Dirty enough that another coat of paint would likely be cost effective again - and if you keep applying it every 5 years it just might extend the life of the base roof under the paint.
Maybe, as a politician, he spotted the fact that this is an old idea that is worth implementing (not unusual), and at this particular time him making a statement might just effectively drive greater adoption of the idea - something that you can't do because the mainstream press doesn't give a damn what you say. Perhaps he strategically timed it for (his perception) of maximum effect, or more likely it just "seemed like a good time."
I've owned homes continuously since 1992. My first home had a shingle roof that went through Hurricane Andrew - when I sold in 2003 it was still watertight and showing no signs of needing replacement. The home we bought had a leaking roof when we bought it, during dry season (bonus points to the home inspector who said nothing about it) - we replaced that roof and ended up moving out of state a year later. Next home owned for 3 years with no roof problems, and we've been in our current one for 5 years with no problems here.
So, statistically, I've done my one roof replacement in 20 years, but as often as people move around in the post-Bush economy, it's more like a lottery than a certainty that you'll have roof problems as a homeowner.
So, money that is spent on heating costs doesn't have any effect on the economy? Where does that money go then?
Consumer Energy Spending is 100% delivered to the -> Local Utility which gives 80% of that income to the -> Fuel supplier, who gives 95% of that money to the extraction and refinery process, and a huge chunk of that money ends up -> leaving the country.
So, a few guys at your local utility company (who would provide pretty much the same number of jobs if usage was cut by 75%) are getting a cut of your power bill, but the bulk of the money is going to companies like Royal Dutch Shell, and the Coal Mines, not exactly the part of the economy I want to see nurtured and grown.
Adding a solid 6" (R19) over a layer of weak existing R-19 in my current home has made a huge difference, our electric bills are down by 25%+. White roof doesn't matter much to us, 75% of our roof is shaded by trees.
The tire thing works - took our pickup truck from 15mpg to almost 18 on the highway. Before you sneer, we travel 5 at a time in the pickup, meaning your driver only Prius would need to get 90mpg to compete, or 45 if you can find a passenger willing to ride with you.
The white paint thing works, too... but people don't really care enough about energy conservation to change the appearance of their homes, how tacky would mildew look on a white roof when the neighbors have it hidden in their dark grey or brown? What would that do to the resale value of the house when it looks dirty, and worse, different? (Hint: the depressed resale value might equal a couple of years' worth of energy savings.)
We did this once as a company project... everybody who wasn't afraid of ladders came in on a Saturday morning and we slapped down 20 gallons of white on the new black roof - relatively easy work, though it did involve being out in the 90 degree 98% humidity morning on a roof on Miami Beach for a couple of hours.
The guy who was afraid of ladders did keep a temperature log both before and after the project. We did indeed drop summertime internal temp by a significant and measurable margin (it's been over 10 years, I've forgotten exactly what that margin was, but it amounted to maybe an extra month of "liveable" temperatures inside.) Final result of the project: white paint still wasn't enough to help the anemic central AC unit carry the peak summer months, so we bought a $600 24,000 BTU wall unit, slapped it in and froze the place solid in August (well, at least got it down to 72...) And, since our lease agreement didn't have us paying for electricity usage, we surely weren't incentivized to do more than that.
Lesson one: end users should be financially responsible for carbon generating activities.
Lesson two: highly powerful A/C units are way too cheap and easy to install - you can buy a unit for less than 45 days' energy cost. People need to be educated on the true cost of ownership of these things (and portable electric heaters, too.)
And, you totally missed the Obi-Wan to Luke "so, when I told you Darth Vader killed your father I was telling the truth, from a certain point of view" reference.
Pulling licenses and informing people after the fact is a classic DMV MO - when I moved out of Florida, I transferred insurance to new state Texas. Months later, in a routine sweep of the database, Florida invalidated my drivers' license because it was issued to the owner of a car with a Florida tag that did not have current insurance. I found out about this when attempting to get my Texas drivers' license, no attempt was ever made to notify me - I could have as easily found out my license was invalid during a "routine traffic stop," though I scarcely believe it could have been more annoying than the three times I had to wait the line at DMV.
1860 licenses out of what, like 4 million registered drivers? So, like 99.95% of the voting public wasn't directly affected and we got 100 bad guys! Sounds like a win - from a certain point of view.
