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My new blog, Tracy DeCarlo's Home Building Lessons is live! For more practical ideas for building your home, click the above link.

Building or Remodeling?

Do yourself a favor and increase your knowledge of the construction process and your options. Being informed can have a direct positive effect on the bottom line, the conveniences inside your home, and the future cost of  running the home.

• Do you know how to select the most energy-efficient roofing?
• Do you know which commodes can save an average family of 4 approximately 7000 gallons of water per year?
• Do you know the difference between a positive and negative undermount sink and which one is easier to clean?

The Difference is in the Details: The Homeowner's Planning Guide to Building a Functional Home not only provides hundreds of tips like these, it also provides lives links to suppliers and organizations. This photograph-filled e-Guide shows you how to adjust the building sequence to your financial advantage while helping you create a healthy, energy-efficient home that works for your family — inside and out, from the foundation to the rooftop.

“With dozens of “how to build your new home” books available, what could be left out? Plenty, as author DeCarlo shows in her practical approach to topics often left out, forgotten, or given scant attention. Readers will thank her for raising subjects to consider in the earliest stages of planning a new home.”
-- Carol Smith, Author of "Building Your Home: An Insiders Guide"

• Click here for the Table of Contents
• Click here to place your order
• To read more about this home building reference manual visit www.DifferenceInTheDetails.com

Two More Cool Problem-Solving Products

Thorough planning during the design stage of your new home or remodeling project saves unexpected change-order expense, provides a more accurate bottom line, and results in a practical, easy-to-live-in home. Two areas commonly left unaddressed during the planning stage involve dealing with inaccessible chandeliers and having enough storage space in the garage. Here are two problem-solving products that impact these issues.

A Moving Chandelier: Take a look at the massive chandelier pictured to the right. It's beautiful. It's also suspended over a winding staircase. Will your new home include an inaccessible chandelier? If so, have you thought about how you're going to clean it or replace the bulbs without breaking your neck?

Aside from taking on the task yourself, you have two choices:

• Hire a professional chandelier cleaning company to clean the fixture and replace the bulbs once or twice a year.
• Specify a motorized lift that will lower the chandelier to you.

The motorized lift in the picture to the right, by Aladdin Light Lift®, shows a chandelier in the process of being lowered. As shown below, it will stop just above the floor.

This product comes with a price, but it offers accessibility at any time without the risk of balancing on a high ladder or the expense and inconvenience of calling in an outside party. The mechanics of the device, tucked out-of-sight above the ceiling, contain two independent locking systems to securely hold the chandelier. To avoid the possibility of electrical shock, electrical current to the chandelier is automatically disconnected when the fixture is lowered.

A Garage Door Opener that Increases Storage Space: Did you know your garage door opener can have an impact on the amount of potential storage space in your garage? Here’s how. In the pictures below, a traditional track-mounted opener, installed above the garage door, is shown on the left. On the right is LiftMaster’s Model 3800 side-mounted door opener. With this option, all the space above the door becomes available for storage.

The LiftMaster 3800 is operated by a 24-volt DC motor and has a six-foot-long power cord. (Be sure to specify an outlet near where the unit will be located.) A remote 200-watt light with adjustable light-time delay comes with the unit, and the manual release handle will allow operation of the door in case of power failure. The 3800 costs about 20 percent more than a traditional opener, but the cost of installation is about the same.

If you live in an area prone to severe weather and accompanying power failures, you may want to consider LiftMaster’s optional EverCharge® Standby Power System. This backup battery will allow you to operate the garage door even when the power is out. Since you’ll be able to open or close the door about 20 times before the battery runs out, don’t be surprised if the neighbors start contacting you wondering why you have power and they don’t! For more information, visit www.LiftMaster.com

And what can you do with the extra space freed up by this innovative, side-mounted opener design? When the garage ceiling is high enough, suspended shelving can be added to hold a variety of things. I’ve even seen kayaks stored in this manner. The Racor® cable-lifted storage rack, pictured to the right, is another option. For more information, visit www.RacorInc.com

I hope the ideas in this ezine series continue to help you avoid unforeseen problem areas and/or provide a few “aha” moments (as Oprah would say) as you plan and build your homes. Drop me a line and tell me your story. I love to hear how something I’ve sent into cyberspace has helped others to incorporate practical features in their new homes.

Thorough planning during the design stage for your new or remodeled home certainly does save unexpected change-order expenses and result in a more functional home, but how do you know what to plan, what’s available, and what construction options you’d like? I’ve built two custom homes and know it’s not an easy task, even for those of us in the industry. That’s why I created The Difference is in the Details: The Homeowner’s Planning Guide to Building a Functional Home. The information in the guide is like a whole series of ezines on steroids: lots of pictures, building lessons, and products and procedures for incorporating healthy, energy-efficient, green, and practical features into your home design. For a more detailed look at what’s inside, visit www.DifferenceInTheDetails.com

IS THERE A SUBJECT YOU'D LIKE ME TO COVER? Let me know by sending an email to tracy@tracystips.net.

WANT TO SEE MORE ARTICLES LIKE THIS ONE? All past issues of this ezine are in the Ezine Archives on our web site. Click here for Ezine Archives !

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE OR WEBSITE? You can, as long as you include this complete blurb with it:

Tracy DeCarlo, author of "The Difference is in the Details" publishes the idea-packed, monthly e-zine "Tracy's Home Building Tips." If you're ready to learn how to plan a more durable, energy-efficient, and easy-to-live-in home, get your FR*EE tips now at www.DetailedSolutions.net.

Tracy DeCarlo owner of Detailed Solutions, Inc. and One Stop Green Home Certification, has more than fourteen years' experience in the residential construction industry. As a Home Building Function Analyst, Certified Green Professional, Green Certifying Agent, and Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist, Tracy addresses the functional aspects of home construction, design, and usage, including items such as energy efficiency, disaster mitigation, air quality, aging in place, green building, plumbing, electrical, lighting, and storage.

By working with homeowners to focus on their daily habits and preferences, she helps them create living spaces that support and compliment their lifestyles, while at the same time teaching techniques to manage the bottom line.

I’d love to hear from you:

• What topics would you most like to see covered in upcoming issues of "Tracy's Home Building Tips"?

• How has this e-zine helped you to improve your design or avoid change order charges?

• Mail to: Tracy's Tips E-Mail

Tracy DeCarlo, Detailed Solutions, Inc.

P.O. Box 161644

Altamonte Springs, FL 32714, United States

Phone 407-814-2328

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Copyright ©2010 Tracy DeCarlo Detailed Solutions, Inc.