preserve ourselves, about half-way through the night, we woke up and moved, so that the Big Cats wouldn’t gather beneath us to await our awakening, of falling out of the trees in search of breakfast.
Fires, started by lightning, forced us out. We then started moving and evolving (see Heying & Weinstein, A Hunter-Gatherers’ Guide to the 21st Century, a truly enlightening book[2]), forming into nomadic groups of Hunter-Gathers, and then when we learned that certain fertile areas offered recurring food sources, so then we moved into caves, and actually started building shelters.
Shelters. What were we sheltering from? We were sheltering not only from carnivores and inclement weather, but from isolation from other humans and more importantly, sheltering into companionable families. Think about that for a moment. Away from inclement weather and into multi-generational familial, loving, relationships. A calm and protected environment within which to cogitate and produce without distractions.
I have lived in government/military housing, rental houses, rental apartments, and our own owned houses. Because we are a loving, intimate family, all of these abodes have been homes. However, some have been more livable than others. In point of fact, the only habitat that even approached livable, has been the one which my brother Joe and I renovated, and still, it was a long way from being enjoyably livable, at least as much as I wanted.
Looking back on the last 70+ years, I have now concluded that neither architects nor builders know nor care about the resident of whatever it is that they construct. It doesn’t matter whether or not it is a housing habitat, a business habitat, or an institutional habitat, e.g. school, prison, hospital, &c.
Black’s[3] does not have a definition for habitat but it does have one for habitability, p 779 9th Edition:
habitability, (1890) The condition of a building
in which inhabitants can live free of serious de-
fects that might harm health and safety.
Zillow, and the Idiot’s Guide franchise, are truly inadequate to this issue. Realtors are not interested in your comfort, just their commissions. So, I’m gonna throw in my tuppence, and write what I have learned from not being pleased with any place where I have lived, and with having actually rebuilt most of the last house where Genny and I lived, and, keeping in mind that we had the assistance and guidance of a certified Civil Engineer and Naval Academy graduate in upgrading our last house to almost livable conditions.
Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning aka HVAC
Internal atmospheric conditions, commonly referred to as air conditioning and heating or HVAC, are an item that most people think of as ‘is there any?’ Central air has an outside AC compressor which sucks air into a set of coils filled with a coolant and pushes the cooled air through conduits or ducts, and not those that one sees on TV or in the movies through which crooks +/or heroes crawl to accomplish their nefarious/heroic deeds. Depending upon the structure, it may be located on the roof or in a separate utility shed. In housing, they are relatively narrow, aluminum tubes held open by plastic (Dear Greta, plastic is a petroleum product, try living without plastic), and very flexible.
Heating may be air heated by, LNG (liquid natural gas), oil, or electricity, and pumped through the very same tubing. In offices, they are rectangular modules, mostly of the same size, and when a building requires more air flow than one set of modules can supply, then they join several modules together, BTW, that in most, but not all, cases, means that no person larger than a normal 2 year old, may fit through them.
In the house where I grew up there was a coal bin, where coal was stored and my grandfather had to shovel coal into the basement furnace, which heated the water, and, since the house was built in 1880, there was no AC. The water not only went into the plumbing, but, which allows me to put this into this section, heated water into steam which went through pipes into radiators in each room in the house, which purpose was to heat the house in the winter. As time went on, the coal furnace was replaced by an oil furnace, then an efficient oil furnace, and the oil[4] is stored in a 500 gallon underground tank with oil delivered by truck by the Dietz Oil Co. AC for this house is provided by electrically powered window units. There was no electricity until the 1920’s and although adequate for the time, I’m told 50 amps, neither the wiring nor the, when last I looked, 80 amps is adequate for today.
Air delivery into the habitat, that is, the area in which you live +/or work, is through these conduits which end at vents, which is why it is called ventilation and not conduition.The placement of these vents is something that every person who is looking at a habitat, needs to be aware. If the vents are improperly placed, you do NOT want to rent or buy this property. Hot air rises, cold air sinks, if the habitat that you are looking into to buy or rent has the vents at the top of the wall or in the ceiling, it means that you will never be warm in winter, and never be cool in summer. The hot air will stay at the ceiling and build down to where the thermostat nestles on the wall which will then shut off the heat, leaving everything below and a foot or two above the thermostat, cold. In summer, it means that the cool air will sink down until it hits the thermostat, and again, the thermostat will shut off the AC leaving everything below the thermostat and about two feet above it, to fry. Look for vents at or in the floor.
