My Old House

Issues and Events involving our Home in Independence, Missouri
My Old House on Winner Road
11/28/2009

Power Line buried this past week

Filed under: General — Admin @ 8:22 am

Just wanted to make a sort of “diary post” here:

This past week, Independence Power & Light came out and buried the overhead line leading from our house to the pole in the back yard. They did this with our pre-approval…for free.

At first, I was annoyed at what a mess they made: The pile of dirt over the trench they dug was as much as one foot high! But I soon discovered when I stepped on it that this stuff was NOT settled at all. If you stepped on the dirt, it sunk into the trench quite a bit.

Anyways, this is a nice minor asthetic improvement only, in my opinion. Sure, FEMA funded this line-burying, since it makes sense that buried lines around here do NOT get disrupted by storms. However, the “weakest link” is not the last few feet to the house. It’s the main stretch of lines that runs behind our block. That stretch is known for “breaking” frequently during storms.

And, in the end, we still have the CABLE line up in the air, leading from the house to the pole.

Oh well, I didn’t have to lift a finger. And power to the house wasn’t interrupted for more than a couple of hours.

11/2/2009

What to do about the Hot Water Heater’s Exhaust?

Filed under: General — Admin @ 2:33 pm

I’ve finally started addressing some of the items identified in our “Home Energy Audit” from a few weeks ago.

First, I made two separate lists: Stuff I can Do, Stuff I’ll need a Professional for.

Then, for the Stuff I can Do list, I prioritized everything and identified a few tools and materials that I can start gathering now.

But in that Home Energy Audit was one top priority… theoretically, a matter of life-and-death: Our gas hot-water heater’s “exhaust tube” wasn’t “drawing” enough… meaning it was probably getting clogged at the other end.

This means that the hot water heater wasn’t “venting” properly… and therefore, we could get a build-up of carbon monoxide in the basement…and …

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8/24/2009

Home Energy Audit Results!

Filed under: General — Admin @ 9:44 am

Greetings All !

Well, I finally broke down and paid for a home energy audit. The State of Missouri is now offering homeowners a tax deduction for a home energy audit, plus work that is done as result (because of the recommendations) of that audit.

(See: http://dsireusa.org/incentives/incentive.cfm?Incentive_Code=MO83F&re=1&ee=1 AND http://www.dnr.mo.gov/energy/residential/homeenergyaudits.htm )

My thinking was, not only could I take advantage of this tax incentive, I could also include the audit and any followup work as a part of the City’s 353 Tax Abatement Program, which we joined a couple of months ago. A double-whammy on the benefits (hopefully) !!

I consulted the “Missouri Certified Home Energy Auditors” list for Jackson County …

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5/28/2009

Garage repainted!

Filed under: Garage, General — Admin @ 7:01 am

Greetings all!

I’ve just posted photos of our garage, as it looks following our repainting efforts last week!

Please note that the north and south “side windows” were NOT repainted…and therefore look kind of stupid at the moment.

The reason for that is, right before we were going to paint this, we had the inspector come out for the 353 tax abatement program. And she said that we will have to either return those windows to normal, functioning windows that are NOT boarded-up…. or remove them completely and replace them with siding.

Well, in the interest of security, we’re going to have them removed. (Our garage was broken into about two weeks after we’d moved into this home back in August 2004. …

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5/23/2009

Joining the “353 Tax Abatement” Program

Filed under: General, Landscaping and Property, Rooms and Areas, Systems — Admin @ 9:42 am

BACKGROUND:

The City of Independence has developed a “tool” for encouraging homeowners and landlords to fix up their property. This tool was successfully used to revitilize Harry Truman’s old neighborhood, which is just west of the “Square” in Independence.

Two years ago, this tool was modified a bit and then “opened up for applicants” to folks on the city’s west side who live NORTH of Truman Road.

This past January 1st, this same tool was made available to folks living south of Truman road, all the way to 23rd street, I believe.

The tool itself is called the “353 Tax Abatement Program”. Here is the city’s page of information on available tax abatement programs.

Signing-up
The way this program works is… the homeowner …

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