First House, Lots of Questions! :)

Hello all,

Friday I will be closing on my first house. It is a triplex that I will be living in one unit and renting out the other 2 units. The 2 car garage is solely for my use. I'm not sharing that. :)

It is overall in very good condition, roof is fairly new, plumbing is almost all new, electrical is pretty updated.

But, there are some things I'll have to do.

First, I need to get some smoke detectors. (And CO detectors...) Any recommendations? I've been looking on Amazon and all the new models use AA batteries not 9v, and seem to eat batteries. :/ I think I'm going to need 9 smoke detectors and 5 CO detectors, but to be up to standards I may need more...

Second, the basement windows need covered ASAP. It's getting cold, I need to keep out the pests and the water. Might just get some of those plastic covers from Lowe's or something. Open to ideas.

Last, (for now) is the biggest thing the house will need currently. Windows. The house was built 1900(edited), and 90% of the windows are single pane? (The old wooden ones with the counter weights and the glazing to hold the glass in.) Well many of them don't want to open, probably due to being painted over. Many counter weights are broken, and the glazing is is bad shape on many. My thoughts are, in the spring time (warmer weather) get the measurements of the windows in my unit and try my hand at replacing them myself. I could potentially have them done, but I'm pretty sure that is going to be pretty expensive...

And what good is a thread without pictures... Here's a shot from Google Street View, I'll have to get some more myself later.

I personally have been buying the detectors with the built in battery that supposedly last 10 years. Price difference is well worth not be woken up in the middle of the night on an annual basis.

I realize they are a much bigger pain to install, but I would never consider battery powered units that were not interconnected.

The reason is that you are probably sleeping in the bedroom, but the fire is in the basement. When the units are interconnected, the basement unit (which detects the smoke) will alarm all the others. The unit in your bedroom will ring, and so will the ones in your kids rooms.

If they are battery only, the unit in your bedroom will not ring until it "smells" smoke. It may be a little too late by then. And the one in your kid's room won't ring at all.

IMHO, battery only units are completely worthless.

BTW- excellent plan on the tri-plex.

My first home was a tri-plex, and not too far from you. Very similar.

There will be days when you hate taking care of those other 2 units. 30 years from now, you will be incredibly pleased with your decision.

I assume you meant it was built in 1890, not 1990. The counterweighted windows went out back before WW2. And yeah, you'll see big improvements with modern thermopane glass.

Are battery powered units even code legal in your area? They certainly are not in Ontario.

They're spendy but the Nest smoke detector units interconnect over wifi, use AAs which seem to last a while (2+ years on mine) and have CO detectors built into them as well. Not really sure how the CO detectors work on the ceiling but it was good enough not to raise a flag for California inspectors.

In reply to The0retical:

So, if your Wifi is down, they are not interconnected??

No thanks.

AWSX1686 wrote: It is a triplex that I will be living in one unit and renting out the other 2 units....

Check you local building codes and ordinances, here, rental properties have to have hard wired smoke-CO2 detectors on every floor.

Even if not required, it may drop your insurance costs.

Dan

NOHOME wrote: Are battery powered units even code legal in your area? They certainly are not in Ontario.

They are not code compliant, but that does not make them illegal.

They can't be installed in a new house, but a homeowner can do whatever they want, as long as it is not part of a permitted construction project.

Replace every light bulb with an LED. Never replace them again.

You're going to want to test those windows for lead paint, I think there are rules about removing/disturbing it now.

SVreX wrote: In reply to The0retical: So, if your Wifi is down, they are not interconnected?? No thanks.

Semi-serious curiosity question: How often is your wifi down? My internet connection goes down from time to time but I can't think of a single time my intranet wifi failed to be up outside of that time I bricked a router loading DD-wrt onto it.

That said I did use another brand of dumb smoke detector in the house hallway to the bedrooms with a Nest by the rooms because paranoia. I agree though that a physical interconnect powered off grid power is really the ideal way to go if it's feasible, but it's also nice to have an alert if you're away from home and it goes off. So...use as a supplement not a primary?

