How much will it cost to heat a 2 bed house with oil?
We are looking at a house to rent in Indiana with 2 bedrooms. I don't know all the details. I have never had oil heat before and was wondering if anyone knew about how much it might cost to heat it?
What has your worst experience renting an apartment, house or other property been? What made it so bad?
A long time ago I rented a small house for $75/month to month. At the time it was all I could afford. Basically a shack with no heat.Living area and kitchen were all in one room, with an adjoining bedroom that someone had divided into two. Peeling paint on every wall and ceiling. Windows had very little glazing left on the panes, were very drafty and you could hear them rattle in the wind. Water came from a well and it tasted like shit.I scraped old paint and repainted. I reglazed every window. I replaced some flooring in the bathroom and put new linoleum down after my foot went through the floor one day while I was taking a leak. Took me an entire summer.No air conditioning, the roof leaked, and the place had mice. I used space heaters in the winter and still froze my ass off. I ate ice and had fans going nonstop during the summer and still sweated my ass off. I set mousetraps and D-con mouse bait all over and was constantly getting rid of mouse carcasses.Raccoons tried to make a home out of the screened-in back porch until I wound up breaking my broom trying to smack the momma raccoon with it. They didn't come back after that, but then I had to replace my broom.I lived there for two years. Eventually tree roots destroyed the sewer line out of the house. I attempted to run an auger through the line and broke it even more and the toilet and sinks wound up draining into the cellar. The smell was horrendous.By that time I had money saved up to move somewhere else, so I left. While I was moving stuff out, some girl in her twenties stopped by to inquire if the place was for rent. I assured her that she wanted nothing to do with the house.Two months after I left, a huge thunderstorm knocked over a tree that landed on the house and demolished the bedrooms. Shortly after that, the owner had someone come over with a bulldozer and scrape what was left into the cellar and cover the whole mess with topsoil.It looks like a nice, green lawn now, but I know what horror lies underneath.
Is a 100 amp electric service enough for a two-story, four-bedroom house?
I agree in very large part with Chris Everett's answer; provided you have no really large current draws, 100 amps should be plenty. When I lived in Albuquerque, I had a 3BR house with surface well, a woodshop in a detached & converted garage, and a very large swamp cooler, and had only a 60A service. The house I live in now (Vermont) was a 4BR when I moved into it, has a surface pump, large woodshop and smaller machine shop with welder outlets, and it only has a 100A service.Moreover, if you were to live in - say - Amish or Mennonite or Quaker fashion (very little or no electricity consumption), 100A would be vast overkill for such a house. Even if you were accustomed to using the very small amount of electricity you'd have available if you had a history in a solar-only residence (perhaps 5KWh daylight hours only), 100A (24KWh 24h/d) would be very luxurious.If, on the other hand, you are counting on electric baseboard heating, a surface pump, electric dryer, electric range, large refrigerator and chest freezer, garbage disposal, dehumidifier, central air conditioning, large dishwasher with heating element, and six-person hot tub... then no. 100A will definitely not be enough for that house.
If 3 roommates share a 2 bedroom apartment (both rooms the same size) and 2 share 1 room while 1 gets 2nd room, how should the $1400 rent be divided?
First things first, have everything documented before you start such an arrangement, it is very easy for people to feel betrayed later. "I thought ...." situations should not arise.How should you divide the rent? In a fair manner.Clearly the one having an individual room should pay more. $1400/3 = $467 is the benchmark.How much more should the individual room guy pay? I will take a 3-way approach:We charge only for the bedrooms: So he pays 700 and the other two pay $350 each. We charge 50% for the bedrooms and 50% for the common space: so total apartment $700 for bedrooms and $700 for the common space. The individual room pays 700/2 + 700/3 = $583. And the other two pay $408 each.Individual room pays a 50% premium over the shared room guys, so 1.5x + x + x = 1400. 3.5x = 1400, hence x = 400. Individual guy pays 600 and the other two pay 400 each.2 and 3 are close enough and that does seem to be a fair deal.I have been in many of these situations before, what really helped is:A. Roommates had a strong preference for having individual room vs saving money. They had a natural affinity to choose one room over the other (individual vs shared). For example - in one case two guys were friends and they did not mind sharingB. If no one is particular about which room - then the best is to agree on rent division and then ask people to choose. Say we agree on 583 for individual and 408 for others. And someone says 583 is less for individual, you say ok - you pay 625 and take it?
