<p>sorry, like others, I am confused, consolation.</p>
<p>How does insurance company know there is knobs and tubes wiring in the house? Even with an interior walk through, you may not be able to detect knobs and tubes unless a full property inspection is ordered. Insurance company don’t do that. The best they do, at least in my area, is a drive by. A family home normally pays around $1,000/year for prop insurance, if the insurance company do a property inspection for every insurer they will go broke.</p>
<p>There might be a small print in the policy to preclude knobs and tubes, nevertheless. Also, they will not insure if the owner has certain types of dogs, flaky exterior paint, open exterior siding/covering and a vacant home etc.</p>
<p>I agree, it would be very strange for an insurance company to make a blanket statement that they will not insure any home older than 30 yrs old. This is an insurance company that just does not want anything in CT although I just cannot imagine why. Seems like one of the better risk areas.</p>
<p>Many insurance companies have pulled out of Florida and even So California due to wild fires and other stuff.</p>
<p>And since the foreclosure crisis it is very hard to get insurance for a “vacant home” even though someone is working here every day.</p>
<p>About 4 yrs ago I found a Farmer’s agent that promised they would take my business but forced me to move everything to them (which I find out later is somewhat illegal).</p>
<p>Six months later they tell me that their policies have changed and they are sorry. They have to run my flips through some California state thing and it is limited coverage. Over the last couple years I just got mad at them for the bait and switch. Moved all the auto insurance away from them. Had to change property insurance to expensive Lloyd’s of London for the flips.</p>
<p>cb, how expensive is expensive? can you pm the insurance agent that handles LOF? I am lucky to get some low cost insurance because some one lives there while renovating. However, I have to get rid of that pit bull ASAP as they were to cancel.</p>
<p>Try Foremost insurance first, they can do it. And, since your duplex is For Sale it should be OK and you can keep your current insurance. Thousands of homeowners put their house up for sale vacant and don’t change their insurance.</p>
<p>Another thing that got me mad at agent was the fact that thousands of homeowners buy their house and then fix stuff for a couple of months before moving in. Same thing I am doing.</p>
<p>Foremost or California Plan first, before you have to go to Lloyd’s of London. Your current agent can do either one, they just won’t tell you about it unless you push.</p>
<p>Lloyd’s of London costs me about $1,400 for 9 month policy. I wanted big coverage on this specific property because it was such a mess.</p>
<p>Properties are purchased in an LLC, so it’s difficult to say owner-occupied. I always say that it is an investment for rental and get the landlord type property insurance. My lead lives in the houses but they demand a signed executed lease agreement which is just too much of a hassle. Basically the way we always get caught is they send the insurance guy out in the car for the drive by. No warning what day they are going to drive by. Inevitably it is the day that we have trash piled in a dumpster out front, or the windows are being installed or something. I actually play the game of getting the insurance and then about 2 months later I get the cancellation notice with 60 days. I just cross my fingers that it gets sold before all that time frame expires.</p>
<p>Your best bet for insurance will be California Fair Plan. It covers everything except vandalism, which I personally don’t worry about but it might be an issue for your locations.</p>
<p>We actually ran into this problem with our house. All of our insurance had been with AAA, but our house was about houses north of what they considered the fire danger line. They wouldn’t insure us. We had do some really quick calls around to various companies and were able to find someone from Farmers that didn’t care about the location and sold it to us at the normal rate.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if it’s even possible to get insurance in one neighborhood we looked at. It was within the boundaries of the Angeles National Forest, and I know it was under mandatory evacuation during the station fire a few years back.</p>
<p>Off to my first Parent Weekend. But I loaded some pictures with the granite installed in the kitchen. It’s Kashmir White which has cream, greys, blacks, hints of steel blue and quartz crystals for a little bling</p>
<p>I am so overwhelmed right now I cannot even think straight. I am supposed to be on a plane for a long trip early Friday morning. Today I went into the City to discuss my plumbing permit and they have some crazy requirement that the convoluted spaghetti piping to the tankless water heater has to be covered in foam insulation. Fine, I can do that. But no, it then has to have some type of covering over that to protect from sunlight and rain. I ask… what? Well, they don’t have an answer - maybe put some black PVC over it?? Considering I don’t have even 6 inches of straight pipe I cannot imagine how we are going to ‘cover’ spaghetti.</p>
<p>Then, to top it off they decided that, despite being told 3 months ago that property was not in historic district that Oh Yes, in historic district. This means that I cannot build any type of front porch, even a porch that would not normally require a permit. I have to draw plans, pay $200 and have it ‘reviewed’ by the historical committee. Which, by the way, does not meet until mid November. This means that I have 2 days to try to draw plans for porch and get them submitted before I leave. That is the only way that I am ever going to get this thing to sale by Christmas. Can’t even start building the front porch until we get reviewed.</p>
<p>CB
You’d better talk to some one in the historical committee before even attempt to draw the plan, if you have not dealt with them. In commercial world, historical committee is kiss of death. They have the weirdest ideas about preservation. We had several dealings with different committees and god help me, give me strength, don’t let me even start.</p>
<p>A wrong move could set you back 6 mo. So, please talk before dive.</p>
<p>Regarding water heaters, why do you think after I bought the tankless and later decided to use conventional? I had to sell the tankless at a loss.</p>
<p>If your guy is not well versed in tankless (like install tankless for a living) you’d better think twice to have him install one. My plumber was in the later category.</p>
<p>Regarding covering, they are looking for some thing with a ROOF…</p>
<p>The fancy plumber I hired did have experience with the tankless, thank God. But, the ‘cover’ issue is actually on the Title IV stuff and basically says “hot and cold water pipes must be insulated for first 5 feet” and then goes on about how if the insulation is outside it has to be ‘covered’ for protection from sun so it doesn’t disintegrate I guess. Well, I can insulate with those foam pipe things, but I have no idea how to ‘cover’ the insulation. When I asked the inspector working the desk he had no idea how to cover it either, since it is not straight runs of pipe. So, I have to invent something and hope they pass it.</p>
<p>Basically, I cannot handle the stress at this time and may just have the inspection and live with the consequences after I get back from this long trip. </p>
<p>Bottom line, this will be the longest time I have ever had to hold a house before sale. If I get stuck in this historical review, we’re talking December before I can finish the front porch. That makes it 2 months over schedule, which is unacceptable in my business. My fault for believing the first person I talked to at the City. I should have had plans for the porch (which I don’t have of course, no plans on paper) into the City months ago.</p>
<p>Do a google search on a product called “Imcolock”. Self sealing, flexible, polyolefin thermal insulation for cold and hot water plumbing. It is UV resistant. They suggest that it can be painted or coated for greater uv protection.</p>