Maine Home Construction Contract Act

I also suggest leaving open cabinets that house any plumbing. There can be cold spots on exterior walls where the insulation isn’t up to par.

I wonder if you’re getting such different treatment than every other poster in this thread because they know your car has cameras mounted 360 degrees around the car. Kinda hard to fuck something up on it and claim it was like that if you’re just gonna pull up the camera footage anyways?

Nothing will change as long as builders are not allowed to build a 3 family on a 5000 sf lot.

There are lots of towns in Maine where you could do that if only zoning allowed it. Wherever there are stores, that’s where you could have such zoning. That would instantly increase the value of a single family sitting on a 20000 sf lot in the town center. There’s no need for a house in the town center to be sitting on such a large lot. Change the zoning, raise assessed values to reflect highest and best use, and such owners will voluntarily subdivide their lots and sell them just to lower their taxes. Builders will buy up those lots, build multi families on them and new buyers will have rental income to support their mortgages. Multi families on small lots won’t appeal to buyers of short term rental vacation type properties.

If you have an outside water faucet, cut the water off from the inside, then run it until it's empty so it does not freeze on you

Yeah, I can’t tell if I should feel sad for these guys or not that oil is so outrageous they’d prefer/have to freeze than turn the heat up. I know some prefer it cold, but I don’t believe everyone in this thread would prefer to look like the Michelin man in their own house every winter.

Pretty uninformed take from one of the committee members to assert that more supply will not help with a housing shortage due to Biddeford’s geography. Housing supply/inventory has been shown to be one of the few, if not only, consistent factors across the country, at the city and county level, impacting unit availability.

I'm gonna get so much weed...

Just avoid the subscription services (imo they’re a money grab.) You want services straight from a clinician, not Talkspace or Cerebral, or whatever they push on your algorithms.

I’m in the midcoast area but found providers through psychology today. I tried three before finding my person. My therapist was originally booked up, put out feelers on my behalf, and I asked to be put on their waitlist. Six months later they had an opening, I had been receiving care through one of their referrals and it wasn’t perfect so I made the choice to move. Best choice ever. I can’t echo the other commenter’s post enough - it’s all about finding the right person.

Even when it comes to getting help, people need to be right.

Awesome advise, thank you!

Best combo, hearing people freezing in their own homes and spending thousands for oil makes me feel so fortunate to have the wood stove and heat pump. I still have the hot air oil burner for backup and have only burned through an 1/8th of a tank so far this winter

The ground serves as insulation for your well. However, if you have plumbing on outside walls and lack proper insulation, it’s a good idea to leave your faucets dripping… not running… very slow. Also, even if you aren’t planning to go anywhere, start your vehicle and let it run for 15 minutes or so every day we have this minus whatever temperature. Definitely warm it up before you plan to leave (10 minutes or so is fine). If you have pets, be sure to keep an eye on them outside. Make them do their business and come back quickly. P.s. Always have a good pair of boots, a hat, gloves/mittens in your vehicle, even if you’re not wearing them. 👍 You’ve got this!

This is the way, except I exercise the oil burner when it gets this nippy and sleep till the am because Im lazy

I have a heat pump that is set to 68°. I also have an oil-fueled boiler is set to 55°.

When the outside temps drop too much below 20°, the heat pump seems to struggle to keep up, so that's when I shut it off and turn the boiler up to 65°.

Even as high as electricity is right now, the heat pump seems to be saving vs. oil. I'm expecting that I'll have to burn more oil for heat this week, though.

It’s almost like there should be price gouging laws for rental units like we prevent Tom the tree removal expert from doing to grandma down in Florida after a hurricane.

Makes sense. I didn't get the whole "hide in plain sight" thing. My bad.

I am an introvert and I lived off campus because I couldn't even slightly deal.

It depends of course on your stove and your house. I don't know the state of your pipe and chimney. But, yes, most people do load their stoves one last time at night before bed, and once those logs are going good, damp it down just enough, without causing the logs to smoke, to keep the stove going as long as possible. Shut the doors, obviously. It's a nice thing to still have enough live coals in the morning so you can just open the damper and throw in some more logs to start the day. But, if you know you are a worry wart, I'd say do whatever you need to do, including letting it burn out, so you can sleep well. That's the most important thing and you are the boss of your house.

I just found a therapist I'm Scarborough. I messaged them last week and have my first in person appointment this week. You can message me if you want

Oh, I know you do ! We grab a paper every couple of days each week. Fun Fact : You actually interviewed me once with a photographer outside the Cross Center after I got a Covid shot...thankfully, my mug never showed up in the paper !!!

Welcome! We re so glad you are here. Check on the seniors in your neighborhood. Invite them over for a coffee/tea and ask their advice. You'll love the stories about their coldest winters and their childhood. A Lot of the old school advice is practical and reasonable.

No, I didn't. I went to a small college for undergrad and later lived right next to a bigger university campus for a few years post grad. As someone with introverted tendencies and some social anxiety, I much preferred the larger community where I could anonymously slip through the crowd if I wanted but also find people I really liked to spend time with, rather than feeling forced into social groups and cliques like I found at my small college.

So hydronic heat. I vastly prefer hydronic over forced hot air, with the exception that you don't have built in air conditioning.

It’s seriously way harder than it should be. My husband just went through this. I had to take a day off work to help call through the list because it was so exhausting. We got to our 10th voicemail and someone gave us a call back.

I hope you have the same luck or better!

I'll take it.