David Papp's Blog

There seem to be a lot of unanswered questions about the Australian government home insulation rebate and I will attempt to answer those questions in plain English, simply and concisely.

The government rebate is $1,200 per eligible household to install ceiling insulation where there is none, or where the insulation is old or inadequate. It is up to individual installation companies to decide how much ceiling are they will insulate for that money. They also decide what kind of insulation to use.

Pricing: The company I work for, Suburban Insulation, will insulate up to 120m2 (square metres) of ceiling are for the government's $1,200. If your house is smaller than that, you pay NOTHING. If it's bigger, the first 120m2 is free, and after that it's $10/m2. Another consideration is if you have downlights, they need covers which cost $10 each. It is up to the guys doing the job to quote you a price if it goes beyond what the government grant will cover. The guys will take into consideration the area, number of downlights, and a few other factors that influence the ease/difficulty of the job. Naturally, if you're not happy with the quote you simply say "no thanks" and they'll be on their way to the next job.

Most houses have loose blow-in insulation called cellulose. It's cheap and nasty, but does a decent job when it's new. As it gets older, its effectiveness diminishes and we come and lay new insulation R3.5 bats on top of it. The result is you have two layers of insulation. On hot days your house will not warm up as much, and on cold days it will not cool down as much. In Melbourne, we heat more than we cool, so it's in the winter that you'll really notice the benefit of your new insulation. You will feel the difference and save money on your electricity and gas bills!

If you have had someone look at your insulation and they said you don't qualify, it's worth getting someone else to look at it. Some installers are very conservative with their jobs, whereas others are a little more flexible. We are in the flexible camp where we help as many people as we can to get new insulation.

You qualify for the government funded ceiling insulation if:
You currently have the blow-in cellulose insulation but it's not all the way up to the top of the ceiling joists.
You have old bats which are no longer performing well.
You have NO insulation whatsoever.
You have insulation in parts of the house but some rooms are not insulated.

You do not qualify for the government funding if:
Your house was built in 2003 or after.
You live in housing commission house (although some exceptions may exist so ask us).
You have already claimed a rebate on installing solar hot water (you can only use the funding for one or the other)
You have good quality ceiling insulation that performs well.
* You don't believe anything is for free and you think free ceiling insulation is a scam.

Why is the government doing this?

This is nothing more than my speculation, but I believe it has to do with our growing population. We expect a massive number of immigrants to come to all majour cities in Australia. A growing population without a growing power supply is a recipe for disaster! If we can't generate enough electricity to supply the houses and businesses of our cities, the potential for economic damage is massive. Think of what happens during a blackout. Refrigerators stop working and food spoils. Air conditioning stops working and people get grumpy. Machinery stops working and companies lose money. Lengthy blackouts could affect communication infrastructure and just about everything else.

Reducing power consumption on a large scale allows our population to grow without having to upgrade our power generating capability, for now.

If you live in Melbourne's South East suburbs and would like your house insulated and you want to get in before the government funding runs out, please call me, David Papp, on 0402-475-705 between 8am and 8pm 7 days a week. I can book the installation for you during weekdays as well as Saturday or Sunday. The work takes about an hour or two at most, and at the end you sign a form saying the work was done, and that allows us to claim the government funding for the job.

I live in Hampton Park and we've done many houses in my suburb, as well as Narre Warren, Cranbourne, Berwick, Hallam, Doveton, Eumemmerring, Dandenong, Mulgrave, Glen Waverley, Caulfield, and all surrounding areas.

I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

David Papp
0402-475-705
Phone between 8am and 8pm any day of the week!

After selling my computer shop more than a year ago I still have some stock left over in my spare room which I must clear out, says my wife

I will maintain a list of items available on this page, including delivery costs Australia wide. I will not sell to international buyers, sorry. Delivery costs for small items are in express satchels. Pickup is encouraged from Hampton Park, VIC. Contact me on 0402-475-705, skype: davepapp, or email mycatisadog at gmail dot com.
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Socket 775 Celeron 440 CPU 2GHz overclocks to 3GHz very easily with a decent motherboard $20 + $7 del. New without packaging. Can supply new heatsink and fan for additional $4.

