HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: simnet@plato.ds.boeing.com (Mark R Poulson)
Subject: Re: When does it make sense to reduce the pricinple of your home loan?
Organization: Boeing Defense & Space Group
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 21:22:10 GMT

In article <1993Jan7.215130.9301@philabs.philips.com> mja@philabs.philips.com (Michael Amato) writes:
>On a realated note, if someone gave you $450,000 to build a house (incluing
>a $150,000 lot -> $300,000 for house), would it be better to:
>
>1. pay cash for house
>
>2. get a mortgage for say $150,000 - $200,000 and invest it other places.
>
>3. build a $250,000 house + lot and invest the other $200,000.

I'd build two houses that are affordable by at least half of prospective home
buyers (about 200K in the Seattle area) -- live in one and rent out the other.
So basically I'm saying do option 3 with an investment you trust. Real estate
rarely goes down in value over the long term and renters will certainly
provide you with money to cover the taxes and insurance plus some "dividend"
money. If you're lucky, the real estate will appreciate 5 to 10% in value each
year (tax deferred even!). This is the ideal opportunity for real estate
investment since you don't have a mortgage to suck out all the cash flow!

What worries me with other investments that require brokers (mutual funds,
stocks, etc) are their fees.  The "load" on a mutual fund can take a sizeable
chunk of your profits if you don't have a huge amount of money invested. Same
with stocks.

One could also ask why not just build the 450K house and forget the hassle of
renters. Well, you have no extra income from the renters, the renter's rent
would have covered half the insurance and taxes, and your 450K house will be
much harder to sell (when its time to do so) than a house that's more typical
of what "commoners" buy and sell.

		Mark
From: mje@pookie.pass.wayne.edu (Michael J. Edelman)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
Subject: Re: When does it make sense to reduce the
Date: 7 Jan 93 16:20:00 GMT
Reply-To: mje@pookie.pass.wayne.edu
Organization: Wayne State University

A house lets you shelter more income from tax than any other investment. One
poster said he'd rather pay 200 than 600 in tax, or something similar. But that
600 probably only costs you about $200 after taxes.

A house, or series of houses, can provide you with a completely tax sheleted 
retirement investment yeilding more *real* appreciation than any other long-term
low-risk investment. What's more, it's far more leveraged than any other possible
investment.

If you buy a $200,000 house with 10% down, and that house is appreciating at
5% per annum, what's your real return? You only have $20,000 invested and you're
making $10,000 per year, tax free, that you can cash in when you've retired. In
that first year you're making 50%. Not bad. Yes, there are points and origination
fees, and payments and taxes, but the overall yield is still extrememly high. By
continuously leveraging yourself into larger, more expensive houses every few years,
you maintain a low real payment (since most of the payment is interest and therefore
a tax deduction), you get the utility of the house to boot, and when you retire 
you can cash in tax free. 

For the same reason you should get the longest term loan you can. If rates go
down tremendously you can refinance, and if rates go way up you're a very big
winner. There is a premium on longer term loans, or course, but as we say in the
70s it's often smaller than the fluctuation in rates, since even the short term
rates reflect long-term uncertainty. When I recently refianced, the difference 
between 10 and 30 year mortgages was only about a point and a half- 7.25% versus
8.75%

Now, there are other considerations, of course. Some people find great utility in staying in the same house and neighborhood for a great many years and don't want
to move. They can still maximize their yield by buying the biggest house they can
afford and financing over the longest term.

Doesn't matter if rates are high or low; that just determines what you can afford at
a given time. Of course when rates are very high (1978-80) the tilt is such that
people often can't afford to buy at all.

    --mike
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
From: drevik@utkvx3.utk.edu (Drevik, Steve)
Subject: Re: When does it make sense to reduce the pricinple of your home loan?
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Tennessee Computing Center
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 17:34:00 GMT

In article <MACRAKIS.93Jan11121449@lakatos.osf.org>, macrakis@osf.org (Stavros Macrakis) writes...
>In article <1993Jan7.165935.619@cbnewsj.cb.att.com> btwomey@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (William J. Twomey) writes:
> 
>   The gain/loss from investing instead of paying down is a piddling
>   amount for mortgages rates found today and investments returns that
>   can reasonably be expected....
> 

    If I may add one correction:  it not worthwhile to pay down
  your mortgage early IF you can get a rate of return on investment
  greater than your mortgage rate AFTER taxes.

