November 28, 2010 AsktheBuilder Tips And Newsletter

What's in This Newsletter?

Holiday News
New Videos
Save on Heating Bills
Roofing Checklist Survey and Sale
Storing Important Home/House Information
New Video Listing

I do product reviews frequently. Please read my Disclosure Policy to understand the relationship between me and the companies that make the products or offer the services I review.

FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER

Friendly Question Reminder!

If you have a question for me, don't hit the Reply button just yet. Go immediately to my web site and type in the keywords about your problem into my Search engine. The search box is at the top of every page of my web site. You could have your answer in seconds if you do this! Please pay attention to all links you see at my web site. The exact products and services you often need are right in front of you, and you might be ignoring them.

The past two weeks have been a blur. Now we're in final approach for Christmas. Yesterday I hung some great LED Christmas lights on our deck railing. I love seeing them through the glass doors at night as I go to bed. The color in the energy-efficient LED lights is so intense.

Over the Thanksgiving holiday, I went shooting with my son. He recently purchased a WW II Russian Mosin Nagant carbine rifle and wanted to do some target shooting. The muzzle flash from that carbine is amazing. I can see why soldiers who came back from the war had hearing problems. We were both wearing great hearing protection and it was still loud.

It's great to have a hobby I can share with my son. He's so knowledgeable about guns as he's studying video game art and animation. Guns happen to be a big part of many of these games, and it pays to know about them as you create them in a game.

New Videos

Over the past two weeks since I've been back from my road trip, I've been taping many videos. There's been a lot to tape at the new home site just south of my home. Steve the builder is doing a fabulous job. The links to all the new videos are at the end of this newsletter.

I hope to chronicle the entire process of this home. I also will have some great kitchen remodeling videos for you soon.

Save on Heating Bills

Every year I get the same press releases from all sorts of companies. They say to caulk gaps, check your furnace, install insulation, new windows and doors, etc. all in an effort to save money on your fuel bills. I'll beat the drum once more: You only start to Save Money on an improvement once you've recaptured in fuel SAVINGS the money you spent on the improvement.

Some things like a few tubes of caulk have a quick payback time. But things like new windows, that could easily cost in excess of $10,000, might not begin to generate real savings for you for well over ten years or more.

Here's an example at my own home. Last year I spent about $4,000 on propane. The majority went to heating costs, some went to cooking and some for hot water. Let's just say that $3,000 went to heating.

Imagine I get new windows put in that claim to save me 35% on my fuel bill. Let's say the total installed price is $15,000. I have to write a check for that as soon as the windows are finished. I'm out $15,000 in cash - money that could have been spent on propane.

Let's assume I do save 35% on fuel. In my case, that would be a little over $1,000 per heating season. Forget about interest on your money, the fact that propane may go up in price and that winter weather could change requiring more or less propane. It would take about 14 years for me just to break even. I have to recapture $15,000 in fuel savings to BREAK EVEN. Once I do that, then I start to SAVE money.

The bottom line is that you can save money NOW. Install a programmable thermostat. Train it to go no higher than you can tolerate. Try not to let the temperature get above 60 F. This means you wear more clothes, long underwear, sweaters, even a hooded sweatshirt while indoors. You may own these clothes. You only spend the money for the thermostat.

Yes, it's chilly at 60 F, but you'd be surprised how warm you can get at that temperature if you're bundled up inside. If you want to flit around your house in shorts, a tee shirt and no socks, then be prepared to pay for that luxury.

Roofing Checklist Survey and SALE

The last newsletter I asked for your help. As usual, you really came through for me. The survey responses were amazing.

I asked about your fears, frustrations, wants and desires when getting a new roof.

You also told me you wanted the best roof for the best price. I can do that for you. I HAVE the product.

