[F]or the average home a tankless heater isn't going to really save any money and brings in a new set of problems including the need for some new infrastructure to handle either the electric or gas load the thing produces.
I'm not sure I follow you - I only produce heated water when I need it. It runs on gas which I already had plumbed.... My gas bills went DOWN from my previous tank water heater so I know it works.
A tankless heater only produces heated water when you need it, true, but it has to do it instantly. That takes a lot more BTUs, which could require a bigger gas line. It could also mean that the burner is less efficient, analogous to the way it's less efficient to accelerate in a car quickly than it is to do so gently.
What it really boils down to is how peaky your hot water demand is. If you tend to take a shower, wash dishes, and wash clothes all at once and then use no hot water for the rest of the day then a tankless water heater is going to work better. On the other hand, if you use hot water on and off throughout the day (with intervals long enough for the tank temperature to recover after it gets drained, but short enough that unit doesn't have to keep re-heating the same water) then a high efficiency tank unit (especially one of the new heat-pump ones) is better. It's analogous to how a hybrid car is better for stop-and-go traffic, while a diesel car is better for constant-speed highway trips.
My county (Lake) will not let you camp on your own land unless you have a plan and a permit for a permanent structure. It's my land, assholes. Is that even constitutional? It's certainly discriminatory on an economic basis.
[A modular house is] going to be ultimately worse because [i]t's been built on a standardized basis. This basis is based on cutting costs, so there are corners cut for the sake of manufacturing cost efficiency. Undersized floor beams/trusses, or low R factor insulation, for instance.
Standardization efficiency isn't based on cutting corners, it's based on economies of scale and the ability to use assembly-line manufacturing techniques. There's no inherent reason why a modular home would be low-quality; modular homes come in low-end and high-end varieties just like site-built ones do. What you can probably expect is for the standardization to cause the modular home to be somewhat less expensive than a site-built house of equal quality. Do these modular homes look low-quality to you (excepting the tiny shed-like M Finity ones)?
Also, modular homes aren't necessarily as standardized as you might think, since you can often customize the arrangement of the modules (not to mention the finishes, etc.).
Moving these modulars is difficult, and there are often a substantial number of repairs necessary before they can be considered "habitable".Joints get twisted, and the frame as a whole will get torqued and bounced about on the truck. Insulation comes loose, and square frames become slightly off.
These things are designed to be shipped to the installation site! You think the designers are so stupid they'll make the individual modules too big to move relatively easily? You think the frames aren't designed stronger to prevent damage from shipping loads (again, assuming high-quality)?
Now, mistakes we have made... LEDs comes to mind. LEDs in and of themselves are great, BUT, they are a new technology. They do NOT play well with electronic dimmers. We bought 30 of them. The ones on any variety of electronic dimmer had a decreased output in a few months (down to about 50% and still dropping, albeit slower). The ones on switches, on the other hand, are just as bright now (over a year later) as the day they were installed.
I'm looking forward to when houses start getting designed for LEDs (and other low-voltage DC devices in general). Imagine LED fixture being cheaper because they stop needing to include rectifiers and instead hook up directly to a household 12V (or 5V?) DC circuit. Imagine plugging in all sorts of low-amperage electronic devices, from cellphone chargers to home networking equipment to clock radios, without a proliferation of wall-warts. Imagine new kinds of light fixtures: illuminated crown molding, planetarium-like ceilings with twinkling stars, entire walls that glow with diffused light, etc!
Exactly: there's no reason a super-green home can't look exactly like any traditional colonial or cape-cod style home. The only reason all the green homes you see look like spaceships is that they're trying to show off. Conversely, people just see the traditionally-styled homes and don't realize that they're green!
Get good appliances. And no, I dont mean the top of the line "crap" sold at your local appliance store (Sears, Home Depot, Lowes, wherever). They make full size refrigerators that use 200W - NOT 1200W. Similar (electricity) savings can be found on other appliances as well.
One important tip for buying appliances is to look at the actual number on the Energy Guide tag, not the relative position on the spectrum it shows you. That spectrum only shows "similar" models; you could very well find that some french door model that has the arrow on the tag all the way to the "uses least energy" side still absolutely sucks compared to some top-freezer model when you actually look at the yearly kWh/year number.
And of course, thinking anything with an EnergyStar sticker is good enough and not paying attention to the EnergyGuide tag at all is even worse!