Conduits along walls need to be insulated. If they are not insulated, whatever conditions are on the other side of the wall, or around them, will impact the air that flows through the conduits, they being aluminum. Builders of apartments and Middle Class housing, do not care if the air flow is seasonally appropriate. With no insulation, heating in Winter becomes extra expensive as you are heating both your habitat and the area surrounding the conduit. You could be heating both the outside, truly wasteful as well as expensive, +/or your attic or basement/crawl space. The same holds true for cooling in Summer. Interior insulation, especially in apartment/condominium building, is as, if not more, important as exterior insulation. Unless you witness the building or renovation personally, it is almost impossible to determine whether or not it is properly insulated. The best that you can do is ask to see at least two years of heating/cooling costs, and to know what is usual for similar buildings. Good luck with that, you may be able to make an educated guess by looking closely at the windows. If the windows are weather appropriate, meaning no cracks/breaks around the seating, double or triple paned, insulated with argon, &c, odds are that the rest of the house was properly insulated.
Another word on insulation. Most building codes now require that multi-family buildings have fire retardation insulation between modules, this does not mean that the unit that you are looking at is properly insulated at the interior walls, but probably is at the common walls, floors, or ceilings.
A word on windows: windows are usually the most expensive single item in new construction. Because of this, builders do NOT use the best quality window. They use ‘new’ windows whose life expectancy is between 15 and 25 years. After that, the property owner needs to buy replacement windows, oddly enough, called, ‘replacement’ windows. Although costly, replacement windows have a much higher life expectancy and, as a matter of technological advancement, are usually of a better weather appropriate quality than the windows that they are replacing. More on windows, later.
A word of caution: the Green codes that have been coming out of California and Colorado do nothing to enhance your habitat. One example, and there are many more, is the requirement that new and renovation building permits have as an electrical requirement, EV[5] charging stations.
Be warned, the reason that building codes require that garages have cement floors is because prior to that, parking a car in the garage before the exhaust system had cooled, would start the garage’s wooden floor, and hence, the house, on fire, usually at night, killing the inhabitants. Currently, as shown by the over 3.3 million recalls of electric vehicles over the last two years,[6] EV Lithium batteries are inherently unstable and spontaneously burst into high intensity fires. Beware of these Green building codes.[7]
Plumbing
Old structures used lead, a toxic substance that leaches[8] into the water, steel, or copper. Really old buildings even used wood. Of the three commonly used, copper is best. Current construction and renovation use copper or plastic in the form of PVC pipe. (Yes, Greta, the plumbing in your home country is an oil/petroleum product), I do not see one having an advantage over the other as far as habitability is concerned, but it does have an impact on future costs of maintenance or replacement.
Both still react to atmospheric conditions of cold and heat. If too close to walls or the exterior, temperatures below freezing will still freeze the water into ice, bursting the pipes. Exterior in- ground pipes should be at least four feet below the surface in order to be below the frost line. Pipes above the frost line will, if you have winter in your area, freeze and burst at some time, or shift do to earth’s natural fluidity which is exacerbated by water in the form of rain or simple gravity flow.
Governments have abrogated their responsibility for the piping in their water systems so that from the system connection to the house is the property owner’s responsibility. Over-heated water will expand the pipes and cause the joins to separate causing slow leaks or floods, depending. Water cannot be compressed, it expands as ice when frozen and it expands into steam when heated.
The major purpose of plumbing is to bring potable water into the structure and to take waste out. Some structures still use steam as the main heating source using pipes and radiators. Look closely at the wall board panels, if any, and look inside as to whether there are pipes within or heat induction lines. The same holds if there are independent floor units, check to see if steam or electric. Which is used will impact your utility costs as well as the probability of black/brown outs.
