Internet Providers

"JD Power" is a rating group, and this is the result of consumer opinions of the major internet providers. Its all too bad, too bad; the best providers are not yet available in our area ( we've suffered with AT&T and Comcast )

http://www.jdpower.com/telecom/ratings/high-speed-internet-service-provider-ratings/east/

Auto Insurance

"JD Power" is a rating group that has found Amica Mutual as the provider of automobile insurance that is available to us.

Two companies are actually better, but they restrict their membership, NJM New Jersey Manufacturers ( such as Exxon) and USAA (for the military).

2nd best: Auto Owners, Erie, GEICO, Shelter, State Farm.

http://www.jdpower.com/Insurance/ratings/auto-insurance-provider-ratings/

NYTimes blog article: Car Rental Advice

http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/11/15/an-ex-car-rental-agents-money-saving-advice/?src=busln

http://www.edmunds.com/advice/buying/articles/165627/article.html

• Decline "paid upgrade" ( because the lot is often short-handed and will immediately give the same upgrade for no charge).
• Decline "prepaid gas" ( because there is no refund for gallons ).
• Reserve early but cancel and rebook if the market drops.
• full insurance coverage ~$26/day ".
• "personal accident insurance" is actually redundant with other portions of agency's insurance coverage.
• negotiate firmly but politely, cite the competition.

http://www.edmunds.com/ownership/driving/articles/46971/article.html

http://www.edmunds.com/reviews/list/top10/116640/article.html

• inspect the vehicle BEFORE to write damage notes into the contract.
• be aware of how your credit card ALREADY covers damages to rented vehicles.
• note contract's break-down advice and phone number.
• observe contracted mileage and time limits.
• airports add surcharges.
• internet provides price comparisons and possible discounts.
• daily rate: weekends might be 60% cheaper, a 1-week rate =~ 5 days.
• frequent rentals should consider an agency "club" arrangement, pre-pay for advantages.

Garage Door Openers

Its a good idea to reset the garage door opener and the remotes. Its possible that someone has an additional, functioning remote that nobody knows about. Resetting the opener disables unwanted remotes.

The ceiling motor has a red button and holding this down does a master reset. The hand-held remotes are reset by pushing that red button again first, and then pushing the remote button, and doing this for each remote. The outside keypad is actually another remote, it has its own battery. This is reset in a similar way, the instructions are usually inside the lid, where the PIN can also be reset.

This video is a simple explanation of a typical reset procedure.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xb9leb_how-to-reset-garage-door-keypad-cod_tech

Garage doors started out simple and easy to open, but now they seem to borrow the sophisticated electronics from automobile remotes. For example, even if a burgler has a special radio that records the remote's radio signal and plays it back, the signal only works once and door will not open.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garage_door_opener

Finally, its good to have a dead-bolt. Our metal door has a dead-bolt built in.

Electric Water

Our electric bill is higher. It was $60/month, its now $90. One difference is that hot water was free in the previous apartment but heated with our own electricity in this apartment.

• 10 gallons typical laundry-wash load
• 20 gallons typical dishwasher batch
• 20 gallons for 10 minutes of shower at 2 gallons per minute. http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/sq3.html
• 1000 gallons per month, 35 gallons a day, is our base case hot water usage
• 7 gallons of water can be heated from 60'F to 120' by 1 kWhr of electricity http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/houseenergy.html
• 1 kWhr costs $0.20 in CT ( it was $0.18 in NJ)
• $30/month is our base case hot water portion for the electric bill ( from 1000 gallons / 6 gallons per kWhr * $0.20 per kWhr )

In the winter, this helps to heat the house and this reduces the heating bill. If we used air-conditioning in the summer, this heat would increase the air-conditioning load, 200 kWhr hot water might add 100 kWhr heat which might add 150 kWhr sur-charge to the air-con.