All Forum Posts by: Mike F.

I think you've done a really good job so far. Everything you've said about him to me makes me believe his hot buttons are to be done, hands washed of the property in no more than 3 months. He's said one of his options is to just list it and be done with it in 3 months, I think that is a telling piece of info. I believe at this point any strategy you approach him with must allow him to be done in no more than 3 months.

Next conversation you might want to pursue learning more about his time frame for washing his hands of the property so quickly, I'm sure he has a reason. Also focus on his alternative plan of listing it, is 3 months a realistic expectation? Can you shed doubts that 3 months really is realistic? If so this might give you leverage in your strategy.

dropbox

 Very true. In a two tank hot water system in series we can create a system that has virtually limitless hot water, a system you simply can't run out of hot water. You do it by hooking two in series, the first turned low pre-heating the water to the 2nd, with the 2nd being a fast recovery unit. Mega benefits for a homeowner, besides the obvious one of having limitless hot water, the additional one is they can be plumbed in a way where you'll never be without hot water in regard to an eventual hot water heater failure waiting for replacement, since you can simply by-pass the failed unit and limp along on one heater until you get the bad one replaced. This is a great system for someone who wants to upgrade a smaller tank to a larger one, instead of replacing the smaller one, you add a 2nd and use the original to feed the 2nd. Totally irrelevant to a rental property usually unless for some reason you had an odd property with two or more apartments running off a single water heater and having the problem of having to upgrade to a commercial boiler, the double hot water heater system could be a very cost effective solution.

One thing to think about is that not all 30 gallon water heaters are the same. Typically you use 2 things to compare same sized heaters-

BTUs

1st hour recovery

The higher the BTUs the more horsepower the tank has to heat the water and the 1st hour recovery is a standard method of comparing how much heated water you can get out of tank. 

Technically you could have a smaller water heater out perform a larger one if there was enough difference in them in BTUs and the 1st hour recovery numbers.

Many manufacturers offer good, better and best models with the best rated ones being fast recovery tanks, which means they out perform similar gallon sized models. 

So there is a lot to it and it's not always necessarily and apples to apples comparison going from a smaller to larger capacity tank.

The Nest thermostats have this feature, they call it a "safety temperature". The Nest thermostats are designed to work over a wireless network so they can be remotely changed, but there would be nothing stopping you from installing one without using it wirelessly and just using it as a regular thermostat. There are lockable thermostats for commercial use, but I can't see that working in a rental.

I think the main issue will always be that any thermostat that you can set a minimum temperature in will always be susceptible to this fail safe failing, due to the possibility the tenant could change it on purpose or on accident.

I'd hope in a 4 plex as long as there is no building defect to the thermal envelope that it would be difficult for one units pipes to freeze as long as the other units were occupied, seeing as they share some common walls/ceilings.

Space heaters account for 33% of all residential fires and account for 75% of all residential deaths due to fires.

Landlords are supposed to provide adequate heating equipment for a rented property. In many states the local municipal laws will clearly state and call out by name that this means space heaters are not an acceptable means of heat. If you rent a property to someone it's not a stretch to specifically ban space heaters from being used in your property. The property has adequate heating devices installed, no space heaters allowed. By allowing space heaters in a property, you're potentially increasing your chances of a fire dramatically, by allowing them you're dramatically increasing your chances of a wrongful death lawsuit. I'd be drawing a hard line with these tenants, with an official company letter notifying them of their breaking the lease terms by operating space heaters in your property, I'd also be pursuing having them pay for the electrical problems you're paying for or at least notifying them that you're examining the issue and will be deciding whether they are liable for the damages.

Next time, next winter, or next month you could be instead answering the phone from the fire dept that your property burned down or the police that a tenant died or were injured in a house fire caused by space heaters that they have used because the landlord never said the couldn't, no record exists of you denying their use and then the next call is from someone's attorney suing you for a wrongful death, based on the precedent that at one time they had to use them because you admitted or inferred that there was a heating issue with the property due to them contacting you about an excessively high heating bill and at that time you were pursuing all sorts of corrections to the problem.

Instead I'd be telling the tenants there is nothing wrong with the place, stop opening the windows and space heaters aren't allowed.

I can't tell you the amount of tenants who have tried to tell me what was wrong with something based on a symptom. I had one in particular who would constantly call us to tell us what needed to be done instead of what the problem was. For instance she would tell me we needed to send someone out to snake the main drain line of the house because it was clogged. With interrogation it was determined that the drains weren't simply 'clogged' but that she had stopped up 1 bathtub drain by lack of cleaning her massive amounts of hair in the drain stopper. Cleaning the drain stopper of that single bathtub eliminated the need to have the main drain line snaked. She would tell us we needed to have the central air serviced because it wasn't cooling the house correctly, with interrogation we discovered she was leaving the AC off all day letting the house heat up to the high 80s when it was 100 outside, then coming home at night and she expected to be able to cool the house down to 65 degrees in 2 hours.

Just trying to say don't let tenants send you on wild goose chases, especially ones where you could be held liable by your actions from a cascading series of events.

A little advice to any billionaires out there, think about setting a little bit aside for a raining day, just a million or two... LOL

Are you evicting them or making them pay for the repairs or both? 

It's always a good starting point to read a code book to get a good basic understanding of building code, BUT... in the front of every code book there is always somewhere a page that states that local building code supersedes the code book. This allows for locations that have different weather, different seismic activity, snow loads, etc... to adjust the code to fit to their local conditions.  This is referred to as local code adoption and smart contractors (or DIYers) quickly learn that the ultimate and final say in code is the local building dept, so a quick phone call to speak to an inspector is the fastest path to the final answer is to any question, you're getting the answer from the person who will most likely be the person who will eventually be at your property and having to sign off on the permit signature page.

Highest bill before was $800.

12% rate increase would make that previous highest rate now $900

$900 to $1100 is only about an 18% increase.

18% could easily be attributed to the fact that (1) tenants do stupid things, (2) tenants have selective memory when it comes to remember stupid things they do, and (3) tenants out right lie.