My husband and I installed a pressure-treated deck about 15 years ago. We did not know then what we know now about the chemicals and carcinogens that were used in the manufacturing process. We installed a second redwood deck on a back portion of the house about eight years ago. We’re now interested in tearing out the pressure-treated deck and replacing it with redwood for one consistent look and maintenance plan.

More than 70 years ago, Karl Wolman invented a system to infuse wood with preservatives. Wood is placed in a large cylindrical tank, and the tank is depressurized to remove the air. Then chemical preservatives are pumped into the tank under high pressure, forcing the liquid preservative deep into the wood. Incisions are often cut in the wood to allow the preservative to penetrate deeper. The result is a wood product that will not rot or decay for more than 20 years, even under the most extreme conditions. The most common preservative used to treat wood was chromated copper arsenate, or CCA. The arsenate part of the formula refers to arsenic, an extremely toxic chemical. Concerns over safety have led to the voluntary discontinuation of the manufacture of CCA-treated wood for residential use by the industry, although CCA will continue to be used in some industrial applications. (more…)

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Here’s how “Building Your Own Home For Dummies” (Wiley Publishing, 2005) puts it: “If you’re in no hurry to move your project forward and are willing to invest the time to figure out all the ins and outs of the process and make the right choices, then an architect may be unnecessary. But if you work for a living, are raising a family, or don’t have the slightest inclination to take the time to figure out design, construction and building codes, then an architect will be a welcome addition to your custom-home team of professionals.”

Here’s a passage on the subject from “The Well-Built House,” (Houghton Mifflin, 1992) by Jim Locke, the contractor who ran the project in Tracy Kidder’s renowned book, “House” (Houghton Mifflin, 1985): “The chances of your house’s [plans] fitting graciously on your lot are poor. People often tell me they look at plan books and hundreds of designs and don’t find one that fits them.”

That’s so true: Before Dave (my husband) will let me meet with any architect, he insists I look at house plans online. I spend three days — hours at a time — without finding anything compelling. There are elements I like: a portico here, a breakfast area there. But because we may spend more on this house than anything we’ve ever done in our lives, just kind of liking something doesn’t seem good enough. (more…)

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Don’t count on home equity to come through with a significant portion of retirement funding, cautions a new report by Fidelity Investments. According to the study, home values underperformed stocks and bonds over every five- and 10-year period from 1963 to 2005. Home values have been slightly above the returns on treasury bills during the same time, according to the report, “The Equity You Live In: The Home as a Retirement Savings and Income Option.”

Over the more than 40-year period, real compound returns on stocks outpaced that of residential real estate, according to the study, with 5.95% average annual returns on stocks compared with 1.35% in realty. A dollar invested in stocks in 1963 would have compounded to $12.36 by 2006, while the same dollar would have grown to $1.79 in real estate. The median price of new homes in the United States has risen since the early 1970s, with an average annual appreciation rate of 5.9% since 1963. But there have also been sharp corrections three times during the time period. It’s one thing if the homeowner is able to “ride out” the sharp downturns; it’s another if they’re considering the home as a potential retirement asset in the near future, the report said. That said, for many Americans in or approaching retirement, home equity is the largest nonpension asset they can draw on for lifelong income, the report said. And there are plenty of Americans who plan to — and perhaps need to — tap their home equity in retirement, according to an accompanying survey of more than 1,400 retirees and preretirees. (more…)

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Homeowners with troubled credit histories are finding it harder to get mortgages or refinance homes because softening in the housing market is making lenders less likely to handle riskier loans. Several lenders of subprime mortgages — used primarily for home equity loans and for people with spotty credit — have shown signs of trouble after the housing bubble popped and more homeowners began defaulting high-interest mortgages.

The shifting market is prompting investors to demand higher standards for loan approvals. Loans for 100 percent of a property’s value required a minimum credit score of 580 last year, but now require at least a 600 score, said David Zionts, owner of Connecticut Mortgage Lenders LLC. A high-value loan with no income verification could be had last year with a credit score of 620 a year ago but now needs a minimum score of 640, he said. “Some consumers are being squeezed out of the market,” Zionts said. “Some of the more forgiving guidelines are beginning to go away.” Credit scores are formulas kept by national credit bureaus and used by lenders and credit companies to determine if a consumer is creditworthy. Scores drop when customers fail to pay installment loans on time or have a high income/debt ratio. Most lenders consider scores above 700 to be a sign of good financial health and scores below 600 to be risky and a reason to increase the interest rate on a loan, according to Fair Isaac Corp., which invented the FICO credit risk score. (more…)

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While the subprime lending industry’s woes have kicked up dust in the past few weeks, observers say the problems underlying the bad news have been percolating for much longer. In December, the Washington, D.C.-based Mortgage Bankers Association said 12.6 percent of subprime mortgages were 30 or more days delinquent in the quarter ending in September, compared with 4.7 percent of all mortgages.

