Care to explain to me how the healthcare industry will resist a cure for cancer when there are outside influences (at the very least the insurance companies who have no vested interest in wasting money on chemo) that would prevent them from doing so?
Some non-profit CEOs do in fact make eight figures a year.
And your point is? A non-profit needs to pay competitive salaries or they won't attract good employees. Whether or not a CEO is worth $10,000,000+ is another debate but the mere fact that the CEO makes good money doesn't mean they are in the business of "making money".
A non-profit exists to meet whatever need or provide whatever services that they have outlined in their charter. They don't exist to pay dividends to shareholders. That is the difference between a for-profit and a not-for-profit.
I've worked in the healthcare industry for years. Trust me when I tell you that they are about money first, second, and third.
Oh, give me a fucking break! Let me just list three reasons why your point is completely stupid:
The vast majority of hospitals and health care agencies in my area are either owned by the county, owned by a charitable organization or operated as not-for-profits. Their mission statements are helping people, not helping people while making a profit for our shareholders. There are some for-profit hospitals and agencies but they seem to be the exception rather then the rule. Ever hear of a Catholic Hospital? Or a Teaching Hospital? It's not all about the bottom line.
The health insurance industry has a vested interest in curing cancer. The GPs point (chemo is a multi billion dollar business) is quite valid here. If the health insurance carriers can save billions of dollars then they will. There is no reason why insurance carriers want people dying of incurable cancer and costing them millions of dollars while they spiral down the drain.
Most healthcare professionals (Doctors and Nurses) genuinely want to help people.
Once, 'no one could compete' with phone companies for Internet access because 'they own the lines'. Things change.
Yeah, now we have the choice of picking which company is going to screw us over with annual price increases and crappy customer service. Hmm, do I want to get screwed by Verizon, Time Warner or Cingular today?
But that's ok, cuz deregulation obviously lowered prices and improved the end users experience. All hail the free market!
They had to do business under the rules set down by the government in that country. The alternative was to not do business in China and let some other company do it, gain market share, and dilute Google's position.
Wrong. They don't have to do anything. There's a reason why history frowns on the Swiss bankers and the American companies that did business with the Nazi regime. History may very well judge Google, Cisco and Microsoft in the same light.
and now we're creating a device to reduce the number of the deer's last remaining predator.
Not if they follow the rules. This device does nothing to reduce legal hunting of deer. There's various reasons to regulate hunting, ranging from game management (you can only take so many animals and most of them have to be male) to safety (can't discharge your firearm within X yards of a structure). All this device does is provide a decoy for the violators to shoot at.
Living in Upstate NY and dealing with morons from the city that shoot at anything that moves (hint: diary cows don't look anything like deer yet they are routinely shot...) I think this is a wonderful idea.
Either chose a provider that doesn't cripple their phones
I'd love to. Too bad none of them have signal out here. Not much point to a cell phone if you can't use it.
take the money instead a cheap phone and buy your own
The only way around VZW's phone crippling is to buy Alltel or Sprint branded CDMA phones and have them set to join VZW's network. I've never found a place to just buy uncrippled CDMA phones. Lot's of places that sell GSM ones.
And before somebody replies with "get GSM service", see the first comment about "no signal".
Ballot access differs state to state widely, and in no state do either the D or R party have to pay a plugged nickle or gather signatures to be included
OMG! Gathering signatures! What an oppressive burden that can't be overcome! You do know that most anybody running for office needs to gather signatures, right? The election law of my state (NY) reads that the party committee gets to appoint one candidate that doesn't need to meet the signature requirements. Anybody that wants to run against him in the primary needs to gather signatures. The winner of the primary is automatically on the ballot in November. This law applies to all parties, not just the two big ones. The Greens, Working Families, and Conservative Parties are treated just as fairly as the Republican or Democratic. Why is this a problem?
