FREE Hilo Brokers iPhone Application! November 20, 2009
Posted by Kelly in : Featured Listings, Moving to Hawaii, Resources, Updates , add a commentGreat news!
We’ve created a new, customized, FREE, iPhone application that allows you to search hawaii real estate from your iPhone. To download the application, go here:
http://tinyurl.com/hilobrokersiphone
Alternatively, you may go directly to the iTunes store and search for “hilo brokers”.
Click image to download the Hilo Brokers iPhone application!
HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND – Could You Live Off-the-Grid? Part VI – Winter Wood-Working October 29, 2009
Posted by Kelly in : Could You Live Off-the-Grid?, HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND, Moving to Hawaii , add a commentHERE ON THE BIG ISLAND
By Kelly Moran
Could You Live Off-the-Grid? Part VI – Winter Wood-Working
Nighttime winter temperatures along the coasts, here, can get down to 60° F. Add the cooling effect of clouds and rain, and on the eastern side, at least, you can expect nights in the 50s. As you get above sea level, anywhere, ambient temperature falls 3° F for every 1,000 feet up, so many places here are downright chilly in the winter: Volcano, at 4,000 feet, gets frost!
But homes in Hawaii don’t have furnaces, and few if any are insulated against cold (or hot) weather. Other than wrapping yourself in heavy clothes, if you want to stay warm indoors, you’ll have to generate heat, and the easiest way is to burn wood.
You could soak all day in a wood-fired hot tub, but more likely you’d want to sit around the house near a modern wood stove or fireplace that’s engineered to send a lot of heat into the room, instead of up the chimney. They’re are sold in specialty stores in Hilo and Kona, and can be ordered through home-improvement stores, too. You must get a commercial model, and not build one yourself, because it has to meet strict local construction codes, and the building-inspectors here are very finicky about anything that could be a fire-hazard.
What isn’t widely available, however, is wood. You won’t see cords of firewood stacked outside supermarkets and garden supply stores, as you do on the mainland. (A true cord, by the way, is four feet wide, four feet high, and eight feet long.) Sometimes, a classified ad in one of the local papers will offer firewood. Just make sure that the pieces are cut small enough to fit in your firebox.
You could, of course, go out and cut your own firewood. Unless you have an especially dense stand of trees on your land, that you really don’t want to keep, you probably will have to go elsewhere. Obviously, you can not go logging in Hawaii’s forest reserves or parks; and until you’ve lived here a while, you probably will not know or hear about neighborhood trees that have to be cut due to land-clearing, hazard-removal, and so on.
You should certainly consider cutting weed-trees, though. Many property owners – maybe you, too? – have thickets of rose-apple or waiawi that they’d like to get rid of. Waiawi (”vy-vee”) is strawberry guava, an especially hard wood that burns hot; but the trunks are not especially thick, and hence not easily split by hand.
A client of mine purchased a house whose long driveway was lined with tall cedars and pines. These exotics were probably intended to be harvested as Christmas trees, but had not been cut in time, so they stood over 50 feet tall, deeply shading the driveway, and blocking half the view from the house. He had them professionally cut down. The branches and leaves were ground up into mulch, which was piled up near his garden; and the logs were cut to fit in his fireplace. Citing the old adage that you get warm first from the exercise and then again from burning the wood, he now spends an hour or two each autumn and winter month with an axe, maul and wedge, happily splitting those logs.
Getting a pro to cut your fire-logs frees you up to split and burn them.
He doesn’t use a chain-saw, however. In the popular imagination, you aren’t really living off-the-grid if you don’t have a chain-saw. But you probably won’t need one; and unless you are already experienced in operating one, or have someone who can teach you to use it carefully, you probably should not get one. The ease with which a chain-saw cuts through wood makes it a very compelling tool, especially for inexperienced users who are all too likely to take on a challenge they can’t meet, or in some other way get into an accident. Moreover, it’s a tool that requires a lot of
care: ensuring that the cutting-edges are sharp, keeping both the engine and the chain properly lubricated, etc. Like installing electrical circuits or plumbing, cutting wood with a chain-saw is a task best left to experts.
