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Follow these tips to keep yourself and your family safe, well and as cool as possible.

In the house

Close curtains and blinds to keep the sun out of the house. Keep them closed all day long until it gets cooler outside than it is inside. That will delay the heating up of the house.

Spray water in the air to increase humidity and cool the air.

Use fans and air-conditioning to circulate the air in the rooms.

Avoid cooking because it generates heat. Try eating fresh food, cold meat or cheese, sushi, fruit, etc, anything that doesn’t need to be cooked.

Beware not to burn yourself when opening even a cold water tap - the water in the pipes gets boiling hot!

Stay out of the sun and the wind.This combination of sun+wind is much more dangerous than the sun alone, because the wind significantly increases our dehydration.

If you don’t have air conditioning at home, go to a shopping center or to a library, places with air conditioning constantly running.

In the evening, when the house becomes unbearably hot, go to the beach and cool off in the water, enjoy the nice breeze. It is always cooler at the beach than in the city.

Outside

Wear light clothing with long sleeves to cover as much of your body as possible from the sun

Wear a hat to cover your head and your face

Use sunblock because the UV index is very high now.

In the office

Even though certain work places have a dress code, dress according to the weather.

If you have uniform at work, ask the management to allow casual clothes, as an exception.

Food and drinks

Eat fresh food & cool summer soups, avoid hot food.

Avoid spicy food because it makes you feel hot

Drink a lot, because our body loses a lot of fluids without even noticing it. If you are thirsty, it means that you are already slightly dehydrated.

Pets

Keep them indoors as much as possible, and always in the shade if outside.

Supply plenty of water.

Place a wet towel on the floor for them to cool on.

Behavior

Avoid arguments because we all get impatient and lose our temper easily in such hot weather.

If you have anything to add to this list, your own tips that work, I am all ears.

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However, there are parts of the water bill that only the landlord has to pay, not the tenant - I am talking about the amounts that are listed on the water bill under “service charges” and “other charges”. Service charges are the fees for accessing the water and the sewage systems and apply even if no one was using the water/sewage, a kind of flat fee. Other charges include drainage charge and Parks charge and are only paid by the property owner.

On top of the water bill, in addition to the rent, a tenant should expect to pay for the electricity, gas, phone, internet access, paid TV, renters insurance (if you choose to have it). There is also a one-off payment of the bond that roughly equals to monthly rent and payable before a tenant moves in (read more about it here).

If this is your first home in Australia and you don’t have any accounts opened with energy suppliers or phone companies, then you should also expect a set-up fee with every company where you first establish an account. Some phone companies will also charge you for connecting your land line and the same applies to the paid TV. If you do have accounts with energy, phone and internet companies, then another set of fees applies - relocation fees. There is no way you can avoid these fees, but it helps if you know in advance about them and can adjust your budget accordingly.

And finally some figures: (keep in mind that these are rough estimates that I’ve found in the Energy and Water Ombudsmen website)

• The average energy usage for 12 months is 6500 kilowatt hours and it costs around $1000 for the year.
• The average gas usage for 12 months is 60 gigajoules and it costs around $800 - $850 for the year
• The average water usage for 12 months should cost anything in the $500 - $1000 range.
• The cheapest phone line rental is $30 a months and that doesn’t include whatever the calls cost.

What else would you like to know about renting in Australia? Leave a comment and I will find out for you.

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I first heard about it from Ralph W. Ritchie, a survivalist and author of series of disaster preparedness books. I have also read his water handbook and learned a lot from it (this post largely relies on the information from the water handbook). When I wrote about being prepared to disasters and emergencies, the water problem has never occurred to me, and it should have.

Here is Australia we are already several years into a drought and water issues are very familiar to us - but the truth is that farmers are the ones really facing this problem, for most people who live in the cities the water was never a problem. I mean the water restrictions are there, but even if we’re not allowed to water our gardens whenever we feel like it, it’s not the end of the world and we can adjust.

How about this - what if they cut the municipal water sources off? How long will we survive? What do we know about stocking up on water? And I am not exaggerating here - if due to a power outage or another kind of fault the municipal water system stopped working, we would be in a lot of trouble. Here is just a short list of events that could easily cut our water supply: floods (by contamination), earthquake (by breaking pipes), power outage (by shutting the water supply down).