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Arctic Cooling Accellero S2 graphics card cooler $15 + $11 del. New in original packaging.

# Application:

ATI: X1650, X1600, X1550, X1300, X1050 series; X850, X800, X700, X600, X550, X300 series; 9XXX series
nVidia: GeForce 7600, 7300, 6600 series; FX 5950, 5900, 5700 (Ultra) series; FX 5600, 5500, 5200 series; GeForce 4 Ti, MX series

# Heat Pipe: 2x 6mm
# Heat Sink: 140 x 188 x 32 mm
# Weight: 202 g

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This list will be continued in the coming days.

The Australian Government has launched a program to make it easier for people to make improvements to their homes with the goal of reducing our water and energy usage. The program is referred to as Green Loans which are a 4 year loans up to $10,000 per household for which the government pays the interest. That's right, a 4 year interest free loan to help you reduce your water and energy bills!

Here's a summary of how it works:

1. You, the home owner or tenant, book a free home assessment done by me, David Papp, or another government recognised and qualified assessor, to determine some of the ways in which your home can be improved (such as water tanks, solar power, etc.)

2. Once the assessment is complete, you approach one of the many lenders who provide the Green Loans to borrow the money to use for one or more of the suggestions given in the assessment.

3. You carry out the improvements using the borrowed funds, pay back the loan as agreed with your lender, and the government pays the interest. That's right, it's an absolutely FREE loan which allows you to save money!

For a list of Green Loan providers, see HERE

To book your FREE assessment, for those of you in Melbourne's SE suburbs, please call me (David Papp) on my mobile 0402-475-705 and we'll arrange a suitable time. Expect the assessment to take about 90 minutes including some time at the end to talk about your options and answer any questions you might have.

The assessment costs you nothing and is valid for 6 months, so you have plenty of time to get the loan after the assessment is done. I would encourage you to book sooner rather than later

If you want to ease the impact of rising water and energy costs and the environmental effect, please take up this opportunity. It really is an awesome government initiative.

David Papp

Good news: I am now able to help customers with computer problems over the internet without having to go onsite! This is done by downloading a file, double clicking the file to run the program, and another double click to connect to my computer. From there I can control the customer's computer with my keyboard and mouse as if I were sitting in front of their computer. The customer always has full control in initiating and ending the support session.

It's very powerful, very cool, and even my mother said it was easy!

If you want my help with a computer problem, please go to this page for my phone number and a skype button.

Whether you do it for your veggie patch, fruit trees, or indoor pot plants, composting is the healthiest, most environmentally friendly, and cheapest way to make your plants grow healthy and strong. Although it's easy to do, if you've never done it before and haven't done your research, you'll probably not get the results you want, which is good quality plant food that's black and smells good.

You can buy a bin or make your own if you have some pieces of timber you can cut up and nail together. I used some old garden sleepers. I nailed together four of them to make a square, then more squares and stacked them on top of each other. I didn't nail the squares together because they sat on each other nicely enough. I did not bother to cover it because it gets better airflow this way.

If you do decide to fork out the cash for a compost bin, get one that you can turn to tumble the contents, mixing them every few days. If you don't have a tumbling bin, it's a good idea to mix the compost every week or two. I have two compost bins and I allow one to finish decomposing before I use it on my garden. If you keep adding to the same heap you'll never have ready to use compost.

There are two kinds of materials you need to put in your compost for it to produce good results: greens and browns. Greens are things like fruits, vegetables, and plant material that still has the juice in it. Browns are dry leaves, tree bark, grass clippings, and some people include newspaper but I don't like to do that. A more accurate way of referring to greens and browns are to call them nitrogen and carbon rich materials. When I started composting I only had kitchen waste in there and it had a bad smell and didn't really turn into the black humus I was hoping for. A half/half ratio works great, but you can get good results with a mostly carbon (browns) mix as well. Do not include meat and dairy because they will smell bad and possibly attract scavenging animals.