Water may be the most destructive of all forces. Water leeches out all sorts of chemicals from just about everything or wears it down to particles that are easily washed away. When inspecting a habitat, always be looking for discoloration of any kind, and in all locations. Ceilings, walls, floors, windows, vents, shelves, everywhere should be closely looked at. Moisture on a shelf may mean that there is a temperature gradient causing internal precipitation, or a leak from a pipe. Water rusts all metals, including over time stainless steel,[9] and softens and rots almost all woods. Paint peeling or bubbling up may mean water underneath and failed wooden supports, either studs or joins.
Heat dries everything, thus check for a system humidifier. Most heating systems have one on the main air pump near the air filter. The ones that I have seen take the humidity from the surrounding air as the system is usually housed in the basement. If there is a reservoir, it must be checked regularly, we did it quarterly when we changed the air filter.
Changing the filter is a matter of geographic discretion. When living in Kansas City, we changed the filter quarterly, used the expensive 3M fine filters, and our humidifier simply used local air as the system was in the basement which was always humid. In Denver, we used a coarse Wal-Mart Best Choice filter and a reservoir system as Denver is in a desert, the air always filled with sand and dirt grains and 11% humidity is considered high.
At one point we had to have the reservoir system blown out as the sand particles had clumped and blocked the flow causing a minor flooding problem. We changed filters monthly with the least expensive store brand. Done with your location in mind, you will reduce the dust and dirt in your inside air, and be pleasantly surprised at the reduction in sneezing, eye redness, and overall respiratory health, if you notice it at all.
If in a multi-unit building, do NOT rely on maintenance or building management to do this for you. Our experiences with facility’s maintenance & management is poor at best, and down-hill from there.
A consideration few note is that of the corrosive nature of dust and dirt. If you have ever had a door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesman stop by, you are always impressed by how he will always take your vacuum, Hoover if British, and vacuum a specific spot. Then, he will vacuum over that spot with his new super-duper vacuum. The new model will always pick up what is missed by the first sweep. What you are missing is that this dust and dirt are sitting on the floor and constantly sawing apart the threads and materials in your carpet.[10] The dirt and dust in the carpet is the major reason you have worn spots. Not only are you wearing out the carpet while walking on it, but you are sawing the small granules against the fiber thereby tearing it apart only to be vacuumed up later. The cleaner the air, the fewer granules, the longer your carpet will last.
Electric
Sigh, another kicker, mostly because it is hidden from sight except at the junction box.[11]
My limited knowledge in this area is mostly from doing renos, and from books. There is a National Electric Code available through all book outlets, mine is from 2008 and cost $125 + tx, and worth every penny. Still, take everything below with more than a dozen grains of salt.
There are two basic junction boxes: fuse and breaker. Normally located in the structure by the local building code, and it as close to the meter as possible, this is where you start. Now, once found, you should go outside to where the electric meter is as this is where the real start is.
First, is the lead from the company’s juncture to the meter in the ground or is it an aerial line?
An aerial line runs from the electric pole to your structure and by eye you can determine how close your juncture is to the nearest transformer. The stretch of line alongside your structure’s wall should be encased in a protective metal tube with a cap at the top to prevent fluids from entering. Keep in mind that there are two flows of electricity, Edison’s Direct Current, DC, used for long distances, and Tesla’s Alternating Current, AC, used for local power, hence the need for a transformer. If your structure is in a weather zone that has ice storms, even if only of the ‘100 year’ variety, aerial power lines will get covered in ice and at some point will break apart leaving ‘live’ wires on the ground.
Live wires kill.
If the line to your meter comes up from the ground, again this line should be encased in a protective tube leading into the bottom of the meter, it needs to be four feet down so as to be below the frost layer, and should then run to the utility’s junction box which supplies you and your neighbors’. It is highly unlikely that you will be able to determine where the nearest transformer is, but it won’t be too far away and is most likely on an aerial master line.
Go back to the junction box. Is it fuses or breakers? If fuses get rid of it and have it replaced with breakers. Also, if fuses, then the chances are that your structure is underserved and you should upgrade your line. Costly, when we did it, it was over $15,000, but we never had an electrical problem after that.
