The Home Building Insurance SCAM.

Just a note - thanks for everyone for visiting, somehow this blog has clocked up 200,000 hits!

The Age recently published an article about the home building insurance scam.

In case you didn't know, if you're building a new house or doing a renovation, you're also paying an insurance premium on home building insurance. It doesn't show up as an item in your renovation quote or new home contract, but it's built into your building contract.

Anyway, it's basically money thrown away. The article states that in the last year, 53,000 Victorians paid up insurance premiums, but only 3 people made successful claims.

3 claims in 53,000. Almost makes the insurers refusing to pay out on Queensland flooding look good.

Anyway, this is one massive rort - its so corrupt from beginning to end, there's basically no way to even start to fix it. As "customers", we must pay the premium, like it or not, and there's stuff all chance of us ever seeing a cent of it, should any dodgy work be seen further down the track. "Government" will promise to fix things, but since their fingers are deep in the pie, there's no chance of that.

Hence, while all builders will proudly state there's a 7 year guarantee on their work, based on the existince of this so called home building insurance scheme, NONE will admit that this guarantee is a fraud.

Be an educated consumer. Don't accept any dodgy work from your builder, whoever it is. Spend the dollars to get an independent inspector to go through building stages - and of course, don't accept that the builder's "independent" inspector is anything but a stooge.

Yet another grumpy mood right now obviously - and if you're the moron in the right lane who decided to swerve into my lane outside of Doncaster Shoppingtown today at about 6pm, you're damn lucky I had the reflexes to avoid hitting you, 'cause one way or another I would've made sure you ended up in emergency with a broken neck, ya f'wit.

T&T

Nothing to see here, move along...

Not much happened on the home front in the last month or two. Kresta finally showed up to replace the 2 blinds that fell down immediately after they first installed them. One of them is fine, the other one in the master bedroom... well, it's the wrong colour. So yet again, another 3-99 week wait for the correct item to show up.

Also got a call from a new service manager at Metricon, who has taken over the last service manager's job (he quit, or something). Anyway... he says he'll chase up the issue of correcting our crooked cavity doorframe. Not holding my breath, I mean - we've only been in our house about 9 months now.

Most recently, a good article in the The Age about changing your mortgage lender. I believe that 99% of mortgage holders probably spend more time trying to save 2c/litre on petrol, than tens of thousands of dollars on your home loan. If you've got a loan with one of the big 4 banks, seriously - read the article in that link, then call your bank or broker tomorrow and get out of your overpriced home loan.

The arguments that used to apply to changing home loans mostly don't apply anymore. Banks aren't allowed to charge punitive exit fees (ie ridiculously enormous, made-up sums to stop you switching your loan). Sure, you might have to go through the rigmarole of providing paperwork if you're changing a lender, but doesn't saving $69,000 in interest payments and/or years off your average home loan make it worth your while? And if you've got a bigger than average mortgage, you'll save even more.

And if you're too lazy, and/or stupid, and/or ignorant to be bothered trying to get the best deal on your home loan, well - it's your life and your money to waste as you will. Excuse the grumpiness, bad case of post-snowboarding muscle pains.

T&T

DIY: Sheer curtains

So we're sloooowly getting through the list of things to do. Still waiting on KRESTA to make good on the two blinds that fell off days after they installed them (grrrr....) but anyway, decided to finish off the two remaining windows left uncovered.

The only reason why these windows weren't done months ago was that we weren't sure what to cover them with. Blinds? Romans? Curtains? Sheers? Anyway, this is what most new homeowners end up doing for the first few days....weeks...months... years it takes to decide what window coverings to use!