Ideally the compost should generate some heat as things decompose. Make sure it gets plenty of air but don't let it dry out. You can expect to see mould/fungus, maybe some fruit flies and other bugs, hopefully worms, and sometimes mice will nest in it especially if it's mostly carbon based compost.

The finished product is called humus and it should not smell bad, should be mostly black and look a lot like soil. You can dig it in to the soil where your plants grow, or you can just spread it on top and let the worms mix it in. It's always a good idea to mulch your soil in order to keep the soil from drying out.

If you follow these instructions your plants will look better than ever before. Happy composting!

Completed the gall bladder flush with some amazing and shocking results. I had a significant handful of gall stones, many the size of a thumbnail. I couldn't believe it. I was expecting only a few this time, but I guess this explains the digestive issues I'd been having for the past couple of months. I'm sure glad they're out.

The epsom salt drink was mentally challenging because of the taste, but I just focused on one at a time. I also had some honey handy to improve the taste of my mouth after the drinks. The oil and grapefruit juice wasn't too bad.

If you throw up an hour or so after the oil drink, don't worry because it has already done its job. It takes about 20 minutes or so for it to dislodge your stones so don't worry if some of the oil comes back up as long as it doesn't happen immediately after you drink it.

I'll be gradually coming out of the fast during the next few days. It's important to take it very slowly and start with light fruits, a couple of prunes, then bananas, a bit of avocado maybe. Eat in very small quantities and stay away from processed or fatty foods. I intend to be eating mostly raw for the next few weeks and possibly in the long term as well. I will also keep a photo of my gall stones to remind me to make good dietary choices in the future.

Still drinking the juice, trying to keep up with the drink load. It seems more than I need some days so I just drink as much as feels comfortable.

Tomorrow is the gall bladder flush for me. The method is as follows:

Morning until 1:30pm - drink two litres of apple juice during that time, no other juices, or foods. Do not eat or drink anything else after 1:30pm except water, and then the drinks described below. Use a straw to bypass your taste buds if you struggle with any of these drinks.

6pm - one tablespoon of epsom salt in 180ml water (3/4 of a glass)
8pm - one tablespoon of epsom salt in 180ml water (3/4 of a glass) again
10pm - 120ml extra virgin cold pressed olive oil with 180ml grapefruit juice, shake about 20 times until mixed. Drink standing then lie down still for 20mins on back with 2 pillows under head, or on right side with legs tucked. Go to sleep in this position if you can.

Next morning is the fun part. Expect the stones that come out to float. If you want to make sure you don't miss any, use a colander in the toilet bowl.
6pm - one tablespoon of epsom salt in 180ml water (3/4 of a glass)
8pm - one tablespoon of epsom salt in 180ml water (3/4 of a glass) again

After mid day you can have a vegetable and/or fruit juice. A couple of hours later you can eat something light if you're not juice fasting. Be sure not to eat heavy foods for the first couple of days to give your liver time to re-adjust and resume normal function.

I hope you get some really good results, and I hope I do too

The pears were nice but I had to strain the juice, which I also did with the green juice which made it nicer.

Try to increase your apple juice intake in preparation for the gall bladder flush. Technically you're supposed to drink one litre of apple juice a day for six days leading up to the flush but first time I did it I only drank apple juice on the day, nothing but apple juice, and it worked fine so I'm not too fussed about drinking apple juice for six days. Especially since we're juice fasting, I don't see this as being really necessary to keep to the letter.

Tip of the day: be sure to brush your teeth frequently especially after the fruit juices.

Speaking of teeth, metal fillings in teeth release a constant stream of toxins into the body and they should be replaced with non-metallic fillings. I've been told in some European countries amalgam is banned.

Today we bought some pears and I look forward to trying some pear juice tomorrow.