   Example:  I have a loan of 8.5%.  I need to be able to get a
  pre-tax ROR of 11.8% to beat paying off my loan early.

   This case is only good if you total interest paid is below the
  standard deduction ($6000 for married filing joint).  If your
  interest is higher, you get a small additional benefit that
  may swing it towards getting the mutual fund.

   Example 2:  Loan amount $100K, interest = 8.5%.  Total interest
  paid will be roughly $8,400, providing an additional tax benefit
  of about $670.  If I have a spare $10,000 to invest (somebody
  died), and I could invest it either way, paying off the loan
  will cost me roughly $67 in tax benefit.  Thus, my mutual fund
  need only make 11.8% - ($76/10,000) or about 11% to beat
 paying off loan.

  All calculations above were done for an incremental tax bracket of 28%.



Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
From: wesley@world.std.com (wesley p dunnington)
Subject: HELP! - what do I do about peeling bathtub resurfacing?!?
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 05:33:57 GMT

Howdy 

My bathtub was refinished about 5 years ago with one of those miracle coatings.
Unfortunately it is now peeling up in large pieces and looks like hell. Is 
there anything I can do besides refinishing it again or having to replace the
tub? Are there any refinishers with something like a 10 year guarantee?

Thanks
Wesley Dunnington
wesley@world.std.com

Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
From: af905@yfn.ysu.edu (Ed Shanks)
Subject: Re: size's, gallons, and Cubic Foot
Organization: Youngstown State University/Youngstown Free-Net
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 15:22:42 GMT


>About Hot tub design and measurements:

>>............Total weight of water would come to 17666 lbs, 
>>which is 30% less than your rough estimate. However, it sounds
>>like yocould drop at least eight people into the tub 
>>comfortably, so you might add 1200 lbs to that number.

>Eureka!
>If you drop 1200 pounds of people into that tub, you'll displace
>1200 pounds of water.

Sorry, George, but I don't understand. Won't the water displaced
by the 1200 lbs. of people just rise up the side? Or are you 
figuring that it will spill out the top? I'm not being facetious
(for once!), but I am curious.

                                           Ed

-- 
        Ed Shanks      af905@yfn.ysu.edu
"Whattaya mean I'll be cut off in 5 minutes? I just got started!"
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
From: bellas@soldev.TTI.COM (Pete Bellas)
Subject: Re: Insulation cutting tool?
Reply-To: bellas@soldev.TTI.COM (Pete Bellas)
Organization: Transaction Technology, Inc.
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 20:42:32 GMT

Don't know if this has been suggested yet but when I was insulating our 4500 
sq ft house we built a hinged "guide" for cutting.

Basically two pieces of 1" angle iron welded (or bolted) about and an inch 
or two apart with the elbows up:


              /\       /\
             /  \     /  \
            /____\___/____\

Mount it on a board with a spring hinge at one end and a handle at the 
other:

             |
             /
            /
           /
          /
         /
        /
       /
      /
     /
    /
   o_____________________________

Lay the insulation accross the board, press the guide down across the
insulation, compressing it, then run a utility knife between the angles,
giving you a nice clean straight cut.

Look back this article sounds way more complicated than it is, really.

			-Pete-


* Pete Bellas                   "Cogito ergo spud"                         *
* Citicorp/TTI                       I think therefore I yam.              *
* Santa Monica, CA                                                         *
* bellas@gamma.tti.com                                                     *
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
From: perley@cabot.balltown.cma.COM (Don Perley)
Subject: Clue us in (Re: Should I install a gas furnace?)
Organization: New York State Institute for Sebastian Cabot Studies
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 15:16:49 GMT

In article <13794@limey> sheriffp@Software.Mitel.COM (Peter Sheriff) writes:

>    Holy smoke. You guys must pay through the nose for energy. My gas bill
>for last year was $734 Cdn.

>    We are talking about the great white north up here. My house started with
>R20 in the ceilings which I upgraded to about R32 and I sealed every seam
   
    other specs etc etc

Perhaps we could get a more meaningful comparison if you gave
some specifics for your area.  What's the cost per therm for gas?
How many degree days?