Where the water is concerned, there are three basic rules:

1. You must have a reliable source of water
2. This source must satisfy human purity requirements
3. You must provide a backup water supply

A lot of people have rain water tanks installed in their back yards, which they can use as an additional source of water. Another possibility is to use water from a swimming pool if you have it. Ponds can also be useful, provided the water is purified and tested for quality.

Purifying may sound complicated but it is not, and it is a better alternative than drinking a contaminated water - which is deadly. You can purify even dirty water by settling it to get the largest particles out of the way, boiling it to kill the bacteria, filtering with activated carbon filters and adding chlorine or iodine to it (there are also water purification tablets available as an alternative to the chlorine/iodine). Another interesting solution to water purification is to use pure silver - i.e pour the water in a silver mug or put a silver coin in the water container.

Backup water supply means exactly that - storing water in bottles, jars or containers, in case the municipal water supply is interrupted. You can freeze it or just store it in a dark cool place, and it is probably wise to distribute your stored supply so that no single event can destroy it. Ralph Ritchie has a 60 gallon plastic drum he uses for water storage and it has a steel frame built around it, so it can’t be crushed even if the roof collapses.

If this post made you think about your household and its water-problem preparedness, don’t just click away and forget all about it. Download the water handbook, by Ralph W. Ritchie, read it, and act.

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• Home/Contents Insurance
• Mortgage Insurance
• Landlords insurance
• Renters insurance

The difference between those is mainly the reason why would you get such insurance.

Home insurance can mean two kinds of insurance - a building insurance and a contents insurance. Building insurance is there to cover your house (as in the structure itself, the walls and the roof) in case it is damaged by fire, storm, faults, explosions or a third party. Contents insurance is there to cover your belongings and items contained within the house, such as furniture, appliances, jewelry, etc.

Almost always if you’ve bought a house with a mortgage, your lender will require a building insurance - not to be confused with a mortgage insurance, explained below.

Mortgage insurance (also known as mortgage payment protection) covers you in case you miss mortgage payments. The reasons why anyone would consider it are a possible unemployment, an injury or a sickness and the following loss of income. If you can’t make your payments for over a month, then the insurance company will start making them on your behalf.

In many cases lenders have a requirement of mortgage insurance, when the loan on property is for more than 80% of its value. As a rule, the greater the percentage of the property value you borrow and the more money you borrow, the higher the mortgage insurance premium will be. The premium is usually a one-off amount payable at settlement.

Landlords insurance is for people who own and rent out a property. It is there to cover damage to the property, people that got injured on that property (fall in the bathroom for example), tenants that stop paying rent and the like.

A thing to remember - it might not cover accidental damage to the property (such as tenant having a kitchen accident and burning the benchtop), check with your insurance company. The accidental damage clause is important for both the tenant and the landlord, because in case accidents are not covered, the tenant is liable for all the damage, and if he/she disputes it then it becomes the landlord’s problem (here is another discussion of this issue).

Renters insurance is very similar to contents insurance, it is there to cover your belongings as a renter in case of accidental damage from events like fire or burglary. The building is insured by the landlord but your contents are your responsibility and depending on the cost of the items you have such insurance might be a good idea. Some companies will even cover 2 properties on the day that you move, so if anything gets stolen it will be replaced or paid for by the insurance.

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Here is my interview, Lightening asks the questions and I answer them.

1. When did you first get so interested in real estate and was there any one thing that particularly triggered that interest?

My involvement with Aussie real estate began the minute I landed in Melbourne (two and something years ago) and started to look for a rental house. At first I wouldn’t say that I got interested in the real estate world – I got annoyed by it. There were too many rules that I was expected to know (but had no idea of) and the agents were speaking a whole different language with all those hideous terms and abbreviations.

I hated feeling like a clueless newbie. Every second sentence I had to ask the agent: “What do you mean by that?” and he sure thought I was the dumbest person on Earth. That must have been the trigger and thanks to those embarrassing moments today I know much more about the real estate and try to make it easier on the other newcomers.

2. If you could buy a property anywhere in the world, where would you choose to buy?

I would have tough time choosing between the mountains of Austria, Seychelles, the Upstate New York and Sorrento (Victoria). Eventually I would probably have to have a lottery because it would be too difficult to decide. The mountains of Austria have the most magnificent views of wild nature and buying a hut there would be dreamy, the Upstate New York was so beautiful I never wanted to leave, Sorrento looks like a perfect town where I wouldn’t change a thing and Seychelles I have never been to but always wanted.