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HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND – Getting Into Hot Water October 27, 2009
Posted by Kelly in : Could You Live Off-the-Grid?, HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND, Moving to Hawaii, Resources , 1 comment so farHERE ON THE BIG ISLAND
By Kelly Moran
Could You Live Off-the-Grid? Part V – Getting Into Hot Water
You probably don’t want to live anywhere without hot water. But fortunately, that’s the easiest convenience to have, off-the grid. In our warm and sunny climate (sunny enough, even in Hilo), a simple black plastic water-bag on the roof will give you hot showers from afternoon through early evening.
Utility executives know this. They also know that heating water with electricity is terribly wasteful and inefficient; and that they may never get approval to build another power-plant here if they don’t help to hold down demand. So the Hawaii Electric Light Co. (HELCO) is offering households huge incentives to replace electric water heaters with solar water-heaters.
You can’t go wrong with solar. Ideally, you should have a broad southern exposure, but almost any place with open sky views should be sufficient to generate heat from the sun. You will, however, need a tank, and some backup heat source (propane or electricity) to keep the tank’s temperature constant.
For an attractive alternative, consider an “on-demand” water heater, in which a small propane burner fires up only when you open a hot-water tap. There’s no tank (a cost-saving in itself), and though the heater may have a pilot-light, it isn’t burning a lot of gas to maintain a high temperature when you aren’t using hot water. These systems are very inexpensive, and easily installed by any plumber. Just be sure the burner is vented, for safety, to the outdoors.
You could also combine a solar water-heater with a slightly more costly version of the on-demand heater, which has a temperature-sensor built in. It can then raise up to full hot-water temperature the water that’s already warm from the sun.
Those solutions are excellent for showers and small tub baths. As for a resort-size, Jacuzzi-type hot tub, big enough for two or more people, you will need sufficient electricity to run the “jets.” But a more important consideration is that heating such a large volume of water takes a lot of energy – quite likely more than can be heated by the sun in single a day. But there are other ways to heat a big tub of water, especially if you’d like your hot-tub experience to be naturalistic.
In old plantation days, a Japanese farm worker would build a bathhouse, separate from his home, with a wood-fired furo inside. He’d lay a brick-and-mortar firepit and chimney, set a sheet of copper over the firepit, and make a tub out of redwood (and a redwood grille, to keep from sitting down on the hot metal). An hour or so after starting the fire, the tub water would be hot enough to soak in. Traditional bathhouses have drains in the floor, because the Japanese always wash and rinse themselves off first, and only then get into the tub.
Many years ago, I lived in a house near Hilo that had exactly that sort of backyard bathhouse with a brick-firebox and copper-sheet furo. I would jokingly compare the experience to the cartoon image of missionaries being cooked in a cannibal’s cauldron.
Fortunately, there is a modern alternative. It’s called a “snorkel stove” (www.snorkel.com) – an aluminum firebox that sits in one part of the tub, separated from the bathers, for safety, by a wooden screen. Since it takes up about one-person’s-worth of space, the tub has to be slightly bigger than you might otherwise need.
Having a separate bathhouse makes the experience seem special, somehow; and since the tub isn’t in your regular bathroom, it’s more relaxing and more attractive, especially if you share the tub with family or guests. You’ll probably want to site the bathhouse close to your home, though, and in rainy places, link the two structures with a covered walkway.
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HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND – Could You Live Off-the-Grid? Part IV October 16, 2009
Posted by Kelly in : Big Island Hawaii, Could You Live Off-the-Grid?, HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND, Moving to Hawaii, Resources , add a commentHERE ON THE BIG ISLAND
By Kelly Moran
Could You Live Off-the-Grid? Part IV
AC vs. DC
Every electric motor and light bulb in an ordinary house runs on alternating current (AC). And though your cell phone or laptop computer runs on direct current (DC), you keep them charged up with a little transformer you plug into an AC outlet, that “transforms” AC into DC.
No matter how you (or the utilities) generate power, whether from fuel, wind, hydro, or the sun, it starts out as DC and must be changed – or, more accurately, “inverted” – to AC. That’s done through (what else?) an “inverter” that sits between your batteries and the breaker-box for the house’s electrical outlets. The inverter also keeps the electricity from fluctuating, so your power is as consistently smooth as it would be from the grid.
