Canadian Capitalist » Consumer

Installing a new hot water heater

Canadian Capitalist — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 02:15:01 +0000

It is quite common for homeowners to rent their hot water heaters here in Ontario. The rentals cost anywhere between $15 for an old tank to $20 or more for a new one. Years ago, we stopped renting our old water heater and I’ve been meaning to replace it for a while now. But, what with one thing or another, I never got around to it even though Michael James warned everyone on the mess that a leaking water heater makes in your basement.

Well, last weekend, I finally paid the price for keeping an old, rusted, water heater around a little too long. The bottom of the old water tank had rusted through and leaked water into the furnace room and to my basement office. After shutting down the valve, draining the heater and cleaning up the mess, I went shopping for a replacement. Home Depot carries water heaters and offers installation services (for some reason, Rona doesn’t) and for a fee, is willing to do a rush job. Here’s what installing a new tank will cost you:

GE 50 gallon gas water heater: $683.00 (60 gallon tank: $712.00)

Water heater measure: $40.00
Installation: $300.00
Weekend, evening & holiday fee: $165.00
Haul away & dispose: $40.00
Total Install Charges: $545.00

Grand total (including GST): $1,289.40

We’ve stopped renting for more than 4 years now and the old rental was costing us $13.99 every month. Installing a new heater and then renting it costs about $20 per month in addition to certain one-time installation fees that are charged upfront. Netting out the savings of about $750 over four years from buying out the old water heater, the new tank cost us $540. If renting the same heater costs us $20 per month, the new tank will break even in just over two years. Plus we will be on hook for any maintenance or service calls.

It seems to me that owning a water heater is much cheaper over the long run than renting it as long as you are willing to absorb the expense of an unexpected maintenance call. Perhaps, that’s why homeowners in most provinces do not bother with renting and it is time Ontarians wise up to how much renting our water heaters is costing us.

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Speak Out Wireless: Another Virgin Mobile Alternative

Canadian Capitalist — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:56:27 +0000

Yesterday’s post on Virgin Mobile’s recent service changes elicited a useful tip from Shane and Million Dollar Journey: Check out Speak Out Wireless, which is offered through 7-Eleven convenience stores, along with Petro-Canada Mobility as an alternative to Virgin Mobile. Speak Out is roughly the same as Petro-Canada Mobility — both piggy-back on the Rogers wireless network and even offer some of the same phone models but any top up at Speak Out lasts a mind-boggling 365 days, compared to 180 days at Petro-Canada.

It turns out that Speak Out is currently running a “Back to School” promotion — $75 off any phone with the purchase of $100 of air time. As readers GSP and Novice points out, depending on your usage, it probably does not make sense to pony up for another new phone as a $100 top up with Virgin Mobile still lasts one year. So, for now, I’ve decided to keep the nicer and newer phone with Virgin Mobile but upgrade the older cell phone that seems to be on its last legs and decided on Speak Out for its long expiry period.

There are two minor drawbacks with Speak Out to be aware of: (1) Top ups can only be purchased at 7-Eleven stores and there aren’t many in the Ottawa area. (2) Compared to a flat 20¢ per minute with Petro-Canada, Speak Out’s rates range from 20¢ to 25¢. Depending on your usage, there may not be much difference between Petro-Canada and Speak Out and either could be a very good choice. Lots of information and feedback can be found in the forums on the Unofficial Speak Out Wireless webpage.

If you tend to call long distance via your cell phone, here’s a tip from reader Brad: get a travel card from Yak, which charges 8.5¢ for long distance within Canada via a toll-free number and 3.5¢ for calls through a local access number. Yak also offers a yakCell service, which allows you to call long-distance through a local access number without having to enter a PIN number.

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Virgin Mobile disappoints yet again

Canadian Capitalist — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 02:05:29 +0000

As occasional users of cell phones, we subscribe to Virgin Mobile’s pay-as-you-go service. When I signed up initially, a $25 top-up lasted 120 days (i.e. the amount of time you have to top up to prevent your unused credit from expiring) but about two years back, Virgin Mobile reduced the expiry across the board and a $25 top-up was cut back to 90 days. Today, Virgin Mobile announced that they are yet again reducing the length of pre-paid top up expiries. The minimum top up of $15 will now last 30 days (down from 45) and a $25 top up will last 60 days (down from 90).

Fortunately, there is plenty of competition in the pre-paid cell phone service business and Petro-Canada Mobility (yes, the gas station) is now a clear winner. In contrast to Virgin Mobile, a $20 credit with Petro-Canada lasts a stunning 180 days (three times as long as the nearest competition). It so happens that both our cell phones with Virgin Mobile need a top up in the near future and I am going to vote with my wallet and move our business to Petro-Canada. The way I see it, even a high-end phone from Petro-Canada will pay for itself in less than a year as air time would cost $40 compared to $150 with Virgin Mobile’s new service changes.

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Fraud Prevention Tips

Canadian Capitalist — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 03:20:45 +0000

We recently received a call from our credit card provider asking to confirm some recent transactions. This has happened a few times already and the only reason I can think of is that we used the credit card once at Winners last Fall (As you may recall, credit and debit card information was stolen from the parent company of Winners and HomeSense in 2006). Until now, the calls have been a mere annoyance and we were actually responsible for the transactions and the credit card provider was simply twitchy about certain orders made over the Internet.

This time though, someone tried to order discount airline tickets in Europe using our credit card number and the transaction was denied. As soon as I let them know that we did not order those tickets, the provider simply cancelled our card and promised to send new cards. Fortunately, the fraud attempt was already unsuccessful and there was no further action needed on our part. To prevent fraud or worse identity theft, be sure to take at least basic precautions:

Check your credit card and bank statements every month and watch out for suspicious transactions, especially if you shopped at Winners or HomeSense during the period from mid-May to December 2006.
Shred all your receipts and bills that you are throwing away.
Order your credit reports once every year.

