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ApnaComplex
September 12, 2010

10 Eco-Living Tips for Everyone

Today, there is growing awareness and acceptance of the fact that our lifestyle directly or indirectly affects the environment. Whether it is global warming, changing climate patterns, shortage of drinking water and energy, dwindling forest cover, the extinction of species… we know that somewhere, it is the choices we make that is responsible for these events. Unfortunately, although most of us have good intentions and would like to make a positive difference, not many are sure how we, living in cities and struggling to cope with the challenges of daily life, can do anything to help the environment.

In this article, we present 10 simple and actionable ideas that almost each one of us can carry out to make a positive difference to the environment. These changes will not require you to change your lifestyle drastically, but they will leave a powerful and lasting impact on the world around us. In addition, these changes will help reduce expenses and lead to more balanced and healthy living.

Please read this article to see if you could change the way you’re living for the benefit of our beautiful world. At the end, if you feel these changes are helpful, we request you to forward it to your friends and relatives. Let’s do the best we can for the world around us. We owe it to the Earth and our future generations!

1. Save energy:

The easiest way to make a difference is by reducing energy consumption. Nowadays, energy-efficient bulbs are easily available. They are not only inexpensive they also consume up to five times lesser energy than ordinary bulbs. All it needs is a bit more effort from our side to make the change.

Also use cooking gas prudently. Plan your cooking such that you have all the ingredients handy before you light the gas. This can considerably reduce consumption over a period of a month. Similarly, avoid drying your clothes in a washing machine as it is very energy-consuming. Dry your clothes the natural way – using the abundant sunlight that our country receives by using any empty area in one of the rooms.

2. Eco-friendly material for your home:

Use water-based, lead-free paints for your home. Ensure that the paints do not give off fumes that will affect the air quality around you. While choosing furnishing, opt for those made from cotton, jute, silk, or other natural fibers as they are bio-degradable and healthier for the entire family. They can also be recycled for future use as a kitchen mop or for carrying out simple dusting and cleaning jobs. Wherever possible opt for environment-friendly cleaning liquids and soaps. Read the labels to check whether they have any detrimental affect on the environment.

3. Reduce waste:

If you keep a small garden patch or potted plants then you should collect organic and inorganic waste separately. Leftover food, fruit and vegetable peel, used tea leaves, etc. can be collected in the organic waste bin and used as compost for your plants. The inorganic waste can be disposed as usual. This will not only reduce the amount of waste in the city but also your dependency on fertilizers for your plants. The best way to reduce waste is to avoid it at the source itself. For example, you could carry your own shopping bags instead of bringing home plastic bags each time you shop and then disposing them. Similarly, while requesting a home-delivery, you can specify that you need the minimal packaging.

4. Use public transport:

Whenever possible, avoid using the car and walk or take the public transport. Not only will it improve your health and cut down your fuel bills, it will also reduce emissions into the atmosphere. Actively look for opportunities to form a carpool with members of your society for work or for dropping children at their school.

5. De-clutter your surroundings:

Keep only those things that you’d need on a regular basis. Dispose the ones that you do not foresee using for a long time. To avoid over-storage, dispose off the older items the moment you have bought a replacement for it. This policy will also ensure that you’ll seriously consider your buying decisions. In short, think before you buy. It will not only save you money but it will also ensure that as a society we consume only that much we need.

6. Replace disposable with reusables:

Try to change the way you shop. Buy stuff that you can keep for a longer duration rather than those that you’d have to throw after use. Switch to reusable razors, batteries, ink cartridges, bags, coffee filters, etc. If you use tissue papers, switch to cloth napkins. If you have a printer at home, then make it a point to use both sides of the paper.

7. Reduce unnecessary consumption:

If you are going to need something only once, try to borrow it from a friend. Similarly, you should offer anything that your friend may need only once in a while. This will reduce unnecessary consumption on our part. Some items that you could avoid buying double can include books, movie and music cds, games, etc.

8. Switch to a vegetarian diet:

Not only is it proven that livestock contribute more greenhouse gases (18%) than transportation (13.5%), they also consume enormous amounts of grain to feed them. This reduces the amount of food grains that are available to feed the world’s hungry. Switching to a vegetarian could change the imbalance and ensure that there is enough for everyone to eat.