You could skip the inverter, and have an all-DC house. There are DC versions of most appliances, including TVs and refrigerators; and when people here started living off the grid, in the 1960s and ’70s, home-sized inverters were not commonplace; so going entirely DC was the only way they could have modern conveniences. But DC appliances are not cheap, and you won’t find them in local stores. Making an all-DC house also forces you to site all the components of your system, including the outlets, very close together, because (unlike alternating current) direct current loses strength if it has to run through more than about 50 feet of wire. So, to live off the grid, you need batteries and an inverter, too. The fact is: we live in an AC world.
You need batteries. Here, the first five (of sixteen) 24-volt batteries are being installed in a household system. An inverter (not shown) turns the batteries' DC power into AC.
Go Gas
As for cooking, you will have to forget about an electric stove – you can not possibly generate enough power for that. Get a gas stove, and make sure the installer sets up all the burners for propane (instead of natural gas, which is not sold in Hawaii).
Propane is easily obtained. Tanks range in capacity from backyard-grill-size, to four-foot-tall cylinders, to horizontal giants. You can take the smaller ones into town to be refilled, or pay an additional but small monthly fee (less than $10) to have a gas company driver deliver fresh tanks and/or refill them at your home.
There are, by the way, refrigerators that run on propane. They are more expensive and slightly less efficient than electric refrigerators, but if your generating capacity is limited, and you’re getting propane anyway, for cooking or heating water (which I’ll cover next time), you may want to at least check and see if a propane refrigerator will suit your needs. It is, in any case, one more way to stay off-the-grid.
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HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND: Could You Live Off-the-Grid? Part III: Here Comes the Sun October 13, 2009
Posted by Kelly in : Big Island Hawaii, Could You Live Off-the-Grid?, HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND, Moving to Hawaii, Updates , add a commentHERE ON THE BIG ISLAND
By Kelly Moran
Could You Live Off-the-Grid? Part III: Here Comes the Sun
Turning sunshine into electricity is the most popular way to generate your own power, here, although two conditions must be met. First, you really have to have a good view of the sun all day: no trees or hills shadowing the house. And second, you have to have dough: the initial investment is high, and likely to remain so for the near future. A “family-of-four” will probably need a system costing $30-40,000, including batteries and control equipment.
But electricity from the Hawaii Electric Light Co. (HELCO) costs more than 30 cents per kilowatt-hour, pushing utility bills up into thousands of dollars a year, and the rates will only go higher. So, a solar system should break even in ten years or less. Moreover, the price of photovoltaic panels is slowly coming down, while their electrical efficiency keeps going up. And there are no ongoing costs: once the system is in place, your electricity is free, and your batteries get charged up every day!
Two recent technological developments make solar increasingly attractive. The newest photovoltaic collectors aren’t like heavy picture-frames, with glass on top. They’re lightweight, flexible sheets of plastic that are available either as shingles or as peel-and-stick strips that lie flat, between the ridges of standing-seam metal roofs. And these new materials are more sensitive to ultraviolet light than the glass panels are, so they keep on making electricity even on cloudy days, when there isn’t as much “visible” light.
Two ways to Capture Sunlight:
"Building-integrated photovoltaic" (BIPV) panels adhere directly to a standing-seam metal roof.
Framed-glass photovoltaic panels are mounted on a carport.
If your land is close to an existing utility pole, the Hawaii Electric Light Co. (HELCO) may accept whatever electricity you generate and, in effect, store it for you in its grid. But hey! – this is about living off the grid. And that means storing your electricity in batteries.
The right kind of batteries for home-size power-plants are similar to car batteries, but larger and heavier, with higher electrical capacity (24- or 48-volt, instead of 12). And their installation has to meet building codes (e.g., you can’t put them in the crawl-space under the house).
To keep your system operating at peak efficiency, you will have to take on some responsibilities that have traditionally been shouldered by the utilities. Though you don’t have power-poles to climb, or high-tension wires to string, you will have to perform some regular maintenance tasks, the equivalent of those that utilities ordinarily do, and the cost of which they bundle into their monthly bill.
So, for example, you must ensure that the fluid in your batteries is at the proper level, by topping them off with distilled water, once a month. And as soon as you do that, it’s a good idea to run your backup generator for at least an hour or two, not only to help your batteries stay fully charged, but also to keep the generator itself in top running condition, so it’s always ready in case of emergency.
Go solar, and you also ride the wave of the future. If we in Hawaii are ever going to free ourselves from imported petroleum fuels, we will have to generate more and more of our electricity from the sun.
