General

Window Film Selection Criteria

If you are thinking about installing window tinting, whether it be for a residential or commercial application, there are a number of points you should consider to ensure you choose right film for your requirements.

The first and undoubtedly the most crucial thing you need to grasp about window film is the difference between quality window film and bad film. Here’s why this is so important:

Good quality window film will last for the lifetime of your windows whereas bad window film will only last 2-3 years, depending on the rigours of your environment.

The only way for you to discriminate between good quality and low quality film is price and guarantee. When making enquirers with a supplier, be sure to ask how long the film is guaranteed for. If it’s not at least 12 years don’t buy it. And also beware of the unscrupulous operator who offers you a guarantee on low quality film and hikes the price, to make it appear like it’s good film, but will either not be around, or simply do nothing if you get back to them because your tint has failed.

Here’s the tip, (and incidentally I’ve found this to be true with most things), if your only consideration in getting quotes is looking for the cheapest possible price, then you will naturally gravitate towards the bad product and the real price you pay will be in around 3 years when your windows start to blister, fade and/or peel and look awful. Be warned, the cheapest price is usually just crap!

BENEFITS OF INSTALLING TINTING

There are a range of benefits you can get from window tinting, and each particular film you use will bring together some of these advantages, so the first thing you should be sure of is the most important reason for installing window tint. Lets look at each benefit so you can see the most suitable solution for your environment.The primary advantages of good quality window tinting are as follows.

Heat Rejection: Premium window film rejects heat by blocking as much as 73% of infra-red radiation through windows. That’s cool!

UV Rejection: Premium window film blocks up to 99% of infra red radiation from penetrating your windows. And as a bonus, it also blocks 93% of glare, which does wonders for your view and means things look really cool!

Privacy: The right film will also provide daytime privacy, enabling everyone inside to be cooler, enjoy the views, and at the same time have total privacy from prying eyes during the day.

Impact Safety and Security Films: These specially designed films stop glass from shattering on impact. Safety films are made to withstand the force of human impact, while security films can withstand a bomb blast without shattering. Since the collateral damage from accidents where windows are broken comes from shards of glass flying like shrapnel, or large sections of glass falling like a guillotine, the major risks associated with safety are avoided. It also stops your windows from being a soft and easy entry point for criminals, because both the force and noise required to force entry is so noticeable criminals, would rather simply move on in search of an easier, ‘softer’ target.

Finally of course there’s the matter of looking good. Good quality window film also makes windows look good; and for many people it’s the aesthetic charm that tinted windows add that is the driving force for installing them.

SPECIFIC ISSUES RELATED TO CARS AND VEHICLES
The next point I want to discuss is relevant to drivers and it concerns installing the darkest legal tint on your car or truck.

In all States and Territories of Australia, the darkest legal tint legally permitted on a vehicle is one with a VLT (visible light transmission) level of 35%, on all vehicle windows (excluding the front windscreen, which is not allowed to have any window tint with the exception of the visor strip across the top). The northern Territory and Western Australia are the only exceptions. In the Northern Territory you are allowed a minimum VLT of 15% for windows behind the driver; and in WA you are allowed 20% VLT on windows behind the driver.

So here’s the thing. Most cars already have a slight tint in the glass in their front windows, so this needs to be taken into consideration when adding tint to a vehicle. Here’s how the maths looks.

If the factory installed windows on your car already block 30% of light, when a film with the “darkest legal tint” of 35% is added to this glass, it will emit only 35% of light into a window that is already only emitting 70% of light, so the final VLT will be calculated by the addition of both tint ratings.

This needs to be considered because if a driver inadvertently fails to comply with tinting regulations, the result can be a fine. But worse still, if a vehicle is involved in an accident and its illegally dark windows are considered by the court to be a contributing factor, this could mean the nulling of your insurance policy, leaving you exposed to the full financial culpability of the accident. Furthermore a criminal charge could apply if property is damaged or people are hurt.

The final thing to remember is that by modifying a vehicle with darker than legal windows, the vehicle is deemed unroadworthy, which means you can’t drive the car again until it has been put through the pits, in which case the illegal tint will have to be stripped off the windows. That’s why the combined VLT of both the glass and film really should be considered when you’re selecting the appropriate tint for your car.

So what’s the moral of this story? When it comes to window tinting, make sure you use a good quality product and that your installer has the knowledge to be able to offer you the right solution for your circumstances. That way you’ll end up with a range of benefits, rather than a bunch of problems.

