All Forum Posts by: Matthew Shaw

@Emilio Ramirez 

As many of the long time locals would say, "Yes, Austin sucks, don't move here." 

But seriously, Austin is many things. A town in the middle of the desert it is not. Even in the middle of the summer, everything is green man. Not even close to what you see in Phoenix or Vegas.

Come check it out.

@Brittney Musgrave

Hey I saw a post on fb looking for a project manager. Message me your phone # or email and I’ll send it to you

Congrats! Ill keep an eye out and let you know if I come across anything

Hey all. I've got some vacant land I am very interested in. It is in a developed area, was purchased when first subdivided in the 70's and has just sat there. I looked up the tax records and have mailed the owners property of record 2x. I also found a phone number online for the owner (who knows how accurate that is) and have left a voicemail.

My question is, any other suggestions on how to get ahold of them? I am going to have my letter translated into spanish, but any other suggestions would be super helpful.

Thanks in advance.

Welcome to Austin! My wife and I were relocated here from OC in August. We love it! There are a ton of job opportunities, so you shouldn't have a problem finding something. What type of construction were you in?

@Andrew Kutscher Your friend is getting hosed. While R-22 is no longer being produced as of 1/1/2020, there is still plenty of it available. Legally, it can still be sold, they just cant make it anymore. 

In regards to his home warranty, an R-22 system works exactly the same way as a R-410A system (R-410a is the refrigerant that replaced R-22). It is not completely different. In fact, manufactures have not been able to build systems that use R-22 since 2010, so this is not a "new" thing. He needs to speak to someone with a little more knowledge at his warranty company.

Yes, if you have an old HVAC unit, when you replace it, you will have to use the new refrigerant. As I said, this has been standard practice for the last 10 years already. I personally know of hundreds of cases where a home warranty paid for a new system that utilized the new refrigerant. 

Be careful of where you get your information from. Your link is from an HVAC companies blog post. There is some misinformation in there. Certainly their goal is to drive people into purchasing new equipment. Equipment replacement is typically driven by what the cost would be to repair it vs replace it. As the R-22 supply drops the price goes up, so it becomes more reasonable to replace vs. repair. 

For accurate information, check out this link from the EPA.

https://www.epa.gov/sites/prod...

Minisplits would probably make the most sense, depending on how many rooms you need to condition. Either way, be prepared to have preventive maintenance on each system every 3 months. Investors tend to try to drag this out to 2x a year and I've seen so many destroyed systems because of it. Renters are typically very hard on HVAC systems

@Kyle Curtin Keep working that HVAC job. Great skill to have down the road with rental properties. Plus, you’ll always have something great to fall back on if the economy takes another dump.

Save all that money you’re making and keep soaking up all the knowledge you can. It’ll come with time.

Makita man here. Milwaukee are great as well, but so many people have Milwaukee, I went with Makita to ensure no one "accidentally" walked away with one of my tools.

Check with a local company, they should be able to steer you in the right direction. Just a thought, if you're going to pay to move it anyways, why not consider moving it into the attic or the basement? Keep the square footage usable.