There are many things that you can rightfully bitch about in our political system (like gerrymandering) but ballot access really doesn't seem to be a major issue in most states.
and the crime cartel has rigged the system to prevent existing third parties from getting much notice, getting on ballots, getting into so called debates
You know I hear the ballot access thing all the time and I just don't see how it holds true. I've never seen an election that didn't have third party candidates on the ballot. Perhaps the lack of money and support hurts them more then ballot access does? When this guy manages to get on the ballot for state wide office, I have a hard time buying the argument that it's too hard to gain ballot access for third parties.
getting into so called debates
Which "so called" debates are you referring to? The Presidential debates? Parot got into them. Do you think the 15% requirement is prohibitive? He managed to meet it. And why are third parties always trying to win the Presidency? Shouldn't they build a base and start locally (all politics being local) first? Pretty much anybody can get on the ballot for most local races. Hell, if I wanted to run for State Assembly all I'd need is 500 signatures. Money is also less of a factor when you can campaign door to door and the debate is held on public access.
It must really depends where you live, because here in Quebec, Canada, electricity is by far the cheapest solution. Actually, I don't think I've ever seen a gas stove in Montreal city, where I live. Everything just runs on electricity.
Most areas in the US don't have access to hydro -- or if hydro is available then it's not the primary source of power. I do have access to hydro (via the NYS Power Authority & Niagara Falls) and even at my rates ($0.04 - $0.05/US) gas is still cheaper -- $1.17 to $1.47/therm for electric vs about $1.10/therm for gas in the winter months. It's only with the calculation of furnace efficiency that electric wins in my scenario. And I'm a unique case because I have access to cheap hydro power. 95% of the United States does not.
Additionally, using electricity over here means no contribution to global warming, since it's all hydro. Win-win situation.
That's not exactly true. If you turn off a light bulb in your house then the hydro plant doesn't reduce it's power generation by 100 watts. A coal or gas fired plant attached to the grid does. With few exceptions (drought, environmental regulations, etc) hydro plants always run at a specific output. When you turn off that light the hydro power can replace coal power on the grid for that tiny amount. The bottom line is that every appliance that you connect to the grid has a carbon impact. This is why I still conserve energy even though my power is technically "greenhouse gas free".
As for the PSC, they'll have to catch me first. And by the time they did, there'd be enough of us doing it "underground" that we'd have a basis to change those monopoly protection laws to accommodate the new age of distributed power.
Eh, the PSC isn't the one that would catch you, it's your utility. The PSC is only the enforcement arm (for both wronged consumers and wronged utilities). The rates for using natural gas to generate electric aren't that different from the rates for using it to heat your home -- mainly I think the utilities are entitled to know what you are using it for so they can plan distribution and figure out supply needs. Heck, there's even a separate service tier if you use natural gas for vehicles -- it doesn't cost any more or less (in the end), but the utility wants to know what you are using it for.
Case in point with me: I have municipal electric that costs ~$0.04-$0.05/kWh. I stopped using natural gas to heat my home with. Eventually I received a letter from my utility asking what the scoop was -- they had assumed the meter stopped working because the usage dropped. They never changed my rates or tried to pull anything after I told them I wasn't using it as a primary heat source any longer.
If your usage changes drastically from your established history then don't be surprised if the utility contacts you and asks what's what. You don't have to tell them -- but don't be surprised if they decide to retest your meters if you don't give a decent explanation for the change.
Technically, that makes an electric heat pump the least expensive method of heating
Aren't heat pumps limited to certain temperature ranges though before they lose effectiveness? When I lived in North Carolina I knew lots of people with them. I don't know a single household around these parts (upstate NY) with one though.
And I don't mean they just join an existing third party, but start one from scratch with guys already in office.
Why not take over an existing party? If the religious right can take over the Republican Party then why can't Progressives take over the Democratic Party over the same length of time?
if it is that old it is probably passing carbon monoxide into the air, if I were yuo I would have it checked and if your furnace is putting too much carbon monoxide into the air your landlord is (often) REQUIRED to fix it
Eh, it's not worth arguing about. I turned the pilot light off over a year ago and I heat my house with electric. If I didn't have access to cheap electric I'd be bitching about it more (and I'd still have my CO detector plugged in), but why bother? My electric bill peaks at $75 in the winter months and $15 in the summer. I can live with that.
Before you flame (excuse the pun) the original poster, you might want to consider that gas leaks can occur for reasons other than a pilot light going out.
