Jim At The Top (Jim Pedicord) Blog

...sold door to door, that is.   Today we also have con artists with increasingly sophisticated pitches. OK, so not EVERYONE needs to be concerned about door-to-door salesmen, but most of us will have them come calling on us. Door-to-door salesmen in the past have sold vacuum cleaners, encyclopedias, miracle cleaning supplies, driveway coatings and the like, but today we also have con artists with increasingly sophisticated pitches meant to separate us from our money. My security company sends regular email newsletters, like every other company you’ve ever given your email address to, and one recent item caught my eye, talking about door-to-door security system peddlers with some pretty successful scams. I thought it wouldn’t hurt for me to pass on a couple of things that may remind you that you need to be suspicious, especially when it comes to protecting your home and family.  Of course, I went to Google, and found a helpful info page from the Federal Trade Co...

THIS hot water would be pretty fabulous, assuming you could make the dash from the house to the hot tub and back without freezing… But what I am really getting at is a Federal law (the National Appliance and Energy Conservation Act - NAECA) that mandates higher energy efficiency for all home water heaters manufactured after April 16, 2015, that you may not find out about until it costs you money. Since providing hot water in homes represents a big part of a home’s average energy consumption, it certainly sounds like a great idea to save money and energy, plus it is part of the government’s efforts to make the US more self-sufficient energy-wise.  The phased improvement mandates actually started in 1990. So what’s the big deal?  While the added insulation adds some cost to the units, the REAL problem comes because the new 2015 water heaters are LARGER than the previous models of the same capacity. With diameters and heights of many water heaters increasin...