How do you "harden" your rentals?
Dear Pocketers,
How do you harden / bullet-proof your rentals?
While I've never had anyone utterly trash a rental of mine, I've seen the damage they can do first hand (typically when buying the rental and seeing what the previous occupants did to it). Here are a few of the things I do:
One of my favorites, and easiest to do, is that I "frame" all wire racks, their support rods, towel holders, toilet paper holders, etc. using backer wood that is mounted to studs. If it's very visible, we'll route the edges and paint it like trim. If it's in a closet, it just gets wall color. This way, if the kids hang off the coat racks or someone abuses the towel holders, they may yank the hardware down, but it doesn't leave holes in the wall. It's also much harder to destroy them in the first place. Note the towel holder mounting:
When first buying a property, if it's easily accessible, I'll replace copper with Pex (plastic) plumbing from the get go, even if the copper is OK. I don't have to worry about it freezing and it's not a crime target.
We cage all of our A/C units now using custom fabricated 2 inch square tube, typically mounting them into the wall so the bolts have to be released from inside. I also lock exterior A/C circuit boxes and label the units, cage and circuit box with A/C specific alarm stickers that I had made up.
I will frequently install an inexpensive alarm system (not monitored) which gives me peace of mind between tenants and acts as a selling point when showing the units.
I've doubled up on door stops (to prevent doorknobs from going into walls). While I use the standard springy ones that mount into baseboard still, they tend to be targets for kids and end up missing, so I back these up with the plastic circles that affix to the wall where the handle would hit. (These are also great for just covering a previously made hole where the door knob hit the wall) They're expensive though, so I've started buying large, bulk packages of plastic, foam-backed pads that you set furniture on, and simply using double sided tape behind these. These cost maybe 30 cents apiece where the purpose built ones cost $3 apiece.
If I have to renovate a bathroom, I no longer use the plastic/fiberglass shower inserts. I've seen people put holes into both the tubs and crack the walls of these. For just a couple hundred more I'll have an iron tub installed and we'll tile the shower. It's a lot more attractive and seems to be a lot more durable in the long run.
What tricks have you learned to "harden" your own rentals?
Best,
- Chuck
Also on some occasions people leave the casements open and leave the home. Then the day becomes windy the casement sash will rip off the house like a storm door. This is a costly repair that can take weeks to get a new sash or window. I would avoid casements in lower end housing if possible. And if your not paying the ac/heat cost there is no gain to you for the added efficiency of the casements.
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#2 Multi-Family and Apartment Investing Contributor
- Rental Property Investor
- St. Paul, MN
We do most of the bullet proofing as well. Tile, wood floors, backer for towel rods, etc (if we are doing a full remodel it goes behind the drywall), medium gray paint, keep trim stained if it is, stained cabinets, solid core door when a hollow core needs replacing. Long lasting items are always much better than cheap, unless you like paying for maintenance.
Originally posted by @Jeff Weaver:... And if your not paying the ac/heat cost there is no gain to you for the added efficiency of the casements.
That's the same argument landlords use here to support the conversion of units in old Victorian buildings to per-unit heat (typically electric baseboard) while not bothering to tighten and insulate the building envelope.
While there may be no {short-term} motivation to the landlord to strive for more efficiency, our experience is showing mid to long term gains in lower turnover, higher demand (mostly via word of mouth) and, more recently, the ability to command better rents.
... however, we'll save that debate for one of the sustainability and efficiency threads :-)
Originally posted by @Roy N.:
The trap on the floor drain is {theoretically} water filled ... the condensate/drainage line from the HRV sees to that.
Ah, I see. That's not a system I'm familiar with, but you get a trickle like the trap primer valve I mentioned that keeps it full.
Originally posted by @Jeff Weaver:Before I had a PM I never supplied stove and fridge. Never had an issue it was great. Now my PM required that I supply. ( it's BS they make money off it)
Thats a regional thing. Here in the NE you rarely find "BYO" in apartments, occasionally in SFH.