Yep, old bedsheets. Not that there's a nice view anyway of our neighbour's horrible ugly old bricks. So anyway, finally Tina decided sheers would be the way to go. On our regular excursions to Ikea, picked up a Vagen curtain rail and Wilmaaaaaaaaa! sheer drapes (too many Saturday morning cartoons as a kid obviously)


Didn't take many pics of the installation as it's pretty easy - but in hindsight, maybe I should've taken more pics for this DIY. Anyway

1) Decide how high to hang your curtain rail. You can stick it on the architrave, but I decided to mount on the wall, but into studs as I don't have much faith in plaster fix screws. Use a studfinder or knuckles to locate studs. Plus we had lots of photos during the build, so I knew where the studs would be. Typically on either side of a window you'll have a double or triple stud support which is ideal to fix into. Predrill holes with a power drill, then fix rail mounts to wall. Take into account the curtain length when fixing your rail, I fixed it so there's an inch gap at the bottom of the 250cm curtain when hung. This curtain also comes with a hemming kit, so you can shorten to any length easily.

2) Safety first - eye protection is a must, and don't climb up on a wobbly chair to drill up high.

3) Iron the curtains to get out creases before hanging them. Duh.

4) Tell your wife it was a very hard, painstaking job to get right, and hope she doesn't notice the one crooked curtain mount *facepalm*. Will cover that later with.. erm.. something.

Anyway, here's a pic of the small (180cm wide) dining window covered. The 280cm family room window was done identically, but with a third support bracket midway along the curtain rail. Ikea sell a long and short version of Vagen ideal for varying width windows.



So, for $8 - $15 for rails and fittings, and $20 for curtains, 20 minutes per window to fit, the sheers are up, and look quite elegant. Easy to DIY, and cheap to change curtains in future if we decided to go for a different look. Cheap enough that you don't really have to put up with temporary window coverings too long, providing you know what you want. Of course, if you were doing these in bedrooms you'd want blockout curtains or other window covering, but since no-one sleeps in the dining room, sheers work well and allow daylight through.

T&T

If you use a computer, you NEED this!

Nowadays, pretty much everyone is dependent on computers, and two recent near-tragedies happened to my brother (his computer caught fire - seriously, it did!) and my sister (after spending many months overseas, her netbook started smoking!) What is it with my family starting fires in their computers?

Anyway, my brother had all his documents, resumes, job applications etc on his computer, and my sister had over 10,000 irreplaceable travel photos on her netbook. Fortunately I was able to pull apart their machines and save the data on their hard drives, but really - it's all about backing up and protecting your precious data, which we typically only think about once the tragedy has happened!

So I've researched various ways to backup your stuff, and the best one I've found by miles is Dropbox. It works on PCs, Macs, even Linux. Just sign up (free!), install the software on any machines you want to use (I have it on two desktops, my laptop, my iPhone and iPad) and it automatically syncs and backs up your important data online, and makes it instantly available to all your connected devices, or anywhere with an internet browser!

Normally you get 2gb storage as a free user (which if you only backup your important files should be plenty), but if you use my special link to sign up to Dropbox, you'll get an extra 250mb bonus storage, again for free!

You gotta be pretty good to get the thumbs-up from me, but this service is brilliant. And if you don't sign up for it, you'll wish you did when your computer catches on fire and you lose years worth of work for nothing. I'm using Dropbox to backup my company data, tax returns, travel documents, important photos and more.

Funny enough, there's a dropbox cartoon illustrating exactly what happened to my family's computers...


T&T

Long rant ahead in favour of bigger houses!

A bit of action in the week before the Easter break - Tina got a call from Metricon about someone coming over to have a look at our cavity door (the only remaining thing to be done from 90 day inspection). I also got a call the other day from the installer of our blinds apologising for their poor quality - even though he wasn't at fault. Fault for the blinds lies in the manufacturing, so when the 2 blinds are remade, he'll come back to reinstall them and also recheck all the other blinds to make sure they're not going to fall apart. Things are looking up!

"Metricon's signature brand "Monarch" has a floor area of 456 square metres with a starting price of $477,000. Photo: Angela Wylie"

Here's an article that we stumbled across a few days ago, while going through The Age - Room to Move, but is a bigger house better?

