All Forum Posts by: Seth Borman

From a building science perspective, the best system you're going to get is an inverter heat pump. Even in that climate zone.

The house is gutted. Air seal it well as you put it back together, then do a blower door test and hire an HVAC guy that will aggressively size an inverter heat pump. It will likely be 2-3 tons with a heat strip for the few nights a year when the heat pump won't keep up.

Is it worth it? We've put heat pumps into apartments and seen rents go up because they are more comfortable.

Look at your meter fee. In some places the meter fee can run $300/yr. That makes a heat pump more appealing.

M&G Stone and Cabinet on Rosemead Blvd. Take in the measurements, they will do the layout and sell you ready to assemble cabinets.

You'll still need someone to fabricate the countertops.

We installed mini splits on a master metered seven unit to replace the central boiler and add AC. They cost $3k/dr and we increased rents by about $100/mo as a result. The tenants that lived there all moved out because they liked their 90° units in the winter and the splits won't do that. Doesn't bother me... vacancies are almost non existent and rents are up.

I wouldn't allow window ACs because of the damage that they can do to the window and wall, but we have rentals in Washington where it's always raining.

It's a shame you haven't gotten more replies. We've been doing the same thing for years and are hitting some dead ends with adjacent owners that aren't willing to sell their homes.

I'd love tips on how to pick up land in this scenario.

It depends a lot on where you are. How hot/cold or humid/dry, etc. 

The SE will tell you if it is load bearing. If your handyman is any good (most aren't) they can take it from there.

Modern brick buildings are almost all what's called a veneer. That means a wood building with brick attached on the outside. Brick is an expensive material. It's more expensive than most siding products, but requires less maintenance. You have to figure out how to strike that balance in your market.

As for advanced framing, it generally means going from 16" on center to 24" on center, and from 2x4s to 2x6s, but it also means using less material for headers, top plates, etc. You'll need to talk to a structural engineer in AL to see what they can do in that market, because there are storms to worry about. 

I worked on an ICF project, a fairly big one, and I don't think it will be cheaper than lumber. There's still a lot of work involved, and a huge amount of concrete as well.

We hired a consultant from Montreal to teach our crews how to build with the material, and we brought in some people that had worked with it in the past. It was expensive.

I would look at advanced framing to reduce the amount of lumber in the wall LONG before I tried something that wasn't in the catalog.

We were paying $1800 for panel upgrades in Pierce County a few years ago.

That said, why do you need to upgrade? What are you trying to add to the panel that you can't do with a 100 amp panel?

We've been buying heat pumps for our rentals for years. They work fine in your climate (our rentals are three hours north of you) and many of our properties don't even have access to gas.

It's very likely that the actual heating load is smaller than what most furnaces can provide. It's not uncommon for gas furnaces to be 3x larger than they need to be. Heat pumps are usually sized better.