I'm bidding on a house! Bar?

The Pub
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I’m bidding $47k on a ready-to-live-in house!  Last sold for $3000, it’s now all sound (paying $300 for an inspection that I’ll be present for though, contract is contingent).  Bars on the window, defensible second floor and basement without direct outside access, parking pad in the back.  1600sqft.  No appliances because I want to buy good ones–a stove with an oval burner for griddle and brew pot, and of course full size burners because these mini-burners that come on everything are stupid.  I’ll spend $50 for a plug-in hotplate and use a toaster oven while I shop around for the perfect stove.

So first thing is replace that water heater.  Solar water heater with gas back-up, disable gas back-up, system shuts off at 160F, into thermostatic mixing valve that adds cold water to output 130F, into gas driven tankless heater that raises temperature to 130F if the tank is cold.  Only burn gas if the tank is cold AND the tap is running; burn less gas if the tank isn’t very cold; and the tank is hotter than hot water output so it’s going to retain temperature in use.  Get solar renewable energy credits and sell them for $200 each (about 3-5 per year).  Could also use a plate exchanger to patch the system into a radiator boiler to heat the house for free in the winter (SREC from solar water is capped at 5, otherwise I’d produce more with additional tubes on the array).  ROI is 1 year.

The second project is of course replace carpet with bamboo floors, replace kitchen with real stone tile.  ROI is never.

The third project?

Bar.  In the basement.

Medium density fiberboard, route it out, stain it, and laminate with walnut veneer.  I want the bar top to be something lighter, spalted ash or koa veneer maybe.  Problem is all that stuff is soft, unless I polyurethane it or put a glass inset over top.  The only other way to go is inset granite.

What do you all think?  Walnut with spalted ash bar top?  use a glass inset for the top?  Kegerator with two beers and a soda tap?  (Yeah right, where do you get a keg fridge that holds three…)  I’m thinking pewter holloware with glass bottoms.

My uncle had a bar in his living room.  Sink, liquor shelves, fridge, glassware, the works.  It seems like something a man needs to have, something that shows class.  A refrigerator full of beer bottles and a couple bottles of booze in the cabinet doesn’t show any class; it shows you’re a boozer.  Keg that stuff and put those liquors on display, and have some good lowballs for the whiskey.

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First to say: Turtles!

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There are NO TURTLES in the area!  I did see some wandering house cats that I assume are wild.  They’re shiny and seem well fed, so I guess abducting them and locking them in my basement wouldn’t be helpful.  I’ll let 'em alone.

/shiny animals are healthy

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wow, an almost relevant post
good luck with the bar.

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I bought my first house a few years back and brewing in it was a serious consideration when looking for the right property.

Even though my HWH is about 6’ from the kitchen sink it would take about 20-30 seconds for the HW tap to warm up. I measured the output and it was a couple gallons of water that went down the drain unused! So I hooked up a 2.5 gallon Ariston glass-lined tank under the sink in series with the HWH. Now I get extremely hot water within 2 seconds even during winter time.

If you are going to buy all new appliances- especially tankless systems you need a whole-house water softener if your water isn’t pristine and low bicarbonate. You don’t want any scale build-up in the tankless unit and your other appliances such as the clothes and dishwasher will benefit as well. We have extremely hard water here and I have ZERO scale build-up. The first thing I did before moving anything into the house was install a whole-house water softener. I installed an undersink RO unit later which provides excellent cooking, brewing and drinking water.

I like the idea of a passive solar water heater which I saw frequently out in Arizona, Nevada and California. Black tubing coiled on the roof tops of nearly every house in some neighborhoods. If my black water hose is anything to go by you can get some scalding hot water that way just from the Sun’s radiant heat.

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Sounds interesting.  Post some pics!  :slight_smile:

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defensible second floor?

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Hot water is not recommended for cooking because it helps to dissolve the lead back into our water here.  14 parts with 16 parts being the target maximum, as of 2005–after that, the city stopped publishing the annual water report.  However, an under-sink unit is excellent, since the run is very short and there’s not a lot to dissolve.

But I like high carbonate content.  Why do you hate Bass Pale Ale?

Scale is interesting, you can’t easily clean a tankless unit I’m sure.  It does follow a water heater tank with a magnesium anode, though.

I don’t currently use a washing machine or tumble dryer at all.  I’ve found these to fit my needs more.  Large comforters don’t fit in the spin dryer, though, and are ridiculously hard to hand wash anyway; but stuff coming out of the spin dryer does indeed tumble dry in under 10 minutes (I tried it).  I’ll probably use an actual washing machine very little, tumble dryer more–it’ll be good to hang dry clothes instead of hanging clothes to dry in an hour.

The biggest issue with these is an empty tank of course, with a gas back-up … hence the tankless system following.  That’s a common strategy.

Yeah.  You know, man’s home is his castle, etc.  If somebody breaks down the gate you gotta know where your strongest ground is, how you’re going to fight the invaders, and where you’re going to retreat to if the battle turns against your favor.  Second floor bedroom means somebody has to scale the building to break in, or break through the front door–and maybe a security door at the top of the stairs.  Ingress is possible in exactly one room with front-facing windows, and if anyone gets that far we’re talking serious burglary–any normal robber is going to come in through the front door or not at all.

Really, how am I supposed to have guests ever if my only response to hostile invasions is to pee myself and flee ineffectively into a corner where I’m trapped?  Guests in my home are under my protection.

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Second from the left, next to the burned out one for sale.  :stuck_out_tongue:

Local wildlife.

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Didn’t you acquire some swords a while back?  You’re set.

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1.  Bokken.

2.  My bare hands work better as defensive weapons.

Although katana are the choice weapon of self-defense around JHU…

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Reading through this thread is just another reason I’m happy to live in Iowa, I guess.  I’ve honestly never considered “defensibility” as a feature when buying a home.  ::slight_smile:

Of course, in Iowa 30% of the population now have concealed carry licenses so anyone attempting an invasion will likely be stopped long before they get to my house.

Of more relevance, I like turtles too.

Paul

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No kidding, man.  When I read that, my first thought was that if I had to worry about defensibility, I wouldn’t live there!

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When I was in high school, we watched a documentary about meth in economics class.  It was about a little rural city in Iowa that survives by robbing stores in the surrounding cities, where they buy off the police with meth, because nobody has jobs because they’re all high on meth all the time.  Drugs are really, really bad and drug addictions suck.

When I was in high school, I lived with my parents.  I went so far as to poison the air in my room to keep my mom out.  She couldn’t come upstairs at all for a while and my dad made me stop.

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I can’t deny that could have happened.  But generally, if the “little rural city” doesn’t have a name, it’s a bit more difficult to buy into the story.  Most days “back in high school” feels more like “back before running water” to me.

Deal with the world you live in but around here you can feel safe.

Paul

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The wonder wash machine is interesting.  Good luck with the purchase. The house projects never end.

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First things first:  Title check.

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Just sayin’, there’s horrible places everywhere.  Could live in Cumberland instead of here and it’d probably be a lot nicer.

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defensible second floor irrelevant if people are bombing the place.

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Or attacking from the roof.