Happy new year! I would normally have replied much sooner, but everything has been so busy with Christmas, then new year and all the rest. Anyway, I have to agree that conservation is by far the best thing we can do right now, and I believe that it will allways be useful as almost all energy comes with a penalty. Both environmental and financial. I've been thinking about conservation quite a bit recently as I'm trying to get a rough idea how much it would cost to build an affordable house (you might have seen my posts about it?) and I want it to be economical to live in. This is partly an environmental concern, but also because it would be misguided to build an affordable house that isn't also affordable to live in. The majority of most anyone's wages go towards their house, so if I can build a house that uses minimal energy I can spend the money in other more enjoyable ways. I can also design it in such a way it comes in to the lowest possible tax category, but that's beyond the scope of this forum. One of the things that surprises me is when I say I want to build a low energy house that uses renewable energy, people tend to picture something very expensive and custom built. When I researched it I found that commonly they're high end houses built for wealthy customers who were willing to spend a lot of money to have luxury items, like solar PV panels and houses built half underground. I don't however see why houses that use very little energy have to be reserved for wealthy people building custom houses, after all one of the main attractions of a low energy house is the very small monthly bills. A low energy house design/concept that comes within (preferably below) average house prices is long overdue, and also has a massive market potential. Admittedly domestic energy use is a fraction of that used by industrial processes, and also accounts for a similarly small percentage of pollution, but I know nothing about industrial processes and (thankfully) don't pay the bills for them either. At least not directly. I do however know something about houses and how I believe they could work better. My main aim is to build it smaller, but use the space in such a way it's relatively spacious with plenty of storage. I also want to exchange traditional and generally energy wasting and expensive materials for newer materials that cost less. Insulation, and lots of it, is important. I also want high quality finishing materials, but avoiding ornate details and using a more minimalist style should keep the costs reasonable. The other main issue is using the most energy efficient appliances possible, and also installing some renewable stuff like solar hot water heating. At least in concept it seems to work, and hopefully one day I will be able to try it out.

"The quality of the ground should be verified with a ground tester to ensure the ground path can carry sufficient current to trip the breaker. What is a ground tester? Is it something I can get and can actually be used by someone who doesn't really have any electrical training? " Absolutely not. Even many electricians are not equipped to effectively test this. It is more a visual check than anything." The first thing to do is visually check for the presence of a grounding conductor, or the use of AC, MC, or metal conduit. 1960 is old enough that NM (non-metallic) sheathed cable was in use, but the grounding (bare or green) conductor was no uniformly required. Initially grounding conductors even were allowed to use a smaller gauge of wire (around #18 solid). Thee grounding conductors can sometimes be found wrapped around cable clamps on the outside of boxes. Some folks had no idea what to do with them. AC (armor clad/cased) provides grounding through the metal armor and a thin bonding strip n side the cable. You will notice AC cable clamps have a set screw and make a solid connection to the armor. MC cable normally has a run ground wire since the bonding strip is not present. Metal conduit can also provide a grounding path. If you want to test for grounds at least use a 60 watt light bulb and a pair of leads. If the bulb lights brightly between hot and ground the ground is carrying 0.5 amps. A meter or receptacle tester is only using a few milliamps of current. Larger electrician shops that do commercial work may have a bond tester that can be used to verify grounding connections. They cost a few thousand dollars and see use in larger structures to verify that the ground in some remote corner of a building is still adequate. There are ways to rig up suitable loads to check ground capacity, and I had a setup like that before purchasing a full up bond tester. It has also seen use in checking lightning damaged electrical installations along with a megger and a TDR (Time Domain Reflectometer, radar on a wire) to find insulation damage and cable breaks.

"...there was a small piece missing from a a set of electric trains and I had advertised it as complete." Yes, there's the problem. The seller gave a guarantee that it was "complete" when it wasn't. The buyer obviously bought it with that in mind. If someone sold you a "complete" silverware set and it was missing some spoons would you be "a jerk" for expecting the rest of what you bought? I'm sure he was pretty upset that it was misrepresented. You don't say how much money was involved but if it was enough to go to court, I'm guessing it wasn't $5 or $10. Sounds like you might have got off easy for that matter. Sometimes, if there's fraud proven, triple damages can be imposed. I would never make any guarantees like that when selling something for just this reason. By saying it was complete it was an inducement to buy and when it wasn't true he used his legal recourse to recover damages. When you use sales pitches and inducements to buy, you dramatically increase your potential liability. Can't blame the buyer when they take you at your word. The fear of spam from Craigslist is unwarranted these days. They use a forwarding system (at least around here they do) so the parties do not get each others' email addresses unless one gives it intentionally or by mistake. (Be warned that you can give them your address if you don't go through the system by forwarding or something. Watch your email and you'll see how you're identified. If you direct mail to them, you'll give your address, so use the forwarding system if you're afraid of it.) You can still get spam but once the forwarding stops, the spam would be stopped also. I also use a disposable address for this type of thing. Using caution I don't need to replace it too often. I've bought and sold through Craigslist. I use common sense and have had no problems. I usually like to meet someone rather than have them come to my house when possible. And of course, people are unreliable so never depend on them showing up! LOL One other thing, I never give them my home address if they have to come to my place. I give them directions to the area and guide them the rest of the way by internet text (but not using my phone #), email, instant messenger (from disposable account) or calling them (blocking my number). It filters out fakes extremely well. And if they don't show up by the designated time, I don't feel bad about going and doing other things. It also stops them from stopping by at other times when I wouldn't want them to show up. I too often ask if something is still available, especially if it's been a while. Most people seem to leave their ads up after it's sold and it's annoying to someone to waste their time on it. However, when someone gives me the one-liner "still available?" or something, I sometimes reply in kind with "Yes". To me it's annoying when people don't say in the ad when someone would be able to look at it. Again, I'll often ask when I could look at it before going into more detail. Some are pretty flaky on that too, "you can pick it up between 8am and 8:30 am with appointment..." Yeah right. :) Oh and one other thing I'll do on occasion. If it involves a lot of money, I'll meet at their bank. I even go so far as to have the bank exchange the cash they give to lessen counterfeit issues or get a money order or cashiers check. But that doesn't happen often. I don't buy and sell that much this way. But when a vehicle is sold I don't release it until we've gone and transferred it to them. Privacy of course goes out the window then but if you want to do it, you have to do it.

I guess I'm more aggressive than most of you. I'd have countered somewhere about $416-418k figuring that their counter was the first move on their part and they were probably figuring you might come back and split the difference. They either accept (my guess), come back splitting the difference again -- right about $420, or say $423k -- best offer and you haven't lost anything. Once you are negotiating, they are invested in making the deal too. BUT, if you really need to get the house or don't have the patience for negotiating, it's not enough to lose the house over. Assuming you accepted their offer -- hope things go smoothly for you.