Lead shouldn't be present in the house paint if it was built after 1978.
Smart thermostats for HVAC are awesome and so are those low wattage crystal matrix heaters with a single pole thermostat.
If you live in an area where meth is an issue get it tested for that especially if it has been rented in the past.

im a big fan of fixing the existing windows with new glass. The new windows seem to suck in comparison.

All of the cold spots in my house are where the replacement windows are. The older windows (with newer glass) are nice and toasty..

The0retical wrote: Semi-serious curiosity question: How often is your wifi down? My internet connection goes down from time to time but I can't think of a single time my intranet wifi failed to be up outside of that time is bricked a router loading DD-wrt onto it.

I think it's not so much a concern of the wifi router crashing as having a fire during a power outage, or perhaps an electrical fire that causes a power outage.

The0retical wrote: Lead shouldn't be present in the house paint if it was built after 1978.

I think we've established that it was built in 1890, not 1990.

Check your local ordinance. Transfer of ownership may be enough to require hardwired, interconnected smoke detectors with battery backup. The rentals almost certainly will. And their a good idea anyway.

Windows will run you about $1200 a pop installed (Paul, correct me on this) for a decent vinyl-clad wood window with insulating glass. Do NOT go all-vinyl unless you want to do it again in 8-10 years. Andersen makes a perfectly serviceable replacement window line that is meant to slip inside existing jambs with minimal loss of DLO (day light opening). Most of the other name brand manufacturers do too.

wvumtnbkr wrote: All of the cold spots in my house are where the replacement windows are. The older windows (with newer glass) are nice and toasty..

Then I suspect they were poorly installed.

My Wifi goes down pretty regularly- once every other week or so. Small market stuff sucks.

I didn't mean to say I wouldn't use them. I meant I wouldn't rely on them fully for a life safety device. I like the idea of using them in conjunction with interconnected ones. Redundancy is good.

Battery only units offer an effectiveness factor of 0% when the battery dies.

Loosing a friend in a fire will change anyone's view on this stuff. Fires happen REALLY fast. Every minute helps. I want interconnected because of the possibility it may give someone in a room far away from the source an extra minute or two to get out.

BTW, code requires smoke detectors both inside of bedrooms AND outside.

If the door is closed and the source is outside your room, the alarm in your room sounds before there is actually smoke in there. If you are smoking in bed, then YOU are the source, and the alarm in your room alerts everyone else.

Figure out all of the water shut offs. Toilets, sinks, and the master to the whole house. Figuring this out in a panic sucks. I'm a huge fan of new 1/4 turn valves on toilets. They can save you a serious headache.

...and make sure they work.

Master shutoff water valves often don't work.

I presume that for your renters that heat is not included.
If so, replace the windows in the unit you live in first so as to improve the insulation for the unit where you are paying the heat.

Investing in windows for the tenant apts will not provide as quick a return on investment since you are not paying that heating bill. However, replacing them will make for a happier tenant who then may live there more than one winter.

My first house was old with old wood windows. I replaced them myself with the solid vinyl windows and it made a huge difference in temperature and noise levels in the house. They were about $150/ea plus some supplies like spray foam screws shims and caulk. I insulated the cavity that the counter weights were in and that helped a ton. The first few will be rough and the last few will be perfect and have you wondering if you should redo the first few.

Led bulbs are a godsend. Costco had great prices on them. I saved more on my LED bulbs than the Costco membership cost, that's for sure, but then my current house had about 70 can lights in it. (Not exaggerating!)

Insulate the attic. It's about a buck or a buck fifty a square foot and will save you 10%+ on your utility bills.

$1200 a window ?!?!?!

All vinyl Windows do just fine and cost a tenth of that

BrokenYugo wrote: You're going to want to test those windows for lead paint, I think there are rules about removing/disturbing it now.

I took the EPA course for dealing with lead paint on construction projects. It's been long enough ago that I can't really remember all the details. I can tell you they take it very seriously and the consequences to contractors found to not going by the book are very stiff.

If you undertake the project yourself do some research on it and pick up some test kits, just to be sure.