Yes, sometimes my blog isn’t about transport. If you’d prefer to see only transport posts, you can use this link. Here’s a post where I ramble on about recent upgrades around my house. Wall insulation I had wall insulation installed earlier in the year. The winter gas bill came in recently. It’s down 37.7% from ... [More]
Category: Home life
Improving my house’s heating and cooling and energy efficiency is an ongoing project. 2008 Solar hot water 2012 Ceiling fans and roof insulation 2015 External blinds 2017 Air-conditioning (a backwards step for energy efficiency, but a giant leap for comfort on very hot days) This week it was wall insulation. Obviously this is best fitted ... [More]
While my most pressing home renovation need is the bathroom (planning to do this the next time my sons are away on a trip), I was also thinking: Governments should be doing a lot more on climate change, but what are the major emissions in my home, and how could I decarbonise? The car. I ... [More]
When you’re house-hunting, there’s a continuum of numerous factors weighed against each other, including indoor space, outdoor space, location, walkability, and plenty more, including of course price. By walkability, I mean the walking distance to amenity such as parks, good public transport, shops. (Walkscore attempts to measure this.) From some points of view, perhaps the ... [More]
(To just see transport-related blog posts, you can use this link — which is also on the top navigation menu) For years I’ve resisted air-conditioning at home. Partly it was the cost, partly it was that I really wanted to pursue passive cooling as much as I could — measures that used little or no ... [More]
A couple of years ago I got a ceiling fan fitted in the kitchen. The electrician was pleasant, competent, and did a good job. He said he’d send me an invoice. He never did. A couple of months later I emailed him and asked him to send it. He acknowledged the email and said he’d ... [More]
Brace yourself… a non-transport-related blog post. A couple of years ago I bought a Yamaha surround sound setup, which has been fabulous. I’d single out the sound track on Mad Max Fury Road in particular; very immersive. Heck, even later seasons of the West Wing had some subtle surround going on, adding to the viewing ... [More]
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Ikea Billy upgrade
I bought some Billy bookshelves for the livingroom some years ago. I picked their beech colour… and then they discontinued it. While I love the look, and the reconfigurability of the moveable shelves and the fact that you can always buy more (well, except in beech, so not really in my case), I can’t say ... [More]
Over the weekend Melbourne went through our biggest heatwave so far this summer, and the first real test of my external blinds, which were fitted to the house early this year. Looking at the two nearest weather stations to me, yesterday the temperature at Melbourne (Olympic Park) peaked at 40.7 at 4:27pm. At Moorabbin Airport ... [More]
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The Billing Season
Once a year, the planets align, and I get hit by heaps of bills — often all three utilities, plus car rego and home insurance… It’s pretty much a consequence of having bought a house mid-year (in 2005) and bought a car mid-year (in 2008) as well. Plus other, quarterly, bills seem to arrive around ... [More]
Just on five years ago my dishwasher door spring broke. In that instance a secondary fault also affected the actual washing of dishes. Now another door spring has broken. It hasn’t affected the washing – it’s just the door is heavy, and needs to be opened very carefully. Repair from Fisher And Paykel is expected ... [More]
I got my hot water heater replaced with a solar boosted unit 7 years ago when the old one died. The tank includes an overflow pipe, out of which small amounts of water sometimes drop. Because it’s only a small amount of water, I made no special arrangements for it. It drops straight onto part ... [More]
I mentioned the other day that it’s coming up on ten years since I bought my house in Bentleigh (hence the flurry of maintenance). In that time, the prices here have gone through the figurative roof. (Source: RealEstateView) I didn’t think to save the data at the time, but this document tracks median house prices ... [More]
Happy Australia Day! Now I’m going to do the Australian thing and talk about real estate. Later this year it will be ten years since I moved into this house. It’s got me pondering maintenance, repairs and a little bit of renovation. It started when I got my stepfather, who knows more about this kind ... [More]
After buying the new livingroom hi-fi, my thinking was I want a device for the kitchen that does DAB+ for digital radio (eg music such as Double-J without relying on the vagaries of the internet connection) and can also do AirPlay (eg for music from iTunes on the Mac). Devices that do both DAB+ and ... [More]
Here’s a graph of my home loan, which I got just over nine years ago. The loan was approved in August 2005, but only took effect in October that year (the huge leap on the left). In the first year or so I was able to pay it down a bit. It only took me ... [More]