@Roy N. Yes we have lots of older properties here that owners convert to Electric Baseboard because of the cheap price of installation, both on SFH and MFH. However the recurring cost for the tenants in uninsulated or under insulated houses is tremendous and many tenants stay one winter then move on to cheaper accommodations. Tenants who are knowledgable or have had bad experiences with electric baseboard heat know to ask up front what is the heat source. On both selling and renting the client will ask does this have electric or oil heat. If you answer yes, they say no thanks and hang up. Gas heat is our first choice, and if gas is not available our second choice is heat pump, if gas is not available.
We just converted a house with oil hot air heat and an oil hot water heater (double whammy) to gas hot air and gas hot water heater as well as new central air. The gas company dug up the street and ran a gas line into the house for free.
At a Victorian house we recently added heat pump with central air replacing a hot water heat system, gas was not available. At an apartment building we replaced central oil hot water heat (no central air) with individual heat pumps with central air, and insulated the attics to R-50, above the standard for new construction here of R-38.
We've had many long term tenants, several more than 30 years. Having efficient heat source is one of the factors in tenant longevity. At one property the tenants was playing the Powerball lottery, and I asked what are you going to do if you win. He replied that he was going to buy the apartment building. Another 30 tenant told me that the only way they're leaving is horizontal. Both of them have gas heat and pay there own heat bills........
Very helpful post. I'm just starting out in the rental business and am trying to learn as much as possible "proactively?"
Thank you!
Ryan
I would reframe your response to say "tenants who have bad experience with electric baseboard heat [in an poorly air sealed, under/uninsulated building] will say no thanks". The problem is not the electric resistance heating, it's the failure to improve the building envelope.
Efficient and affordable are not synonymous. Electric baseboards are more "efficient" in converting fuel into heat than gas or oil. However, like any convection or radiant heading system, they are slow recovery which makes them a poor choice for a draughty, un-insulated building.
Here gas, oil and electric are all comparably priced (expensive), which helps to emphasize (IMHO) that the biggest payback comes from air sealing and insulating regardless of how (in)efficient the heating source. A high efficiency gas furnace or heat-pump in an uninsulated Victorian building (<25% efficient) is going to cost you more to operated than electric resistance heating in a well insulated and properly air-sealed building.
If a landlord is not going to improve the building envelope, then they want to go with the cheapest (not necessarily most efficient) to operate heating system ... if you are going to readily loose 50%+ of your heat, you may as well make it as cheaply as you can.
Here natural gas is plentiful and the cheapest fuel of electric, oil and gas. Just in Pennsylvania there is a 100 year supply of natural gas and there are plentiful reserves in many other states. Buses and trucks and vehicles for UPS are being operated on natural gas, cheaper, more efficient and domestically plentiful. Also coal fired electric generation plants are being converted from coal to natural gas.
Here the cost of natural gas is about 40% of the cost of oil and electric. Gas furnaces and boilers are cheaper to purchase, less complicated, more efficient, cleaner to operate and cost less to operate versus oil.
Tenants and buyers, the market place speaks, they don't like oil and electric because of the cost to operate. At one place we converted from oil to gas and the heating bill went from $4,500 a year to $1,700 a year. At another place the oil heat bill was $6,500 a year and we reduced it by gas conversion to $2,000 a year.
In multi-units we have converted from central heat to individual heat; reports I've seen show a 20% drop in usage when tenants pay their own heat bills. And with the drop in costs the payback periods are short.
I hear what you are saying about your costs of natural gas. Am I to understand that folks find the energy costs low enough that they are not motivated to invest in substantially improving the building envelope?
Around here, many landlords see the payback on offloading utility costs to the tenant as quick - but few look beyond the surface. If the building envelope is not improved a significant portion of the payback will be lost through increased turnover as the tenants find out they cannot afford to heat the unit.
I can't speak for everyone, but we do the R-50 attic insulation, better than required of brand new homes R-38, we look to tighten up the house and have replaced many windows. One property required 38 new windows, but it was worth it.
We're in it for the long haul, if 30 year tenants didn't give that away.
Sometimes insulating ancient brick buildings is very impractical. My walls are horsehair plaster on wood lath on 3/4 firring strips on brick. Without gutting the place and adding studs to create insulating space, there's nothing to insulate. I have newish windows and insulate the attic, but there little else practical to do. I also have a frame building that when I gut walls I do insulate, but so far it's a fraction of the building. And that one I pay the heat. I guess I could do the blow in insulation, but that would make future electrical upgrades more difficult since then cable can't be simply fished through the walls.