Finally, for dishwashers and washing machines, water usage can be even more important than energy usage (especially if you live in an area with expensive water, such as Atlanta or Seattle). There's WaterSense certification you can look for, but AFAIK there's unfortunately no gallons/year comparison label yet.
Unless it's a window on the south that can catch some sun. That will actually (partially) heat your house. Windows on other directions are indeed quite wasteful.
Unless you live in a climate with more cooling degree-days than heating ones.
Of course, what you really want is south-facing windows with awnings strategically designed according to your latitude so that they shade the windows in summer but let the light in in winter.
I don't think the metal roof is reflecting IR like a radiant barrier would.
Why not? Is it painted black or something? Could you tell me more details about the roof (color, material -- I assume its galvinized aluminum or something, not literally tin -- etc.)?
As for the crawlspace - this was a second story addition. The crawlspace was untouched other than to add some supports for the second story support beams. It's presently dirt with crappy insulation batts shoved between floor joists - by ME. It had NO insulation when I moved in and was over 60 years old at the time. I was stunned!
Half of my house is 62 years old with an uninsulated basement. The other half is 9 years old with an uninsulated crawlspace -- yes, completely uninsulated and without vapor barrier, despite being built to relatively modern codes! (A vapor barrier was added about a year ago as part of the work required for it to qualify for an FHA loan so I could buy it.) It's still vented and without insulation, which isn't an incredibly big deal because I'm in Atlanta. (I had reasonable heating bills last winter) I still plan to fix it eventually though, of course.
Figuring out what to do in the crawlspace has vexed me for YEARS. I hate drafts and I have them right now. Vapor barrier on all the walls, some rigid foam, maybe spray foam? If I leave vents open then cold air comes right in - haven't I defeated the purpose? Very frustrating to try and figure out...
Treating it like a crawlspace, it depends greatly on what sort of climate you're in. (Where are you, anyway?)
I just had an idea, though: what's the difference between a crawlspace and a basement? Pretty much just the dirt floor and the headroom, right? So, why not treat it the same way you'd treat a basement? Install a vapor barrier against the ground (making the floor more-or-less similar to a concrete one), close up the vents, and insulate the walls. (A tip even though you probably already know: if you use closed-cell spray foam on the walls, it makes its own vapor barrier.)
... and sure not much room to work under there either - especially alone:-(
Hire it out: paying somebody to install the vapor barrier is cheap and spray foam isn't DIY-friendly anyway (although I did recently run across a company that sells kits in an ad in Fine Homebuilding magazine).
Attic isn't a conditioned space sadly, too much concern about the roof decking.
Oh, I misread your post: you relented to your builder and didn't put the insulation on the rafters. Too bad.
You know, it's kind of silly that everybody objected: what you wanted was no different then how they have to build cathedral-style ceilings (where there is no attic and the finished ceiling is attached to the rafters) anyway! It's really not that weird...
I may yet do a radiant barrier though!
Again, since you missed it the first time: your tin roofing is metallic to begin with. Are you sure it isn't already a radiant barrier?
Perhaps heavy ply plastic down to keep moisture out
Wait, you went to all that trouble to use new, better building techniques and didn't get a vapor barrier in the crawlspace? That's a basic thing that even not-particularly-green houses have nowadays!
Walls are block, there are some vents along two sides. Moisture would be a concern I think but not insurmountable maybe. Hrm, I'm all ears to suggestions...
Vapor barrier, insulate walls... you may want to block off those vents, depending on where you live, what season it is, and whose theories you believe (there is disagreement about when/if you should ventilate when insulation enters the picture).
...if it's full of hydrogen, it will fail spectacularly.
The Hindenburg failed spectacularly because its paint was made of rocket fuel, which burns brightly. Hydrogen flames are barely visible and therefore boring.
When I drive from SF to LA on I-5, that's a two lane road as well.
No it's not. "rural two-lane highway" means two lanes total -- one in each direction. The minimum design standard for Interstates are 4 lanes with a median.
The O.P. talking about having to do a "'can I pass this guy' dance" when overtaking because he'd have to cross into oncoming traffic to do it.
Funny, I see Scott preaching about radiant barriers.
I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure your tin roof is a radiant barrier.
spray foaming my damned crawlspace
Have you considered insulating the crawlspace walls instead of the floor (i.e., making the crawlspace conditioned space, like you did with your attic)?
This kind of issue is what carbon trading is (read: "should be") for. Carbon trading is designed to account for the externalities of the ecologically destructive products by increasing their cost to reflect their destructiveness. Once that happens, the eco-friendly products become cheaper in comparison. Or in other words, the destructive products cease being subsidized by the environment.