The junction box should have two or more rows of breakers. If you’ve never seen one, go to Lowe’s or Home Depot and have one explained to you. If you live in an area like New York City or California where all electrical equipment and tools are locked in a cage and available only to employees and licensed electricians, you can still ask to see one for educational purposes.
At the top of the box should be a printed note as to how much amperage the house takes. Pasted on the door should be a map of the board. Each breaker slot should be noted as to what electrical line the breaker breaks or that the line feeds or both, depending upon how professional the last and first electrician who worked on the house was. Notice that certain appliance breakers will have different amperages noted on them. (Somewhere on the appliances themselves should be UL[12] labels that tell you the same information, energy efficiency &c. Pay attention to what goes to what as mismatches may cause line failure or fire.) The box amperage at the top is the total amount of amperes that can run through the box at one time, hence what should to the total structure usage, AND what the appropriate wiring for the structure should be.
The amperage listed on the breaker is the maximum amount of amperage that may run through that breaker at one time. An overage will trip the breaker shutting off electric flow. Also, and this is very important, wiring is encased in a non-conducting substance and color coded so that you know what the maximum amperage the line is meant to carry. This is another clue as to the professionalism of the electrician. You don’t want the line to be able to carry more than the breaker will allow even though there is an argument that this will protect the line and the structure in the event that the breaker doesn’t fail when it should. My position here is that correct lineage indicates correct breaker placement. A 30 amp line with a 20 amp breaker is confusing. A 20 amp line and a 30 amp breaker means an electrical fire inside the wall when the line fails and sparks fly.
With two people and cell phones, if necessary, one person at the box should read the map and on/off the breakers while the other person goes to the location listed on the map to check whether or not that line is in fact that line. Care must be taken to make certain that you’re not turning something off, like the furnace, without it being turned back on. If you’re with a competent realtor or rental agent, this should not be a problem, if it is, be warned.
Electricians are professionals, look for certifications by well known authorities. My personal experience is that anyone certified as a Journeyman by the IBEW or CWA (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers or Communications Workers of America. If your electrician learned his trade in the military, ask about his MOS[13]) should be your standard.
When looking a property over, look at all of the outlet plates. Some are in the floor, most are low on the walls. Check the plates for cracks, the screws for scratches, and does the plate and outlet fit together properly. Look for wall board patching around the plate, a sure sign of prior problems.
Consider the number of outlets available in each room and apply that number to what the room is to be used for as a room used for an office, needs many more outlets than a typical bedroom, yet will probably not need additional amperage. If there are not enough built-in outlets, you will want to buy extension cords and multi-pliers. Also, in older houses there will not be enough outlets. When buying, consider paying a little more and get cords with USB and phone charging ports, but make sure that it is surge protected. [14]
Behind these plates is supposed to be a small junction box where the wires are spliced together and joined with plastic caps. Unless the plates are damaged, you won’t be able to get in there until you are doing your due diligence walk through. Until then, you will have to rely on the condition of the cover plates. Don’t be afraid to look behind the plates! If the electrician who ran the lines was cheap, he may have not allowed enough slack in the line to allow for expansion and contraction. An overly taught line may split, and, again, you will have an in wall electrical fire which will completely destroy the structure.
Switches are to be treated in the exact same manner as outlets, as, they are in fact, outlets.
Look at where the light switches are. In Denver, our ‘luxury’, and overly expensive, apartment complex has light switches in locations where when you opened the door to into the room, the light switch for the room was behind the door. Also, every room has switches where one of the switches turned off all of the outlets in the room, a reason for which I do not fathom.[15]
Windows & Doors
Windows and doors are the weakest parts of the structure, both internally and externally. Both come inside of frames that are seated, balanced, and sealed into a wall.[16]
Look for water and weather damage on all outside windows and doors. Bubbling and peeling of paint indicates water or sun damage. Replace or repair, simply scraping and painting over will not correct the underlying problem, it will simply recur. With our last house, we decided to go to Hardy Board, which is cement, which not only fixed the wood/weather problem, but defeated the local woodpeckers and the local insect, ant & termite, infestations. Fixing these things reduced our utility bill, but to be completely cost effective, it would have to have been amortized over 30 years, and the cost was not recovered in the sale of the house.
