You probably want something called Low E glass (or something similar) This is glass that tends to reflect the heat. 

My ~$150K home is paid off, and I'm considering taking out a HELOC on it in order to make the 25% down payment on a $200K rental quad.I've created a spreadsheet to analyze what I think are all the numbers, but would just like general opinions as to whether this is nuts or not.Monthly rents in the quad are about $650 each.

To me, it seems like this would be an excellent 1-2 year crash course to learn the "nuts and bolts" of the industry for a variety of reasons.

Work so hard that everyone thinks your are nuts.  

However you'd have to weed through them as local counties tend to fudge on the sqft numbers often giving you bad comps. 

Thanks,My guess is that some newer investors find hiring contractors to be a daunting task (which it most certainly as for newbie investors) and they think that by partnering with a contractor, it relieves them of the responsibility of having to do their due diligence, put together a scope of work, put together a budget, etc.The problem with that reasoning is that they aren't relieving themselves of the responsibility -- they are just transferring it to someone who probably isn't any better at than they are, and are locking themselves into a relationship that would be a lot more difficult to extract themselves from than just firing a contractor.Plus, investors tend to make less money this way.In other words, partnering with a contractor is most often a lose/lose situation for an investor.

So you tend to have only less "first time home buyers" competing depending on your area of course ;)

You have gotten some lousy advice on this thread, and then some good advice from Marcia.Threatening her with a pay or quit is nuts.  

If it weren't so darned far away for me to self manage, I'd start looking at Pueblo or Grand Junction, because the entire front range from Colorado Springs to Fort Collins is nuts.  

I also could call the animal control people (I believe it's actually against code to let cats roam in the city - though nobody tends to enforce it), but that probably won't endear me to my neighbors much....