By now the hunger should be subsiding, but you might be craving comfort food for emotional reasons. There is a very simple formula for resisting: Stop thinking about eating, drink some juice and go do something to keep your mind off food. Don't think of having to fast for X number of days, just take it one day at a time. It only gets easier and you get to sort through some of your emotional attachment to food, which will help you in the long term if you deal with it now.

Gall bladder flush will be described in the next few days and it's exciting because you get to see results very quickly.

On the menu today was the same mix of greens. Fruit juice had beetroot, orange, apple, grapefruit.

The tip of the days is about washing greens. To protect your juicer from the sand particles on your greens, you have to wash them properly. The best way I found is to immerse them in water one leaf at a time and wiggle it around. That will make the sand sink to the bottom of the sink or container you're using. Celery often has a bit of dirt in the folds where the leaves divide. You can use a small brush to clean those parts.

On the menu today was a mix of greens and celery like yesterday. For the fruit juice we did orange, red grapefruit, carrot, and apple.

On a personal note, yesterday mid afternoon I started to develop a fever which subsided about 2am this morning. I've been brought up thinking that a fever is a bad thing and should be countered by medication and/or cooling the body with wet towels. It takes a LOT of energy for the body to warm up by a couple of degrees and it does it for a good reason. Metabolism increases and the body is able to heal and restore normal function very quickly when a fever is allowed to run its course.

When I get a fever and I feel cold, I put on more clothes to help my body warm up. Once the body reaches its desired temperature and the fever has served its purpose, I begin to sweat. This is an indication that I can start removing layers of clothing. It's very intuitive: if you're cold put on clothes and if you're sweating take clothes off.

When you get a cold and you're leaking from every orifice, think of it as a good thing. All stuff coming out is you're body cleaning itself and getting rid of waste and toxins. What do you think happens when you take medication to remove those symptoms? The waste and toxins remain in your body and it has to find another way to deal with them. Many natural health teachers believe the body will encase toxins in fat tissue until it's able to deal with it (during a fast for example). Other options include the formation of cysts, tumors, and eventually cancer.

Today is day one of our latest juice fast/feast with my wife. We call it a feast because we won't be hungry during these two weeks. We'll be drinking so much nourishing vegetable and fruit juice that we won't miss eating solid food. I know this sounds hard to believe if you've never experienced it before.

The method is described below.

Daily Greens: Juice one whole celery and one kilo of greens. Get your hands on whatever green leaves you can, including silverbeet/kale, cabbage, cucumbers, parsley, any green herbs, and try to mix them to get a better blend of enzymes, vitamins and minerals.

Daily Fruit: Juice two litres of any fruit you can get your hands on. To give you some ideas, try apple, orange, grapefruit, watermelon, rock melon, pear, mandarin, grape, or any other juicy fruit you like. Avoid making very sweet juices if you're diabetic or tend to get yeast infections.

Overall you should have 3-4 litres of juice in total every day. You can divide it into 5 drinks and you can alternate green and fruit juices so it doesn't get boring.

Daily MSM: First thing in the morning mix one teaspoon of MSM (Methylsulfonylmethane) with lemon juice in a glass and drink it down fast. Use a straw if you want to bypass your taste buds because it tastes bitter. If you're wimpy you can use orange juice instead of lemon. MSM is available at health food stores.

Add to one green drink every day: Two table spoons of extra virgin cold pressed coconut oil and one or two tablespoons of green powder (spirulina, wheatgrass, barley, etc). Green powders are also available at health food stores.

Optional: You can chew up to two tablespoons of bee pollen but avoid iridiated and baked varieties which usually come from overseas. Local pollen is best.

If you get hungry drink more juice. If you run out of juice, make some more. You can also drink herbal tea (non caffeinated) with a little honey, and water in between juices if you get thirsty.

Today we juiced a mix of greens including silverbeet, parseley, and some other big wrinkled dark green leaves which I don't know the name of. We added 3 apples for taste. The fruit juice was one watermelon and three grape fruits.