And electricity can kill you just as easily if something goes wrong. In fact you won't figure out an appliance isn't grounded properly until you make the mistake of touching it and get zapped. At least gas has a smell that's hard to miss. In any case, a properly installed and properly maintained gas system isn't any more or less dangerous then electricity -- which everybody seems to assume is completely safe.
I'll tell you what -- during the recent flood when I had no power for four days and had to boil all my water I was pretty happy that I had a gas stove. And a gas hot water heater for that matter. Otherwise I would have been taking the boat (my house became an island) to get bottled water and taking cold showers.
I live upstate. Our rates run about $0.12 - $0.14/kWh. What I really love is how I can cross the border into PA (which generates from the same fuel mix as we do) and it's instantly 25-40% cheaper.
And you can store a reservoir of gas as a "voltage buffer", which you can't do as efficiently (or cheaply) with batteries (even UPS).
I've often wondered how economical it would be to compress natural gas and store enough for the winter months on summer pricing. In the summer our gas runs about $0.60-$0.70/therm. In the winter it's recently peaked at $1.20 and typically runs $1.00 - $1.10/therm. How feasible would it be to compress enough gas to last through the winter in June or July when prices are cheap?
I'm just a little surprised that even today's entry level fuelcells aren't getting snapped up to save 20% on electric in places like NYC. At $10K for a 5KW peak output fuelcell run at 2KW average, it would pay for itself after 6 months.
You might want to read the PSC regulations before you try to do this. I'm pretty sure they have a whole different set of rules that you must follow (and a whole different set of rates that you'd be charged) if you wanted to use gas to generate electricity. The regulations are tailored to using it with a generator, but if the utility wanted to be jerks (ConED? Never....) they could probably make a case for doing it with your fuel cell idea too.....
It is for electric resistance heating, which is what I was talking about. The actual process of generating the electric is nowhere near 100% (it's probably not even at 50%) but the usage thereof is 100%. The only 'loss' would be wires that warm up under the load.
I used to work in HVAC and I have to disagree with you, in pilot mode the thermocouple is still in use, that is why you have to push the button in to get the gas flowing till it heats up
Eh, your probably right. I don't pretend to be an HVAC expert. But the (really old) furnace that I've lit pilot lights on didn't require the button to be pushed. You just set it to pilot mode and lit the thing. That's all it would allow you to do. On the basis of that experience I presumed that pilot mode bypassed the thermocouple.
if your furnace pilot is using that much gas it needs to be fixed.
Tell that to my landlord. I could also point out how the furnace is less then 50% efficient -- but he doesn't see any reason to replace a "perfectly working furnace". So I heat my home with electric space heaters. We have hydro electric from a municipal power company and pay $0.04 - $0.05/kWh so it works out for me in the end. The sad thing is though, that even at those insanely cheap ass electric rates, gas would still be cheaper if I had a modern furnace.
What are the actual costs? Because every calculation I've ever done with electric vs natural gas, gas wins hands down unless your furnace is out of date. My electric is among the cheapest in the country and it still doesn't pay to use it over gas -- even as gas prices have gone up.
If you live in NY State, well, I suggest you move or buy lots and lots of insulation, because the WSJ today said the price of oil is going up to $70 a barrel soon.
Heating oil sucks. But my house is heated with gas and electric. Others around here heat with wood (or at least supplement). We get by just fine.
but we have these fancy things called heaters which we use on demand instead
I was being a wiseass:P
My house is gas heat, but many people also use oil and electric heat. Electric is about the same as gas here, costwise.
Are you sure about that? I've run those numbers before (post I just made on the subject) and I've never been able to justify electric over gas -- unless you have a really crappy gas furnace and can't replace it for whatever reason. At $0.08/kWh it costs $2.34 to get 100,000 BTUs out of electric. If you live in NYS and pay $0.12/kWh it's $3.51. Are you really paying $2.34 - $3.50 a therm for your gas?
There are some light outlets in my place that I don't use CFLs in - mostly stairways and near vibrating washer/dryers - and one fixture that seems to just burn out CFLs faster than others. Over time I've figured out which ones not to use CFLs in - especially in ones with dimmer switches (duh). In practice, I find the cheapo CFL bulbs are less tolerant than the more expensive brands - but you can buy the more expensive brands in bulk for cheap at Home Depot (and sometimes Costco).
