1. 5-2 refers to how the days are allocated for programming. The 5-2 is the most basic of the programmables. The days are are lumped together for programming Mon-Fri and Saturday/Sunday. The programming for a basic 5-2 allows for 4 change points throughout the day: wake, leave, return and bed. Most folks have regular schedules through the week allowing for uniform changes of temperature. A sample day might be Mom waking up at 5:30 to start everyone on their day. So for the “wake” setting we would set the time at 5:15 and the temperature to 71 degrees. By 7:45 everyone is dressed fed and out the door so we could put the “leave” setting at 7:30 and 60 degrees. The kids begin getting home at 4:00 to the “return” setting set at 66 degrees. And finally bed time at 10:00, with the “bed” setting at 9:30 and 60 degrees. Saturday and Sunday will generally have a “wake” and “bed” setting. Don’t worry about catching the occasional chill…all programmables that I’ve seen have an override function that allows change of temperature until the next scheduled program. Theses units are available at most home centers for about $30 and are very easy to change.

2. 7-day stats allow individual programming by day not week. These are great for anyone with a varying schedule in that it allows more control of the programming. Other than that, it works just like the 5-2.
Just plan on more time in programming and spending about $75. Installation will be the same as a 5-2.

3. Adaptive recovery. These are installed and programmed the same as the 7-day. The difference is that the adaptive thermostat will “learn” your house and HVAC system. How? Simple. With the 5-2, if you wake up at 5:30 and the stat changes at 5:30 your house will be 60 degrees. The adaptive unit will start the furnace in the middle of the night and raise your house temp one degree so it “learns” how long it will take to reach your “wake” setting. At 5:30 when you roll out of bed the house is where you want it. This is really nice during the hottest days of summer. Instead of coming home to a hot house with a struggling A/C you arrive to your desired temperature.
Plan on spending about $125 for one.

4. Evolution style. Evolution is the name Bryant gives its top of the line system. These are whole house controllers running temperature, humidity, and indoor air quality equipment. Carrier and Honeywell both make similar systems. These units are installed with all new equipment by dealers and are unavailable to homeowners at this time.

5. Savings. Estimating savings earned with programmables is difficult. I have heard as much as 3% per degree below 70 degrees, which I find unlikely. A total of 3-4% is much easier to believe. For about a $100  and an hours time, even at  the low end of the estimation programmable thermostats will have a quick payback.

Laporte County Insurance Agents-Click here

Porter County Insurance Agents-Click here

In the end, I switched to an insurance provider that quoted me $1,345, saving me $2,305 on my rental property each year! While I was at it, I asked this same insurance provider to give me an auto quote. With my previous insurer, I had been paying $1,811 for two cars in northern California. With the new insurer, it came to $1,277. That’s another savings of $534 on annual auto insurance premiums. If you’re keeping track, that’s $2,839 in annual savings on my insurance needs

Can’t promise you $2,839 in savings but it is worth a few minutes to find out.

Lake County auto insurance quotes

Porter County auto insurance quotes

Homeowners insurance quote

So we have run into a few cases lately where we have bid against people for architectural design projects and have not won the bid.  We are told after the fact when we presented a breakdown of our proposal that we included more time to prepare the drawings then the other firms which is why we didn’t win the bid.

So you can look at this two different ways – one way is that maybe we included too many hours and the other way is that we included the right amount in order to provide drawings that are complete so that when the project goes out to bid the owner is left with solid bids from the general contractors in order to minimize change orders.

I will provide one example of why I think we were right with our price – we included approximately 400 hours of CAD drafting and 240 hours of Architects time and the competitor that won the proposal included 300 hours of CAD drafting and 40 hours of Architects time.  Now, I don’t know about you, but if I were building a building I would want the architect more involved in my design, detailing, specifications and meetings than just 40 hours.  We are talking about a $90,000 design project and $1,000,000+ construction project.  They beat our price roughly 10%.  We have bid on 2 other projects by this architectural firm and during the bid process there were over 100 questions raised regarding to clarifications, discrepencies and errors within the drawing set.  The project that we drew had 6 questions raised during the bid process.  And since the projects are just now being built, I don’t have an answer yet as to how many change orders will take place, but I can guarantee it will be more than the $9,000 it would have cost to hire us to prepare the construction documents.

