Whether you’re looking for a big home for everyone or a place to call your very own, I can help you find it. Visit www.callkim.net and message me today! 

Kim Duclos

License #S0.44412

www.callkim.net

STAY SAFE.....take precautions when it comes to your fire risk!

A wonderful time of year!  Stay safe!

Residential fires take their toll every day, every year, in lost lives, injuries, and destroyed property. But many conditions that cause house fires can be avoided or prevented. Taking the time for some simple precautions, preventive inspections, and concrete planning can help prevent fire in the home and can save property and lives should disaster strike.

• *Check holiday lights for fraying or broken wires and plugs. Follow the manufacturer’s guidelines as to how many multiple strands can be joined together, as a fire hazard could result from overload. Enjoy indoor holiday lighting only while someone is home, and turn them off before going to bed at night.
• *Candles add a welcoming, festive feeling, and need to be placed in stable holders and located away from flammable items, drafts, pets and children. Never leave burning candles unattended, even for a short time.
• *Keep live Christmas trees in a water-filled stand and check daily for dehydration. Needles should not easily break off a freshly cut tree. Brown needles or lots of fallen needles indicate a dangerously dried-out tree which should be discarded immediately. Always use nonflammable decorations in the home, and never use lights, even LED types, on a dried-out tree.
• Electrical items including lamps, appliances, and electronics should be checked for frayed cords, loose or broken plugs, and exposed wiring. Never run electrical wires, including extension cords, under carpet or rugs even temporarily as this creates a fire hazard.
• Fireplaces should be checked by a professional chimney sweep each year and cleaned if necessary to prevent a dangerous buildup of creosote, which can cause a flash fire in the chimney. Cracks in masonry chimneys should be repaired, and spark arresters inspected to ensure they are in good condition and free of debris.
• When using space heaters, keep them away from beds and bedding, curtains, paper – anything flammable. Always follow the manufacturer’s instructions for use. Space heaters should not be left unattended while in use or where a child or pet could knock them over.
• Use smoke detectors with fresh batteries unless they are hard wired to your home’s electrical system. Smoke detectors should be installed high on walls or on ceilings on every level of the home, inside each bedroom, and outside every sleeping area. Statistics show that nearly 60% of home fire fatalities occur in homes without working smoke alarms. Most municipalities require the use of working smoke detectors in both single and multi-family residences.
• Children should not have access to or be allowed to play with matches, lighters or candles. Flammable materials such as gasoline, kerosene, or propane should always be stored outside of and away from the house.
• Kitchen fires know no season. According to the U.S. National Fire Protection Association, cooking is the leading cause of house fires. Grease spills, items left unattended on the stove or in the oven, and food left in toasters or toaster ovens can catch fire quickly. Don’t wear loose fitting clothing, especially with long sleeves, around the stove. Turn the handles of pots and pans away from the front of the stove to prevent accidental contact. Keep an all-purpose fire extinguisher within easy reach. Extinguishers specifically formulated for grease and cooking fuel fires are widely available and can supplement an all-purpose extinguisher.
• Have an escape plan. This is one of the most important measures to prevent death in a fire. Visit ready.gov for detailed information on how to make a plan. Local fire departments can also provide recommendations on escape planning and preparedness. In addition, all family members should know how to dial 911 in case of a fire or other emergency.
• Kim Duclos
• www.callkim.net
  

Top 10 Energy Payback Projects

I love to shop at Lowes for projects, I don't have to admit this, but it is true. My sister likes Home Depot, but I am a Lowes Fan. Lowes works with us Realtors to offer benefits to our clients and it has definitely been a plus for my clients. The program is called "Realtor Benefits Program" and they send out a mailing and offer the home buyer or seller a minium of 10% off on their purchases up to $10,000. I have had clients that have saved big on flooring, installation and have been thrilled with the outcome.

I was reading an article by Josh Garskof (he writes for the Lowes Website) and he had some great ideas on energy saving. Please take a look at the article below.

Make these simple improvements now, start slashing your energy bills for years to come.

