The Home Ownership Thread

[Douglas]

Not a good house to rent. Older Victorian, probably lead paint all over the place, it's a place that needs a little love. We have considered renting but I'm not sure we could cover the mortgage, though it would staunch the bleeding. The whole house was a poor buy. Bad story. Wife bought it before we were together, on the heels of a divorce, at the peak of the market. It's a problem. For emotional reasons, she is frightened to sell it at a loss. Reason is slowly prevailing. Slowly.

 

[Ataturk]



The 2500-lumen, dimmable BR40 LED:

http://www.feit.com/led-lamps/performance/dimmable/reflector/br40-dm-2500-3k-led

This is by far the brightest LED reflector-style bulb on the market. The nearest runners up are 1650 and 1400 lumens. And those are hard to find. Most are 800 or so.

At $50 each and with a white-ish 3000k color temperature, it's not really ideal for me; and I'm not sure whether it's the right depth (though my cans at least could probably accommodate it). Still, it's a hopeful indication that the technology can eventually replace the 100 and 150 watt bulbs the government took away from us.

Edit: despite the appearance in the picture, the specs claim it's the standard 6.3" tall.

So I ponied up the $200 and got a set of these for my (underlit) play room. They were hard to find and the company I got them from (which claimed they were in stock) drop shipped them to me, I believe. If you want a set the phone # for Feit in the packing slip is: 562-463-2852. Would they sell them directly to a customer if you order a case (4)? I have no idea.

The bulbs are the same size as standard BR40s (i.e., large) and they're even heavier than the 1065 lumen version, with a massive, vented aluminum heat sink (the 1065-lumen version just has shallow ribs). They also have a curious vent in the center of the (opaque plastic) diffuser. Even more interesting, the box states that they are "recommended" for use in outdoor security lighting with a picture of the typical PAR-type exposed bulb fixture. I guess that vent is so water that gets in can evaporate? Most weather exposure rated LEDs have glare problems and these have much better diffusers (though they're also very bright and thus are hard to look directly at...). And not very attractive either when exposed (though they look good in a can).

Seem to dim OK though I haven't calibrated my dimmer to see how far they can be pushed.

Very expensive but beats the hell out of patching and cutting the ceiling to rearrange and add new cans.

 

[Piobaire]



Not a good house to rent. Older Victorian, probably lead paint all over the place, it's a place that needs a little love. We have considered renting but I'm not sure we could cover the mortgage, though it would staunch the bleeding. The whole house was a poor buy. Bad story. Wife bought it before we were together, on the heels of a divorce, at the peak of the market. It's a problem. For emotional reasons, she is frightened to sell it at a loss. Reason is slowly prevailing. Slowly.

It's a shame you did not get it into rental status two years ago. I'm coming to the end of my penance on the prior house as I've had it rented since October '12. Rental income for three fiscal years = I can deduct my entire passive loss (at my top marginal rate no less), including any spread between what I paid for it in 05 and sell it for now, in one fell swoop. Without that it's 3k per year until your loss is absorbed. Add that to the 250k or so the value of the new house has increased since I bought it at the bottom of the market and this painful time has really paid off in the long run.

 

[Medwed]


Have you checked if this is available directly from China for less?

 

[Ataturk]

I don't think so. Feit makes most of the store-brand LED bulbs they sell at Lowes (among other places, I'm sure). It's not one of those fly-by-night resellers.

 

[Medwed]



I don't think so. Feit makes most of the store-brand LED bulbs they sell at Lowes (among other places, I'm sure). It's not one of those fly-by-night resellers.

Not fly by night but they don't make them themselves, they buy them in bulk from China and apparently even drop ship them to individual customers.
If you have paid 50 per bulb I think you should look into getting them direct from Alibaba.com
just saying.

 

[Ataturk]

The lamps are definitely made in China, but, like I said, I don't think Feit just buys them on the market and resells them. I'm fairly confident they either have their own factories or exclusive relationships with the factories that make their bulbs. The Feit bulbs I've bought have a distinctive appearance (and specs) and I've never seen generic or branded bulbs like them (unless they're actually made by Feit and rebranded like at Lowes). I spent quite a bit of time looking, too.

If you can prove me wrong, though, by all means do. I still have lots of cans that could use LED bulbs.

 

[Medwed]

Just my 2 cents , check alibaba for your lamp specs, you might find manufacturer who would ship small orders to US, and if not even at a 100 unit minimum order you could outfit your whole home and them flip the rest on ebay and end up with profit.

 

[Ataturk]

Managed to get another roof out of that hail storm last year. I was sore about what it did to my car, but this kind of balances it out.

 

[JohnGalt]

Thought I'd be smart and wait until the end of the season to buy a snowblower. Had one delivered today (because of the massive snow dump we received).

 

[brokencycle]

I picked up a snow blower in August or September from Sears. I was about to stack like 3 coupon codes. It was like $400 for a two stage.

 

[Douglas]

Your mama was a snowblower.

 

[RedLantern]

The wife and I painted the main bathroom (both the walls and the vanity/cabinets) and I switched out the light switches and outlets. The bathroom that I was working on was not listed specifically on the electrical panel so I turned off a couple of breakers. As I was inspecting some things, suddenly the lights came back on! Apparently one of the breakers I turned off was for my brother's room downstairs, and he had simply gone to the breaker and flipped them all back on

Such a stupid, stupid thing to do. Glad I didn't get electrocuted.

 

[E TF]

Yeah, you really should have told him that you were doing electrical work first.

 

[Ataturk]

So I want to replace the glass inserts in the door to my utility room with those fancy blinds-between-the-glass things. Why is this so hard? The inserts are incredibly hard to find and the few places that will sell them to you want as much as a new prehung door with the inserts already in it.

And, no, I don't want those awful flimsy add on things that stick out three inches.