The whole point of this post is for you to realize that with architectural drawings, the better your details, clarifications and drawings up front the smaller your risk down the line.  You want to limit your risk and exposure during the bid process so that you can have a good feeling moving forward that the price you get from your general contractorswill be the final price for construction and that you won’t get hit with $1,000’s of dollars worth of change orders because you wanted to save a couple thousand up front.

IN-Cambridge Architects is a Northwest Indiana Architectural firm specializing in medical facilities, office buildings, restaurants and other commercial construction projects.  Click here to see our portfolio of Northwest Indiana Architectural Projects as well as solid waste projects nationwide such as transfer stations andhauling companies.

Just remember, The bitterness of poor quality last long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten!

ANSWER – I’d be happy to supply my thoughts in general, and yet I acknowledge up front that many of you have situations that are unique. Top 5 Reasons to BUY now!

Interest Rates are not going to stay at or even just below 5% much longer. Even this morning as I took an early look at the mortgage bond markets and treasury bills, the credit markets are leaning back toward higher rates. (FNMA 30-year 4.5% $100.91 down 3bps or translated a slight move up in rate) The United States Government is borrowing billions of dollars ever week to pay for our current deficit spending, and as with any supply and demand market too much supply pushes down prices. In this case too much supply of debt instruments pushes down what investors are willing to pay and since prices and interest rates are inversely related, RATES go UP!
One reason that rates have stayed in the low 5′s (or even just under 5%) is that the Federal Government was paying a tax credit to first time real estate buyers. The original tax credit ran out in November, causing a lot of homes that would have been purchased in late November or December to be purchased instead in October and early November. An aberration in the demand therefore causing us to think real estate was recovering fast in the fall, when in actuality real estate is probably recovering slowly without market manipulations. In December due to the market manipulations, Existing home sales went down steeply. Back to the point, this means prices in January are softer than in the fall and many sellers motivated to get the deal done now! That tax credit was extended until mid-Spring and is available now for all buyers, not just first time buyers.
Here in Northwest Indiana the real estate market has been slowly but surely picking back up from the low point a year ago. We did not go as high as the coastal and resort markets, so we did not take as much time to rebound. If you are waiting for prices to go down further, you are probably waiting on something that won’t happen. The steel mills have called back some employees, Ford Motor Company announced yesterday over 1,000 hires in Chicago and small businesses are slowly but surely dusting themselves off from the 2008 Recession. The real engine of job growth will be small business.
January is typically slower, with weather being the dominant factor. Buying a home in a slow month will typically yield less competition and a more flexible seller. I would recommend working closely with the seller to gain assistance with closing costs (for the record every single title company in the region increased their closing costs on January 1st in response to more government requirements) and stay away from antagonistic battles with sellers. If you are willing to pay $100,000, contract for $100,000 … don’t use the home inspection as a second line of negotiations to beat the seller down even more. That’s unethical and the REALTORs using that tactic aren’t going to last as the market recovers.
Many local communities are increasing rental registration fees, inspection fees, utility fees, storm water fees, and a whole host of fee income generation. Property taxes in the State of Indiana are capped at 1% for your owned home … but 2% for a rental home. This means that your landlord is going to be hit with thousands of dollars in fees and higher taxes … guess who pays those fees and taxes … YOU! Your rent will most likely be increased at your next renewal. You may well be able to buy a home for the same or less than you will be paying at your next rent renewal. But due to the 4 above mentioned reasons, you better act now while prices are low, temperatures are cold, and rates are low. Rents are going up!
Call me anytime if you need assistance in starting this process, a pre-qualification should be the first step: 219-465-8352. While at a conference in Indy this week I heard that some sellers are listing with the following requirement “showings for buyers with pre-qualification only” … Great idea.

