Gas versus electric a real world type comparison

[Neighbor]

 Insurance for structures  and now also vehicles is very expensive, items covered becoming more and more limited too. More  a problem of law than of storms. Roofers learned that  insurance companies feared lawsuits over not paying for replacing an entire roof if there was any sign of damage that might be attributed to a storm, because of how Florida legislators wrote the insurance laws.  

A few companies sent out fliers "Free Roof call us". And sure enough people were getting new roofs for free  ( to them). The contractors just billed the insurance companies and they  paid in full.

While I paid $14,000 for  new roof out of my pocket, eight houses in my neighborhood  all in a row got free roofs one right after another. Silly me , eh?

It has become a massive in scale scam or loophole. So now insurance companies have again bailed out of Florida. There is more to it all, but the end result is  it is now hard to get insurance and when one does it is very expensive.

Windows must meet the wind codes seta after hurricane Andrew.  Little loophole in insurance policies is that the windows are NOT covered. The outer glass is not shatter resistant the interior pane  is. So the outer can and will break, Fixing it-Not insured.

We were caught building a very high tech home right when Andrew hit. All the building codes went into limbo. there was NO construction as  building departments simply closed! We couldn't get inspections so we couldn't get the money on our construction loan from the bank, and on an on it went. Every  product had to meet the newly established 150 mph testing  done at Miami. We got hung up one code issue, the screws we were using to fasten  hardiboard had been tested for wood  not for our material steel and concrete board over pour in place foam. We had walls built to 150 MPH insulated to R42, but could't  get approval from the building department until the screws were tested at Miami  Tests run up to $100,000 per item tested. We had to pay off the construction loan and build out of pocket. Many were not so fortunate and their projects got foreclosed  upon. Took 4 years time to get approvals and inspections and an occupancy permit.  No more green building for me. It is back to keep it simple stupid.

A simple minimum standard wood frame pile of splinters is no problem. There are  many thousands of four story piles of splinters apartments being built at Florida  today. Any space available around here is getting a four story apartment complex. The rents $2,500 to over $3,000 a month.

Residential building costs are going past $230 a square foot, commercial is passing $600 a square foot. Yet the big money keeps on pouring in. There is an incredible labor shortage and a materials shortage. Yet  somehow at least one large REIT is getting money materials and labor to build those look alike  apartment structures. It's all mazing to me!

Oh, oddly solar panels are less efficient at  Florida latitude than  they are  at higher ( northern) latitudes of the USA. Can't get enough space on a residential lot to ever become self sufficient. We have one house  in the family with solar panels. The  idea of getting credit for energy produced- doesn't work out at all!  Cost to take off those panels  and put them back on for a reroofing, priceless! Well make that more than the cost of the new roof itself. 

It is hard for this old geezer that built apartments out of concrete and steel with insulated windows for $30 a square foot to comprehend inflation of the scale we have today. But, it is real and life goes on- people way smarter than me are figuring it out and moving on.

 

[TheBlade]

Yeah seems what does not get talk about is... over time things need to be replaced. How easy is it to dispose of some of these things? Yeah its not easy at all. So gas oil is not going away any time soon. Not in my life time or my kids..IF Christ does not come soon