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HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND – Could You Live Off-the-Grid? September 21, 2009
Posted by Kelly in : Big Island Hawaii, Could You Live Off-the-Grid?, HERE ON THE BIG ISLAND, Moving to Hawaii , 6commentsHERE ON THE BIG ISLAND
By Kelly Moran
Could You Live Off-the-Grid?
Notice, please, the question is “Could you . . . ?”
You certainly can live where none or only some of the Big Island’s commercial services – water, electricity, telephone, television, internet – are piped into your home for a monthly fee.
And you don’t have to rough-it to live off-the-grid. You can enjoy a thoroughly up-to-date lifestyle, with all the accoutrements of a modern home, without being a customer of any commercial utility. In this and the next few blogs, I’ll tell you about the challenges and the strategies of acquiring for yourself the necessities of life here on the Big Island.
Water comes first, of course. Hawaii County has an extensive water system of wells, pumps, pipelines and meters, with high quality and modest rates. But where 40 or more inches of rain fall every year, you can reliably collect your own water from the gutters on your roof. Rain is (shall we say) especially abundant in Hilo and Puna; so even in neighborhoods, there, where County water is easily available, some homeowners choose to use catchment tanks.
- This house, though only seven miles from downtown Hilo, is entirely off the grid. The water tank – a metal frame lined with plastic – is in the foreground. The roof also has photovoltaic panels for generating electricity.
A so-called “family of four” should have at least a 10,000 gallon tank, which is generally a cylinder about twelve feet in diameter and eight feet high. Although some old redwood tanks are still in use, and are aesthetically quite pleasing, they are rarely if ever built nowadays. More common – and actually better, because they do not decompose – are tanks made of sheet metal and lined with tough plastic liners (very much like above-ground swimming pools), or tanks made of ferro-concrete (in which cement, sprayed onto a metal “rebar” frame, hardens into concrete). The latter is more expensive but will last much longer. Also, since rainwater is naturally slightly acidic, contact with the slightly alkaline concrete tends to neutralize the “ph” of stored water.
Once you have water in the tank, you still have to pipe it into the house. You’ll want some kind of filtration, because dirt and dust, or fragments of leaves, always wash down from the gutters; and though they generally settle to the bottom of the tank, little bits of stuff do sometimes get into the house’s supply line. But particulates like that are easily intercepted with simple filters which, like their smaller under-the-sink cousins, are typically replaced once or twice a year.
Getting that supply to flow inside the house’s plumbing, however, requires constant pressure in the pipes. Standard household water pressure is 40 pounds per square inch (psi). If your tank can be sited at least 40 feet higher than the highest faucet in the house, gravity will supply enough pressure. But unless your land is a steep hillside, that won’t be an easy setup. Besides, it’s much easier to site the tank close enough to the house to take the runoff from the roof.
So the force that pushes water through the plumbing typically comes from a pump and a special tank which, together, maintain constant pressure. To have that you’ll need electricity, which I’ll tell you about next time.
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Time is running out for $8,000 Exemption! August 16, 2009
Posted by Kelly in : Market Conditions, Moving to Hawaii, Real Estate FAQ , add a comment
Time is running out!
The US government has an $8,000 tax credit for you if you have not owned a home in the last three years. It is called a First-Time Homebuyer Credit, but it is for anyone who is buying a primary residence that has not owned a home since 2006. This means that you can deduct $8,000 from your 2009 taxes and may end up with $$ in your pocket in 2010. Please see your CPA or Tax adviser for guidance.
The single most important rule in this stimulus program is that your escrow must close by November 30th, 2009. This gives you less than 120 days from the publication of this blog to close. Since many affordable homes are in the distressed market, foreclosures and short sales, time is literally running out for buyers. These properties tend to have longer escrow periods and must be approved by various entities. A short sale can take as long as 5 months to clear escrow.
Now is the time to contact Hilo Brokers, LTD to see what bargains are available in this market. There are plenty to be had all over East Hawaii in all classifications. Whether you are looking for a Farm property, waterfront home or a cottage, there are fantastic deals available in today’s market place. At Hilo Brokers, LTD, we can offer you turn key assistance in making your purchase and you can rest assured that we will find the best home for your real estate dollars and if it is your first home in 3 years, you can take advantage of this Government incentive for home buyers. You must act quickly if you want to be assured of qualifying and receiving your $8,000 credit.