Now the article is a decent read - of course, we tend to read everything about homes and housing, having gone through the process. However the real reading is in the 100+ comments left after the article; if you half an hour free, have a read through yourself!

* warning rant begins *

It seems pretty much all the comments have been left by people who have not had first hand experience of building their dream house - let's summarise their small-minded negativity here:

• Big houses = "McMansions", unpayable massive mortgages, huge utility bills, no backyards, too much cleaning, too many unused rooms, too far from the city, self-indulgent, consumerist... the list of whinging goes on and on.

#1: If you want to score easy points in an argument, come up with a catchy label. Obviously, McMansion sounds good as it brings in all the negative connotations with McDonalds. Other labels used to instantly denigrate opposing arguments are "Boat People" and "Cash For Clunkers", for a start.

#2: Affordability of mortgages are relative to the position of the mortgage payer. No doubt many of the comments on The Age are from those unable to fund any kind of mortgage for any sized property, so naturally there is an assumption that "bigger house = bigger mortgage" and the jealous green dragon rears its ugly, bitchy head. Any smart home owner has worked out their own personal level of mortgage affordability risk.

#3: Utility bills? Our first house was a 12 square cottage in Mitcham. We cooked in the summer, despite 2 airconditioners, and froze in the winter despite central heating and a log fire. Our utility bills were all higher in that cottage compared to our new house, which is far more comfortable in all seasons. Our new place has a 5.5 star energy rating, solar hot water, better orientation, better layout... the list goes on.

#4: No backyard: OK, this is one thing we could probably have more of. From our outdoor room to the back fence is about 7 metres. However, we tend not to spend much time in the backyard and have no want for a pool. My parents had a massive backyard in Templestowe which again was never used. Other people may have different priorities. Plus we have a beautiful huge park 2 streets away, the Eastlink bike trail is 3 streets away and a fantastic ride, and the dog loves going for long walks around the area.

#5: Cleaning? Rooms we don't currently use don't need much cleaning - we have a couple of rooms reserved for kids when they arrive, at the moment they're used for drying clothes (no need for a clothes dryer). We don't do any more cleaning than we used to.

#6: Unused rooms: We certainly use all the rooms we need to at the moment! The home theatre gets a workout frequently (and all our extended family loves it for movies, Rock Band/Guitar Hero sessions etc), our study is home to 3 computers and a mountain of paperwork, another spare bedroom is used for a home business, and everything is efficiently laid out as we have the space to do so.

#7: Too far from the city: Not an issue for us as neither of us need to go to the city. And when we do, it's a 20 minute drive on the Eastern Freeway. Plus the city sucks anyway - parking is hard to find and expensive, there's too many d!ckheads on the streets and everything we need isn't in the city anyway.

#8: Self indulgent/consumerist: Well, all people have different goals in life. Our goal was to have a comfortable, modern house for us and our future family, with a little bit of luxury to enjoy coming home to every night, and that's what we've achieved. We love cooking in our big kitchen. We love (or maybe it's me) playing video games, watching TV shows and movies in the home theatre. We love our massive bedroom and its ensuite - it's like being in a 5 star hotel every day, without the minibar and pay-per-view fees. Since we spend a lot of time at home, why not make it something you love?

Anyway, my final view is that there's a small subsection of the community out there who feel they need to mask their inferiority complex by being overly critical of other people, other people's choices and strangely enough, other people's homes. Give these people the attention and respect they deserve, which (no surprise), is zero on both counts.

*end rant *

Edit/postscript: Looks like the first article was so popular,an opinion piece was published afterwards. Let the fun continue!

Days of the humble home at an end as goliaths invade suburbia

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/days-of-the-humble-home-at-an-end-as-goliaths-invade-suburbia-20110422-1dreq.html#ixzz1KJEm2Hk3

T&T