9. Conserve water:

Water is a precious commodity we all know. That it will soon become (if it hasn’t already) a scarce commodity is a fact that we’ll have to accept. It’s time we learnt to conserve the limited amount of fresh water we have. Use water only when you need it. Eliminate wastage of water through leaking pipes and faucets. Also make sure that they are not left on while you are finishing a task. Use washing machines when you have a full load of laundry. Use recycled water while washing your car. Look around your home and identify tasks where you might be wasting water. Make a conscious effort to reduce wastage in your home.

10. Buy local:

Wherever possible, encourage manufacturers and producers of goods around your locality. Local goods will not only be fresher but also cheaper than branded items. You could also avoid all the unnecessary packaging and storage that accompanies items that have traveled from far. The greater the distance the goods you buy travel, greater is their impact on the environment in terms of fuel and effort involved in transporting them to your locality. Your patronage of local items will also allow you to give direct feedback that could improve the quality of the goods and the service.

These may seem like little drops in the face of the tsunami of changes we are seeing in the environment. But believe us, if each one of us makes these changes, we could tilt the balance in favour of Mother Nature. Do not undermine the results of these efforts – be positive and let’s make a positive difference – from today!

ApnaComplex
September 6, 2010

Household Help: Look before you hire

Household helps were once considered a symbol of affluence – a luxury that only a few could afford. But now, hiring one or even a few to help with the daily chores has become a necessity. From nannies to cleaners to cooks, drivers and gardeners, the services on offer are diverse and all of them have takers.

But while there is a healthy demand-supply ratio, things are not all that easy and rosy. While India has a reputation for getting manual labour at much cheaper rates than other countries, the quality and reliability of these staff has raised a huge question mark. At the extreme end is the number of crimes committed by such household helps on the very employers who hired them. So should one give in to the need for a household help even with the associated risks or try to manage life one our own even if it means compromising on certain things? It’s a conundrum that only those who’ve experienced can relate to.

In this article we present our views on the process of selecting and hiring household helps based on the experiences of people from around the country. It should offer you some insights on how you could go about finding and keeping a household help that will make a positive difference to your lifestyle.

Know your needs

Before you decide to get a household help, ascertain your need for it. Get into the specifics of how this help will add value to your life. It could be a nanny for your child, a driver, a cook, etc. It’s not just a matter of money. You need to understand that you’ll be handing over some part of your life to these people. Not to mention a bit of your privacy and personal time. You may also have to get involved with some of their personal problems too. So decide how much value this additional resource will add to your life. Once you are sure that everything considered, your help will make a substantial difference, start looking out for him/her.

Define your requirement

Once you’ve decided to go for a household help, define the tasks that this person will carry out for you. Assume that you’re going to recruit this person by placing an ad in the newspaper. In which case, you’ll have to list down the job description and the qualifications for that post. Jot down these points before you go help scouting. Of course, you’ll not place an ad – but it will come in very handy when you’re screening potential candidates and short listing the ones you like. Age, familiarity with the locality, gender, salary expectations, experience, language etc. could all be the criteria that you mention in this requirement definition.

Announce your need

Now that you are armed with what you want, you should make your need known to the market. You have quite a few options here – not all of them very structured, though. You could approach a few of the agencies in your area that supply helps. The advantage of agencies is that they will send people after knowing your requirements and once you’ve engaged them, they usually tend to offer services over a period of the contract. In case the household help has to be replaced, the agency also steps in to provide an alternative within a specified time limit. But you’ll have to mention these clearly to the agency when you discuss your needs. The other option is to go the social networking route. Talk to other household helps in your complex, mention it to the security guards and even other residents who employ household helps. Once the word spreads, you’ll have your candidates dropping in to your home.