I don't know what Bioware's up to, but I think Steam is different... since you're buying the game from them and getting it download-only, setting up an account is less invasive, since you had to do it to make the purchase to begin with.
You have to register with Steam for Valve games even if you get them from a box on a shelf.
That's an asinine argument. Computer technology changes so fast that any given video card model might be made for only 6 months. In that case, the "lifetime" warranty would become worse than a standard 1-year warranty, which is absurd.
What I'm commenting on is the way in which a lot of guys around here just endlessly defend Childs, at best only giving a brief nod towards the fact that he had inadequately secured key data for a rather large organization's IT infrastructure.
So he was bad at his job. But here's the question you're only giving a brief nod to: is being bad at your job a crime worse than murder?!
You know there's a reason why we have two symbols, right? The cross is the symbol for cross product and the dot is the symbol for dot product; when used on scalar values they reduce to the same operation -- multiplication.
Unlike other areas of IP, trademark must be actively defended. If you don't inform others of your trademark, you are not defending it.
Yeah, but that doesn't mean somebody else can just go arbitrarily trademark the word you've been using and then sue you for continuing to use it. At worst, "DotA" should become a generic term.
Slashdot Mirror
A tankless heater only produces heated water when you need it, true, but it has to do it instantly. That takes a lot more BTUs, which could require a bigger gas line. It could also mean that the burner is less efficient, analogous to the way it's less efficient to accelerate in a car quickly than it is to do so gently.
What it really boils down to is how peaky your hot water demand is. If you tend to take a shower, wash dishes, and wash clothes all at once and then use no hot water for the rest of the day then a tankless water heater is going to work better. On the other hand, if you use hot water on and off throughout the day (with intervals long enough for the tank temperature to recover after it gets drained, but short enough that unit doesn't have to keep re-heating the same water) then a high efficiency tank unit (especially one of the new heat-pump ones) is better. It's analogous to how a hybrid car is better for stop-and-go traffic, while a diesel car is better for constant-speed highway trips.
Zoning's constitutionality has been challenged before. I suppose if you have a facial challenge based on something other than the due process clause (i.e., the 14th Amendment), or an as-applied challenge that hasn't been covered yet, you could try to argue it.
That's Federalism... it's like that on purpose.
Standardization efficiency isn't based on cutting corners, it's based on economies of scale and the ability to use assembly-line manufacturing techniques. There's no inherent reason why a modular home would be low-quality; modular homes come in low-end and high-end varieties just like site-built ones do. What you can probably expect is for the standardization to cause the modular home to be somewhat less expensive than a site-built house of equal quality. Do these modular homes look low-quality to you (excepting the tiny shed-like M Finity ones)?
Also, modular homes aren't necessarily as standardized as you might think, since you can often customize the arrangement of the modules (not to mention the finishes, etc.).
These things are designed to be shipped to the installation site! You think the designers are so stupid they'll make the individual modules too big to move relatively easily? You think the frames aren't designed stronger to prevent damage from shipping loads (again, assuming high-quality)?
I'm looking forward to when houses start getting designed for LEDs (and other low-voltage DC devices in general). Imagine LED fixture being cheaper because they stop needing to include rectifiers and instead hook up directly to a household 12V (or 5V?) DC circuit. Imagine plugging in all sorts of low-amperage electronic devices, from cellphone chargers to home networking equipment to clock radios, without a proliferation of wall-warts. Imagine new kinds of light fixtures: illuminated crown molding, planetarium-like ceilings with twinkling stars, entire walls that glow with diffused light, etc!
Exactly: there's no reason a super-green home can't look exactly like any traditional colonial or cape-cod style home. The only reason all the green homes you see look like spaceships is that they're trying to show off. Conversely, people just see the traditionally-styled homes and don't realize that they're green!
One important tip for buying appliances is to look at the actual number on the Energy Guide tag, not the relative position on the spectrum it shows you. That spectrum only shows "similar" models; you could very well find that some french door model that has the arrow on the tag all the way to the "uses least energy" side still absolutely sucks compared to some top-freezer model when you actually look at the yearly kWh/year number.
And of course, thinking anything with an EnergyStar sticker is good enough and not paying attention to the EnergyGuide tag at all is even worse!
Finally, for dishwashers and washing machines, water usage can be even more important than energy usage (especially if you live in an area with expensive water, such as Atlanta or Seattle). There's WaterSense certification you can look for, but AFAIK there's unfortunately no gallons/year comparison label yet.