I have that problem with all my fixtures. My voltage problem is housewide and occurs even if I'm not drawing any load. I'm anxious to see affordable LEDs on the market. They should be more robust, safer and environmentally friendly (no mercury required) then CFLs.
Might want to bitch to your landlord. A properly wired electrical system will not cause such massive variances in voltage due to load changes of a mere 10KW.
Actually, the wiring in our house (two-unit home) is modern. I've checked it myself because I supplement my heat with electric space heaters (cheap hydro electric) and didn't want to be burning the house down. When she fires up that kiln I can watch the street lights dim.
What I really need to do is bitch at the power company to give us a new transformer. It was probably sized decently before everybody and their bother started converting to electric heat. I don't seem to have these problems in summer when she uses her kilns...
-1, FUD. Ever heard of a Thermocouple? Any modern gas appliance with a pilot light has one. And saying that old appliances can be dangerous is hardly unique to gas.
I've noticed just replacing incandescent (standard) light bulbs cut the extra heat in my house dramatically
Obviously you don't live in the Northeast:P No such thing as waste heat from light bulbs this time of the year:P
Seriously, though, I've noticed just replacing incandescent (standard) light bulbs cut the extra heat in my house dramatically, and saved me tons of cash. And they make compact flourescents that work in chandelier bulbs and don't look ugly now - just go to Home Depot and look.
I love compact fluorescents. My problem is that my voltage is not stable and I've noticed that in similar situations that the compacts seem to burn out -- sometimes quite spectacularly (smoke and sparks). Once upon a time I rented an old farm house with a bunch of roommates. I spent over a hundred bucks replacing every single bulb in the house with compact fluorescents. The house was in the country and had a well with a really old pump. Every time you flushed the toilet the lights dimmed and UPSes went off. Every single bulb that I bought was dead within three months:(
Ditto in my current apartment. Next door neighbor runs a glass business. She has 6KW and 10KW kilns that cycle on and off when in use. My voltage goes from 120V to 108V and back again over and over for hours on end. I'm not brave enough to try compact fluorescents in this environment:( Normal fluorescents seem to handle it just fine though -- have never replaced the one over my sink. Wonder why the compacts can't handle it?
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Wow, +5 insightful on that reply.
Care to explain to me how the healthcare industry will resist a cure for cancer when there are outside influences (at the very least the insurance companies who have no vested interest in wasting money on chemo) that would prevent them from doing so?
Some non-profit CEOs do in fact make eight figures a year.
And your point is? A non-profit needs to pay competitive salaries or they won't attract good employees. Whether or not a CEO is worth $10,000,000+ is another debate but the mere fact that the CEO makes good money doesn't mean they are in the business of "making money".
A non-profit exists to meet whatever need or provide whatever services that they have outlined in their charter. They don't exist to pay dividends to shareholders. That is the difference between a for-profit and a not-for-profit.
I've worked in the healthcare industry for years. Trust me when I tell you that they are about money first, second, and third.
Oh, give me a fucking break! Let me just list three reasons why your point is completely stupid:
Once, 'no one could compete' with phone companies for Internet access because 'they own the lines'. Things change.
Yeah, now we have the choice of picking which company is going to screw us over with annual price increases and crappy customer service. Hmm, do I want to get screwed by Verizon, Time Warner or Cingular today?
But that's ok, cuz deregulation obviously lowered prices and improved the end users experience. All hail the free market!
They had to do business under the rules set down by the government in that country. The alternative was to not do business in China and let some other company do it, gain market share, and dilute Google's position.
Wrong. They don't have to do anything. There's a reason why history frowns on the Swiss bankers and the American companies that did business with the Nazi regime. History may very well judge Google, Cisco and Microsoft in the same light.
and now we're creating a device to reduce the number of the deer's last remaining predator.
Not if they follow the rules. This device does nothing to reduce legal hunting of deer. There's various reasons to regulate hunting, ranging from game management (you can only take so many animals and most of them have to be male) to safety (can't discharge your firearm within X yards of a structure). All this device does is provide a decoy for the violators to shoot at.