3. If you could share one piece of advice or idea with Australia’s Prime Minister, what would it be?

That’s a difficult question because I try to stay away from politics as much as I can. If anything, I guess I would ask him to please drop the implementation of that Internet filter that we were discussing on Aussie blogger’s forum because
(a) I am against all forms of censorship and
(b) I like my broadband fast, thank you very much. I shiver at the very thought of what such filtering could do to the access speed.

4. If you were down to your last $5, what would you spend it on?

Gosh, that’s a scary question! I guess I would try to stretch it for as long as I could, because as we all know failure is one step away from success. Who knows, good things might be waiting ahead if only I could hold on just a little bit longer

5. If you had to be evacuated to the moon and could only take 5 things (not including people), what would you choose to take?

1. A goose down jacket – it’s probably cold on the Moon and I hate being cold.

2. A tomato seedling – I can’t imagine my life without tomatoes and if they don’t have any on the Moon I would have to grow my own.

3. My acoustic guitar – can’t live without my music.

4. My laptop – if I could find internet access, I‘d be blogging my evacuation story, if not – I’d be writing a diary offline. Apart from that I could call everybody via Skype so I won’t need a phone and the laptop has a camera so I can document the evacuation in pictures and videos.

5. A notepad and a pen – if there’s no power and I can’t use the laptop, I’ll be writing my diary the old fashioned way.

And now it’s your turn - do you have any questions of your own you’d like to ask me? If so, go ahead and leave a comment, I promise to answer it!

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The difference between the two is that reading the Product Disclosure Statement you can realize that although something is listed in the Summary of Insured Events, your house still won’t be insured for it because of the conditions that apply.

For example, if your house is by the sea and you wanted to insure it for flood in case the sea levels would rise, even though the Summary will have flood listed, the Product Disclosure Statement will say “flood, not from rising sea levels”. That means that if the flood was caused by rain water, then you are insured, but this is not what you were looking for.

Another reason to read the Product Disclosure Statement is to learn about insurance limitations, you responsibilities or extra costs involved (i.e. higher excess) in certain cases.

Keep in mind that not every insurance company provides insurance in all the states, and before reading the whole Product Disclosure Statement it makes sense to check whether or not that particular company covers your state.

The next thing to figure out is the sum of insurance, and to get an idea how much will it cost to replace your house in case it’s destroyed for whatever reason is to use a Home Insurance Calculator (here’s an example) that insurance companies usually provide at their websites.

Once you have several insurance companies to choose from, the next thing to consider is the price and the quality of their customer service. Finding out about the price is easy - almost always you can find an online quote on insurance company’s website. Finding out about the quality of customer service is not so easy, try asking friends and colleagues about their insurers and whether or not they are happy with the way claims are processed.

Apart from getting the cheapest policy, there are more ways for you to save on a home insurance. Many companies offer discounts on combined home and contents, home and business, home and car insurance policies - you get the idea, bundle and save. Do it only where it makes sense, because in many cases 2 policies with two different companies will cost you less than 2 bundled policies with one company.

I hope that these tips will help you get a real peace of mind instead of an illusion of such. Do you have any tips of your own? Please share with the rest of us.

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For example, if the house you bought is in the mountains, then tsunami is much less likely to get there then a lightening strike during a thunder storm. On the other hand, of your house is close to the ocean, then you would want your policy to cover tsunamis.

Insurance companies usually have a list of most common claims in your area (by postcode) and you can understand from it what is likely to happen to a house in your particular suburb. For instance, GIO has a postcode profiler tool where you type your postcode and receive a list of 3 most common claim types for the recent two years.

The confusing part of shopping for insurance is that there are many companies and they offer many different packages that are hard to compare. Don’t get discouraged by that because you still can do a decent job of comparing various policies and get real value for your money.

Your rule number one should be: “Don’t pay for things you don’t need”. I mean don’t get a policy that covers absolutely everything, engage your common sense to find the events that are likely to occur and insure for those. For example if you’ve bought an old house then the chance of pipes bursting and something leaking is definitely there, but if your house is on a hill and there are no creeks anywhere near, what are the chances it will be flooded?