Unless you live in a climate with more cooling degree-days than heating ones.
Of course, what you really want is south-facing windows with awnings strategically designed according to your latitude so that they shade the windows in summer but let the light in in winter.
Why not? Is it painted black or something? Could you tell me more details about the roof (color, material -- I assume its galvinized aluminum or something, not literally tin -- etc.)?
Half of my house is 62 years old with an uninsulated basement. The other half is 9 years old with an uninsulated crawlspace -- yes, completely uninsulated and without vapor barrier, despite being built to relatively modern codes! (A vapor barrier was added about a year ago as part of the work required for it to qualify for an FHA loan so I could buy it.) It's still vented and without insulation, which isn't an incredibly big deal because I'm in Atlanta. (I had reasonable heating bills last winter) I still plan to fix it eventually though, of course.
Treating it like a crawlspace, it depends greatly on what sort of climate you're in. (Where are you, anyway?)
I just had an idea, though: what's the difference between a crawlspace and a basement? Pretty much just the dirt floor and the headroom, right? So, why not treat it the same way you'd treat a basement? Install a vapor barrier against the ground (making the floor more-or-less similar to a concrete one), close up the vents, and insulate the walls. (A tip even though you probably already know: if you use closed-cell spray foam on the walls, it makes its own vapor barrier.)
Hire it out: paying somebody to install the vapor barrier is cheap and spray foam isn't DIY-friendly anyway (although I did recently run across a company that sells kits in an ad in Fine Homebuilding magazine).
Oh, I misread your post: you relented to your builder and didn't put the insulation on the rafters. Too bad.
You know, it's kind of silly that everybody objected: what you wanted was no different then how they have to build cathedral-style ceilings (where there is no attic and the finished ceiling is attached to the rafters) anyway! It's really not that weird...
Again, since you missed it the first time: your tin roofing is metallic to begin with. Are you sure it isn't already a radiant barrier?
Wait, you went to all that trouble to use new, better building techniques and didn't get a vapor barrier in the crawlspace? That's a basic thing that even not-particularly-green houses have nowadays!
Vapor barrier, insulate walls... you may want to block off those vents, depending on where you live, what season it is, and whose theories you believe (there is disagreement about when/if you should ventilate when insulation enters the picture).
The Hindenburg failed spectacularly because its paint was made of rocket fuel, which burns brightly. Hydrogen flames are barely visible and therefore boring.
If that's true, then why does the worst traffic (i.e., "rush hour") coincide with the commuters?
Dangit; Slashcode ate the link!
Obligatory: "55: A Meditation on the Speed Limit" (filmed on the Perimeter around Atlanta).
No it's not. "rural two-lane highway" means two lanes total -- one in each direction. The minimum design standard for Interstates are 4 lanes with a median.
The O.P. talking about having to do a "'can I pass this guy' dance" when overtaking because he'd have to cross into oncoming traffic to do it.
I could be mistaken, but I'm pretty sure your tin roof is a radiant barrier.
Have you considered insulating the crawlspace walls instead of the floor (i.e., making the crawlspace conditioned space, like you did with your attic)?
This kind of issue is what carbon trading is (read: "should be") for. Carbon trading is designed to account for the externalities of the ecologically destructive products by increasing their cost to reflect their destructiveness. Once that happens, the eco-friendly products become cheaper in comparison. Or in other words, the destructive products cease being subsidized by the environment.
You know, you could just make the house durable enough to survive the natural disasters instead.
You have to register with Steam for Valve games even if you get them from a box on a shelf.
Was that before or after Freecraft and BnetD?
Gigabyte even advertises their durability as a feature. My HD4850's box talks about "Ultra Durable 2" technology with solid capacitors and whatnot.
That's an asinine argument. Computer technology changes so fast that any given video card model might be made for only 6 months. In that case, the "lifetime" warranty would become worse than a standard 1-year warranty, which is absurd.
So he was bad at his job. But here's the question you're only giving a brief nod to: is being bad at your job a crime worse than murder?!
You know there's a reason why we have two symbols, right? The cross is the symbol for cross product and the dot is the symbol for dot product; when used on scalar values they reduce to the same operation -- multiplication.
In before "Who's on first?" joke!
Yeah, but that doesn't mean somebody else can just go arbitrarily trademark the word you've been using and then sue you for continuing to use it. At worst, "DotA" should become a generic term.