Property Management in Australia

Drywall/ Plaster Repair In Lakewood, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland, where I do most of my rehabilitation work, cracks and holes in the plaster are common. You will experience similar issues in Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh or any other industrial city throughout the east or Midwest. Holes in plaster are often the result of water infiltration, the result of vandalism, but could be the sign of more serious foundation issues. Once the root cause is fixed, patch the area with inch drywall. Secure the drywall to the hole with at least 2 drywall screws. Insert your rotozip near the edge of your hole and cut the drywall by pressing the rotozip blade against the remaining plaster. Once your piece is cut, secure it with multiple drywall screws, mud the gaps, tape, re-mud then sand to a smooth finish.

Basic Water Pipe Repair If you are working on a foreclosed home that has sat over the winter it is important to inspect for burst water pipes in the basement and walls. The hardest part of the repair is finding all the leaks. You do this by turning on the water, listening for falling water, then visually inspecting where the water is coming from. Once you find the leak, cut out the old section of pipe and cut a section of new pipe to replace it. Rough up the end of the old and new sections of pipe with your sandpaper. The easiest solution is to buy a Shark-Bite coupler and push into place. No flame is required for this repair..

Drain Repair Drains work by using the force of gravity to expel wastewater down and out of the house. Improperly working drains can be the result of improper pitch in the drain line or a clog. Clogged drains are a very common problem. When a working drain gets clogged, Draino or a quick snake will often do the trick. If that doesn’t work, unscrew the drainpipe and inspected for clogs. If a clog is found in there, simply remove the clog, replace the drain and test the drain. In a vacant house, a clog can become impenetrable. If you encounter such a clog, you need to cut it out and replace that section of drain. Using a saw or grinder cut out the clogged section of pipe. Once the clog is cut out, cut a similar length of PVC pipe to replace it. Either connect the new pipe to the old with PVC connectors or with a fernco connector. If you use the PVC connectors make sure that you clean the old pipe thoroughly and apply PVC cement to ensure a proper seal.

Replacing Light Fixtures Remove the old fixture by unscrewing the wire nuts or by cutting the wires. Strip off a section of the wire casing and attach you new fixture with wire nuts. Be sure to tape off any exposed wire with electrical tape. Since each fixture will come with its own set of instructions, be sure to read those instructions thoroughly to insure proper installation. Electricity can cause severe injury if you do not follow instruction implicitly. You should always use an amplitude meter to insure that power is off to the fixture to avoid electrocution.

Window Installation Carefully remove the old window. Be sure not to damage the old wood frame and the window sill. Once the window is removed place wood shims on the exterior of the sill and level the shims. Secure the shims. Place the new window in the opening. Place more wood shims along the sides at the top, middle and the bottom. Once the sides are secure, make sure you can easily open and close the window. Fill the gaps around the window with expanding foam insulation or fiberglass insulation.

Refinishing Wood Floors I rent a lot of the homes that I rehab. If I re-carpet, I will probably have to o it again after the first tenant moves out. If I refinish the hardwood floors, I can re-rent it over and over without much hassle. Remove all of the tack strips, staples, nails and quarter round molding. Once the floor is clean, run your drum sander with the grain of the wood. Working a drum sander is a lot like working a self-propelled lawn mower. It is very important that you keep the drum sander moving at all times though. If you leave it sit it will quickly eat into the floor. I start with 36-grit sandpaper, then 80-grit, and then 100-grit. Once the main body of the floor is sanded, do the edges with an edge sander using the same grits of sandpaper that you used on the main floor. When all the sanding is complete, sweep the floor, and then vacuum the floor. After vacuuming, I like to lightly mop the entire floor. Allow the floor to dry then apply a stain of your choice. Allow to dry then coat with 2 - 3 layers of polyurethane. Replace the molding.

Laying Tile Start by removing the old coverings whenever possible. Once the old covering has been removed put down a cement backerboard over the entire area to be tiled. Fill in the joints of the backerboard with mortar. Begin tile installation by troweling on a thin application of mastic over a three to four foot area. Set the tile in place and push gently to secure the position. Continue in this fashion until the tiles are all in place. Allow the mastic to dry for 24-hours before grouting. If you are laying a natural stone tile be sure to seal the tile prior to grouting. If you don’t, the tile will appear hazy. Remove all tile spacers. Mix the grout and push the grout into the seams using a rubber float. Immediately wipe up excess grout with a damp sponge. After an hour or so, wipe down the tile with a piece of cheesecloth to get rid of the haze on the surface.

Texturing a Ceiling To get a perfectly textured ceiling, dip a paint roller with a long (4 foot) handle into a bucket of top-coating mud. Roll the mud onto the ceiling. Push your texturing brush into the mud and pull back quickly to create a random dimple pattern all across your ceiling. After it dries finish by painting with a white ceiling paint or a color to complement your walls.

Painting a Room Be sure to prep the wall surface prior to painting. Do this by applying a thin coat of spackle to any pin holes or cracks, then sand to a smooth finish. Next, apply one coat of latex primer to the surface of the walls using a roller. After the primer dries apply your paint. Two coats of a flat paint will generally provide complete coverage. To edge the walls, apply painter’s tape to the trim, and brush the paint onto the edges. After you have painted the edges, remove the painter’s tape and you’re done.