Here are some of the survey numbers:

91% wanted an itemized cost breakdown the roofer has to complete
88% of those responding wanted "Questions to ask the roofer to see if he's a pro"
56% wanted photos of roofing materials
44% wanted short videos to watch to see how to "easily discover a pro roofer in your town"

It turns out that my existing Roofing Checklist contains ALL these things! It's easy to use and it shows you how to find the true professional roofer that WILL give you the leak-free roof you truly desire.

Just before the survey was published, I got this email from Jay Berkowitz. who lives in Florida:

" ... My roof is going to cost $25,000 (we bought your checklist recently). $17 or $37 for the expertise to not get ripped off is almost too good to be true. I would easily pay $97 if I knew I could save $3,000 with the information you'll give me."

Jay brings up two great points. First, my Roofing Checklist no doubt will save you money because you'll get a roof that will be done right the first time - no need to have someone come in to fix leaks. Second, my Checklist buys you peace of mind. You'll have the pro contractor at your home.

Jay may be right about the price. Perhaps my Roofing Checklist "Cheat Sheet" is priced too low. Maybe it's time to do some price testing to see if Jay's right.

Here's what I'll do. I'll leave the checklist at it's current $17 for the next three days. After midnight on Tuesday (November 30, 2010), I'll start to test the price at the $37 price point. If you do the math, it means right now I'm offering it at a whopping 54% discount from what the price may be going forward.

You may want to buy one now to have it handy when your roof needs to be redone. Remember, it comes with my standard No-Hassle Money-Back Guarantee. It's an Instant Download PDF file in living color!

Remember, the $17 price may be a thing of the past in just 3 days. You've got nothing to lose. Buy it now. I guarantee you'll be blown away by it, just as Jay was.

Storing Important Home/House Information

I had a great conversation after Thanksgiving with a dear friend Patricia Allen. She's moving and has a mountain of paper organized neatly in file cabinets. Some of these papers are things that are very important to her and deal with her house. As you can imagine, those cabinets are heavy and they take up valuable floor space!

I have that same problem, but I'm rapidly moving away from paper. For the past year, all incoming paperwork has been scanned. All I need to do is scan some past documents that are very important and I'll have very little use for manila folders and file cabinets.

Pat and I talked about the amazing Fuji Snapscan Scanner that we use here at AsktheBuilder.com in an effort to go as paperless as possible. This unbelievable scanner can scan a two-sided document at one pass and is incredibly fast. I know many who have the scanner and they rave about it.

http://go.askthebuilder.com/fujiscanS1500M

That's an affiliate link. If you end up buying the one I have, I get a small commission from Amazon. NOTE: The link takes you to the Mac version. If you have a PC, then you'll see the PC model at the BOTTOM of the page.

This Fuji scanner creates great PDF documents that are easily searchable on your PC. This allows you to find something quickly if you forget what folder you saved a document, bill or invoice. All you need to know is you know the keywords to look for.

Here's how the search works. Let's say you know the company name of a set of invoices. Using the file search feature on your PC, enter in the company name like "Ace Plumbing" or "Stick-it-to-Me Propane Company". Boom, in an instant you have all the scanned documents with that name in front of you to open and review.

But keep in mind you have to make copies of these electronic files in case your computer crashes. Pat said she uses one of the companies you may see ads for on TV. Think carbon. I mentioned, "What happens if they go belly up? How do you get access to their servers where your files are if they go out of business?"

After a pause, I then blurted, "Google Documents allows you to upload files to their servers for free. Do you think Google's going out of business anytime soon?" I know I don't. If you exceed the free upload space, you can rent more space easily from Google.

Consider one of your New Year's resolutions to go paperless. It's so easy to find things when you need them!

New Video Listing

This will keep you busy!

And finally, a silly video I shot while on my road trip a month ago. Sorry about the wind noise. My wife stopped watching the video halfway through when I made a fool of myself.

http://www.youtube-nocookie.com/timcartertv#p/a/u/1/Os39bAvBjKM

AsktheBuilder.com
100 Swain Rd.
Meredith, NH 03253, USA

SPONSORS /