General

Fun Facts About Pet Vacuums

The only downside to owning all those cute pets is the mess they are prone to leaving behind; regardless, it is not reason enough to disown all those furry creatures so full of cuteness. The reason that cleaning their mess is not as much of a dilemma as it once also helped. Pet vacuums are cleaners that are fitted with a powerful suction mechanism and could reach out to all the dirt that a pet could possible leave in its wake, including their hair.

A pet vacuum is not the “all” in one cleaner per se, but refers to all those vacuum cleaners that could help deal with the pet mess. Their common features include the ability to reach the farthest and smallest corners of the house with easy maneuverability. A pet vacuum cleaner could be of any kind as long as they can clean up the pet disaster. Most common pet vacuums include robot vacuum or portable cleaners.

No matter how many times or how long you have been acquainted with your pet vacuum cleaner, there still might be some facts that you don’t know about them. Let’s take a look at some of the more interesting ones:

  • A normal vacuum cleaner never works at picking up the pet hair; only a cleaner with whirlwind technology can do an effective job.
  • The hose of a normal vacuum cleaner is most likely to spit a hair ball when it is used to vacuum for pet hair. Most pet owners don’t even realize this and only discover once they find that the hose is overheating.
  • Ironically enough, the first power vacuum cleaner was drawn by a house. The chords and the hose were maneuvered inside the house through the windows.
  • The vacuum cleaner, in its early years, was one of the most popular and sought out home appliance, second only to an electronic iron.
  • It was not only the regular people that became large fans of the vacuum cleaner; in fact, when vacuum cleaners were used to clean the Westminster Abbey, Lord Chamberlain became so enamored with it that he bought two for the clean-up of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.
  • Vacuum cleaners were also used as hair dryers in the earlier years by attaching them to a hot furnace.
  • Vacuum cleaners used to be so heavy that it needed two people just to handle it. Today though, we have robot vacuum cleaners that operate on their own.
  • Some of the pet vacuum cleaners nowadays are so advanced that one could probably tell if a surface had been recently cleaned with its sensors.
  • It was James Murray Spangler’s observation of allergies and asthma attacks that led to the invention of vacuum cleaners.
  • It is a fact that slow cleaning through vacuum cleaners could effectively clean up more allergens from the surfaces. Similarly, pet hairs cannot be removed easily and must be vacuumed in slow to and fro motions.

Owning pets is great, but keeping the house clean is equally important; therefore, make sure to use pet vacuum cleaners exclusively to keep your house devoid of harmful dirt and animal hair.

Home Appliances & Equipment

What you should know about Home Appliances

When buying things for you kitchen, information is a powerful tool. You can be excited at the beginning but the same tool that brought happiness can now be a source of frustration. You should therefore take time to actually decide on what you truly need to buy and not what you want to buy because a lot of money is at stake.

When deciding upon which appliance to buy or not to buy, you can learn a lot from others. If you have workmates, friends, or relatives who rave about a particular appliance brand name and you are in the market for that type of an appliance then you may want to consider what they have to say. On the other hand, if you have a conversation with someone who badmouths a particular appliance brand then you also should take note of that information. People are always willing to share their experiences whether they are good or bad.

stove-338139_640

Another thing that you could do is to invite yourself over to someone’s house and try out their appliance. This may seem like a strange thing to do but let’s take the example of a washer and dryer. Your mother law is always talking about the wonderful benefits that she experiences using her new washer and dryer. If you take a load of dirty clothes over to your mother-in-law’s and wash them in her washing machine then you can check out for yourself whether the machines are suitable for you.

Sourced from: http://allgreatappliances.mywebpal.com/home-appliances-purchase-tips/

When buying things for your kitchen then you better ensure that you have the right figures in your fingertips. This is because stand-alone units have specific metric measurements. Check the energy labels to find out which appliance has reliable performance.

Plan in metric

If you are thinking of buying either built-in or standalone kitchen appliances, it is important to measure and plan your kitchen space in metric. All kitchen units and most standalone appliances are built to standard metric depths and widths.

Taking measurements in feet and inches will require plenty of calculator work and can easily lead to mistakes such as kitchen units or appliances which do not fit.

You will almost certainly find that your appliance retailer will display appliances by their metric sizes.