My wife and I will be running a series of detox retreats within driving distance from Melbourne Australia in the next few months. We are both experienced in fasting and detox and well read (especially Nancy who is a nurse) in all things related to health. We believe God designed our bodies in such a way that we can heal from just about any ailment if the conditions are right. By right conditions we mean:
- Away from the things in your life that cause you stress, anxiety, depression
- Minimising your body's bourden of digestion by living on juices for two weeks
- Removing all your usual toxins and irritants such as alcohol, tobacco, processed foods, additives, chemicals, etc.
- Supercharging your body with the vitamins, enzymes, amino acids, minerals, from freshly juiced vegetables and fruits
- Eliminating toxins through the body's natural methods like sweating, deep breathing, as well as the obvious outlets

The program will essentially be a juice fast (feast really) during which we will make sure you won't be hungry. We will also do a gall bladder flush to naturally and painlessly eliminate gall stones which will allow your liver to resume efficiency and improve your digestion. We will have daily morning walks or light exercise to get your lymphatic system moving and to fill your lungs with fresh air which will oxygenate your blood. We will have discussions about various health and related theological and practical issues which will inform and equip you to live joyfully and energetically when you return to your daily life. The final three days you will be breaking the fast gradually and we will teach you some fantastic gourmet raw food recipes which are quick and easy to prepare and guaranteed to impress even the harshest critics!

At this time we are asking for expressions of interest and the date will be set once we have at least 5 people committed and ready. We will do our best to make this two week program a fun, enjoyable, relaxing, and informative time during which you form lifelong friendships and gain renewed joy and love for God and the people in your life.

Some of the destinations we're currently considering are Phillip Island, Lakes Entrance, and Ballarat. The price is expected to be around $100 to $150 a day for the 14 days and it will include accommodation, cleaning, juices and foods, sauna, and most probably a swimming pool. We endeavour to keep the price absolutely minimal while maintaining a good level of comfort and enjoyable surroundings.

If you're interested please write your comments at the bottom of this article or skype me: davepapp. I'm more than happy to talk with you about the program and address any concerns or special requirements you may have. All you have to do is ask!

Do you have a computer that won't turn on or won't boot up?
Is your computer running slower than it used to?
Does your computer have virus, spyware, or other software issues?

Those are a few of my favourite kinds of jobs! I'm also VERY good at networking computers, setting up wireless networks and securing them, and anything to do with ADSL modems and routers.

My rates are very reasonable and I have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. That means if you're not completely satisfied with my work, you don't have to pay me! So there, absolutely NO RISK to you. Other technicians charge by the hour and you don't know whether they're efficient and as knowledgeable as they claim to be. You could end up with a massive bill with no advance warning! With me, you will never pay more than you're happy with, never!

But allow me to introduce myself. I'm David Papp, founder and former owner of the award winning computer retail store www.megapc.com.au. I sold the shop in order to work part time in what I love doing, which is to help people with their computer problems.

I believe your computer should be a useful and cooperative tool, NOT a cause of frustration and stress!

If you have a computer problem that needs solving, don't take a chance with the other guys, pick up the phone and call me on 0402-475-705 or skype me:



I also service other suburbs including Dandenong, Mulgrave, Narre Warren, Hallam, Cranbourne, Eumemmerring, Doveton, and Lynbrook. If you're not in one of those suburbs but would like to give me a chance to give you superb value for money service, please contact me and we'll talk about your needs.

I purchased Rick Otton's Rent to Own pack about a year ago and what follows is an explanation of the rent to buy system taught by Rick Otton and my opinions on when/how it works or doesn't work. This review is completely independent and I have absolutely nothing to gain from writing it. I do it because I would have liked to read something like this before I bought the course.