Interview and salary negotiation

If you talk to some of the fellow members who employ helps, you’ll realise that the most common grouse against helps is that they go on leave without giving adequate notice or that they extend their leaves without prior notice. This is the most critical part as it throws your life completely out of gear as you try to fill in the gap that your household help was filling in. If she was responsible for looking after your baby then you either have to take a leave or work from home. If she was responsible for cooking then you have to either leave late or arrange for meals from outside or drop in early. If it was the driver then you have to learn how to negotiate the traffic jams all over again. And so on.

During the interview stage, make sure that you clear all these points. The best way to go about through the interview process is to let the other person talk as much as possible. Ask them to describe their daily routine in their current job, their family background, their experience, etc. In case you make your demands first, they are bound to structure their story around your expectations. So just mention the requirement first and then ask them to tell you how they fit into the role. Once they’ve finished, you’ll have a fair idea of whether this is the person who could fit into your needs. You could question them to get more details on a particular aspect, if you wish.

The salary part is not as tricky as some people might think. There is a standard rate for most roles and you could ask around to know that is the going rate. If you offer certain benefits you could mention them while discussing the salary. It could be festival offs along with weekly holidays or bonuses or any other benefits. If someone makes an unreasonable quote, find out if there’s a genuine reason for it and if it something that you’d like to pay for. For example, a nanny who’s been trained in first aid and knows how to talk and write in English may charge a premium over someone who doesn’t know these. Similarly for a driver or a cook who is tuned to a lifestyle similar to yours. And so on.

If you’re recruiting through an agency then the fees would be mentioned upfront and you’ll have little room for negotiations. But you should be absolutely be clear about the service that the agency will offer after the person has joined your employment.

Getting along with your household help

Once you’ve got the person you wanted, you’ll need to spend some time with that person to make him/her understand your way of doing things. Make sure that you are very clear about things that you will not compromise on. Cleanliness or punctuality or a day’s notice before taking a leave – anything that you are very particular about should be communicated to the help so that there is no misunderstanding on that front.

With the spate of crimes abounding, it would be wise to record information about your household help. This can be in the form of an ID that you can photocopy and keep with you or if you are able to, recording the personal details with your local police station or the managing committee. In case you have to dismiss a help for a conduct that you feel has criminal overtones, make it a point to register it with your local police station.

Be on the alert till you are completely sure that the household is reliable. If there is a family member at home then that person can supervise the work. But if you don’t have that luxury, then make it a point to drop in for a surprise visit once in a while so that you don’t get an unpleasant surprise at some later date.

Finding and retaining a household help that fits in well with your needs can make your life much more peaceful and efficient. So put in that extra bit of effort to get the right person. All the best!

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ApnaComplex
July 20, 2010

Popular methods of calculating Maintenance Charges in Apartment Complexes

As a resident of an apartment complex, you are required to pay a monthly charge for the upkeep and maintenance of your society. This maintenance charge is usually arrived at taking into account the monthly expenses plus an additional amount that the society can save for major repairs or maintenance that will arise at a later date. Every housing society decides on a method that it believes is a fair and reasonable way of calculating the amount for each member. While this may sound like a simple agenda, at times, it’s not so simple to carry out due to the different ways in which the amount can be calculated. Here, we present some of the popular ways in which societies calculate maintenance charges along with their respective pros and cons:

Pay per Square Feet:

This is the most common and popular way of calculating maintenance fee. In this type of calculation, a fixed rate is charged per super built up area of the apartment that you own. For example, if the fixed rate is Rs. 2 and you own a 1000 sq. ft. apartment, your maintenance charge will be Rs. 2,000 per month. In this type of arrangement, the bigger the area of the house, the higher you pay as maintenance charge. So in apartment complexes with apartments of varying sizes, you’ll have people paying different amounts per month as maintenance charge.

Pros: It is easier to calculate. This method is one of the most commonly used methods in apartment complexes.
Cons: While this method is popular, it is unfair on people owning larger houses as some of the facilities that they use like a lift, the garden, the club, security services etc. are equally shared among all members irrespective of the size of the flat.