More fraud prevention tips, including what to do if you suspect that you are a victim of fraud can be found on the Ottawa Police website.

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Change a Light Blub

Canadian Capitalist — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 12:03:47 +0000

I replaced the two old-fashioned incandescent bulbs in our porch with the energy-saving compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs supplied by Project Porchlight last weekend. Project Porchlight is a campaign by a non-profit organization that aims to deliver one free CFL to every household in Canada. The new lamps are 13 Watts and replace bulbs that were burning 60 Watts and will save us a little bit on our Hydro bills every month. According the Project Porchlight, each CFL bulb saves an estimated $50 over its lifetime in electricity costs.

The bulbs have the added advantage of lasting much longer but the main reason I haven’t replaced the lights in our home is an old one I purchased years ago. It flickers, takes a bit of time to turn on and the light it gives out is dull, but the technology has improved tremendously over the past few years. The bulb turns on quickly and the light is bright, steady and indistinguishable from the old lamp.

If you haven’t tried a CFL lately, you might want to buy one and see if you like it. Like me, you might be pleasantly surprised. You’ll save money and help the environment at the same time.

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Avoid Wasting Groceries

Canadian Capitalist — Wed, 29 Nov 2006 04:46:56 +0000

A post on Sitting Pretty reminded me of an old post on saving on groceries by avoiding wastage. To recap, many studies have shown the American households waste an average of 14% of their food purchases, worth about $590 every year. I am guessing that Canadians waste a similar amount of food and our household was no exception.

I am happy to report that a few simple steps like making a shopping list, planning a menu, shopping for produce once every weekend and just checking the fridge before shopping has drastically cut down the amount of food we used to throw away. It is amazing how when something becomes a habit, we tend to just keep doing it without a second thought.

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Natural Gas: Fixed or Floating

Canadian Capitalist — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 02:19:09 +0000

I cannot count the number of times an energy marketer knocked on our door and suggested that we sign up for a fixed-rate natural gas contract for heating our home. One of the arguments they use in their pitch is similar to the one quoted in this CBC article: consumers “would have been better off locking in to a long-term contract for 47 to 53 of the 60 months ending in May 2006″. That sounds great until you realise that it is only one data point and it might have been an unusually favourable situation for a fixed price contract that is unlikely to occur again.

I find it interesting that marketers are trying to convince us that it is better to buy fixed-rate natural gas when the annual gasoline bill is likely to be higher than the heating bill for most consumers (it certainly is the case for us and we don’t drive all that much). Yet, we are no hurry to sign up for gasoline contracts but marketers try to scare us that natural gas is going to skyrocket.

The Gas Supply Charge portion (which can be purchased from an energy marketer) typically makes up about 60% of the gas bill. As it costs about $1,500 to heat a typical home, the annual gas supply charge works out to about $1,000. The best 5-year rate (according to Energyshop.com) available now is 35.9 ¢/m³ compared to Enbridge’s floating rate of 22.54 ¢/m³. It would be interesting to track the floating and fixed rates going forward to see which strategy comes out ahead but my guess is that the stakes are decidedly small. If you can bear the risk of your energy bill spiking by $100 or more in the peak of the heating season, I would wager that it is better to go with the floating rate.

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Lower Heating Costs

Canadian Capitalist — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 02:52:56 +0000

Enbridge (TSX: ENB) has announced that it is once again cutting the price of natural gas to 22.54 ¢/m³ starting in October. The new rate is 19% cheaper than the current rate of 27.9 ¢/m³ and well below the 29.47 ¢/m³ rate that Enbridge charged during the same time last year. Note that the new rate includes an adjustment to refund customers because the utility collected more from its customers than the actual costs incurred. Without the adjustment, the new rate would have stayed at the current rate of 34.1 ¢/m³.

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Renting a Water Heater

Canadian Capitalist — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 03:37:55 +0000

Just the other day, I was browsing the Personal Finance bookshelves at my local Chapters store and leafed through a book titled The Smart Canadian’s Guide to Building Wealth. I almost skipped over a chapter that advised against renting-to-own when I noticed a sidebar titled “A Note to Ontario Homeowners”. The note asked why the vast majority of Ontario homeowners are wasting their money renting their water heaters.

I must confess that we fall in the category of renters and it never occurred to me that we could buyout the rental. The heater in our home is over 15 years old and is likely in its last legs. I found that Direct Energy charges us $13.99 plus taxes for the rental and it would only cost us $25 for a buyout (owing to the age of the heater). I went ahead and purchased the old heater and I am hoping it would last a year or two. If it breaks I will just buy a new heater and have it installed by a professional.

New Heater: Less than $1,000 installed. Rental Heater: $13.99 (in today’s dollars) over 15 years = $2,500. Owing your own water heater: Priceless.

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Is a CAA Membership Worth Keeping?

Canadian Capitalist — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 05:09:28 +0000

I have been a member of CAA for many years and since I have recently received the annual renewal notice in the mail, I am wondering if it is worth keeping the membership. My basic membership costs $62 + GST and though I have been renewing for years without a second thought, I don’t use their services all that much. Some of the benefits that I have enjoyed so far include travellers cheques, destination maps and discounts at tourist attractions, hotels etc.

So far, I have never used their Emergency Roadside Assistance. The few times I needed a battery boost because it was very cold outside, the waiting time was in hours (lots of people needing a boost) and it was faster to ask a friend to help.

Are a few travellers’ cheques, a few maps and some discounts worth $62 per year? I think not and I am leaning towards not renewing my membership.

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