A Little Birdie Told Me

Lately our house has been chirping. No we aren't experiencing a bird infestation - it seems like all at once, the batteries in our three smoke alarms were dying.

I admit that we don't follow the rule to change the batteries when we change our clocks. That seems excessive, especially since winter time is only about 4 months now. Usually we try to remember to test the alarms once or twice a year and wait until the chirps. Which, this time around, came all at once.

We realized that our alarms were really old. We have owned the house for over 5 years now and they didn't look particularly new when we moved in. Smoke alarms are only supposed to be good for about 10 years, and, in fact, one even said that it was made in 2002. Time for an upgrade.

Our first upgrade was at a random trip to Home Depot. There weren't many options for the kind that aren't hard-wired in (and ours are not). This was pretty much the only choice that didn't include bells and whistled like talking and CO detection (more on that later). So it came home with us. The battery doesn't need replacing - it has a 10-year battery that starts chirping after a decade in use and then the whole alarm gets replaced.

It went up relatively quickly but not too quickly, because the walls on the first floor are plaster and everything is a pain when drilling/screwing into plaster. The holes, of course, didn't line up with the holes from the previous alarm.

Next we decided to put some effort into researching our options, since Amazon had a much better selection. It turns out there are several ways to detect smoke - photoelectric or ionization. They detect smoke differently and respond with different speeds to different types of fires/smoke. In case you don't want to read the link: Photoelectric smoke alarms are generally more responsive to fires that begin with a long period of smoldering. Ionization smoke alarms are generally more responsive to flaming fires.

It turned out the one we had just installed was photoelectric, so we decided that we should get the other kind, so that the greater variety might make us safer by giving us more warning. And in fact, we were able to find one that uses both kinds of sensors. The radioactivity warning (because of the ionization sensor) is a little scary...

This one uses AA batteries, which is one complaint we saw in the reviews. It might need replacing too often, so we will see. It's in the basement, so at least if it starts chirping, it won't wake us up (obviously we want to noticed the chirp quickly, but the next morning is sufficient).

The old alarm was looking pretty grungy:

That leaves one more to replace near our bedrooms, maybe yet a third kind (the talking kind maybe?).

After reading one of the manuals about where the alarms should be, we think they may not be located in the best places. But rather than move them, we may just add an extra one to the kitchen area. Currently our main-level alarm is inside our stairwell, which has an overhang that would probably stop it from sensing the smoke quickly. But it didn't seem worth having to spackle over the holes, so for now we just replaced what we had.

Finally, a word about our CO detectors. The ones in the house when we moved in were definitely decrepit, so we bought a new one for each floor. But after doing some more digging while researching smoke alarms (and talking to a former volunteer firefighter), I learned that they need replacing every 3 years. And we bought the house 5 years ago....oops. Time to work on getting those replaced. It made me wonder, though: if smoke detectors last 10 years but carbon monoxide detractor only 3, how can they be combined in one unit. Better to keep them separate and working effectively.

Filing an Insurance Claim

Our insurance company escaped paying for new gutters in the back of the house when ice brought them down. They also saved money when our copper gutter was smashed by a tree. The logic has always been that we'd keep a very high deductible and only use the insurance when we had a large loss. That way we can keep our rates as low as possible. In our (double digit!) years of renting and owning, we have never filed a claim.

Thanks to our recent house robbery, we broke our streak.  My initial instinct, as usual, was to not file a claim because the computers that were taken were rather old and their market value wasn't substantially higher than our (high) deductible. Then I realized we are paying an extra $100/year for actual value replacement. In other words, if a five year old laptop got stolen, we would get reimbursed for the closest brand new equivalent. Also, the stolen bike backpack had a surprisingly valuable amount of biking-related items inside.

So we filed. While it took nearly a month for the claim to be (mostly) settled, we got a fair outcome from our insurance company. Two things really helped our claim:

1. A police report that listed the items stolen
2. Proof of ownership of the stolen items

It really helped that we took pictures of our electronics and because we are heavy internet shoppers, receipts could be retrieved for many of the stolen items. In general if we had a receipt or photograph of the item, we got reimbursed. The overall process was fairly straightforward:

1. Tell insurance we were robbed and give them the police report number;
2. Fill out a lengthly report detailing exactly what happened to our house, what was stolen, when we bought and how much we paid for the stolen goods, and document any home security updates we had to do to re-secure the house - including having to buy new locks;
3. Wait for claim resolution.

I was hoping we would get the full reimbursement value for everything up front, but what the insurance company did was give us the current value. Which is is calculated from today's retail price minus depreciation. So, for example our PS3, which cost us $350 years ago, currently sells for $250. Because video game consoles have a steep depreciation we got reimbursed about ~$70. So when we buy a replacement and submit the receipt we can get the $180 extra. That was a unique case, though, because PS3s are still available and cheaper than when we bought ours.