Living in Upstate NY and dealing with morons from the city that shoot at anything that moves (hint: diary cows don't look anything like deer yet they are routinely shot...) I think this is a wonderful idea.
Either chose a provider that doesn't cripple their phones
I'd love to. Too bad none of them have signal out here. Not much point to a cell phone if you can't use it.
take the money instead a cheap phone and buy your own
The only way around VZW's phone crippling is to buy Alltel or Sprint branded CDMA phones and have them set to join VZW's network. I've never found a place to just buy uncrippled CDMA phones. Lot's of places that sell GSM ones.
And before somebody replies with "get GSM service", see the first comment about "no signal".
Most phones and computers support Bluetooth connections by now, so that's a non-issue.
Unless you use Verizon Wireless.......
Ballot access differs state to state widely, and in no state do either the D or R party have to pay a plugged nickle or gather signatures to be included
OMG! Gathering signatures! What an oppressive burden that can't be overcome! You do know that most anybody running for office needs to gather signatures, right? The election law of my state (NY) reads that the party committee gets to appoint one candidate that doesn't need to meet the signature requirements. Anybody that wants to run against him in the primary needs to gather signatures. The winner of the primary is automatically on the ballot in November. This law applies to all parties, not just the two big ones. The Greens, Working Families, and Conservative Parties are treated just as fairly as the Republican or Democratic. Why is this a problem?
There are many things that you can rightfully bitch about in our political system (like gerrymandering) but ballot access really doesn't seem to be a major issue in most states.
and the crime cartel has rigged the system to prevent existing third parties from getting much notice, getting on ballots, getting into so called debates
You know I hear the ballot access thing all the time and I just don't see how it holds true. I've never seen an election that didn't have third party candidates on the ballot. Perhaps the lack of money and support hurts them more then ballot access does? When this guy manages to get on the ballot for state wide office, I have a hard time buying the argument that it's too hard to gain ballot access for third parties.
getting into so called debates
Which "so called" debates are you referring to? The Presidential debates? Parot got into them. Do you think the 15% requirement is prohibitive? He managed to meet it. And why are third parties always trying to win the Presidency? Shouldn't they build a base and start locally (all politics being local) first? Pretty much anybody can get on the ballot for most local races. Hell, if I wanted to run for State Assembly all I'd need is 500 signatures. Money is also less of a factor when you can campaign door to door and the debate is held on public access.
It must really depends where you live, because here in Quebec, Canada, electricity is by far the cheapest solution. Actually, I don't think I've ever seen a gas stove in Montreal city, where I live. Everything just runs on electricity.
Most areas in the US don't have access to hydro -- or if hydro is available then it's not the primary source of power. I do have access to hydro (via the NYS Power Authority & Niagara Falls) and even at my rates ($0.04 - $0.05/US) gas is still cheaper -- $1.17 to $1.47/therm for electric vs about $1.10/therm for gas in the winter months. It's only with the calculation of furnace efficiency that electric wins in my scenario. And I'm a unique case because I have access to cheap hydro power. 95% of the United States does not.
Additionally, using electricity over here means no contribution to global warming, since it's all hydro. Win-win situation.
That's not exactly true. If you turn off a light bulb in your house then the hydro plant doesn't reduce it's power generation by 100 watts. A coal or gas fired plant attached to the grid does. With few exceptions (drought, environmental regulations, etc) hydro plants always run at a specific output. When you turn off that light the hydro power can replace coal power on the grid for that tiny amount. The bottom line is that every appliance that you connect to the grid has a carbon impact. This is why I still conserve energy even though my power is technically "greenhouse gas free".
As for the PSC, they'll have to catch me first. And by the time they did, there'd be enough of us doing it "underground" that we'd have a basis to change those monopoly protection laws to accommodate the new age of distributed power.
Eh, the PSC isn't the one that would catch you, it's your utility. The PSC is only the enforcement arm (for both wronged consumers and wronged utilities). The rates for using natural gas to generate electric aren't that different from the rates for using it to heat your home -- mainly I think the utilities are entitled to know what you are using it for so they can plan distribution and figure out supply needs. Heck, there's even a separate service tier if you use natural gas for vehicles -- it doesn't cost any more or less (in the end), but the utility wants to know what you are using it for.