Landscaping The exterior is the first impression people will get of your house. Take time to remove all the overgrown 1950’s era plants and replace them with smaller more modern looking plants. After removing the old shrubs, cultivate the bed and mix in organic materials like manure, compost or peat moss. Arrange your new plants on top of the beds. Once you are happy with the arrangement, remove any burlap or plastic and plant them. Be sure not to bury the root balls of shrubs. You want to plant the shrub with just a little of the ball showing above the ground surface. Follow spacing instruction on the containers so that your new landscape doesn’t look like overgrown in two years. After planting the large landscape in this fashion, take time to plant flowers around your new plants and enjoy your new look.

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When home shopping, it can be easy to get caught up in the sizzle of the sale. Look at that kitchen! Well, the sizzle is great and all, but you need some steak as well. The quality of the roof on a home definitely counts as steak.

When it comes to issues related to the roof, most people get those eyes. You know, the glazed over look. Do not make this mistake. There is general and specific information that you can easily get that will tell you a lot about the roof and the home.

The first thing to do is to take a look around you. What are the conditions? Is the roof really good for those conditions? If you are looking at a home in San Diego, a wood shingle roof is a poor choice because of the risk of fires in the area.

Perhaps we should take a step back first. To really grasp the roofing issues, you need to know some things about roofs. There are many types of roofs, but a few are more common than most and likely to be the ones you run into.

The wood shingle roof is the most basic of roofs on the market. Depending on the climatic conditions, it will last between fifteen and thirty years. The cost of replacement depends on the size of the roof. An average home will run in the $9,000 range.

The metal roof is a tougher version of the wood roof. It should last 35 years or more depending on maintenance and its condition. The cost of replacing the roof is a bit more, however, in the eleven thousand dollar range.

At the top of the list these days is the clay tile roof. It has become popular for a couple of reasons. First, fire does not really damage it. Second, water cannot rot it. Throw in a life span of 60 years or more, and the only downside is a replacement cost in the $15,000 range.

When inspecting the roof, look for missing or broken pieces. They should not exist on a home for sale. If you see them, it means water may have penetrated into the underlying materials which can mean rot, mold and decay.

Try to look for warped shingles as well. The warping will cause the end of the shingles to bend up. This can result in pools of water, which will slowly decay the shingle. The only remedy is roof replacement, so it is a vital issue to cover.

Another area to consider is the flashing. This is the material, usually metal, that creates a water tight seal between the roof and other surfaces. If it is rusted, you need a very thorough inspection done because water is probably getting into it.

To be honest, you can only see so much from the outside, so go inside. Walk the full length of the attic. If you see stains on the ceiling boards, there is a leak that needs to be found and then repaired. The seller should pay for this.

Buying a home can be an exciting time. Checking out a roof is not. Still, taking a close look at the roof can prevent situations where you later regret getting caught up in the curb appeal of a home and buying a lemon that needs an expensive roof repair.

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In these times of financial insecurity people are being forced to analyse their monetary standing with the view tighten their belts wherever possible. Bizarre as it may seem, one of the first things to be discarded when looking for ways to ease their outgoings is one of the most important with regards to future financial wellbeing, Life insurance.

With my background in finance, it never fails to amaze me how some people go about assessing what is important to them. That priority be given to a Sky TV contract over a life insurance policy is nothing less than astounding to me. It is for this reason, and the fact that a lot of my clients are seeking advice before making any cutbacks, that I feel this article to be of utmost importance.

I often think back to a story about a man who on setting off for work one morning crashed his car and was tragically killed. The car was obviously written off and was an outright insurance claim. A few weeks later, two insurance men approached the home of the man’s widow, each with a cheque in hand. The cheque for the man’s life read 20,000 whereas the one to replace the nice new BMW he drove was for 25,000.

The question to be asked here is, with these two cheques, what do you suppose the widow is in a position to replace first, the support given by her husband or his flash car? Sad but true. What I am trying to get across is that we have become, as a nation, more preoccupied by the value of our things that we are undervaluing ourselves. This is particularly evident now when cash flow is a pressing issue for everyone.

If you happen to be in the situation where you are analysing your expenses and are trying to decide whereabouts to start trimming the fat bear this in mind before you consider your life insurance. You took out your life insurance policy for one main reason. That if anything were to happen to you in the future, your family would be taken care of financially. Especially now that the credit crunch is bearing down on us, it must surely make sense to anyone who give it thought that continuing your policy is much more important to both yourself and your family than being able to watch the latest American comedy on cable.

Now this article is not meant to be scaring anyone into keeping on your life insurance payments. Scaremongering is not part of my business. What happens to you and your family is of little concern to the likes of me. What I do know, however, is that as a professional financial advisor, I deal with bereaved relatives on a day to day basis. Some of the deceased have life insurance, often not much, and some have none at all. What they all have in common is that they all say they wish they had planned better for the tragedy that has befallen them.

I can only give advice to people face to face if they knock on my door, but hopefully by writing these articles I can reach a larger audience in order that the right choices be made when planning ahead.

I think the best point to end on for this subject is, if you are really considering stopping your life insurance contributions, just to save a bit of money in these hard times, then speak to your financial adviser. They are best placed to advise you if this is really the best move you can make. You may not realise it but if you have had any health issues, since you first took the plan out, getting it restarted after you have stopped it can be very difficult. Finally stopping it may not be the only option open to you. You may be able to swap it for a cheaper plan whilst maintaining some if not all of the benefits, so get advice, you might still save money but you will BE PROTECTED!

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You are welcome to reprint the above article in its entirety including this notice. Source: http://ProperlyManaged.net