On the other hand rowhouses have their own efficiency. I've been showing a 4th floor unit this week and when they ask about the heat bill, I tell them if they like it in the mid 60s they can keep the heat off and benefit from it rising from downstairs. When I lived in a Lower Manhattan loft the tenants on the top floor actually didn't have heat at all, and they'd been there forever raising a family too!
Originally posted by @Johann Jells:Sometimes insulating ancient brick buildings is very impractical. My walls are horsehair plaster on wood lath on 3/4 firring strips on brick. Without gutting the place and adding studs to create insulating space, there's nothing to insulate. I have newish windows and insulate the attic, but there little else practical to do. I also have a frame building that when I gut walls I do insulate, but so far it's a fraction of the building. And that one I pay the heat. I guess I could do the blow in insulation, but that would make future electrical upgrades more difficult since then cable can't be simply fished through the walls.
On the other hand rowhouses have their own efficiency. I've been showing a 4th floor unit this week and when they ask about the heat bill, I tell them if they like it in the mid 60s they can keep the heat off and benefit from it rising from downstairs. When I lived in a Lower Manhattan loft the tenants on the top floor actually didn't have heat at all, and they'd been there forever raising a family too!
Johann:
We deal with lots of old building stock here as well, so am very familiar with lath-n-plaster :-)
I agree that insulating old brick buildings is sometimes impractical, or even destructive, but it has more to do with the brick itself than how the internal walls are hung from the inner wythe. Lots of old brick here in the North East was moulded and baked in ground kilns and, in comparison to modern brick which is compressed and fired in hotter kilns, it is far more porous. As a consequence, this brick absorbs more moisture and relies on the escaping heat to dry it out. If you were to heavily insulate the inside wall of an old double/triple wythe brick building the external wythe may no longer dry out thoroughly and be subject to excessive freeze - thaw damage.
The best way to insulate old brick buildings is from the outside - which has the added advantage of turning all that brick into a thermal mass in the conditioned space ... alas, most owners of old brick buildings are unwilling or unable (due to historic designations) to insulate over the external brick.
There are some informative studies and papers by John Lstiburek and the folks at Building Sciences Corporation about dealing with old brick buildings.
Great post,
Most has already been mentioned: no carpet I use a Lum-Liq laminate that looks like weathered wood...looks great, does not show dirt, so far everyone likes it. Electric stove only, no ice, do have some garbage disposers wish I did not. Ceilings are flat ceiling pain but every where else it is Semi-gloss paint walls darker than trim
@Roy N. that's actually interesting about the external insulation, Never thought about it. But you'd not want to do it on the façade. One building is only about 2/3 attached on one side and open on the other, and that would work. The other is totally attached on one side, but the other is on an already narrow walkway to the backyard, and i wouldn't want to narrow it further.
Something a lot of people don't credit to city living is the efficiency of attached rowhouses. Even with no insulation, if you're in the middle of the block you only have the front and rear facades exposed.
And re old brick and mortar, ughh. I need to pull the trigger this fall on an expensive rebuilding of the parapets on one place, they're falling in. One roofer was ready to just just wrap them in PVC but another pointed out how bad they were and I believed him. But he only uses MB. It's crazy, you need to know everything about roofing just to hire one!!
We just bought a house in April that someone else "hardened" ( I call it tenant proofing). They put up 3/8 plywood on all of the walls covered in drop down texture. I hung a fan so I know for certain one of the bedrooms is 3/8 plywood ceiling as well.
Plywood eliminates the need for the framing behind towel racks and such. Extremely hard to damage it. Costly up front, but only a few dollars more than Sheetrock per sheet.
I'm not sure I would pay to do this in a house, but there is no visual difference and it's tough as nails.
Originally posted by @Dustin Lavender:
We just bought a house in April that someone else "hardened" ( I call it tenant proofing). They put up 3/8 plywood on all of the walls covered in drop down texture. I hung a fan so I know for certain one of the bedrooms is 3/8 plywood ceiling as well.
Plywood eliminates the need for the framing behind towel racks and such. Extremely hard to damage it. Costly up front, but only a few dollars more than Sheetrock per sheet.
