Franzoso Contracting Blog Home Improvement Resources

WASHINGTON — Consumers would collect on-the-spot rebates of $1,000 or more for buying insulation, water heaters or other equipment to make their homes burn energy more efficiently under a rebate program President Barack Obama is promoting.

Obama was traveling to Savannah, Ga., on Tuesday to outline the Home Star program. Obama called for energy rebates in his State of the Union address, and officials hope the plan will be as popular as last year’s Cash for Clunkers money-back program for autos.

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The TwitterProfessor.com of Westchester just voted our Time Lapse Roofing Video the best business video of 2009. Click here to read more.

Stop by our showroom in Croton on Hudson and pickup some free movie passes for the historic Paramount Center in Peekskill NY. Franzoso Contracting is proud to sponsor the movie program.

Having an energy-efficient home offers myriad benefits, not least of which is the significant savings in your utility and heating bills. Here in the Northeast, where we have a significant heating season, we must be aware that windows and doors are a major cause of our home’s heat loss, causing us discomfort, condensation problems, and of course having our money literally “flying out the window”!

However, good news is at hand! Recently, windows have undergone a major technological revolution, offering lower heat loss, less air leakage, and warmer window surfaces that improve our home’s comfort dramatically. Properly installed energy-efficient windows and doors deliver better protection against cold, heat, drafts, moisture, pollution, and noise. An energy-efficient home ensures consistent temperatures between rooms, improved air quality, and overall a better, healthier environment for you and your loved ones. And, an energy efficient home helps save money all year long – to the tune of hundreds of dollars a year.

What makes a window energy efficient?

• Quality Frame Materials: A variety of durable, insulated and low-maintenance framing materials reduce heat transfer and help insulate better.
• Multiple Panes: Two panes of glass, with an air or gas-filled space in the middle, insulate much better than a single pane of glass. Some ENERGY STAR-qualified windows include three panes for even greater energy-efficiency, increased impact resistance, and sound insulation.
• Low-E Glass: Special Coatings reflect infrared light, keeping heat inside in winter and outside in summer. They also reflect damaging ultraviolet light, which helps protect interior furnishings from fading and the more a window product can reject or absorb the UV energy the longer the life of the furnishings being protected. Franzoso Contracting, Inc. can offer insulated glass packages with as high an R-value as R-10 and double or triple pane glass with multilayered gas coatings.
• Gas Fills: Some energy-efficient windows have argon, krypton, or other gases between the panes. These odorless, colorless, non-toxic gases insulate better than regular air.
• Warm Edge Spacers: A spacer keeps a window’s glass panes the correct distance apart. Nonmetallic and metal/non-metal hybrid spacers also insulate pane edges, reducing heat transfer through the window.

What Makes a Door Energy Efficient?

• Multiple Glass Panes: Double or triple-paned insulating glass is used to reduce heat flow.
• Tighter Fit and Improved Weather Stripping: New frames may include a magnetic strip to create a tighter seal that reduces air leakage around the edges which is similar to the way your refrigerator
• closes and seals itself.
• Improved Core Materials: Fiberglass, wood cladding, and steel with polyurethane foam core are among the most energy-efficient door materials available today.

Franzoso Contracting can easily help you determine how you can best improve your home’s energy efficiency with beautiful new windows, doors or skylights. Our extensive showroom here in Croton is packed with samples of quality products that can make a real difference in your daily life. And, there’s even special state and federal programs that offer financial incentives and low- or interest-free financing to help make it easy to decide to go the energy-efficient route for your home!

So call or come in today! Franzoso Contracting is always here for you, our knowledgeable staff will help you make the right choices for your needs, and our expert installers will do a beautiful job to help make your home the energy-efficient showplace of your neighborhood! Please visit our comprehensive website at http://www.franzoso.com, or call us at 914-271-4572.

This Free Report brought to you by: Franzoso Contracting : 33 Croton Point Ave • Croton On Hudson, NY 10520 • (914) 271-4572

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Susan Long
www.thebighousemuseum.org

A chance encounter at a concert led a New York contractor to make a major donation to the Big House Museum that is being developed in Macon to preserve the home and history of the Allman Brothers Band.