Some other guy asking about gas vs electric driers included a
phrase like  "given utility rates in So Cal."  How should WE know?
HE should know, since they are on his utility bills.

-don perley


-- 
perley@balltown.cma.com
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
From: koga@pioneer.arc.nasa.gov (Dennis Koga)
Subject: Re: Relays (was Tying 2 Switches to Common Load?)
Organization: NASA Ames Res. Ctr. Mtn Vw CA 94035
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 20:05:44 GMT

Hello from a new Net user:

  Regarding the application of two switches controlling a single
appliance (fan, etc.), I just saw at Home Depot (and also in a
mail-order catalog from COMB or Damark) a new switch which is a remote
control activator.  It seems like you install a receiver module in a
current wall switch box, then you can use a remote switch to also turn
on/off the same circuit.  I am not sure if a line-of-sight is required,
but I would think this is quite unlikely.  By the way, the second switch
looks just like a single switch wall wall plate, the only difference 
being it has a body which is about a half inch sticking out of the wall,
held in place by either screws or double-stick tape.

  I would be interested if anybody has any experience with these new
gadgets.  It seems like a neat way to solve some wiring problems.
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
From: dewey@vpdbox.austin.ibm.com (Dewey Coffman)
Subject: Re: C sources on the net for the X10 prog interface?
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 23:26:44 GMT
Distribution: na
Reply-To: dewey@vpdbox.austin.ibm.com
Organization: IBM, Austin, TX. US of A.

In article <1993Jan8.002214.20829@oracle.us.oracle.com>, tslee@oracle.uucp (Terry S. Lee) writes:
|> FTP addresses would be great.  Thanks in adv.
	Simtel20, wsmr-simtel20.army.mil(198.88.110.20)

	/pub/msdos/X_10
Directory MSDOS/X_10/
 Filename   Type Length   Date   Description
==============================================
BSRV3_0.ZIP   B   10207  910521  Command line control for BSR X10 Powerhouse
XCTL102.ZIP   B  176829  910810  Sunrise/sunset control for X10 Powerhouse
XE109.ARC     B   49894  880528  Access to an X-10 Computer Interface
BSRV3_0.ZIP   Command line control for BSR X10 Powerhouse
XCTL102.ZIP   Sunrise/sunset control for X10 Powerhouse
XE109.ARC     Access to an X-10 Computer Interface


	and
	ftp.cica.indiana.edu (129.79.20.84) pub/pc/win3/x10win11.zip    
		911003  Win3 Application for Driving the X10 Powerhouse

	-dewey
---
Dewey Coffman		ibmpa!vpdbox.austin.ibm.com!dewey%ibminet.awdpa.ibm.com
Consulting @ IBM			dewey@ctci.com
11400 Burnet Rd				All opinions are mine.
Austin, TX 78758-3493, USA		(512) 823-6463
===============================================================================
	"I do hope that you rot in Hell"   -The Christian JFH II
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
From: philip@mentorg.com (Philip Peake)
Subject: Re: Heating a house
Date: Tue, 05 Jan 1993 23:35:34 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Mentor Graphics
Keywords: 
Followup-To: 

In article <C0EHAn.87s@fs7.ece.cmu.edu>, mhl@spirit.ece.cmu.edu (Mikko H. Lipasti) writes:
|> Does anyone have any insight on the respective efficiencies of 
|> various means for heating a house?  I am looking at buying in the
|> next year in Minnesota (cold winters), and most of the houses on
|> the market appear to use forced air with natural gas furnaces.
|> This surprises me, since no one uses forced air in Finland (where
|> I'm from, and where the winters are also cold), and I was under
|> the impression that it was extremely inefficient (air is an effective
|> insulator, and should be a very poor conductor of heat, right?).
|> In addition, I find the noise and on-off cycling of forced-air
|> systems annoying.  I'm used to hot-water heat with radiators in
|> each room.
|> 
|> What are the trade-offs involved?  Is it just so much cheaper to 
|> install forced-air (especially considering the ducts are needed for
|> A/C anyway) that houses with hot-water heat are no longer being
|> built?  How about the different types of furnaces?  Gas? Oil? Electric?
|> Heat pumps?  A pointer to a good source of information on these
|> issues would be appreciated.

Forced hot air was new to me too.
In fact, it does seem to work well - remember that the air doesn't
have to conduct the heat - the air is HEATED by being forced through
a heat exchanger.

