Update! Appliance Research: Chest Freezers
March 9, 2010 – 9:48 am | Comments Off on Update! Appliance Research: Chest Freezers

The decision (and purchase) has been made! In an earlier post (“Appliance Upgrade Research: Chest Freezers”), I checked to see if the chest freezers listed on the EnergyStar site were still offered by each of the manufacturers

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Conservation

Efforts and projects taken on to shrink a homeowners carbon footprint.

Contractors

Projects and experiences with local NYC contractors

Education

Avoid the school of hard knocks, these articles will help.

Improvements

Home improvement projects and upgrades all documented here.

Technical Difficulties

Necessary repairs, maintenance and… oversights.

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Articles in Utilities

NYC Contractors: Boiler Maintenance (NYC plumbers revisited)
October 9, 2008 – 1:28 pm | Comments Off on NYC Contractors: Boiler Maintenance (NYC plumbers revisited)

After having the heating systems taken offline for the summer to conserve energy, I called Mr. Rooter to do a “pre-firing” inspection of the boilers and associated components. Throughout the past 3 years Mr. Rooter …

Equipment Maintenance: Enerjet Boilers
January 27, 2008 – 7:28 pm | One Comment

This is really to help my memory than a functional post that explains functionality. 
From time to time, it’s a good idea to flush the heating system – not only will this reduce (or temporarily eliminate) the amount …

Equipment Problems: Enerjet Boiler
February 22, 2007 – 1:30 am | 6 Comments

What began as a minor inconvenience of having to re-light pilot lights and flush the heating system has TURNED into “well, how much could a new boiler be” scenario. The previous owner of the building …

Choosing a New Energy Supplier in NYC (2007 edition)
December 27, 2006 – 2:50 pm | 3 Comments

After almost a year since my initial inquiries (followup 1, part 2) to the PowerYourWay ESCOs, I’ve decided to look back into the Con Edison residential gas/energy supplier alternatives listed on PowerYourWay.com. A quick search of …

Tenants: Utility Bill Cost Cutting
November 6, 2006 – 12:12 pm | One Comment

This past summer, electricity was a hot topic (cough) throughout New York’s Queens Borough. Eleven day power outages brought on by the failures of 10 of the 22 primary feeders that provide power to the …

Reducing Electric Bills (repost)
June 1, 2006 – 10:59 am | 4 Comments

It’s as easy as flicking a switch on your fuse box that controls the water heater-some households have been doing this for quite a few months now, and saving about $60/month on electric bills. Simply …

Free Microsoft Office Live Hosted Website and Domain (repost)
May 28, 2006 – 4:24 pm | Comments Off on Free Microsoft Office Live Hosted Website and Domain (repost)

Taken from TwistedStudent.com
As part of it's online live beta testing period, http://officelive.microsoft.com is offering three (initially free) packages. After the beta period, only the basic offering will remain free — although from what I've seen so …

Choosing a new Energy Supplier (pt. 2)
March 5, 2006 – 10:04 pm | 3 Comments

Shortly after sending out my initial email to the energy suppliers listed on poweryourway.com I landed a new job and this project fell off the table for a little bit. 
I should’ve known that it would only be a …

Software for small time landlording
March 1, 2006 – 5:49 pm | Comments Off on Software for small time landlording

Just picked up Quicken Rental Property Manager from amazon.com (next to EBay the lowest price I could find) in order to hopefully break away from the excel sheet I’ve been using to track expenses.
Haven’t installed …

Water Meter Remote
February 14, 2006 – 11:22 am | 3 Comments

Not that this is anything more than a slight inconvenience, but one of the to do list items was to find out how to get my water meter remote* reinstalled. The DEP actually sent someone …

Choosing a new Energy Supplier in NYC (followup)
January 31, 2006 – 11:26 am | One Comment

The business week during which I sent my initial inquiries out to the different energy supply companies on poweryourway.com is pretty much done.  The results, a bit discouraging. I was hoping at least the customer service departments handling …

Choosing a new Energy Supplier in NYC
January 25, 2006 – 10:12 am | 14 Comments

With each bill, Con Edison (my current gas and electric supplier), includes a customer newsletter. One of the constant features of this newsletter is Con Edison’s PowerYourWay program (poweryourway.com). Power Your Way encourages current Con …