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Ellen Schloemer, director of research for the Durham, N.C.-based Center for Responsible Lending, said about a quarter of subprime loans sold since 1998 have gotten into trouble at some point, although they didn’t always go into default or foreclosure. Still, she said the housing boom and the large number of lenders led many of them to approve loans that clearly weren’t sustainable. “It was a disaster waiting to happen and people were looking the other way because there was money to be made,” Schloemer said. (more…)

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A central heating system is a very easy thing to visualize. A furnace uses electric coils or the combustion of fuel to heat the air within it, and a fan then pushes the warm air through a series of tubes, called ducts, into the individual rooms. As the fan pushes air out of the furnace, it also needs to draw more air in, so a return duct is also provided within the heating system. The return duct pulls air from the house and directs it back to the furnace, where it is re-warmed and redistributed in an endless loop.

One of the first things the heating contractor will take into consideration is the overall energy efficiency of the home, as well as the remodeled space. Homes with good insulation, good windows and doors, and a low amount of air infiltration is simply easier to heat, and as a result, the ducts serving each space can be smaller. Homes with poor energy efficiency require larger ducts to overcome the heat loss and keep the spaces sufficiently warm.

The next consideration is the furnace, which needs to be of sufficient size to provide an adequate amount of heated air for the volume of the home and amount of heat it’s losing. If the furnace is large enough, then a new duct run can typically be added to the system pretty easily. If the furnace is too small, then you need to either upgrade the size and/or efficiency of the furnace or improve the home’s energy efficiency through better insulation, better windows, or other means. (more…)

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Homethinking.com is a site designed to help home buyers and sellers select a real-estate agent. It aims to help consumers target the most active and the most recommended agents through a combination of consumer reviews and Homethinking.com’s ranking system. “The agents who do the most work usually get the better price,” says Niki Scevak, founder of Homethinking LLC, based in New York. An agent who is actively buying and selling homes in a particular area may be able to get a seller a sales price that is 10% higher than someone who has sold only a few homes, he says

Homethinking.com uses a computer model to rate agents (those who sell more homes and receive positive reviews are ranked higher), so a search for real-estate agents in a particular city will first list agents who sell the most homes and have gotten the highest number of positive reviews from site visitors. (With the exception of agents listed in the “Sponsored Profiles” box — those agents have paid for their spots.) Homethinking.com shows the average asking price and price range of an agent’s listings and if the information is publicly available, the asking price, number of bedrooms, address and map location for each property. For an agent’s sold properties, the site notes the original listing price, final sale price, month and year sold, number of bedrooms, address and map location. (more…)

Worried that something is seriously wrong with the crack in the basement? Stop fretting and get advice. Home inspectors don’t work only for buyers; you can call one anytime to get an educated opinion about whatever keeps you awake. For $250 to $350 on average, an inspector will look over your home’s structure and systems. Find one in your area at ASHI.org, the Web site for the American Society of Home Inspectors, which also has a virtual home-inspection tool so you can see what a typical checkup covers. Interview a few pros to make sure their field experience matches the type of home you own.

The housing boom has lifted home values 51 percent over the past six years. For most of us that means that if our house was destroyed, insurance would pick up only a portion of the cost to rebuild. For the underinsured, the average shortfall is 21 percent, according to one firm that tracks building prices. Even if you bought a guaranteed replacement or an extended replacement policy, you could still face too-low coverage caps. (For more on being adequately insured, read the story here.) To see how much coverage you need, have a contractor estimate the cost of rebuilding. And don’t forget to check your contents coverage, which is often inadequate. Water is your home’s biggest enemy, and your regular policy won’t cover all types of damage. If you live in a floodplain, you need flood insurance (contact the National Flood Insurance Program at 888-379-9531 or floodsmart.gov). You’ll pay $1,000 a year on average if you live in an area that’s susceptible. (more…)

I am quite disgusted with the home inspection industry. Before buying my home, I hired the inspector who was recommended by my agent. First of all, $350 is a lot of money to pay someone just to flush the toilet and inform me that there are rust stains on the bottom of the kitchen sink. What’s more, the inspector referred me to a structural engineer just because of a tilted foundation pier in the crawlspace. Couldn’t I perform my own basic inspection with some sort of checklist and then, if an item appears faulty, call a licensed contractor?

As for your suggestion that you perform your own home inspection, ask yourself if you have the experience and expertise to evaluate the wiring in a circuit breaker panel, to review the conditions of a forced-air furnace, or to ascertain whether a fireplace and chimney are properly constructed and in operational condition. Ask yourself if you are prepared to crawl through an attic or foundation subarea and whether you would recognize the various construction defects that would pertain to roof framing, seismic reinforcement and ventilation. Additional examples could fill several pages and still not comprise a complete list. Despite your recent disappointment, there are many highly qualified home inspectors who can provide detailed, comprehensive defect disclosure for home buyers. Rather than draw conclusions about the entire home inspection industry, buyers should try to find an inspector with many years of experience and a reputation for thoroughness. Don’t simply rely on referrals made by your agent. (more…)

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