It will probably continue to happen until somebody gets complacent and doesn't notice that a major politician's wife or daughter got snagged by the system and lets their license get revoked...
If the 99.99% figure is apparently misleading, and if the 99.99% figure is apparently the only one that the politicians look at, stop presenting the 99.99% figure!!!
The skillset required to be a successful politician has a very small overlap with the population that can actually understand higher mathematical concepts (like the result of the application of fractions to large numbers).
Thanks to the (now at least 5 year old) number portability act, if you jump through sufficient hoops, you can get your landline number transferred to a wireless carrier of your choice. We did it, first to Vonage, then to Verizon wireless.
Thing is, if it's just a buck or two per month it's really not worth my time to wait on hold for an hour to get it fixed. Especially since I'll have to wait, get escalated, wait again, get denied and ask for a supervisor, wait again, and then maybe get my $2 back. I can find better ways to get that money in that time.
Very true - and easier still to tell them to take their whole service and shove it... Landline phone service needs to go the way of Blockbuster and travel agencies. It already has, in my house.
My personal solution - cell phones only. One for me, one for my wife, and one for the house - all on a shared minutes family plan. If one dies, we have the house phone as a backup to cover while a replacement comes. And all this landline nonsense is gone.
Due to the fact that you are "paying for minutes" - cell lines get more consumer protection from harassment than landllines. Not perfect, but better.
I certainly have never "flown for the food," but when handling the logistics of packing and preparing for the trip, taxi to the airport and whatever else needs doing on a travel day, as a person who "knows they have a choice when they fly," I would choose to spend an extra $10 or $20 of the company's money to go with an airline that at least provides a decent microwave meal that I don't have to think about / saves me the time and effort of dealing with it on the ground. Sadly, all the choices are about the same anymore, at least for domestic (US) carriers.
Maybe the fog of memory has distorted the details. Facts include: Miami -> Boston, afternoon departure - not sure when, flight getting tediously boring while passing New York and taking an amazingly long time to get from there to Boston. I do clearly remember the cabin temperature being uncomfortably low, adding to the gnawing gut sensation.
I'm not implying that I would have starved to death or anything, but I certainly have received more generous service on a Miami->Tampa hop than I did on those flights to Boston.
This was a rather abrupt start of a rather steep descent, but I agree that some coincidence of timing also played in. I would guess that they had allowed X minutes for service and it just so happened that the notice of service complete came in at a time when the pilot could start a descent NOW without going around the holding pattern one more time. In no way do I believe that a passenger in any class could reliably control the course of the aircraft, but on this day the man in First did seem to affect it more than I previously believed possible.
This same itinerary had me on British Airways for the long hops, and, yes, BA coach service is (was?) a whole 3 notches higher than any US domestic carrier I have ever flown.
One time I got a 3/4 ounce bag of peanuts. The next time I flew that route it was only 1/2 ounce of peanuts.
I once drove my car six hours from Vancouver, BC to Portland OR. NO ONE gave me free food! Can you believe it? I actually had to bring my own in the car.
Yes, of course, always a possibility, unless the food you want to carry includes more than 3 ounces of liquid - then TSA might have a special room for you...
Most times I eat lunch at a restaurant, I end up waiting for the entire table to finish before our check(s) are brought around - this wasn't much different - about 12 seats total in First that day. As to whether or not it makes sense, it was something I experienced - I have experienced lots of things that make less sense than this.
I think I've flown about five times since 9/11, but before that I did fly fairly often. First Class, and even Business on American meant something back in the day - access to nice lounges, good service to go with the big seats. United wasn't bad, either. Earlier poster isn't kidding about being on your 2nd drink before the back rows are permitted to board.
He paid for his seat, and he was given consideration in return, I imagine after they burned a few hundred pounds of jet fuel waiting for him they might have prompted him to finish up, but that's not how it worked out that day.
I get the same thing, but if you look at it another way - ~20 hours a week for 29 years, he could have conceivably just been traveling an average of 4 hours a day and spending the rest of his time getting to and from the airport, with an occasional sales meeting thrown in.
Be careful of job offers from companies that are just starting a big vendor qualification push - there is usually an engineer or two who lives this constant travel lifestyle for a year or two during fresh vendor qualifications for a significant product.
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Dirty enough that another coat of paint would likely be cost effective again - and if you keep applying it every 5 years it just might extend the life of the base roof under the paint.