As to the cycling - well, you can do as I have done, and leave
the circulating fan on all the time. Once it is a constant, the noise of
fan/air soon dissapears into the background.

I think that the main reason why these systems are so popular here is
that the houses are larger, and it would be difficult to get an even
temperature over the whole house with water radiators - it would also
be much slower to warm up the house.

As you say, having the air system in place makes air conditioning
much easier to add on.

The type of furnace you use depends on what is available localy.
In many (most ?) locations, gas is the cheapest fuel - hence
its popularity. I have a heat pump (with electric back-up).
these are only really usefull where it doesn't get too cold.
They ice up, and become very inefficient when the temperature
drops much below freezing. You can get more expensive sorts
which use something other than air from which to extract heat.
Some use water (if you have a convenient lake or river), others
use buried heat exchangers. these are probably more useful in
colder areas.

So far, I have been pleasantly surprised by the cost of running
my heat pump ...

Philip
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
From: packer@amarna.gsfc.nasa.gov (Charles Packer)
Subject: Re: Need help removing old plaster and lath walls
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.4-b1  
Organization: Dept. of Independence
Date: Tue, 5 Jan 1993 12:01:00 GMT

In article <1993Jan4.201959.29415@trentu.ca>, clos@TrentU.CA writes...
>What is the best way to take out old plaster and lath??  
>I am told this is a very dusty job.   Is there a better way than using 
>a sledge and crowbar??


I minimized dust by going very slowly, using only pry bars, no hammers,
removing one chunk at a time. Also, I sprayed the part of the
wall I was working on with water from a gardener's spray bottle.
Listened to lots of recorded music to keep my sanity. 
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
From: macrakis@osf.org (Stavros Macrakis)
Subject: Re: Using Plastic to Seal Basement Floor!?
Organization: OSF Research Institute
Date: 12 Jan 93 17:10:12

In article <1993Jan12.171551.15815@mprgate.mpr.ca> vanderkw@mpr.ca
   (Mike Vanderkwaak) writes:

   ...moisture that comes in through the floor [in basement]....  when
   I leave a bucket on the bare floor for a couple of days there is
   moisture collected underneath.... the following idea occured to me:

   Use heavy grade UV treated plastic ie 6 mil. and cover the whole floor
   with it. Put carpet underlay over top and then carpet.  This would solve
   the moisture problem - no?

The water that currently comes through the floor evaporates.  When you
cover the floor with a bucket, it doesn't evaporate, but accumulate.
If you cover the whole floor with plastic, it will accumulate
everywhere, and eventually leak through seams in the plastic or float
your floor away....

	-s
From: GA.MCL@forsythe.stanford.edu (Mark C. Lawrence)
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
Subject: Re: Dual line causing crosstalk on phone?
Date: 11 Jan 1993 17:07:22 -0800
Organization: Stanford University
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: morrow.stanford.edu

In article <stevem.17.726604164@newsbase.cs.yale.edu>,
stevem@newsbase.cs.yale.edu (Steve Morytko) writes:
>Watch out for "phone" wire that is not twisted pair...
>[discussion deleted]
>In case you *are* using twisted pair, make sure you are maintaining pair
>integrity. That is, use the wires that are twisted into pairs as a pair.
>If red/green and yellow/black are pairs *DON'T* use red/black and/or
>green/yellow as pairs. Modern twisted pair wire usually has the
>following pairings but you may find something different:
>
> white-blue/blue-white, white-orange/orange-white, white-green/ ...

Here is the standard telephone color code.  It uses 10 colors to label
up to 25 pairs, and identify the wires in the pair.

pair no.      TIP          RING
------------------------------------
01          white          blue
02          white          orange
03          white          green
04          white          brown
05          white          slate
06          red            blue
07          red            orange
08          red            green
09          red            brown
10          red            slate
11          black          blue
12          black          orange
13          black          green
14          black          brown
15          black          slate
16          yellow         blue
17          yellow         orange
18          yellow         green
19          yellow         brown
20          yellow         slate
21          violet         blue
22          violet         orange
23          violet         green
24          violet         brown
25          violet         slate

You will also see 2, 3, or 4 conductor unpaired cable.  In this cable, green
is tip, red is ring; when 4 conductor is used for 2 pairs, usually yellow is
ring-2 and black is tip-2.  This cable has the same crosstalk problems
described for the flat wire, however (not quite as bad, but still bad).