Use the energy label to compare products

The energy label is your best friend in terms of getting reliable data on the performance of a home appliance. Since the data is gathered in a standard way you can use it reliably to compare similar products.

Sourced from: http://www.metric.org.uk/buying-home-appliances

Well you don’t only have to go after the traditional kitchen appliances. You can as well go for the digital appliances to make your work in the kitchen easier.

Nest Thermostat ($250)

The Nest Thermostat is one of the best smart home products for saving electricity. It’s amazing how much money and energy we leak on a daily basis, but the Nest Thermostat can take care of that for you. But that’s not all because it also learns your personal preferences for temperature and adjusts accordingly. A truly smart appliance!

SkyBell Video Doorbell ($200)

The SkyBell isn’t a particularly new concept in itself, but the execution of it is borderline flawless. What is it? A compact doorbell with a built-in camera feed that you can tap into with your smartphone. For all intents and purposes, it allows you to see through the eyes of your doorbell.

Sourced from: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/5-smart-home-appliances-buying/

Real Estate

Real Estate Mistakes

Buying your own piece of property or even investing in the property market is a major deal. This is because a lot of money goes into this. It is therefore important to make sure that you avoid all the loopholes when you can. People make mistakes that cost them a lot in this sector. They buy houses for the wrong reasons or even fail to do research.

Buying a House for Its Decor

Remember that you are buying the house, not the things inside it, so make sure you see beyond the decorations and look at the bones of the home. Focus on the floor plan and the square footage. You also might want to measure the dimensions and graph out how that’s going to work with your belongings.

house-872066_640(1)

 Not Providing Easy Access for Showings

Make your house easily accessible to potential buyers. If there’s nowhere to park or it’s difficult to get into, buyers may just skip it and look at someone else’s property.

Not Researching the Neighborhood

It’s absolutely critical that you research the neighborhood before you buy. Check out the area, amenities and the school system to be sure that your address corresponds with the correct school district. Also attend a community meeting, if possible. You’re not just buying a house, you’re buying a piece of that real estate and the land around it.

Sourced from: http://www.hgtv.com/design/decorating/clean-and-organize/25-biggest-real-estate-mistakes

It is not only home buyers who make mistakes. Investors too have their own share of failures hence the need to know what to avoid as a beginner investor. You cannot work without a plan but unfortunately many investors have no plan. Many have been made to believe that real estate is a get rick scheme but unfortunately this too is a lie.

Investor mistakes

Planning as you go. Andy Heller, an Atlanta-based investor and co-author of “Buy Even Lower: The Regular People’s Guide to Real Estate Riches,” says lack of a plan is the biggest mistake he sees new investors make. They buy a house because they think they got a good deal and then try to figure out what to do with it. That’s working backward, Heller says. “First, you find the plan,” he says. “Then you find the house to fit the plan. Pick your investment model, and then go find property to match that. Don’t find the strategy after you find the home.”

  1. Thinking you’ll “get rich quick.”That kind of wrong-headed thinking is fueled by “these self-appointed gurus who have infomercials and make it sound so easy to get rich in real estate,” says Eric Tyson, co-author of “Real Estate Investing for Dummies.” It’s not easy. It’s a good long-term investment, but so is putting your money in a mutual fund, which is a lot easier. “These gurus don’t talk about all that hard work. You have to be smart, you have to be willing to work, and you have to understand your risk tolerance.”

Sourced from: http://www.bankrate.com/finance/money-guides/10-lethal-mistakes-for-real-estate-investors-1.aspx

People also make financial mistakes. They borrow loans without carefully calculating the interest they will have to pay back. The other problem is spending too much in buying that you fail to set aside money for repairs and renovation.

BORROWING

You may borrow too much based on your present situation. You must make allowance for changes in your circumstances in the future. Be especially careful of loans with payments which increase at a later date.

 INCLUSION COSTS

You may spend too much on the purchase price of a home and have insufficient money for your inclusions, improvements or furnishings. There are few things more depressing than having the home you want in the right area and being unable to afford curtains or light fittings. In extreme cases, the cost of the home can seriously hurt your living standards.

INSTINCT NEGLECT

Don’t ignore your ‘instincts’. The right home has the right feel, just as the right person has the right feel. No-one should buy a home without having that ‘feeling’.

Sourced from: http://squiresrealestate.com.au/14-common-mistakes-homebuyers-make/