Case in point with me: I have municipal electric that costs ~$0.04-$0.05/kWh. I stopped using natural gas to heat my home with. Eventually I received a letter from my utility asking what the scoop was -- they had assumed the meter stopped working because the usage dropped. They never changed my rates or tried to pull anything after I told them I wasn't using it as a primary heat source any longer.
If your usage changes drastically from your established history then don't be surprised if the utility contacts you and asks what's what. You don't have to tell them -- but don't be surprised if they decide to retest your meters if you don't give a decent explanation for the change.
Technically, that makes an electric heat pump the least expensive method of heating
Aren't heat pumps limited to certain temperature ranges though before they lose effectiveness? When I lived in North Carolina I knew lots of people with them. I don't know a single household around these parts (upstate NY) with one though.
And I don't mean they just join an existing third party, but start one from scratch with guys already in office.
Why not take over an existing party? If the religious right can take over the Republican Party then why can't Progressives take over the Democratic Party over the same length of time?
if it is that old it is probably passing carbon monoxide into the air, if I were yuo I would have it checked and if your furnace is putting too much carbon monoxide into the air your landlord is (often) REQUIRED to fix it
Eh, it's not worth arguing about. I turned the pilot light off over a year ago and I heat my house with electric. If I didn't have access to cheap electric I'd be bitching about it more (and I'd still have my CO detector plugged in), but why bother? My electric bill peaks at $75 in the winter months and $15 in the summer. I can live with that.
Before you flame (excuse the pun) the original poster, you might want to consider that gas leaks can occur for reasons other than a pilot light going out.
And electricity can kill you just as easily if something goes wrong. In fact you won't figure out an appliance isn't grounded properly until you make the mistake of touching it and get zapped. At least gas has a smell that's hard to miss. In any case, a properly installed and properly maintained gas system isn't any more or less dangerous then electricity -- which everybody seems to assume is completely safe.
I'll tell you what -- during the recent flood when I had no power for four days and had to boil all my water I was pretty happy that I had a gas stove. And a gas hot water heater for that matter. Otherwise I would have been taking the boat (my house became an island) to get bottled water and taking cold showers.
Here in NYC, electric costs about $0.18:KWh
I live upstate. Our rates run about $0.12 - $0.14/kWh. What I really love is how I can cross the border into PA (which generates from the same fuel mix as we do) and it's instantly 25-40% cheaper.
And you can store a reservoir of gas as a "voltage buffer", which you can't do as efficiently (or cheaply) with batteries (even UPS).
I've often wondered how economical it would be to compress natural gas and store enough for the winter months on summer pricing. In the summer our gas runs about $0.60-$0.70/therm. In the winter it's recently peaked at $1.20 and typically runs $1.00 - $1.10/therm. How feasible would it be to compress enough gas to last through the winter in June or July when prices are cheap?
I'm just a little surprised that even today's entry level fuelcells aren't getting snapped up to save 20% on electric in places like NYC. At $10K for a 5KW peak output fuelcell run at 2KW average, it would pay for itself after 6 months.
You might want to read the PSC regulations before you try to do this. I'm pretty sure they have a whole different set of rules that you must follow (and a whole different set of rates that you'd be charged) if you wanted to use gas to generate electricity. The regulations are tailored to using it with a generator, but if the utility wanted to be jerks (ConED? Never....) they could probably make a case for doing it with your fuel cell idea too.....
This is not entirely true
It is for electric resistance heating, which is what I was talking about. The actual process of generating the electric is nowhere near 100% (it's probably not even at 50%) but the usage thereof is 100%. The only 'loss' would be wires that warm up under the load.
I used to work in HVAC and I have to disagree with you, in pilot mode the thermocouple is still in use, that is why you have to push the button in to get the gas flowing till it heats up
Eh, your probably right. I don't pretend to be an HVAC expert. But the (really old) furnace that I've lit pilot lights on didn't require the button to be pushed. You just set it to pilot mode and lit the thing. That's all it would allow you to do. On the basis of that experience I presumed that pilot mode bypassed the thermocouple.
if your furnace pilot is using that much gas it needs to be fixed.