Combined Maintenance Charges:

In this method, the maintenance amount is divided into two parts. Part 1 includes all expenses that are equally utilized by members, irrespective of the size of their apartments. This includes the cost of maintaining lifts, salaries for security and other staff, costs for stationery, property taxes of society office, conveyance, meeting charges, audit fees, legal charges, common electricity charges, etc. The other part is calculated on the basis of the area of the flat and includes items like property taxes, water charges, etc. This is also the method advocated by the Maharashtra Cooperative Societies Model Bye-Laws.

Of this amount collected, everything is an immediate outgo for the society except for the amount collected as sinking fund. This amount is used when the society needs funds to carry out major repairs or maintenance. So instead of collecting the amount from the members at one time, the society can dip into the sinking fund that has grown over the years. The bye-laws recommend collecting at least 0.25% per annum of the cost of construction of each apartment (excluding the cost of the land) as sinking fund corpus. The AGM can vote to collect a higher amount than this if required. The amount is calculated on size of the apartment. This amount remains with the society until any major repairs has to be undertaken. In case the owner sells the apartment, this money is not returned to him/her.

Pros: Aims to be fair on all parties involved. The members owning a bigger apartment is not penalized based on the size of the apartment. All other expenses which are related to the size of the apartment are charged as per dimensions of the apartment.
Cons: There can be lot of differences of opinion on the items that should be charged as per size of the apartment.

Equal Maintenance Fee:

This method is favoured in apartment complexes where the size of each apartment is the same. Here, the fixed amount is arrived at after calculating the monthly expenses plus the amount to be kept aside in the sinking fund and dividing the total by the number of apartments in the society. As costs increase, this amount gets revised in the Annual General Meeting. For complexes where apartments are of different sizes, this method will be unfair and is usually not accepted by the members.

Pros: Easy to implement in societies with same-sized apartments.
Cons: Unfair to smaller apartment owners in societies with different-sized apartments. The greater the difference in size of the apartments, the higher will be the discrepancies in the maintenance charges between the members.

In all methods, it is recommended that the maintenance amount calculation be revisited at least once in six months based on the actual expenses incurred in the past 6 months and the contingency amount that the association would like to maintain for any exigencies.

While these are some popular ways of calculating the maintenance charge, a residential society can arrive at any system that is considered fair and acceptable to all members of the society. If there is any doubt, you can refer to the model bye-laws and decide on the best way to calculate the maintenance charge in your Annual General Body Meeting.

Update: You can also refer to this article – How to Calculate Maintenance Charges for your Apartment Association?

This article aims at collating and providing information on maintenance charge calculations for residential complexes for benefit of ApnaComplex customers and readers. While ApnaComplex has taken every care to ensure the information is accurate, we suggest to please use the information in the article and the template provided only as a guidance for further discussion and action with help of relevant professionals. If you need professional advise on this topic and any other property related matters, please send your request through our contact us form. You may post your questions/inputs in the Comments section below and we will try and get them answered through relevant subject matter experts.

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ApnaComplex
July 9, 2010

No more power failures in your residential complex!

Unless you live in one of the super-exclusive localities in India, power failures will be an all too familiar concept. As you go further into the interiors, frequent power cuts become the norm instead of the exception. And the way the power situation appears, India will be experiencing a major shortage of power in the coming years irrespective of the efforts of the government. Sure, we have diesel generators for back-ups. But with the increasing cost of fuel and the environmental impact of fossil fuels, it’s not the wisest choice either.

So what’s the solution? For a country like India, which enjoys an average of 300 sunny days, the answer is blowing in the air: yes, Solar Energy. Environmental-friendly, renewable, and being completely free, solar energy should be the obvious future for India. It should be the ideal solution for residential complexes like yours to reduce power cuts as well as your electricity bills. All it needs is the will and the foresight to make an investment that will pay dividends in the years to come.

Use of Solar Power in Residential Societies

A wonderful example of a residential complex going solar right from inception is Rabi Rashmi Abasan (http://www.bengaldcl.com/Rabi_rashmi.htm) society in Kolkata. This complex consists of bungalows with each bungalow being fitted with solar photovoltaic panels on their rooftops. In turn, each bungalow is fitted with a solar heater that is connected to the kitchen and bathrooms. These solar panels generate around 60 units of electricity every day – which is about two units for every home. The complex still uses power from the main electricity grid, but the dependency and thus the bills, are much lower. Any surplus energy that the society generates gets pushed back into the state power utilities. The difference between what the society uses from the power grid and what it pushes back is monitored and the society pays the balance to the electricity board. This project was envisioned by the West Bengal government, to showcase how solar power can drastically reduce traditional power consumption in modern homes.