Look for where the hinges are located on doors, the ease of opening and closing windows & doors. Doors open into the space where the hinge is. In considering security, hinges, and hence doors, are easily removed and will allow anyone to enter, so consider where bedroom and bathroom hinges are. Consider same for all windows.
A special point on the ease of opening and closing of windows and doors. Difficulty will give you a clue as to the settling of the building and the condition of the foundation as well as structural integrity.
Look for cracks and drywall patches.
Buy a small level at Lowe’s or Home Depot. Use it on all surfaces, tops, sides of windows & doors, counters, door jams, pretty much all level surfaces. Finding out after you move in while carrying something in both hands that a door will close +/or hit you all by itself will become very annoying. Having eggs routinely fall off of the kitchen counter and break on the floor, is more than annoying.
When checking exterior windows & doors, look for awnings, and which direction they face. How effective are the drapes and shades? Working in a kitchen with a South-West facing window at sunset while fixing dinner or cleaning up afterward is a big challenge. The same applies to bedrooms and all other areas. Watching a sporting event and having a big play missed because you were blinded by sunlight hitting the screen is very annoying. Although, in more Northern climes, having your driveway facing South is a big plus when the sun melts the snow and ice so much that you don’t have to shovel!
Hardware should be checked on windows & doors. Is it loose? Is it easy to tighten, because they all become loose at some time or other. What kind of hinges do the cabinets have? Look to all of these things as they will require adjustment at some point in time. What kind of levers are the door handles on your doors? What kind of latches? Are they into a jam or a stud and how worn are they? In some locations, residents have simply attached bolts to the jam giving the impression of heightened security, but a jimmy, crowbar, or FUBAR will simply spread or broach the jam and allow easy entry.
Check to see how many panes make up the windows and if they have argon or nitrogen as an insulation buffer. Check all doors, exterior especially, to see if they are hollow or solid. These things make a difference in both security and utility expenses. The garage door and the door into the garage, if your garage is attached, should be checked as well. Having a secure structure but a cheap, easily breached garage door and a weak interior door, is an invitation to invaders. Treat the garage as if it should be a separate structure to your habitat.
Rooves
The first thing to know about rooves is that most of them are not attached to the structure. Single family, and most multi-unit housing structures, simple have the roof placed on them with eaves to keep out the vermin. A simple triangular structure, often built separately, is lifted up and placed on top of the top floor, often bolted or nailed to the ceiling joins of the upper floor, and then insulation is placed or blown into the space. Sometimes plywood is placed over some of the joins to allow the builders to move about “securing” the roof.
Usually, the roof is plywood with a waterproof skin placed on top and then a roofing material on top of that with gutters on the down slope to catch and move rainwater away from the structure.
Look to see if you’ve a chimney or a sun-roof breaching the integrity of the roof. If so, then you should go up and look to see if there is evidence of water damage or separation around the flashing. If so, you’ve got water damage inside, and possibly insect or varmint problems. Mice, rats, squirrels, and birds as well as all sorts of insects, can squeeze through some improbably small spaces.
Look for small dents and other evidence of hail damage, bird poop, hollows and dents. Most such indicators mean that the plywood underneath or the support beams themselves are damaged and will require replacement.
Placed over the waterproof membrane is the actual roofing material which is your major protection against the weather. Shingles are usually a petroleum product but may be wood, such as “shaker” shingles. Shakers are extremely flammable, composite shingles have fire retardant in them. (My last ‘Greta’, rooves are mostly a petroleum product, how about you go without a roof?)
Some more expensive houses have copper rooves. As far as my opinion goes on their habitability is that the noise of rain hitting them is mostly nice, but they conduct heat and cold, and are a conductive metal, so what does that mean re lightning?
Floors
Personal preference is my opinion. Except for those areas where I walk barefooted, I prefer the current technology that allows for wood. Current technology has wood that you can mop and clean without degrading either its beauty or integrity. Carpets or rugs for those very few places where I walk barefooted.