For more details on the tax credit and what it can mean to you, check our past post about this incredible program: $8,000 Tax Credit Used for Closing Costs & More
ContactHilo Brokers, LTD today and get the ball rolling!
Moving to Hawaii May 26, 2009
Posted by Kelly in : Moving to Hawaii, Resources, Updates , 1 comment so far
Moving to Hawaii from anywhere else is obviously something that must be done with a great deal of planning and strategy. It is not the same as moving across town or even to another mainland state. The logistics involved are huge. To make your move easier, using a professional moving company is the best way to make your move, but it is also the most costly. There are a variety of ways to save money. One is bringing as little as possible to Hawaii. That is not always practical, sometimes you just want your art and furniture or your favorite sports equipment to come along with you.
I have met some people who sold all but the most precious things they owned and moved to Hawaii by using the United States Post Office as their mover. This is obviously the least expensive option, but don’t forget that when you get here, you will have to furnish your new home, have clothes to wear and cooking tools, electronics and appliances. Those things are available in Hawaii, but not always with the same variety and pricing as on the mainland. If you do decide to ship things, using the USPS is the best option. If you can fit things into a large flat rate Priority shipping box, the goods will arrive from the mainland in a week or less. If you have to go with Parcel Post or Media Mail (great way to move your books and CD’s) they could take as long as 4-6 weeks to arrive. The post office supplies free Priority Mail boxes and you can print postage labels from your home computer. If you won’t be at your home to accept shipments, you can send them c/o general delivery to your local post office and pick them up when you arrive.
If you choose the “do it yourself” method of moving, you need to contact one of the shipping companies that provide containers. Matson is probably the largest container shipper with reliable rates and frequent ships coming in and out of all ports in Hawaii. Another large carrier is Young Brothers. Both of those companies ship cars but we will talk about that in a separate post.
If you are considering a moving company, there are some that specialize in Hawaii moves and one of the most used companies for moves to Hawaii is West Point Relocation. Aside from them, most full service moving companies can and do ship overseas. For instance, if you have a typical 3 bedroom mainland home, you can expect a price of between $20,000 and $30,000 to have a full service door to door move from a West Coast Port. This would include packing and crating services, loading the containers, shipping the containers and then unloading, assembly of furniture and some unpacking and uncrating. You can also ask for a discounted bid if you are doing your own packing, but keep in mind that the professionals use higher grade boxes and ones that are made to stack 14 feet high to fit into containers. Get at least three bids and be sure you are comparing “apples to apples”.
Occasionally there are logistical impasses that may require your goods to be shuttled from your home or to your new home. Check with the moving company and be sure to tell them anything that will effect the move such as extra flights of stairs, narrow door ways, winding, dirt or bad roads and driveways where a container may not be parked close to the house. If you do this you will not have a surprise bill.
When choosing a moving company, be sure you are using one that is well established and that you can check references. Because of the economy, some moving companies are closing their doors and the less reputable ones are using day laborers and cutting corners. You want to be sure that the crew that works with you are employees of the company and that they are bonded.
How long will it take for your goods to arrive? Typically from the day they are loaded at the port, they could take between 2 weeks to 6 weeks to be delivered with the average at about 3 weeks. You may want to pre-ship some household goods to your new home so that you will have some of the necessities you need to live while waiting for your goods. If you are not having a full service move, you should be able to have your container in your driveway for as long as 5 days for unloading. Remember, this container is about 5’ off of the ground & does not have a lift, so you will need to rent or make ramps.
There obviously has to be some criteria for thinning out your possessions unless you have a large budget. Basically, if it is electronic and older than 5 years, it is probably better to replace it here. Some furniture does not do well here, leather and anything with metal on it is going to have some issues in the Hawaiian climate if you do not have central A/C going most of the time. The same goes for your leather shoes, “stainless steel” items that are not of the highest grade and books. Some art work may need to be re-framed to humidity controlled framing.
If you contact me, I would be glad to put you in touch with some customers who made the move here. Also, there are Big Island online forums like Kona Web, Puna Web and Puna Online where you can ask questions about movers and other related issues to people who have faced the gauntlet as you soon will. Remember, Hilo Brokers will also be here to assist you in making your move easier.