Projects With Immediate Payback (0 to 6 months)

Wrap the Water Heater
Until you’re ready to upgrade to a super-efficient, on-demand water heater (which costs about 25 percent less to operate than that big tank in your basement because it heats only the water you need), get the most from your existing one by covering it with a water heater blanket. This insulated jacket fits over the tank to help reduce the gas, oil, or electricity that’s required to keep water hot and at the ready. You can install it in just a few minutes. And while you’re at it, insulate the first five feet of hot-water pipe after it exits the tank and the last five feet of cold-water supply before it enters the tank. Together, these fixes will yield an immediate 15 percent reduction in the heater’s operating costs.
COST: $30
PAYBACK: up to $50 per year

Install a Programmable Thermostat
Turning down the thermostat 7 degrees at bedtime will knock 10 percent off your heating costs, but who wants to wake up to a frigid house? A programmable thermostat automatically drops the heat at night and cranks it up in the morning, so the house is warm before your alarm clock rings. Program it to lower the heat again while you’re at work and the kids are in school all day and you’ll reap additional savings. Best of all, many of these battery-operated units are easy to install yourself.
COST: $30 to $80
PAYBACK: $100 to $250 per year

Seal Gaps and Cracks
Check the attic floor and basement ceiling for gaps around pipe and wire penetrations and fill them with insulating foam, such as Great Stuff, which expands to fill any void you find. Check doors and windows for air leaks and seal with self-adhesive weatherstripping. “Sealing the building envelope generates immediate energy savings for little upfront cost,” says Nate Kredich, a vice president at the United States Green Building Council.
COST: $50 for all the Great Stuff and weatherstripping you’ll need.
PAYBACK: $100 to $250 per year

Use Compact Fluorescent Bulbs
If you replace conventional incandescent light bulbs with CFLs, you can slash as much as 15 percent off your household electricity bills. “The first CFLs had a greenish cast to them,” says Mark Loeffler, director of New Haven, CT based environmental design firm Atelier Ten, “but a high-quality bulb you buy today works well for general ‘ambient’ lighting.” Still, stick to incandescents for task lighting (because they’re less diffuse) and in bathrooms, where CFLs can be unflattering. Look for bulbs with the highest Color Rendering Index you can find—generally in the low- to mid-80s, compared with early CFLs, which scored about 70, and incandescents, which have a CRI of 100.
COST: about $3 each; $60 to replace 20 bulbs, two-thirds of the bulbs in a typical house.
PAYBACK: As much as $10 a year for one high-use bulb; $150 to $170 a year for 20 CFLs

Projects With Short-Term Payback (1 to 3 years)

Install Ceiling Fans
Thanks to the wind-chill factor, a ceiling fan makes you feel cooler by evaporating the moisture from your skin. So if you install one over your bed, for example, you should be able to raise the thermostat setting on the air conditioner by a couple of degrees and still feel just as comfortable. And because the fan uses no more energy than a 100-watt bulb, that’s a far more economical way to keep cool. You can reverse the fan’s direction in the winter and it will help push down heated air that gets trapped at the ceiling, reducing the amount of work your heating system has to do.
COST: $60 to $700
PAYBACK: $120 a year in electricity bills for air conditioning and $100 to $250 in heating fuel savings

Beef Up Attic Insulation
“Heat rises, so adding insulation to the attic floor is one of the best energy retrofits you can do,” says physicist Max Sherman, who leads the Energy Performance of Buildings group at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. If the insulation on (or in) your attic floor is less than 10 inches thick, bring it to at least that depth by rolling out additional batts over what’s there, and you’ll shave 15 to 30 percent off your heating bills.
COST: $300 (to add 3 inches of fiberglass insulation to a 1,000-square-foot attic floor) * some insulation products are eligible for 30 percent tax credit under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (link)
PAYBACK: $150 to $300 a year for the average home heated with natural gas; $350 to $700 for oil heat.
TIP: If your wall cavities are uninsulated, you can cut another 20 percent off your heating bills by blowing cellulose insulation into them ($1,000 to $2,000, plus the cost of minor repairs to siding where the contractor drills his access holes).