At the central office, TIP goes to ground and RING to battery (through some
resistance); the battery is 48 volts positive ground.  Thus with the phone
on-hook TIP will be near ground potential and RING will be near -48volts.

This color code has been standard in the telephone industry for many years;
however, there is a different code used in non-telephone cables.

Mark C. Lawrence
Systems Programmer     Internet: M.Lawrence@Forsythe.Stanford.edu
Stanford Data Center     Bitnet: M.Lawrence@STANFORD
Stanford, CA 94305-4136     Tel: (415) 723-4976
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
From: rwee50@melton.sps.mot.com (Allan Klaus)
Subject: Re: Gray flexible water supply pipe OK?
Organization: /etc/organization
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 18:58:00 GMT

In article <1993Jan10.185059.16447@ulysses.att.com> smb@research.att.com (Steven Bellovin) writes:
>In article <1993Jan9.191040.8362@hubcap.clemson.edu>, hubcap@hubcap.clemson.edu (System Janitor) writes:
>> But if you do it right, it should be fine. The connectors are much improved
>> now. I've heard the horror stories, and I plan to put it in my new
>> house.
>
>A recent (the latest?) issue of Fine Homebuilding had an article on
>installing polybutelene pipe.  Although it was primarily an article on
>how to install it properly, it should give you hints on what to look
>for in an existing installation.  The author did note some problems with
>the very earliest versions, and there are still plenty of opportunities
>for sloppy workmanship.

    In my previous post, I incorrectly spelled the name of the gray
tubing I had problems with.  A rat chewed three holes into the gray
polybutelene pipe in my house before I was able to trap it.

    As I stated earlier, I would avoid this stuff at all costs!!!!!

Allan
-- 
Allan Klaus     rwee50@melton.sps.mot.com
Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
From: moroney@world.std.com (Michael Moroney)
Subject: Re: Why are baseboard heaters installed against exterior walls?
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 05:03:13 GMT

isidro@BBN.COM (Isidro Castineyra) writes:

>My old house (90 years old), has steam radiators close to the center
>of the house. In my naive view, this seems the way to go.  Why are
>baseboard heaters ausually installed gainst exterior walls? It would

The radiators are placed along the outside precisely because that's where
the heat loss is, and it is not a conspiracy.  Ideally a house is heated
evenly, all parts about the same temperature.  A region in the center cannot
lose heat, so heating it makes it excessively hot.  A region near the outside
wall can lose heat, so unless heated will become excessively cool.  What
happens in a house heated from the center on a cold day is, the region near
the walls will cool, sink to near the floor, flow along the floor (creating
a cold draft) to the radiators, get (over)heated, rise to the ceiling to the
outside wall, where it cools and sinks again

-Mike (who converted a house from centrally mounted hot air vents to radiators
along the outside walls - much more comfortable!)



Newsgroups: misc.consumers.house
From: josh@meth.osf.org (Joshua Goldman)
Subject: Lazy fleurescent lights
Organization: Open Software Foundation
Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 15:44:16 GMT

I had my kitchen redone last year and the contracter installed some
fleurescent lights over the sink and counter that have never worked well.

One of them will usually come on 5 to 15 minutes after it is turned on (and
left on.  The other rarely comes on at all (but will on occasion turn on 
1/2 hour after the switch was turned on and left on).

I opened the one that rarely comes on and it is a very simple lamp housing
(with no ballast that I could see) and a standard Cool white lamp.  I was
able to get the lamp on by turning the bulb.  It was very sensitive to
the exact angle.  It seemed that it had one spot that it would turn on but
if I moved it a little past that spot, it would go off.  Well I managed to
get it on, but then when I shut the light off and turned it back on, it
wouldn't go back on.  

One possibility is that it's impossible to lower the glass cover without 
moving the bulb, so that I might have moved it off the correct spot.  
However, the bulb stayed on after the glass cover was in place.

Any suggestions?

Should I replace the bulb? the lamp?

It would be nice to have the lamp go on when the switch is turned.

Thanks
-- 
Joshua Goldman josh@osf.org 617-621-8857
Open Software Foundation
11 Cambridge Center
Cambridge, MA 02142
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