Maybe, as a politician, he spotted the fact that this is an old idea that is worth implementing (not unusual), and at this particular time him making a statement might just effectively drive greater adoption of the idea - something that you can't do because the mainstream press doesn't give a damn what you say. Perhaps he strategically timed it for (his perception) of maximum effect, or more likely it just "seemed like a good time."
I've owned homes continuously since 1992. My first home had a shingle roof that went through Hurricane Andrew - when I sold in 2003 it was still watertight and showing no signs of needing replacement. The home we bought had a leaking roof when we bought it, during dry season (bonus points to the home inspector who said nothing about it) - we replaced that roof and ended up moving out of state a year later. Next home owned for 3 years with no roof problems, and we've been in our current one for 5 years with no problems here.
So, statistically, I've done my one roof replacement in 20 years, but as often as people move around in the post-Bush economy, it's more like a lottery than a certainty that you'll have roof problems as a homeowner.
So, money that is spent on heating costs doesn't have any effect on the economy? Where does that money go then?
Consumer Energy Spending is 100% delivered to the -> Local Utility which gives 80% of that income to the -> Fuel supplier, who gives 95% of that money to the extraction and refinery process, and a huge chunk of that money ends up -> leaving the country.
So, a few guys at your local utility company (who would provide pretty much the same number of jobs if usage was cut by 75%) are getting a cut of your power bill, but the bulk of the money is going to companies like Royal Dutch Shell, and the Coal Mines, not exactly the part of the economy I want to see nurtured and grown.
Adding a solid 6" (R19) over a layer of weak existing R-19 in my current home has made a huge difference, our electric bills are down by 25%+. White roof doesn't matter much to us, 75% of our roof is shaded by trees.
The tire thing works - took our pickup truck from 15mpg to almost 18 on the highway. Before you sneer, we travel 5 at a time in the pickup, meaning your driver only Prius would need to get 90mpg to compete, or 45 if you can find a passenger willing to ride with you.
The white paint thing works, too... but people don't really care enough about energy conservation to change the appearance of their homes, how tacky would mildew look on a white roof when the neighbors have it hidden in their dark grey or brown? What would that do to the resale value of the house when it looks dirty, and worse, different? (Hint: the depressed resale value might equal a couple of years' worth of energy savings.)
Pure white roads would be a safety hazard, and costly to maintain - plain concrete isn't bad, but it's far from reflective white.
We did this once as a company project... everybody who wasn't afraid of ladders came in on a Saturday morning and we slapped down 20 gallons of white on the new black roof - relatively easy work, though it did involve being out in the 90 degree 98% humidity morning on a roof on Miami Beach for a couple of hours.
The guy who was afraid of ladders did keep a temperature log both before and after the project. We did indeed drop summertime internal temp by a significant and measurable margin (it's been over 10 years, I've forgotten exactly what that margin was, but it amounted to maybe an extra month of "liveable" temperatures inside.) Final result of the project: white paint still wasn't enough to help the anemic central AC unit carry the peak summer months, so we bought a $600 24,000 BTU wall unit, slapped it in and froze the place solid in August (well, at least got it down to 72...) And, since our lease agreement didn't have us paying for electricity usage, we surely weren't incentivized to do more than that.
Lesson one: end users should be financially responsible for carbon generating activities.
Lesson two: highly powerful A/C units are way too cheap and easy to install - you can buy a unit for less than 45 days' energy cost. People need to be educated on the true cost of ownership of these things (and portable electric heaters, too.)
And, you totally missed the Obi-Wan to Luke "so, when I told you Darth Vader killed your father I was telling the truth, from a certain point of view" reference.
Pulling licenses and informing people after the fact is a classic DMV MO - when I moved out of Florida, I transferred insurance to new state Texas. Months later, in a routine sweep of the database, Florida invalidated my drivers' license because it was issued to the owner of a car with a Florida tag that did not have current insurance. I found out about this when attempting to get my Texas drivers' license, no attempt was ever made to notify me - I could have as easily found out my license was invalid during a "routine traffic stop," though I scarcely believe it could have been more annoying than the three times I had to wait the line at DMV.
1860 licenses out of what, like 4 million registered drivers? So, like 99.95% of the voting public wasn't directly affected and we got 100 bad guys! Sounds like a win - from a certain point of view.
It will probably continue to happen until somebody gets complacent and doesn't notice that a major politician's wife or daughter got snagged by the system and lets their license get revoked...