I'm not sure I would pay to do this in a house, but there is no visual difference and it's tough as nails.
What about fire code? If it's not all fire treated grade ply you have a liability there.
Originally posted by @Dustin Lavender:
We just bought a house in April that someone else "hardened" ( I call it tenant proofing). They put up 3/8 plywood on all of the walls covered in drop down texture. I hung a fan so I know for certain one of the bedrooms is 3/8 plywood ceiling as well.
Plywood eliminates the need for the framing behind towel racks and such. Extremely hard to damage it. Costly up front, but only a few dollars more than Sheetrock per sheet.
I'm not sure I would pay to do this in a house, but there is no visual difference and it's tough as nails.
I've seen plywood covered with drywall, but without a thermal barrier, 3/8 plywood alone would have to have a intumescent coating to possibly meet fire code.
We've used both standard 5/8 and abuse resistant drywall in high traffic areas to cut-down on accidental damage.
If you look at buildings built with Nordic framing the inner walls are commonly sheeted with a dense particle board before being covered with drywall to allow the occupants to be able to hang items and to protect the chase separating the interior from the vapour barrier and main structural wall.
We bought and were renovating a townhouse, with units on both sides over the winter. Even with no furnace the interior temps were around 50 through out the winter, with only 2 exterior walls and those walls being short walls, percentage of exterior walls is pretty low.
At another place that was a first floor condo, it only had only 1 exterior wall and no roof as there was another unit above it. Again low heat bills there as well.
We've insulated exterior walls by blowing insulation the stud space by drilling holes in the outside sheathing of the house. This works well particularly when we're also re-siding the house and the holes are covered up. We've blown in both cellulose and fiberglass. Our procedure is that after the blown in insulation, we sheath the exterior with 1 inch rigid insulation board about R-8, then wrap the house in Tyvek, before applying the new siding. Where we can't insulate the exterior walls be still fall back on insulating the attics to R-50.
Originally posted by @Johann Jells:
Originally posted by @Dustin Lavender:We just bought a house in April that someone else "hardened" ( I call it tenant proofing). They put up 3/8 plywood on all of the walls covered in drop down texture. I hung a fan so I know for certain one of the bedrooms is 3/8 plywood ceiling as well.
Plywood eliminates the need for the framing behind towel racks and such. Extremely hard to damage it. Costly up front, but only a few dollars more than Sheetrock per sheet.
I'm not sure I would pay to do this in a house, but there is no visual difference and it's tough as nails.
What about fire code? If it's not all fire treated grade ply you have a liability there.
I don't think there is a liability issue for me for several reasons. First of all that's like saying if you know a house was built in 1970, you have a liability because the wiring and plumbing don't meet current code. Sure it's a maintenance issue, but not a liability. Arkansas is an as is state. I could literally rent a house to a tenant with a man sized hole in the roof and never fix a maintenance issue and still be in the right.
Also, I believe I can have plywood up in the same manner that people who do full gut renos leave shiplap exposed, make knotty pine walls, or make feature walls out of scrap wood.
If I installed it, I would probably put it over existing sheet rock or whatever else was there, the house in question may be done this way, idk though because I didn't install it.
**disclaimer: I am a commercial energy auditor and work in the residential sector as well**
One thing that all landlords and property owners should do is call their local utilities and see what energy efficiency programs are offered by their utilities. Here and other states that my company operates there are significant rebates on things like new furnaces, ac, refrigerators, water heaters, and even ranges. The electric company here will even pay to have up to 14 inches of insulation blown into an attic at no cost if the house needs it.
I guess it's a good question about where liability begins and ends. Often what's ok in your own home, like pulling permits to run wiring, is not ok in a rental. Here too, old electric and many other things are grandfathered, but I must install 5/8 drywall on ceilings and exterior wall when gutting, and while I've not had occasion to do it, double that on stairwells. I have no idea where wood paneling fits into modern firecode.
Originally posted by @Johann Jells:
...
I have no idea where wood paneling fits into modern firecode.
Wood panelling is something best left in the 70s. Here it is usually prohibited in rental properties - fire marshall will insist it be removed.
Great thread. My first SFR will be closing soon and this gave me a lot of great ideas to get it ready for my first tenants. Keep them coming.