As a Floridian, there's a chance the Florida Department of Financial Services is holding unclaimed property for you |
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| The Florida Department of Financial Services, Bureau of Unclaimed Property, holds unclaimed accounts valued at more the $1 billion, mostly from dormant accounts in financial institutions, insurance and utility companies, securities and trust holdings. Unclaimed Property also includes tangible property such as jewelry, coins, currency, stamps, historical items and other miscellaneous articles, from safe deposit boxes. Click here to begin your search | |
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Are our Homes Ready for the Future?
by: Nancy Feldman
Everybody is talking about it, it used to be that no one wanted to even think about it, but the newest hot button in the design field is all about preparing your home for the future. Who really wants to imagine it but the majority of baby boomers (those born between 1946 and 1964) are considered to be the sandwich generation. We think about aging, our aging parents, school age children, often college students, newly wed children and sometimes even grandchildren.
Are we ready for the future?
Are our homes ready to take us on?
The leading edge concept of "aging-in-place" (or as we like to say " being prepared for the future) was born as both a philosophical concept and a design concept aimed at providing interior and exterior environments that complement and support the aging process. But in reality this premise applies at any age, whether you have a child with special needs, yourself, or an elderly parent or grandparent the requirements are the same. When relating to our homes, the concept when properly applied, allows us to remain in a place of our choice, often one with established connections, attachments, convenience and comfort for the long term and be able to accommodate the multi-generational family.
A few common sense ideas will go a long way:
- During the construction process make sure that there are wider door openings and wider halls.
- Have at least one entry into a residence with a level threshold and a non slip floor covering.
- If there are multiple bathrooms specify one as ADA compliant with a textured floor material, wider door entry, space for wheelchair turn-around and access under the sink, taller toilet seats, grab bars, a bench for sitting in a shower, where there is no curb at the entry.
- Select levers instead of knobs on bathroom and kitchen sink faucets for easier use (arthritis is a major concern for all ages).
- Provide area's for additional interior lighting.
These are long term, user friendly, design- savvy options to implement and will be a welcome solutions for those who adopt them. |
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Homeowners Insurance
By Florida Insurance Council
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Homeowner’s insurance rates in Florida already are the third highest in the country, behind Texas and Louisiana. The primary factor for Florida rates is our huge hurricane risk. OIR reports that the top 10 private market insurers raised rates an average of 2.7 percent in 2003, 22 percent in 2002, 3 percent in 2001, and 7 percent in 2000. Recent increases have been driven by higher claim payments for mold, water damage and sinkholes, plus the need for some carriers to set aside additional funds for the inevitable “Son of Andrew.” What is the industry doing to control costs in homeowners insurance? Major insurers are working with Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher and Kevin McCarty, Office of Insurance Regulation director, to increase the capacity of the Florida Hurricane Catastrophe Fund. The Cat Fund was established immediately after Hurricane Andrew to replace private market catastrophe reinsurance used up by the unprecedented Andrew disaster. |
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Are Flexible Fuel Vehicles in our future? |
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| Many automakers have produced flexible fuel vehicles (also called variable fuel vehicles). A flexible fueled vehicle (FFV) has a single fuel tank, fuel system, and engine. The vehicle is designed to run on unleaded gasoline and an alcohol fuel (usually ethanol) in any mixture. The engine and fuel system in a flex-fuel vehicle must be adapted slightly to run on alcohol fuels because they are corrosive. There must also be a special sensor in the fuel line to analyze the fuel mixture and control the fuel injection and timing to adjust for different fuel compositions. The flex-fuel vehicle offers its owner an environmentally beneficial option whenever the alternative fuel is available. (see web site for more info. and link to www.fueleconomy.gov.) The fuel to run flex-fueled vehicles is called E85. E85 is a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% unleaded gasoline. E85 is a high octane, high performance fuel. It is a renewable source of energy and reduces the crude oil imports needed to fuel America's transportation system. There are several hundred E85 pumps across the country, and the number is growing every day. (see web site for more info. and link to www.ethanol.org.)
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Sun Sentinel August 30, 2006
Where is the money going?
And when is enough?
Those are the two questions that taxpayers must ask at the municipal budget hearings.