If the 99.99% figure is apparently misleading, and if the 99.99% figure is apparently the only one that the politicians look at, stop presenting the 99.99% figure!!!
The skillset required to be a successful politician has a very small overlap with the population that can actually understand higher mathematical concepts (like the result of the application of fractions to large numbers).
What is your favorite breed of dog?
You know, in many other forums, nobody would see any problem with asking the group "What is your favorite breed of dog?"
Thanks to the (now at least 5 year old) number portability act, if you jump through sufficient hoops, you can get your landline number transferred to a wireless carrier of your choice. We did it, first to Vonage, then to Verizon wireless.
Thing is, if it's just a buck or two per month it's really not worth my time to wait on hold for an hour to get it fixed. Especially since I'll have to wait, get escalated, wait again, get denied and ask for a supervisor, wait again, and then maybe get my $2 back. I can find better ways to get that money in that time.
Very true - and easier still to tell them to take their whole service and shove it... Landline phone service needs to go the way of Blockbuster and travel agencies. It already has, in my house.
My personal solution - cell phones only. One for me, one for my wife, and one for the house - all on a shared minutes family plan. If one dies, we have the house phone as a backup to cover while a replacement comes. And all this landline nonsense is gone.
Due to the fact that you are "paying for minutes" - cell lines get more consumer protection from harassment than landllines. Not perfect, but better.
He will die from his radiation exposure before his customers die of a car crash.
I certainly have never "flown for the food," but when handling the logistics of packing and preparing for the trip, taxi to the airport and whatever else needs doing on a travel day, as a person who "knows they have a choice when they fly," I would choose to spend an extra $10 or $20 of the company's money to go with an airline that at least provides a decent microwave meal that I don't have to think about / saves me the time and effort of dealing with it on the ground. Sadly, all the choices are about the same anymore, at least for domestic (US) carriers.
Maybe the fog of memory has distorted the details. Facts include: Miami -> Boston, afternoon departure - not sure when, flight getting tediously boring while passing New York and taking an amazingly long time to get from there to Boston. I do clearly remember the cabin temperature being uncomfortably low, adding to the gnawing gut sensation.
I'm not implying that I would have starved to death or anything, but I certainly have received more generous service on a Miami->Tampa hop than I did on those flights to Boston.
This was a rather abrupt start of a rather steep descent, but I agree that some coincidence of timing also played in. I would guess that they had allowed X minutes for service and it just so happened that the notice of service complete came in at a time when the pilot could start a descent NOW without going around the holding pattern one more time. In no way do I believe that a passenger in any class could reliably control the course of the aircraft, but on this day the man in First did seem to affect it more than I previously believed possible.
This same itinerary had me on British Airways for the long hops, and, yes, BA coach service is (was?) a whole 3 notches higher than any US domestic carrier I have ever flown.
One time I got a 3/4 ounce bag of peanuts. The next time I flew that route it was only 1/2 ounce of peanuts.
I once drove my car six hours from Vancouver, BC to Portland OR. NO ONE gave me free food! Can you believe it? I actually had to bring my own in the car.
Yes, of course, always a possibility, unless the food you want to carry includes more than 3 ounces of liquid - then TSA might have a special room for you...
Most times I eat lunch at a restaurant, I end up waiting for the entire table to finish before our check(s) are brought around - this wasn't much different - about 12 seats total in First that day. As to whether or not it makes sense, it was something I experienced - I have experienced lots of things that make less sense than this.
I think I've flown about five times since 9/11, but before that I did fly fairly often. First Class, and even Business on American meant something back in the day - access to nice lounges, good service to go with the big seats. United wasn't bad, either. Earlier poster isn't kidding about being on your 2nd drink before the back rows are permitted to board.
He paid for his seat, and he was given consideration in return, I imagine after they burned a few hundred pounds of jet fuel waiting for him they might have prompted him to finish up, but that's not how it worked out that day.
I get the same thing, but if you look at it another way - ~20 hours a week for 29 years, he could have conceivably just been traveling an average of 4 hours a day and spending the rest of his time getting to and from the airport, with an occasional sales meeting thrown in.
Be careful of job offers from companies that are just starting a big vendor qualification push - there is usually an engineer or two who lives this constant travel lifestyle for a year or two during fresh vendor qualifications for a significant product.