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]
Category: Home life
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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]
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Painting
Helping out at M+J’s house yesterday: The perils of paint rollers… splattering paint. Makes me wonder if my own house needs painting… Being weatherboard, the outside probably needs it more than the inside. I’m also moderately impressed at the amount of detail from the phone camera.
I have an electric kettle. It’s pretty fast to boil water, but wow, does it burn up electricity. Here you can see our live electricity meter thingy on the fridge. On the left, a couple of lights are on, as well as the fridge and I think a computer was on as well. On the ... [More]
So, how did my old wooden house cope with the heat? It’s not brilliant, but it’s also not unbearable. I was at home most of Tuesday, and graphed the temperature rise. Inside temperature from the thermostat / Outside from the BOM Moorabbin Airport readings. Unlike last time (2010), the overnight temperature had been a lot ... [More]
I’ve got a new ceiling fan in the kitchen. The bloke at the lighting shop said that in a kitchen, a metal fan is good because it can be easily cleaned — whereas in a bedroom, quieter wooden fans are more often used. He also reckoned for the size of the room, the larger 52 ... [More]