Palm Beach County First budget hearing: Sept. 7, 6 p.m., Commission Chambers, 301 N. Olive Ave., West Palm Beach Proposed tax increase*: 16 percent, or $97,501,328 |
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Guarding yourself against Pretexting and Social Engineering |
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What is pretexting? Pretexting is the practice of posing as someone else. What is "social engineering? The practice of tricking people into giving up confidential information, usually for nefarious purposes.
A recent article by Ian Katz in the Sun-Sentinel highlighted this issue. He writes "Probably the most prevalent kind of social engineering today is phishing, when a fraudster sends an e-mail pretending to be from a bank or company asking for account information. Phishing e-mails include a link that directs the recipient to a phony Web page that looks like the bank's real site. | |
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| From University of Florida IFAS Extension
Enviroscaping to Conserve Energy:
a Guide to Microclimate Modification
A.W. Meerow and R.J. Black |
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A microclimate is any small, local area within which the effects of weather are both relatively uniform and easily modified. Microclimate modification involves the best use of structural and landscape design elements to maximize or limit sunlight, shade and air movement. Structural modifications involve the design of the house and associated construction (walkways, fences, patios). Landscape modifications (enviroscaping) involve the use of plants to further increase or decrease the impact of sun and wind upon the local environment.
Fencing – Fencing directly influences air-circulation patterns. Winds are from the south, southeast and southwest during the summer months when effective air circulation is generally desired. Open fencing, especially with bottom clearance, maximizes air flow.
In general, vegetation provides greater flexibility in directing air circulation.
Other Structural Features – Arbors or trellises over outdoor living areas increase comfort and shade nearby walls. Decks should be built with bottom clearance to allow air to circulate below the structure. Solid surfaces such as concrete and asphalt, which reflect a great deal of heat, should be kept to a minimum. Brick driveways build up less heat then either asphalt or concrete.
Landscape Elements of Microclimate Modification
Plants provide the most economical means of modifying microclimate around a home and represent an investment in future energy savings. Research has shown that energy costs for air conditioning at certain times of the day can be reduced more than 50% by proper placement of the right plant material around a residence.
Summertime heat gain in a home can be reduced by using plants to:
- Shade the residence from direct solar radiation
- Either divert or channel air movement from or towards the house
- Create cooler temperatures near the home by evaporation of water from their leaves.
Trees - Eastern and western wall exposures accumulate the most heat during the long days of summer. Tree shading should thus be maximized on these sides of the home.
Shrubs & Vines – shrubs can effectively block early morning and late-afternoon sunlight on eastern and western exposures, respectively. Small-leafed, open-branched shrubs provide shade without duly restricting air movement for passive cooling in the spring and fall. Vegetation close to the residence also lowers the air temperature near the home, reducing the heat conducted through the walls.
Vines or shrubs that cover a wall can block a great deal of sunlight before it strikes and heats the wall.
Please contact one of our landscape designers listed below.
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Boosting Value in any Home
By Lisa Liebman
May 22, 2006
Money Magazine |
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There are 3 great up grades:
There is a short term and a long term question to ask before renovating your home.
Short term - What changes will make my home a better place to live?
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Value Added Home Improvements That Really Pay Off
By Donna Rosato
June 1, 2005
Money Magazine |
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When you put money into renovating your home, you do it for you and your family, right? You select the tiles you like best for the bathroom, your favorite style cabinets for the kitchen, the patio stones that say "home" to you. Renovations can be expensive, after all (Americans spent a record $138 billion on home improvements last year, according to Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies), and this is the place you wake up every morning and return to every night. And yet...
. . And yet. You can't discount the fact that where you sleep and cook and watch your baby take her first steps is also your biggest financial asset. As you make improvements, you ought to have one eye on the future, when your house might become someone else's biggest asset. Some renovation projects pay off more than others--studies of home sales show that adding one small bathroom, for instance, increases appraisal values more than redoing a basement or building a new bedroom.
Spending as little as $2,000 on a kitchen or bathroom can boost a home's sale price by $3,800 to $4,800 reports HomeGain.com.
. . Wise owners can recover on average 80 percent of renovation expenses in the form of higher home-sale prices, according to annual surveys in Remodeling magazine. (In general, the newer the improvement is, the more of your investment money you'll get back.) read the article | |
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