We made out better on the laptops, because the models that were available years ago are no longer available, so we essentially got a free upgrade in the process. As long as we bought something similar (i.e. brand, same hard drive capacity, similar performance, etc.), they paid the whole amount back to us, eventually.

The initially approved amount got transferred into our bank via a online transfer. As we submit receipts for replacement items we will get the remaining money we are owed. Given that we have heard so many horror stories about insurance reimbursement, we are pleasantly surprised at the result. I assume having receipts and photos of our most valuable items is crucial to getting a fair reimbursement. For the future we need to keep documenting our valuable items with videos and photos. 

Another lock, stock, and barrel

In our second blog post ever, we told you how one of the first things we did after buying this home was to have a locksmith come change our locks. We always felt like we'd been ripped off but at that time - due to the speed we wanted the fix AND our complete inexperience - we didn't have another choice. We talked, afterwards, about improving the lock situation, but to some extent, held to the idea of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Well, five and a half years later, it broke.

Or, more precisely, someone broke in.

We might get into more details in a future post, but for now, suffice it to say that because one thing that was stolen was a house key, we yet again were in a situation where we had to act fast. But we had learned our lesson. We were going to do it ourselves.

We already knew what we wanted, having talked about it previously. Kwikset makes a lock system called SmartKey that can be rekeyed in an instant. We'd already installed a few door knobs to know we were up to the task. D headed to Home Depot practically right after the police were done writing up the report.

As noted back in 2009, we have A LOT of locks. The first night, we just focused on replacing all the deadbolts, so that we could sleep soundly. It took a few more days to replace the rest (and even longer given that one of the boxes was defective and the included keys did not, in fact, go with the lock in the box).

Installation was pretty straightforward but involved occasionally having to drill out the hole a little wider. Otherwise the bolt went in, the knob went around it, and the whole thing was screwed together.

Bonus upgrade - now all our door fixtures match in brushed nickel - here's a new bolt and an old knob. Well, most of them match at least - we didn't bother replacing the strike plates because they're invisible when the door is closed and most were so painted-over that removing them would have damaged the paint. We figured we would switch them out if/when we ever repaint the doors.

We rekeyed everything when we were all done, so that they would all match (well, we tested it first, of course). It was indeed as simple as we hoped.

It involves inserting a special dummy key into the lock along with the original key, and then the new key. And that was it. So since we have a lot of extra keys after buying so many sets of locks, we can now easily rekey anytime we must, without calling a locksmith.

Even better, in terms of a bonus win? The door between the kitchen and the breezeway finally swings closed now! The old lock wasn't set right, and so the door would bounce off the frame, rather than glide smoothly into the strike plate. Now it closes without having to turn the knob! This was a huge annoyance for us in grilling seasons, when we used the door constantly but needed to close it behind us to keep the cats from escaping.

So sort of a blessing in disguise....sort of...

Notes from the Underground, part 2

We left off with a painted basement but with the furniture still in disarray. But this revamp was designed to help us organize our things in a way that looked deliberate and clean instead of thrown together in a mismatch on top of inherited furniture. We had a plan. We had been inspired by a blog that J read about a new Ikea piece (yes, Ikea again...) - the Fjalkinge (it doesn't really have the same ring to it as Expedit, but oh well).

And so we bought a couple - one in each size, to make sure we liked them.

And we built.

And built.

And built some more.

We did have a little help:

In the end we installed two of the 23'' ones on the ends and two 46'' ones in the middle. Each has a set of drawers, meaning that we built 8 drawers. And, because we are now baby-proofing as we go, D installed the brackets that attach the shelves with the wall. It actually took almost as much time as building them, because of having to use the stud finder to figure out what kind of screw to use and to get the angle right. It didn't help when one of the holes on one of the shelves wasn't really hollowed out correctly and D stripped the screw trying to install it.

But all is well now and our shelves are filled! Toiletries, cleaning supplies, drinks, and food of all sorts, as well as some generally unloved kitchen equipment. It all fits! And these are so narrow that we still have plenty of floor space. Again in keeping with the "baby-proof as we go" theme, the hazardous or dangerous things are out of reach and the (theoretically) safer things are below. We still wouldn't leave her in the room alone but at least a quick glance in the other direction wouldn't mean she has access to the Draino, for example.

The basement is far from done, but it certainly is getting more pleasant. We are going to install the gate originally intended to block off the stairs on our top floor in the doorway to the unfinished basement, which is pretty much a fantasy play land deathtrap for babies (small bike parts, grease, kitty litter, unstable shelving). It has a pet door so we can at least leave that open so the cats don't have to jump the gate to do their business.

And the other half of the basement is still a mess. We can't seem to part with our first Expedit, but it really serves no purpose now. And the irregular cubbies that are so endearing also seem like a silly luxury when we have so much that we need to store. So we think it has to go, but I haven't given up yet. Let me know if you have any creative idea (we tried behind the futon as a sort of sofa table - it doesn't fit).

Happy New Year!