The system explained:

There are three parties involved in the system:
1. The person who owns a house and a mortgage who we will call the seller
2. The person who wants to buy a house but can't do it through traditional methods who we will call the buyer
3. The person who brings the two together and makes a profit in the process, who we will call the middleman

There are two documents involved:
1. A residential lease agreement between the seller and the middleman allowing the middleman to sub-let and another agreement between you and the tenant/buyer.
2. Option document between the middleman and the seller and another one between the middleman and the buyer.

The seller can be:
- A divorced couple who want nothing to do with each other
- Someone who borrowed more than the house is worth and can't sell it at a price high enough to pay back the bank loan
- Someone who lost his job and can't afford the repayments any more but could afford to rent a house instead
- Anyone else who wants to get rid of the property but can't simply sell it in the usual way for whatever reason

The buyer can be:
- A self employed person who cannot prove his income to the bank (more common than you think)
- Someone who has good income but only recently started working so doesn't have 2yrs or even 1yr of income history
- Someone who has low income but is also very frugal with his expenses so he can afford to pay the house repayments even though it takes more than 30% of his income (banks figure you can spend at most 30% or so of your income on loan repayments)
- Someone with bad credit rating due to divorce, injury, or unusual circumstances

Your job as the middleman is to find a seller and offer to pay his mortgage and all expenses associated with his property and possibly offer him a higher price for his house, but tell him it may take 2-3 years before you actually sell his house. You offer to give him the money he wants and since you can't do it immediately, you will take care of all expenses until you can pay him out, so the delay doesn't cost him anything. You then find the buyer and you tell him you can get him into a house sooner, with lower deposit or down payment and without having to get a loan from the bank. The buyer starts out as a tenant but pays extra rent which goes towards buying the house. His purchase price is a little higher and he has the right to walk away from the deal if he doesn't want to proceed.

Let's do an example.

Seller has a loan of $250,000 and the house is currently worth at best $255,000. Selling fees add up to more than $5,000 so he wouldn't be able to pay out his loan if he sold the house. You find a buyer who agrees to buy the house at $275,000 in two years time (the buy price). He moves in now and pays you market rent of $270/week and another $130/week for the right to buy the house (option fee). If he decides to go ahead with the purchase in 2yrs time, you will put his option fee towards the purchase price. If he backs out of the deal, he doesn't get his option fee back (or he does, up to you). He also has to pay you a deposit (option fee) of $10,000 which goes towards his purchase if he goes ahead with the transaction. This setup allows you to give the seller an initial payment if required and also allows you to service his loan and expenses. You work those variables in such a way that you make money regardless of whether the buyer ends up buying the house or not. You might simply allow the option to lapse and walk away.

So to sum up, the middleman and the seller need to agree on the following from the onset:
1. Initial option fee, kind of like a deposit but it's an option fee
2. Ongoing rent and option fee to cover his mortgage
3. Final sales price
4. Option period, which is the amount of time you have to get the buyer to find a loan and buy the house (remember he already has at least part of the option fee as his equity)

The middleman and the buyer need to agree on:
1. Initial option fee and whether it goes towards his purchase price
2. Ongoing option fee and whether it goes towards his purchase price, or what portion
3. Rent, which is usually determined by market conditions
4. Option period

There are a few more variables and components to this real estate investing methodology but this should give you a reasonably good idea of what it's all about. The pack you purchase from Rick Otton will describe the process in great detail and will give you sample forms to use. I found a few spelling and grammatical errors in the forms but you should have a solicitor write up the documents properly. Perhaps find out whether the forms are ready to use as they are before purchasing the pack. Hopefully they'll improve on them. You also get a bunch of audio CDs that teach you what to say and how to find the sellers and buyers.

In my opinion, the kind of person who can do this well is someone who is well liked by people and doesn't mind talking to strangers. You need to be able to listen to people's needs and adjust your strategy to achieve a win/win outcome. If you lack confidence or you're shy, find some other way to make money because this isn't for you. You also need to have persistence and have a positive attitude because you will encounter a lot of resistance along the way.

If you would like any more information or have questions, I'd be happy to answer them for you.