Projects with Long-Term Payback (5 or more years)

Plant a Tree
Putting a deciduous tree (or several) on the south or west side of your house will shade the building in the summer, reducing the strain on your air conditioning system and cutting costs by about 25 percent. And when the tree drops its leaves in the winter, the sun’s warming rays will penetrate, helping to keep heating bills in check.
COST: shade trees start as low as $50 each.
PAYBACK: $100 to $200 a year, once the tree is mature.

Upgrade to Energy-Efficient Appliances
Energy Star appliances consume 10 to 50 percent less electricity than standard appliances sold today, and if you’re replacing equipment that is older than 10 years, the energy savings will be even greater. Refrigerators and clothes washers are two of the biggest household energy guzzlers. A new Energy Star fridge uses half the energy of a machine made a decade ago; a front-load washer uses 35 percent less electricity than an old top-mount, plus it consumes less hot water and spins the clothes so effectively that you save money on dryer operating costs, too.
COST: $600 to $1,400 for a front-load clothes washer; $1,000 to $3,000 for an Energy Star refrigerator
PAYBACK: $145 a year in electricity savings for the washer, plus gallons of water saved on every load; $60 a year for the refrigerator

Replace Your Aging Heating or Cooling System
The life expectancy of a furnace is 15 to 20 years, and for air conditioning equipment, it’s only 10 to 15. Even if your old system is still chugging along, you can reap dramatic benefits by upgrading to newer, more efficient technology. If you live in the frost belt, replacing a 20-year-old furnace or boiler with a new one will pay for itself in 7 years, then start putting money in your pocket. In the sun belt, replacing central air conditioners that are just a decade old can have an even bigger return.
COST: $3,000 to $8,000 for an efficient furnace, boiler, or air conditioning unit *super-efficient equipment may be eligible for 30 percent tax credit under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (link)
PAYBACK: $500 to $1,800 per year
TIP: To determine what energy retrofits will yield the biggest payback in your house, fill out the Home Energy Calculator worksheet at hes.lbl.gov.

And Don’t Forget These Freebies
Not every energy upgrade costs money or requires making an alteration to your house. Take these three, for example.

Turn down the temperature on your water heater by 10 degrees, and you’ll save 3 to 5 percent on operating costs. Many heaters are set at 140 degrees, but in most cases, 120 or even 115 degrees is plenty. Your shower won’t feel any different, because you’ll just mix in less cold water. And today’s dishwashers have their own heating units that boost the water temperature to sanitizing levels.
COST: free
PAYBACK: $15 or more per year

Adjust your normal day and night-time thermostat temperatures slightly higher in the summer and slightly lower in the winter. For each degree of change, you’ll save 3 to 5 percent on operating costs.
COST: free

PAYBACK: $150 to $300 per year for every 2-degree drop in the winter and increase in the summer.
Shorten your family’s normal shower lengths by 5 minutes. You can do this by using a kitchen timer or watch alarm to get everyone out of the habit of lingering endlessly under the spray.
COST: free

PAYBACK: $100 per year for each family member who shaves 5 minutes off their average shower time.

Now this can't be all hard, but can be all good!

Call me for your Real Estates needs, I am here to help!

Kim Duclos http://www.callkim.net/ (888) 949-2890

Coldwell Banker Wardley

SAVE MONEY in 2010

I am always looking for articles about saving money, and I came across an article by Eric Tyson that talks about doing a few things differently in 2010, I hope you find these helpful.

With the arrival of the New Year, are you thinking about buying your first home? Sending your last kid off to college? Or obsessing over your own personal mountain of debt, even more worrisome in this uncertain economy? It may feel like “Resolution Impossible,” but if you follow Eric Tyson’s advice, you’ll remember ‘10 as the year you finally took control of your financial future.

“While the situation is improving, Americans carry too much consumer debt,” says Tyson, author of Personal Finance for Dummies, 6th Edition.. “If you have credit card debt or auto loans, take some solace in the fact that you’re far from alone and that many others have overcome these hurdles. Consumer debt is not okay, particularly in a slow economy such as this one. It can damage your personal relationships and mental well-being, not to mention the stability of your financial future.”

Here are a few tips from Tyson that will help you improve your financial health in 2010:

Partake in a little self-reflection. A misaligned mindset toward spending and shopping—compulsive or otherwise—can severely affect your financial and personal well-being. If you think you might have a problem with shopping or spending, there are several questions you should ask yourself:
-Do I feel guilty about shopping?

