Keep Your Lights On

By HWC Editor

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August 27

New Services, Changes & Updates This Month

Over the past month several new changes and updates have been made to Homes With Character's website and products. Below is a list of many of the different updates, changes and new services that have been added in the past month. To see more of these updates and changes visit here.

New Services

We now offer a new service called Customer Reviews for our customers to leave reviews of the products they buy. Any product or service is eligible for customer review through this new service. Another new service that was just added this month is the Homes With Character Advertisements Newsletter. This newsletter is a great new way to keep up to date on changes to the site and new products or offers. To sign up for this service visit our site here. Another new way to keep up with some of the changes going on at Homes With Character is WebSlices, a new service offered for Internet Explorer 8. Once Internet Explorer 8 becomes widely available this service will allow you to subscribe to certain sections on our website to get up to the second details on updates or changes right in your browser. This service is similar to RSS feeds which many of you might be familiar with, but is far more simple, quick and easy to view. A new monthly ad is also available again in the ads and brochures section of our site.

New Changes

Kid's Center, formerly known as More Power is now the place to go to get your kids interested in home improvement or just for adults to have some fun with home improvement. There are games, jokes, projects and more in the Kid's Center for adults and kid's alike to enjoy. And if you need any more invitation just ask the crazy contractor. To check out the new changes go here.

Updates

Two new updates have been made to make our plans even better. The first is an update to the Custom Plans section. Now custom sizing and minor alterations are included for furniture plans allowing you, the customer, to customize each plan to fit your individual needs for a small price. Also added are mirror (reverse) plans to flip a house plan over and custom room alterations allowing size changes and other small alterations to be made for a nominal price on all green home plans. To see a more detailed review of these new changes to Custom Plans visit our site here. The second update is a new reformed single user license. The new license has to be downloaded at the end of the checkout process, filled out and emailed back to Homes With Character. The license is in PDF format and may not be altered. A copy of the signed license and a blank license will be shipped with the plans cd. Without signing the license and returning it your plan order will be canceled and refunded to you. Any products other than plans purchased with the same order will be shipped regardless of the license signing. Each person using the plans as specified in the license must also sign and return a copy of the signed license to Homes With Character. A generic version of the new license (not to be used as an official Homes With Character Single User License Agreement) is available for viewing here.

4:50 PM GMT | Read comments(0)

July 10

New eBooks For Sale

The Comfort Food Cookbook eBook and Unique Comfort Food Cookbook eBook are now for sale in the DIY Store at Homes With Character.net. Each book includes easy step by step recipes for 25 different meals. Check them out today for only $0.99 each.

1:28 PM GMT | Read comments(0)

Site Upgrades

Recently several upgrades were made to the site including customer reviews and ratings. You can check them out here.

1:22 PM GMT | Read comments(0)

June 10

Green Home 2008 Update

All voting in the HWC Green Home 2008 feature polls has ended. Thanks to everyone who voted. You have helped us choose many of the features in this years HWC Green Home. The final features were decided this past weekend. Thanks to a 4 way tie on the HWC Green Home Luxury Feature poll the final luxury feature choice will be a surprise shown in the final project. For more information on what features were chosen or just more information on the HWC Green Home 2008 visit our website.

6:19 AM GMT | Read comments(0)

June 04

New Site Features Added!

You can now shop our Furniture Plan gallery by price anytime you want. We offer furniture plans ranging from $1.95 - $12.95 for sale. Also added is a a new Product Comparison button and page which you can now use to compare our plans to our top competetors. Also new is our Gift Center to help you find just that right gift.

Many new plans have been added, check them out on our site.

If you haven't had your say already visit Green Home 2008 Voting today to choose the final two features for the Green Home 2008.

3:20 PM GMT | Read comments(0)

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The first step to deciding on what generator to buy is determining what items in your home you want to have power when your electricity goes out. After deciding what you want to run the next step is to determine the running watts and starting watts for each item in your list. Running watts are the amount of watts the item is rated to use. Starting watts or surge watts is the amount of watts the item uses immediately when it is turned on. Use the sample Wattage Calculator below to determine your generator needs. For an example of the wattage needs of essential items in your home consult the example below. This example should not be followed strictly in each case as your items wattage needs may vary from those in the example.

EXAMPLE:

ESSENTIAL ITEMS RUNNING WATTS STARTING WATTS

Light Bulb - 60 Watt              60                          0
Refrigerator / Freezer            700                     2200
Sump Pump 1/3 HP             800                    1300
Electric Water Heater         4000                         0
Central AC - 24,000 BTU      3800                    4950
Electric Stove - 8" Element   2100                         0
Dishwasher - Hot Dry           1500                    1500
Washing Machine                1150                    2250
Clothes Dryer - Electric        5400                    1350

WATTAGE CALCULATOR:

APPLIANCE RUN WATTS      ADDITIONAL START WATTS

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TOTAL RUNNING WATTS =
HIGHEST ADDITIONAL STARTING WATTS =
TOTAL RUNNING WATTS =
TOTAL STARTING WATTS =

Add the running watts of the items you wish to power at one time. Enter this number in TOTAL RUNNING WATTS. Select the one individual item with the highest number of additional starting watts. Take this number, add it to your TOTAL RUNNING WATTS, and enter that total in TOTAL STARTING WATTS.

Once you have finished determining your wattage needs, use the TOTAL RUNNING WATTS and TOTAL STARTING WATTS to decide which generator to buy. Look for a generator with at least 25% more TOTAL RUNNING WATTS and TOTAL STARTING WATTS so that the generator will not need to run at full power all the time. This way your generator will run more efficiently and you will have room for some changes in your power needs in an emergency.

Consult your appliances, items or their manuals for help in determining the running watts and starting watts for each individual item on your list. If you are unsure how to do this or need help consult a local professional that specializes in installing generators.

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