Cities Encouraging Solar Power

Rabi Rashmi is an example of just one project. There’s an example of a city that has adopted solar energy as the way to power its future. No, it’s difficult to guess the city as it’s not one of the metros or even one of the other larger cities. The city we are talking about is Thane in Maharashtra.

Their effort started a few years back when they introduced solar panels at the Rajiv Gandhi Medical College. The introduction of solar heating reduced their electricity bills by a whopping Rs. 9 lakh per annum as it heated around 19,000 litres on a daily basis. Buoyed by the success of this exercise, the Thane Municipal Corporation offered a 10% cut in property tax for those residential complexes that adopt this facility. It was noticed that societies that adopted solar heating were able to recover their costs as early as three years. So successful was the experiment that the corporation has now made it mandatory for all upcoming complexes to have solar water heaters as part of their facilities.

Cities like Bangalore and Pune are other examples where the government is taking proactive steps to encourage the use of solar energy. Bangalore has the largest deployment of rooftop solar water heaters in the country, generating a daily equivalent of 200 MW, with 60% of the city’s household and industrial units using solar water heaters. It also offers an incentive of Rs. 50 on monthly electricity bills for residents using roof-top thermal systems. This is now being mandatory for all new structures. Pune is the other city, which, like Thane and Bangalore, has made installation of solar water heaters in new buildings mandatory. At present, it is estimated that 20 per cent of houses in Pune are using solar water heating units.

Power Solar Equipments for Residential Use

Residential solar panels are available in various shapes, sizes and categories. You should select the panels depending on your requirement and your investment ability. For a typical household that uses four Compact Fluorescent (CFL) bulbs of nine watts, a fan and a television set for six hours every day, the solar panel would cost around Rs 25,000. To run all the fans, lights and other gadgets, the cost would be anywhere between Rs 30,000 and 60,000. And if you plan to install a 100-litre water heater, the cost will be around Rs. 15,000 to Rs. 20,000.

Residential complexes could start with using the energy generated to power the common facilities in: the lawns, the passages, the fans, lights and computer in the society office, the security cabin, club house, etc. You could then move to installing solar heaters for all residents of your complex. Studies show that as much as 25% of a household’s electric consumption is for heating water! Imagine if that cost can be totally eliminated for life! You can also consider replacing your diesel-guzzling back-up generators with environment-friendly solar power. With fuel prices on the rise, this is one investment that can show healthy savings in the immediate future.

Once installed, maintaining solar panels is pretty easy. They are flexible enough to be moved from one place to another. If you can keep it away from dirt and pollution, you won’t need to service it regularly either. All you need to maintain it properly is clean and wipe it regularly so that the efficiency of the panel is always at a high.

Government Incentives

IREDA (Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency) provides soft loans at 2% to domestic users, 3% to institutional users not using accelerated depreciation and 5% to industrial/commercial users availing depreciation. The government also provides an interest subsidy, besides a 5% rebate on property tax. You can check details of all incentives offered by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) under the recently launched Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission here. The Delhi government provides a rebate of Rs. 6,000 for every solar water heater you install.

The onus is now on us. Are we up to it? Residential complexes can take the initiative and use solar power to reduce their power consumption, avoid power cuts and cut down on electricity bills. Although the initial investment may seem high, once adopted the future benefits of solar energy to the residential complex as well as to society at large is simply immense.

This article aims at collating and providing information on using solar energy for residential complexes for benefit of ApnaComplex customers and blog readers. While ApnaComplex has taken every care to ensure the information is accurate, we suggest to please use the information in the article only as a guidance for further discussion and action with help of relevant professionals. If you need professional advise on this topic or any other property related matters, please send your request through our contact us form. You may post your questions/inputs in the Comments section below and we will try and get them answered through relevant subject matter experts.

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