-Is my shopping causing financial trouble?

-Is my shopping, spending, and accumulated debt leading to feelings of helplessness, anger, confusion, fear, or depression?

Make a plan and stick to it. The reason so many New Year’s resolutions fail is that we simply state the thing we want to improve and then never create a plan for helping us get from point A to point B.

Most people don’t like to plan unless we’re talking about something fun, like a vacation. But actually, planning for your financial future is a little like planning a vacation. You’re organizing your money and time so that you get to do all the great things you want when you get there. Look at it that way, and you might actually enjoy the process.

Get rid of your four-wheeled debt. Too many people define necessities by what those around them have. A brand new car is not a necessity, although some people try to make it one by saying, “I need a way to get to work.” Guess what? There are plenty of far less expensive used cars out there that will also make it to your office. If you take out an auto loan to buy a car that you really can’t afford and you take a similar approach with other consumer items you don’t truly need, you’re going to have great difficulty saving money and accomplishing your goals. Moreover, you’ll probably feel stressed all the time—which is a poor trade-off for the (short-lived) “new car smell.”

Start making your purchases based on need, not emotion. It can be easy to give in to all of those advertisements telling us how much we “need” that new car, expensive gym membership, or trendy outfit. Marketers play on insecurities, fears, and guilt and suggest that you can feel better about yourself by buying their products. You won’t be able to overcome spending and consumer debt until you recognize these pressures and how they corrupt your buying decisions.
Research before you enter the store.

Prior to going shopping for necessities that aren’t everyday purchases—say, a new refrigerator—do some research first. Your research will help you identify brands, models, and so on that are good values. You don’t want to make an expensive mistake.
Watch your food budget. Dine out less and keep stock of the groceries you already have. Learn to cook if you don’t know how. Try to keep a healthy inventory of groceries at home. This will minimize trips to the store and the need to impulsively dine out because your cupboard is bare. Try to do most of your shopping through discount warehouse-type stores, which offer low prices for buying in bulk, or grocery stores that offer bulk purchases. Saving on the amount you spend on food will help you put more money toward paying off your debt and eventually setting money aside for investments.

Become more energy efficient. Check out opportunities to make your home more energy efficient. Adding insulation and weather-stripping, installing water-saving devices, and reducing use of electrical appliances can pay for themselves in short order. Many utility companies will even do a free energy review or audit of your home and suggest money-saving ideas.

Watch what you are paying for insurance. Many people overspend on insurance by carrying coverage that’s unnecessary or that covers small potential losses. Coverage of small losses, such as $100 or $200, is not useful for most people since such a loss wouldn’t be a financial catastrophe.

“It won’t be easy getting out of debt, and it’s certainly not something you will be able to achieve overnight,” says Tyson. “Like losing weight, it’s something that takes constant dedication but has a great payoff in the end.

Whenever you lose focus or feel like giving in, think about the wonderful benefits of financial well-being. Once you’re out of debt, the money you are able to invest will mushroom into substantial savings that will allow you to get more for your money,” concludes Tyson.

Call me for all of your real estate questions - (888) 949-2890

(702) 521-3939

Kim Duclos

Coldwell Banker Wardley

Geat Pumpkin Fluff Dip or Pumpkin Pie Recipe! EASY

Pumpkin Fluff Dip

Makes 32 servings; 1 point each

Weight Watchers approved

16 oz. fat-free Cool Whip

1.5 oz. pkg. s/f instant vanilla pudding

15 oz. canned pumpkin

1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

In a large bowl, mix pudding, pumpkin, and spice.

Fold in Cool Whip.Refrigerate.

CREAMY PUMPKIN PIE

1 c. canned pumpkin

1/2 c. cold milk

1 (6 serving) pkg. Jello vanilla instant pudding

1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

3 1/2 c. or 8 oz. Cool Whip

1 graham cracker pie crust

Combine pumpkin, milk, pudding mix and spice in small bowl. Blend with whisk or electric mixer for 1 minute. Fold in 2 1/2 cups Cool Whip. Spoon into crust. Freeze until firm, about 4 hours. Top with remaining Cool Whip.