Why is one room significantly colder than the rest of the house?
Three of my friends and I rent a house in our college town. We live in northern Minnesota, so it gets extremely cold. We turn our heat on, and every room is fine except for one of the bedrooms. You can literally walk from the hallway into this bedroom and instantly feel a 10 degree temperature drop. It makes no sense why this would be happening because all of the bedrooms are on the same level, and each room has two inside walls and two outside walls. We can't feel a draft near any of the windows. She has tried putting plastic on the windows, but it doesn't seem to help much. My roommate has been using a space heater, but that really takes a hit on our electricity bill. Does anyone have any ideas as to why her room is so much colder? She also says she can feel heat coming out of the vent in her room, but not as strongly as the vents in the rest of the house. Could something be blocking the vent? What can we do? Any tips on how to keep her room at a bearable temperature? Thanks!
What are the laws in PA regarding heat? I just bought a house and my upstairs tenants heater needs to be?
WTH? Get them a heater. You have no choice. Put it on your VISA if you have to. You have to, by law, provide them with a heat source, or pay for their heating and keep it heated day and night. There are specific temps you have to keep it at. You can not force them to use space heaters, you have to provide a gas heater or central heat. They can do a lot more then withold rent, they can sue you and you will be paying for their move, deposit on a new place, maybe their rent for awhile if the judge doesn't like you. You can not leave that family without heat. There is NO EXCUSE at all. Sell your car if you have to, but you need to take care of this right away.
AVERAGE SQUARE FOOTAGE OF 3 BEDROOM 1 BATH HOME?
I AM TRYING TO FINE A HEATER SYSTEM THAT IS NOT CENTRAL HEAT, DUE TO THE BILL, TO HEAT MY HOME. SO WHAT IS THE AVERAGE SQUARE FOOTAGE OF A 3 BEDROOM 1 BATH HOME? HELP!
I live in a 2 bedroom apartment with split unit AC in each room plus the living room, I am thinking about moving to another newly built 2 bedroom apartment in another area with central AC, which one will lower my electricity bill?
There are a lot of variables here. The better insulated building will generally be cheaper to operate. Central systems generally have duct work. Duct work will generally waste 10–40% of the cooling depending on how well it is constructed and where the ducts are located. In theory you could save a little with multiple units if used correctly but few people really use them for maximum energy savings since it is a real pain. I am talking about locking yourself in one room and letting the rest of the house do what it is going to do. When you leave that room you are going to be hot. Open the door and the cooling leaves, no door for that room? No savings. So in reality is your original system has no duct work then it will be more efficient with all other things being equal. But if the new home is much better insulated then it may be cheaper to operate. A central system is also much cheaper to maintain over time.
Why do two room apartments cost double the rent of a one room apartment? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of having a roommate to help pay rent if it doubles?
With all due respect, two bedroom apartments don’t cost double what one-bedroom apartments do. Nowhere near double.The price differential is often around 20%-30%. So if a 1-bedroom is renting for $1,000, the 2-bedroom might often rent for $1,300.And see below. I just ran a report on the MLS I use (covering the Washington metro area), and isolated just one large apartment complex. Take a look at what the 1-bedrooms are renting for, versus the 2-bedrooms. (I drew a red line across the listing splitting the 1- and 2-bedrooms. (Just click on the image to expand it.) But, as you can see, the 1-bedrooms are generally renting in the $4,100-$4,200 range while the 2-bedrooms are renting in the $5,100-$5,300 range (with a few exceptions). That’s around a 30% difference. And, yes, while I know that these are expensive apartments, I could have found others more in the $1,500-$2,000 range (that’s what they go for here) with the same percentage spread.If you’ve run into a situation where a 2-bedroom in the same building or the same complex costs double that of a 1-bedroom, then something is wrong.And a final note: Pricing of apartments really isn’t based on the assumption that a 2-bedroom will house roommates. In many cases, the 2-bedroom units aren’t that much larger, on a square foot basis, than a 1-bedroom. Maybe 30% larger. (See the relationship to price.) The kitchen size will be the same. The living room size will be the same. Usually the first bedroom will be the same size. If there’s just 1 bath, that’ll usually be the same size. (In the example below, the 2-bedroom units have 2 baths.) Often, the main thing that’s different is that the 2-bedroom has a second bedroom. If a 1-bedroom apartment has maybe 650 square feet (that’s pretty typical except in very expensive areas, like New York City), then a second bedroom will add 100–130 square feet.