Am engineer friend of mine has sung the praises a particular hot water tank that is gas and solar. I will ask him the name and specs. At one point I almost moved to NM where I would have had propane and planned to put in such a tank. In my Fort Worth home I don't have gas, so am using standard electric.

If you can afford the initial outlay, the gas/solar tank is very inexpensive to run, I think it works out awfully close to free.

Roofs are one of those things that scare a lot of new homeowners, and consequently it's an area where "investors" can make a big (fake) point when they sell houses. Have you seen the ads "we buy houses" and for ugly houses, etc? There is an exchange where the house is bought way below market, a few cosmetic changes are made, and then they try to sell it for full value. I kept stumbling onto those jokers when I was house hunting. The trick to identify their handiwork was to find a way to view the attic (and they will make it inaccessible if they can). If you look from outside and see composition shingles and from inside see the old shakes, you know they slapped a cheap roof on top of the shakes without properly removing the shakes, putting up planking and felt and such and then applying the shingles. It sounds like you have a pretty good idea of how to approach this with a very durable shingle (I've seen some of those around here--they really are solid).

I really enjoyed looking at houses and how they were built when I was house-hunting. You learn a great deal about how to actually care for the one you ultimately buy. My realtor was new, a school teacher changing careers so she could spend more time with her small children. We enjoyed our outings and we had a bit of a role-reversal during the search. She knew how to fill out the forms, but I taught her about some of the internet searches and a lot of the architectural things to look for. I made sure I had her act as a buyers agent. You get a lot more information that way.

SRS