Memory Foam Mattresses are Garbage

Less than two years ago, I bought a memory foam mattress off of ebay.com. I know, I know, big mistake! It was an 8" QUEEN MATTRESS W/ 3" MEMORY FOAM 5.3lb density. Memory foam is pretty much an oxymoron. There's basically no such thing as foam that retains the memory of its shape or whatever their claim was - "keeping you in a natural, ergonomical position" - bullshite - memory foam does not provide adequate support for your back.

Almost two years later, my wife's back and mine are not in good shape. I'm taking delivery of a real mattress in a couple days. We can't wait to get rid of the sleep on cloud garbage. Hopefully, with time, our backs will get better. The seller's id was sleeponcloud. Now sleeponcloud is no longer on ebay.com as a seller. Fancy that!

Seller information at the time was:

Seller Information
Katherine Vu
Westminster, CA 92683 United States

I've sent an email to sleeponcloudmattress@yahoo.com. And I traced the 800 number - 800-709-9525 - to this website - http://www.memoryfoam4u.com/returnpolicy

I'll be interested to see if they respond. Do yourself a favor - don't waste your time with memory foam.

Los Angeles Eco-Home Impressive

I watched a bit of Eco-Home on public television. Eco-Home is a house in Los Angeles, Ca that takes advantage of green practices in order to have little or no impact on the environment. Among the green practices employed are using native and other drought resistant plants in place of a lawn (a Xeriscape); collecting and re-using grey water to irrigate fruit trees in the back yard; employing solar panels to generate electricity; heating water with a solar water heater; using a sunpipe to light the kitchen during the day; using low flush toilets to conserve water; composting kitchen scraps and other materials to enrich the soil; as well as many other environmentally sound practices.

The other advantage to going green is that some of these green items/practices are very affordable and end up saving you money in the long run. I really liked the sunpipe which is an item you install on your roof and pipe down to the room you want to illuminate. The sunpipe collects sunlight and reflects down to the room you want to light. I've seen something like this at home and garden shows. Here's a nice little factoid on sunpipes - If your SunPipe allows you to turn off just 300 watts of light bulbs for 5hrs/day, 5 days/wk, you'll keep 650 Lbs of CO2 out of our air every year. I wish I had integrated one into my garage/home office. Looks like they start around $400 or so. They would probably take several years to pay for the initial cost in electricity savings.

I've also been slowly eliminating my lawn from year to year. I'll keep thinking of ways to do so. A landscaper strongly recommended Pachysandra terminalis. I may give that a try.

Questions and Answers

This week's batch of questions on home improvement.

My new vinyl replacement windows are drafty. Why would that be the case?

There could be a number of reasons for that. My first guess is that they were poorly installed. When windows are installed there are still a lot of gaps and seams that must be filled with caulk. Caulking needs to be done on the interior and exterior of the window. Also, part of the installation process involves adding insulation around the window. I have a picture of an installed window but with no finish work done yet. You can see all the gaps that need filled in.

My second guess is that the window was poorly manufactured. Hopefully, you bought a well made window and the installation job was poor. I would contact the seller and have them do the job right.

Will my house lose value if i convert my garage to a kitchen?

That depends on a number of factors.

1 - how big is the garage - one or two car?
2 - how big is your current kitchen - I assume that it is tiny.
3 - how big is your house?
4 - what's the climate like in your area?
5 - do all your neighbors have garages?
6 - would you still have off-street parking?
7 - do you have a utility shed to store all your garage items?

Assuming you have a one car garage, a small kitchen, a small house, and would still have off street parking, then I would answer that you would gain value by expanding your kitchen and losing the garage. I assume that you would also gain a dining area as well.

Can you paint basement walls in the wintertime?

Sure, I did. I would recommend placing a few portable heaters down there and heating the place up to at least 60 degrees or perhaps 70. Your paint can will have instructions telling you the minimum temperature for application.

What is the cost for having basement ceiling insulated and finished?

You can estimate this yourself if you can determine the cost in materials. Figure out the square footage of the ceiling to be replaced. Determine how much drywall, insulation, paint, and other miscellaneous materials you will need and their cost. Take that figure and multiply by 4 and that should give you a good idea of the cost involved.