And your rule number two should be: “If the policy covers everything but this one important thing – it’s not for me”. A real life example: I was buying a property located in a reasonable proximity to the ocean and wanted it to be insured for tsunami. Most of the policies of different insurance companies had attractive prices but didn’t cover tsunamis. I kept on looking until I found a company that offered what I needed.

People who aren’t friends with Google and find the whole research thing boring, intimidating or otherwise appalling for whatever reason, can resort to paid membership in the Choice.com.au website – there is a section there where various insurance companies and policies are compared, here is the link. They compared 21 companies and the cost of the report at the time this article was posted is $20. I’d say this is not too bad because with these $20 you’ll be buying at least 3 hours of your time, that otherwise would be spent on research in www.

To be continued – subscribe to my feed or via email and you won’t miss the rest.

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The house must be insured. But wait, you say, I don’t even own it yet! Correct, you will own it at settlement but in the meanwhile you still should insure it and here is why. There is an issue of the risk of damage to the building and the fixtures. At any time after the exchange of the contracts the house is either at the buyer’s risk or at the vendor’s. The best thing is to explicitly clarify that in the contract and set a date when the risk passes from the vendor to the buyer.

What you need to know about the risk of damage is the minute it passes to you, the buyer, you must already have insurance. To stay on the safe side, it is better to get the house insured even before. Consider a worst case scenario where the house burns down a day after you’ve exchanged contracts and the vendor doesn’t have insurance or his insurance is covering only part of the rebuilding costs.

A buyer may still be forced to proceed to the settlement, becoming a proud owner of a pile of burnt junk. At this point if he had the insurance, it wouldn’t be a big deal to rebuild the house and all of this could have turned in his favor, because instead of old house he would be getting a new one for the same money.

Getting insurance for your home is not an easy task, as there are many issues to consider such as what the policy should cover, how to choose the insurance company and more. One of my next posts will be discussing the home insurance policies in more detail, stay tuned or better yet, subscribed.

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Why aspirations, you ask? Good question!

I have considered a number of other words, such as dreams or wishes. “Dreams” isn’t real enough because we all have plenty of dreams we will never fulfill. “Wishes” isn’t committing enough, it’s kind of weak. “Aspirations” has the strength, the commitment and the determination to succeed. Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner – “New Years’ Aspirations” that is.

If you ask me, it makes sense and feels nice to be summarizing the ending year before drawing those used-to-be resolutions. After all, they are called resolutions for a reason, they are supposed to be resolving some problems or issues we had in the past year – so those issues need to be remembered and summarized first, and only then we should think about some improvements to our life.

Concentrating on the resolutions alone, we can easily forget all the good that happened in this past year. We need to remember it, to give ourselves credit and a pat on the back, to feel contented and the proud of this accomplishment, and to keep it up.

Enough said; we’re already living in 2009 and here are my New Year’s aspirations:

I have been working too much. I will devote more time to myself, to my health and well-being than to my job. To be more specific, I will refuse to take more work than I usually do; I will go to at least two concerts this year, pay my doctor a visit and do some check-ups, and start paying more attention to my appearance.

I have been stressing too much. I will try to limit stressful events in my life because nothing is really worth it. I will think ahead, predict as much as possible and avoid stressful situations caused by over-committing and the expectations other people have of me.

I haven’t been physically active enough - I will start doing more sports. I will make sure I walk at least 2 hours a day and do some other regular exercising at least once a week.

I haven’t been spending enough time with my friends - I need to change that and make our relationships stronger. I will call every friend of mine at least once every two weeks.

How about you? What are your New Year’s Aspirations?

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So here are a few tips for a productive inspections day:

Plan it

Write down the addresses of the houses you’re planning to inspect and the times of the inspections. Look them up on the map and see what the distances between them are. Using Google maps you can easily check the driving time between two places and when you make a list of inspections to go to, take the driving time from one property to another into consideration.

Write things down

To be able to compare the houses later, you’ve got to make notes. Have a checklist or a notepad with you and make notes. Checklists are quicker and easier, because all you have is to tick the boxes as you walk through the house. They also make it harder to forget to look at something because a good checklist specifies all the possible features to look for – for example, ducted heating, evaporation cooling, gas/electrical/solar hot water system, you get the idea.

Take pictures

Bring your digital camera with you. In every house you inspect start by taking the picture of the mailbox (usually that’s where the address is). This way you’ll be able to match the pictures with the address later. Then take pictures of the house and the garden, focusing on anything you like and (more importantly!) don’t like.

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