Tell that to my landlord. I could also point out how the furnace is less then 50% efficient -- but he doesn't see any reason to replace a "perfectly working furnace". So I heat my home with electric space heaters. We have hydro electric from a municipal power company and pay $0.04 - $0.05/kWh so it works out for me in the end. The sad thing is though, that even at those insanely cheap ass electric rates, gas would still be cheaper if I had a modern furnace.
Yes, in Seattle, electricity is cheaper than gas
What are the actual costs? Because every calculation I've ever done with electric vs natural gas, gas wins hands down unless your furnace is out of date. My electric is among the cheapest in the country and it still doesn't pay to use it over gas -- even as gas prices have gone up.
If you live in NY State, well, I suggest you move or buy lots and lots of insulation, because the WSJ today said the price of oil is going up to $70 a barrel soon.
Heating oil sucks. But my house is heated with gas and electric. Others around here heat with wood (or at least supplement). We get by just fine.
but we have these fancy things called heaters which we use on demand instead
I was being a wiseass :P
My house is gas heat, but many people also use oil and electric heat. Electric is about the same as gas here, costwise.
Are you sure about that? I've run those numbers before (post I just made on the subject) and I've never been able to justify electric over gas -- unless you have a really crappy gas furnace and can't replace it for whatever reason. At $0.08/kWh it costs $2.34 to get 100,000 BTUs out of electric. If you live in NYS and pay $0.12/kWh it's $3.51. Are you really paying $2.34 - $3.50 a therm for your gas?
There are some light outlets in my place that I don't use CFLs in - mostly stairways and near vibrating washer/dryers - and one fixture that seems to just burn out CFLs faster than others. Over time I've figured out which ones not to use CFLs in - especially in ones with dimmer switches (duh). In practice, I find the cheapo CFL bulbs are less tolerant than the more expensive brands - but you can buy the more expensive brands in bulk for cheap at Home Depot (and sometimes Costco).
I have that problem with all my fixtures. My voltage problem is housewide and occurs even if I'm not drawing any load. I'm anxious to see affordable LEDs on the market. They should be more robust, safer and environmentally friendly (no mercury required) then CFLs.
Might want to bitch to your landlord. A properly wired electrical system will not cause such massive variances in voltage due to load changes of a mere 10KW.
Actually, the wiring in our house (two-unit home) is modern. I've checked it myself because I supplement my heat with electric space heaters (cheap hydro electric) and didn't want to be burning the house down. When she fires up that kiln I can watch the street lights dim.
What I really need to do is bitch at the power company to give us a new transformer. It was probably sized decently before everybody and their bother started converting to electric heat. I don't seem to have these problems in summer when she uses her kilns...
-1, FUD. Ever heard of a Thermocouple? Any modern gas appliance with a pilot light has one. And saying that old appliances can be dangerous is hardly unique to gas.
I've noticed just replacing incandescent (standard) light bulbs cut the extra heat in my house dramatically
Obviously you don't live in the Northeast :P No such thing as waste heat from light bulbs this time of the year :P
Seriously, though, I've noticed just replacing incandescent (standard) light bulbs cut the extra heat in my house dramatically, and saved me tons of cash. And they make compact flourescents that work in chandelier bulbs and don't look ugly now - just go to Home Depot and look.
I love compact fluorescents. My problem is that my voltage is not stable and I've noticed that in similar situations that the compacts seem to burn out -- sometimes quite spectacularly (smoke and sparks). Once upon a time I rented an old farm house with a bunch of roommates. I spent over a hundred bucks replacing every single bulb in the house with compact fluorescents. The house was in the country and had a well with a really old pump. Every time you flushed the toilet the lights dimmed and UPSes went off. Every single bulb that I bought was dead within three months :(
Ditto in my current apartment. Next door neighbor runs a glass business. She has 6KW and 10KW kilns that cycle on and off when in use. My voltage goes from 120V to 108V and back again over and over for hours on end. I'm not brave enough to try compact fluorescents in this environment :( Normal fluorescents seem to handle it just fine though -- have never replaced the one over my sink. Wonder why the compacts can't handle it?
The one in my apartment seems to manage
....less then 50% on a good day. Damn HTML coding :(