The roof is all complete and just in time to beat this week’s South Texas rain storm. Final tally after adding up the receipts for my spreadsheet is $3998 for labor and materials, an excellent price for 40 squares of 30-year roof including 23 squares of old roof tear-off. Speaking of finding deals I’ve been doing some window shopping for the past few days in search of the best price for dual pane, white vinyl, low E windows for the Target House. I compared 4 different sources and ended up back with my usual supplier Builders First Source here in San Antonio. Sometimes I cringe at putting vinyl windows in an old historic house but with today’s energy prices it really makes sense.  After having Home Depot quote it and send it to the bid room twice, Lowe’s quote and send it to QSP, I was still able to do better by a few hundred bucks. For 25 windows I am paying $3340.00 with tax. Keep in mind most of these for the old portion of the house are ESW’s (exact size windows) and are made custom to fit inside existing wood casings in order to preserve the historic qualities of the home. There is a Federal tax rebate for 2010 in the amount of $1500.00 if you spend over $5,000 and the new windows have a U factor greater than .40. This changed from last years requirement of .32 but in any case we wont qualify due to our low invoice price and we didn’t see it necessary to pay an extra 20% for the extra U factor just to get the $1500.00 back. Make sure and check with your CPA if you are a rehabber, there is some great energy efficient Obama money out there for grabs.