Steve Dalton
Sr. Mortgage Banker
Sierra Pacific Mortgage – Residential Mortgage Group
219-465-8352 (cell)
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What’s affecting the rates right now?

• Sales of homes in the latter part of 2009 were greatly affected by the rush to obtain the tax credit that originally was intended to run out by the end of November. That tax credit is not back in affect and will extend into April. But in the meantime there was a bit of a rush at the end of last year. I expect that due to this mirage affect, there will be a restatement of sales in December downward a bit. This is positive news for rates.

• The substantial amount of money being borrowed by the Federal Government to cover their historic and unsustainable deficits is putting a lot of pressure on both rates and inflation. So far rates have risen from 4.5% 30 days ago to where there are now at just over 5%. I expect rates to continue a slow increase month by month as recession problems fade, jobs begin to increase, and there is more focus on inflation. This is negative news for rates.

• Yesterday rates were actually better than expected, see I don’t have a crystal ball, so there’s always the strong possibility that today we get a correction day. See the 10 Year Treasury Chart yesterday, where rates did come down a bit, slightly yesterday.

• As always, if you want a quick personal update at 10:00 a.m. this morning when rates come out please email me and I’ll personally send you a quick update when they are in my hands.

Please Contact  Tyler@cropins.net

Kerry Haven Subdivision is located on CR 3 to CR 108 in Cleveland Township, Elkhart Indiana. Children who live in Kerry Haven Subdivision who attend public school will be attending Elkhart Community Schools.

Kerry Haven Subdivision 2009 home sales consisted of 6 homes that sold for $98,900 to $160,000 after being on the market for 36 to 645 days. These were all an arm’s length transaction and neither were a short sale or anREO Property.

REO Properties are homes that are owned by a Bank/Investor which they obtained thru the foreclosure process.

Short Sales are definded as a sale where the debt owing against a property combined with the costs associated with the sale exceed the property’s market value.  In a loan default situation (pre-foreclosure) , lender(s) may be willing to agree to allow the property to be sold for less than the loan amount and/or accept less than (or “short”) the amount owed, and may or many not accept the net proceeds of sale as payment in full of the debt.

This is just a quick sampling of the information Evelyn tracks and provides.  Clearly Evelyn is going above and beyond for the Elkhart real estate community. Thanks Evelyn

What in the world does the blues have to do with inbound marketing or SEO?  You’re asking and I’m prepared after a little research to give the result of my research this week.

I came across Nate Findlings blog How to write a book of blues.  Nate is an inbound marketing consultant right here in NW Indiana, and is writing a Book about the Blues, or better yet about a blues musician.  I think Nate has combined both subjects to really hit his stride.

“Plan A:  To write about our adventures in getting our drafts edited and published. This includes trials, tribulations, influences, and the essentials that go into such a project.

Plan B: To use our careers in SEO/SMO, Social Media, and Copywriting to not only get the word out about our endeavors but to share, learn and grow as we go.”

Some recent posts on this blog:

• Welcome to “How To Publish a Book of Blues. Hopefully

• My 2010 New Years Resolution

The lyrics often relate troubles experienced within African American society. For instance Blind Lemon Jefferson‘s “Rising High Water Blues” (1927) tells about the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927:

“Backwater rising, Southern peoples can’t make no timeI said, backwater rising, Southern peoples can’t make no timeAnd I can’t get no hearing from that Memphis girl of mine.”

However, although the blues gained an association with misery and oppression, the lyrics could also be humorous and raunchy as well:^[20]

“Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me,Rebecca, Rebecca, get your big legs off of me,It may be sending you baby, but it’s worrying the hell out of me.” From Big Joe Turner‘s “Rebecca”, a compilation of traditional blues lyrics

An author, a lyric writer, aninbound marketing expert, and that almighty Search Engine Optimization project that we all want but can’t quite put our finger on. So what does Blues music have to do with your business marketing?  Everything.  Creativity, honesty in voice, and the ability to relate to real people where they’re at.