Mark Franzoso stood next to Gary Giller, treasurer of the Big House Foundation, at a sold out concert in Saratoga Springs, NY and struck up a friendship that would bring him to Macon several years later to start the renovations needed to turn a 108-year-old stately Grand Tudor mansion into a unique, historic musical institution.

“I’m proud to be down here and be a part of it,” said Franzoso, surveying the work that his company, Franzoso Contracting, Inc., was completing after two weeks of work.

Franzoso’s five-man crew had just finished re-roofing the 6,000-square-foot house where the members of the Allman Brothers Band lived from 1970 to 1973 and wrote some of their most acclaimed music, becoming the principal architects of the new genre of Southern Rock music under the Macon label Capricorn Records.

A year after meeting Giller, Franzoso met Allman Brothers Band Tour Manager Kirk West, who had lived for nearly 15 years in the Big House with his wife, Kirsten, and had amassed an enormous collection of memorabilia.

“A year and a half ago when Kirk sold his house to the foundation, I was asked to look at the engineering report and come up with an estimate for a new roof,” said Franzoso. “I was flattered that I was asked to get involved.

“I knew once this museum got off the ground that I had to be the one to do the roof over where this important collection is going to be housed.”

Franzoso donated the labor for the roof and secured the donation of architectural shingles. He estimates the entire project at more than $35,000, including removing old roofing, re-roofing pitched and flat roofs, replacing rotted wood, installing new copper flashing and placing copper coping on the front edge of the roof. The new shingles are close to the same color as those that were removed from the house originally built for Georgia’s 67th Governor Nathaniel E. Harris.

The Big House Foundation is converting The Big House from a residence into a world-class, interactive, handicapped-accessible museum commemorating the wide-ranging cultural and historic impact of the Allman Brothers Band, said Foundation President Bob Johnson. It is expected to open in April 2009 to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the band’s founding.

“The band was one of the few racially integrated groups that dared to perform throughout the rural Southeast where resistance to segregation was high,” noted Johnson. “The band’s popular music and its message of peace, brotherhood, and love had a barrier-breaking effect on Macon and the nation.”

The Big House’s 18 rooms will house the world’s largest archival collection of Allman Brothers Band memorabilia. The Big House Foundation will collaborate with the Georgia Music Hall of Fame to operate arts and humanities programs meeting state and national K-12 educational objectives. The museum will have a particular focus on youth mentoring and positive lifestyle choices.

The Foundation also has acquired the adjoining, formerly blighted property, which has been cleared and will feature beautifully-landscaped grounds with handicapped accessibility to parking and to the museum.

“This museum is a rarity,” Johnson said. “Few sites in the U.S. exist where an internationally-acclaimed American rock band lived or worked and which are open to the public. The Allman Brothers Band is a huge contributing factor to Macon’s rich music heritage and the powerful attraction the State of Georgia offers to music heritage tourism.”

The Allman Brothers Band and members Duane Allman, Chuck Leavell, and Gregg Allman have been inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame, and the band is also enshrined at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland.

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Every year, civic agencies all across the country process many thousands of complaints against housing contractors, and roofing contractors consistently rank among the top five businesses being complained about. So you have to be very careful when selecting someone to work on your house! Your roof is a very important part of your home, for obvious reasons. You shouldn’t trust it to just anyone.

Getting honest and clear estimates from roofing contractors can be a bit confusing, to say the least. Some have really high prices, and some are priced so low that you can’t quite understand what’s included and what’s not, and whether you’re getting a good value for your money. Some less-than-scrupulous roofing contractors can play games with pricing, using tricks and gimmicks only to jack the costs up later during the job with unexpected surprises. That’s why it’s so important to use great care when selecting a contractor, to make sure you’re dealing with an honest and reputable craftsman. Of course you want your roof taken care of quickly and with as little outlay as possible, but it definitely pays to take the time and effort to make sure you select a roofing contractor that’s going to do a good job for an honest price. It’s always better to do it right the first time, instead of using the cheapest contractor available and then later discovering you’ve made a painful mistake.

To read more, click here to download this pdf article.