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Old 08-13-15, 05:56 PM   #81
Peakster
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Exclamation 3 years later - New house, new expenses

So it has been a long time. I sold my old place last year & moved into my new house in April 2015 (a 1,700 square foot bungalow). I decided to revive this thread to track my spending. Clearly there's A LOT of improvement needed to get this place making a profit like my old condo.
April 2015 housing costs:

Natural Gas - $134.21
Electricity - $116.95
Water - $95.25

Other expenses:

Telephone - $39.97
Insurance - $143.43
Water Heater Rental - $9.63
Property Tax - $310.17
Mortgage P+I - $1,083.08

Total April '15 Housing Costs: $1,932.69

Rent collection from housemates: $1,200.00

Monthly Deficit: $732.69
----------------------------------------------
I plan on developing my basement with 2 more bedrooms, so I anticipate getting another $1,200/month rental income once I get that up and running. My house also had Halogen lighting everywhere & I've recently switched to LED everywhere. And that fridge! Such an energy suck (1,300 KwH/year!).

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Old 08-13-15, 08:35 PM   #82
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Peakster View Post
I decided to revive this thread to track my spending. Clearly there's A LOT of improvement needed to get this place making a profit like my old condo.
What an exciting video!!

I think you have real career potential doing late night product adverts.

I'm not sure when this place was built, but maybe Disco music would be more fitting.

Maybe this...



Best,

-AC
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Old 08-13-15, 08:41 PM   #83
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Nice to see a condensing furnace in an existing home. When I was looking for houses and also when my brother was too, we were looking at houses of a similar size and from the 80s or 90s and every since one had the original 30ish year old furnace, many natural draft.

"Water Heater Rental - $9.63" ? Huh??
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Old 08-13-15, 11:04 PM   #84
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You're bang right on AC_Hacker with that Donna Summer song. The house was built in 1983

The high-efficient furnace was definitely a bonus. The weird thing I noticed is that it seems to have variable speeds for the fan when using the heat. I'm not too sure why a low speed blowing is beneficial - I'm used to my old mid-efficient furnace of my old place where you could feel air almost at the ceiling whenever it was on.

And yeah, it's very popular to rent a water heater in the city of Regina. It costs $115.50/year to rent, however the company services it for free: WHY RENT? - Heath Water Heater Rentals

I bought out the existing water softener though - Culligan wanted $300/year to keep the rental contract when I bought my house. Now that's crazy .
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Old 08-14-15, 12:12 PM   #85
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Glad to see you back Peakster! How are you liking the new place so far? If you answered this in the video, sorry. I'm at work and can't view them.
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Old 08-14-15, 01:11 PM   #86
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Quote:
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And yeah, it's very popular to rent a water heater in the city of Regina. It costs $115.50/year to rent, however the company services it for free: WHY RENT? - Heath Water Heater Rentals
I disagree with their website that says water heaters "last only 3-5 years." We have pretty hard water down here in North Alabama and my parents never replaced their water heater, even after 15 years. Also, I think my dad "serviced" the water heater maybe twice.... (Servicing really is just flushing the tank out. Anyone with a long enough hose can do it in 10 minutes.)

Also, my wife and I's house is 9 years old and I am pretty confident (not 100%) that it is the original water heater.

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I bought out the existing water softener though - Culligan wanted $300/year to keep the rental contract when I bought my house. Now that's crazy .
From my understanding, having softer water does improve the life of your appliances, to include your water heater.


Just for curiosity sake, I checked Lowes' website. They sell up to "12-year" electric water heaters and no less than "6-year" water heaters. That would imply that the manufacturer fully expects their water heater to last at least 6 years, probably with minimum servicing. I guess I just have a hard time understanding the benefits of renting, there is often very few.
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Old 08-14-15, 07:49 PM   #87
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The company wouldn't do it if they didn't end up ahead. This reminds me of extended warranties for electronics, stuff never breaks in the first 3 years but they get an extra 25% more on each sale. I don't understand renting something that is permanently installed in a house that I own. Especially when 4 years of rental is the same price as buying one new. My water heater is 7 years old, I'll pull the anode rod an likely replace it and then check it again with an interval based on how the one I pulled out looked. Not too difficult or expensive.
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Old 08-15-15, 12:21 PM   #88
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Daox: I'm liking the house a lot. The layout is really well designed & it has so many more features than my old place (central A/C, central vacuum, en-suite bath, fireplace, garage, etc). A lot more upkeep than my little 2 story condo I had though, that for sure. At least there's no more condo fees or 'special assessments' .

natethebrown: I didn't realize that water heaters can be fairly inexpensive to buy. A new 41 gallon natural gas unit is around $600: Moffatt G6 Water Heater, 41 Gallons | Canadian Tire. That's almost 5 years of rental fees.

Electric heaters are 1/2 the purchase cost of gas but with electricity being is about $0.13/kWh it's tough to say if the higher electric bill would offset its price. Anyone have recommendations? I've read electric lasts a lot longer though. My old condo didn't have soft water at all, so now that I own my water softener it should add even more life expectancy to the water heater.
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Old 08-15-15, 01:27 PM   #89
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Maybe buy an electric tank to use as just a tank and then build your own CHP setup for hot water and space heating?
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Old 08-16-15, 02:20 PM   #90
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May 2015 housing costs:

Natural Gas - $62.15
Electricity - $88.99
Water - $125.12

Other expenses:

Telephone - $39.41
Wifi - $20.00 (contribution to housemate)
Netflix - 8.99
Insurance - $143.43
Water Heater Rental - $9.63
Property Tax - $310.17
Mortgage P+I - $1,083.08

Total May '15 Housing Costs: $1,890.97

Rent collection from housemates: $1,200.00

Monthly Deficit: $690.97
----------------------------------------------
Water bill increased - turns out that front & backyard lawn irrigation uses 100 litres every 60 seconds! Wifi and Netflix bills introduced.

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