Why? Tile has grout that is impossible to clean and will change color unless you get the newer color impregnated grout. Dirt, spills, dust, &c., will accumulate in it. Tile breaks, cracks, splits, and shifts.
The tiles themselves can be cleaned by simply sweeping and moping. If you like Swiffer ™ that works, too. It also works on the wood. Vinyl will warp and peel, scratch and tear. Also, with a home office, your work chair moves sooo easily over the wood surface.
Technological advancements have made it possible to do all sorts of things, but, cleaning your floors should always be a consideration.
Personal Choices & Preferences
Firstly, don’t get trapped into the reno trap like we did.
We planned on staying in our last house until we were carried out in boxes. Didn’t happen. We redid almost everything except the exterior cement work, only to take a huge loss when Genny got transferred to Denver. Do not redo a building beyond what the going price in the neighborhood is. Take the last five sales and average them, then estimate how much it will cost you to do things, and go from there. And, consider that moving to a new location, even locally, will cost you at least $10,000.
Bathrooms: after many years of simply accepting tile, tight plumbing, and where the builder had put things, we reno-ed our bathrooms. We put in functional vanities and closets and best of all, got Bathfitters ™ to do the hard work. Commodes are modular so replacing an old high flow to low flows was simply a matter of turning off the water and unbolting the old ones, re-sealing, and bolting in new ones. And consider getting a good walk-in tub.
DIY stores have goodly selections of product if you want to do it yourself, otherwise, ask around for references. We’ve had very mixed results using Angi/Home Advisor, your preference. But, …
Your bathroom is a place where you will spend time doing very personal things. Look to see where the toilet paper roll is placed. A luxury apartment where the TP is behind the plane of the water tank means that you will be very uncomfortable every time that you reach for it. Is the commode truly accessible? If located in its own cubicle, can you move and turn around in there? Is it too open for comfort for you, as in, can the neighbors see in from their patio? Many people don’t like it when someone else is in there with you. Are the colors and styles to your liking, and if not, will you or someone else be changing them?
Most importantly in my opinion, can you reach everything that you want from where you are when you want it? Must you leave grooming[17] tools out on the counter/vanity or is there both ample and ready storage? Do the doors and drawers collide with other fixtures? Can you get in and out of the shower or bath easily?
Lighting: pet peeve of mine. Like light switches, our ‘luxury’ apartment has lighting in the ceiling in every room. Sounds good, ya? The apartment lighting is all in the center of the ceiling in the center of each room. Even standing under the light, there is always a shadow in front of you so that no matter where you look, you need additional light. The track lighting is the same. Even moving the lights means nothing because the light source is always from the center of the room. Working in the kitchen means that under-cabinet lighting is always on in addition to the overheads. Using free standing lights means space lost as well as an unnecessary expense.
Note also that this peeve is in the Personal Preference section. You may feel very differently about this issue than I, but it does need to be mentioned when considering habitability. Keep in mind that this habitat is for YOU and YOU should be most comfortable in it.
Windows are where you will get most of your light. In the Northern hemisphere, more light comes from the South; Southern hemisphere, the North. The light attitude is important to where you want your bedrooms to be, where you want your actual work space to be, and to where you want your entertainment area to be. And, if in a snow climate, your driveway!
The Kitchen: Gotta tell ya: As personal as the bathroom, more than the bedroom. Gotta be easy to keep clean, and don’t get cheap appliances. Don’t get a side-by-side refrigerator, get one whose freezer goes completely across, and don’t be distracted by electronic extras. If you can’t get your Home Run Inn ™ frozen pizza in it, keep your Tillamook ™ ice cream frozen, and milk & coffee creamer cold, what good is it? We like the modern glass-topped induction heating stoves. Not only are they electric, but once you get accustomed to them, easy to clean and keep clean. Professional chefs can prefer gas as much as they want, but, … . And, make sure that the micro-wave is NOT directly over the stove, if at all possible. Best to have as deep a sink as possible, a double with a food disposal of ample horse power, too. As large a pantry as your kitchen foot-print allows!
Tools: Yupper, y’er gonna need’m. Depending on how involved you want to get, you will need at least some screwdrivers, both flat head #2 and Philips #2, a small and medium vise grip, and a set of Allen wrenches. Personally, I suggest that you get an electric drill driver and screwdriver set with bits, lugs and wrenches. I personally have a Milwaukee ™ tool set, but de Walt ™ is as good, it was just that the Milwaukee set was on sale.
Exterior: Truly personal. Do you garden? Want a croquet pitch? A putting green? Flowers? Your house to stand out by painting it flat black or iridescent purple? Look for trees, bushes, cracks in cement or brick, and often overlooked, the condition of the grass and for mole tunnels.
In all of this, you want a place where YOU and YOUR FAMILY are comfortable and will function as both a physical and spiritual sanctuary. Truly, YOUR castle.
[1] Although, given discoveries in the PRC, especially in the Three Rivers area, and the fact that a carbon layer of burnt forest has not been found, it may be that Man started in China. With the PRC destroying so much of their own heritage, who knows?
[2] Although I recommend it, I do not agree with all of their conclusions, oh, so definitely not.
[3] Black’s Law Dictionary; regardless of the adequacy of Webster’s, New Collegiate, &c., if one becomes involved in a dispute and must go to court or arbitration, Black’s is the dictionary definition that the magistrate/arbitrator will use to come to a conclusion.
[4] Hey, Greta, this is known as ‘home heating fuel’ or, in the business, Diesel #2!
[5] Electric Vehicle
[6] See the recent blog post of the article from The Wall Street Journal. A further aside re EV’s, the business model is changing. You can ‘buy’ the car, but only ‘lease’ the battery. And, a recent article about buying a used EV had it that the used EV cost $14,000, a few months later the battery crapped out, and the replacement battery cost $17,000. Hmm. (Ya, in The Wall Street Journal!)
[7] Another point on this: these Green codes are designed to eliminate single family housing. They are designed to force all except the elites into large apartment complexes. Colorado passed such nonsense and now has no affordable housing for its people, and worse, as one of the results of the Marshall Wild Fire, those people burned out of their homes cannot rebuild or repair their housing, and further, none of them carried sufficient home-owner’s insurance that would cover all of the new Green requirements, much less anything close to any reasonable replacement cost.
[8] Isn’t it Detroit that has this problem and now loads of lawsuits and very ill taxpayers???? Incompetence, thy spawn is politician!
[9] Take two really old stainless steel knives, rubber band them together, and place them in a covered dish of tap water. Leave it on the counter-top at room temperature. Open after three months and separate the knives. Corrosion and rust, oh my.
[10] An interesting engineering point, here. All of that stuff sits either directly on your floor or in the weave of the carpet’s foundation. Your vacuum simple beats the carpet stirring up the dust and dirt where the vacuum can suck it in. Even the most powerful vacuum will leave something behind, either because the range of the vacuum isn’t a complete 1440 degrees, or the driver, ie, you, are missing spots or the wall or furniture is in the way. Regardless, there is always dirt and grit in your carpet.
[11] Ya, when was the last time that you actually went outside and looked at the meter? Never have, heh?
[12] Underwriters Laboratory. Like many private testing companies, the insurance industry does a lot of testing in order to determine risk and premiums. The Free Market, what a concept!
[13] Military Occupational Specialty. A listing may be found on-line, and an especially fine source is www.bls.gov for definitions, competencies and wages & compensation in your area.
[14] Also, for those of us considering the EMP problem, there is a producer of building and auto protection against electro-magnetic-pulses. www.empshield.com if memory serves.
[15] I was informed by the rental agent that this was done so that you could plug all of your lights, printers, &c into the outlets and turn them all off or on at once. Since turning off many devices this way is harmful to them, I do not understand. Just as an example, if you turn off your printers in this fashion, your printer will not cap the ink wells thereby leaving them open to dry out, and require you to replace them more frequently, and expensively.
[16] The BBC series, Fawlty Towers, has a bit in the first episode that so clearly shows the importance of the proper placing of doors and windows!
[17] I’ve gone to Manscaping ™ , so sue me! Or is this TMI?
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