Cheap energy = conservation

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To me at least, it has been proven time and time again( Amory and Hunter Lovins) that the cheapest form of new energy is simple conservation. Here in the west, BPA is giving out $6 rebate coupons as an incentive to use energy efficient lite bulbs. Oregon is offering about a $175 tax credit if you purchase a energy efficient front loading washer. Why not instantaneous water heaters etc? Europe has utilized many of these things for years, I assume because energy was so costly. Is that what it will take here? It seems we humans are awfully slow learners. I remember back when Carter appeared on television in his sweater and in return for even suggesting conservation he got laughed right out of office. Now it seems bush insists on not learning the same old lesson. Cut funding for conservation and more taxpayer subsidies for the BIG polluting power producers. Perhaps I'm just too impatient, maybe I should sit back and wait for things to trickle down.

-- Anonymous, April 18, 2001

Answers

Maybe the difference is that European policy is not so heavily corporation driven. Politicians are elected more on philosophical grounds than by having the most money to spend on campaigns. Hence, no payback! Conservation makes sense to them.

Sorry, it's SO HARD not to be negative. It's frustrating to have to choose between the poor options that are available when you know there could be better ones. I grew up in England, where on demand hot water systems are the standard, as are front loading washers.

In the house we are building (agonizingly slowly) we are planning on heating water using the wood cookstove combined with a solar system. We may end up occasionally without hot water, but we have an outside wood fired water stove too!

We went round in circles trying to get a good front loader. They are becoming more common now, but the US models are not the same as the efficient European models. We even thought of importing one from Canada - stone wall!

Finally, if you see those incentive deals/rebates on fluorescent light bulbs, JUMP AT THEM. We got some when we had the opportunity, and we wish we had got a lot more.

-- Anonymous, April 18, 2001


Go piss into the wind. Same effect as trickle down (maybe even kinder and gentler.)

Saving money is always more efficient than generating more income. Energy is the same...another resource. Folks would rather have something exciting, though...new "stuff." Hmm. Maybe piss on them instead.

(Enjoying new "bad" freedom from CS forum!)

-- Anonymous, April 18, 2001


See how you are, sheepish! LOL! Back in the 60's when CA was overrun by pseudo-hippies and other phonies (I admired the genuine ones) my redneck friends and I would always answer their "Peace, brother" with "Yeah, piss on you too, brother". Gawd, am I OLD, or what??

Here in Utah we have both an on-demand water heater (Takagi commercial model, propane fired) and a Neptune frontloader washer. I love 'em both. We also heat with wood (masonry heater). About half our bulbs are compact fluorescents (sp?). Our bathrooms have electric toe-kick heaters under the vanities, but are rarely used. We cook with wood and/or ppropane. Typical electric bill for our 1600 sq.ft. house is under $50 per month, and I run the computer and CD player pretty much all day.

I just think it's a sin, or immoral, or whatever you want to call it, to waste anything, be it money, energy or your brain. Jeeze, does that make me sound like a sanctimonious twit? Sorry. :-)

-- Anonymous, April 18, 2001


Hey jz, I HOPE you understood that I was using the collective "you" and not YOU personally! Sheesh! This form of communication is so twicky sometimes (E. Fudd)

Boy, that would have *really* been out of character for me to say, if I had indeed been addressing you like that, jz!

-- Anonymous, April 18, 2001


geez sheepish-I thought maybe you were going to do on the kinder- gentler forum what I had often felt like doing on the other one. LOL- too cute - jz - go piss in the wind!!! yikes - I absolutely needed a really good belly laugh!!!

jz- i am rapidly becoming unwilling to wait for things to trickle down. Maybe I need to move over to the "right-winged forum"????

-- Anonymous, April 18, 2001



Piss in the wind is right as far as trickle down is concerned. I can't even get my own family to conserve. After 22 years of marriage my husband is a little better, but probably only when I am watching. And my sons took the line of least resistance from their Dad. They all think I am nuts. If I am still living and breathing when these guys are forced to conserve I get a good laugh and most likely a told you so. And my co-workers just think I am excentric and get a good laugh. This new forum is so refreshing, thanks again Jim.

BTW what is an on demand water heater? Eventually I'll have to replace my water heater and I would certainly like something that is earth friendly.

Blessings, Judy

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001


Judy, an on-demand WH is just that; no holding tank of water constantly being kept hot. When you turn the hot tap, the heater senses the demand and turns on the flame (or element, in the case of electric ones). No difference on the receiving end. Having no holding tank also means you can't run out of hot water no matter how much you use, it'll just keep heating as long as the tap is open.

I think Aquastar is the most popular one in this country, and usually the same dealer either sells or can get the big commercial units from Takagi.

Down side: they ain't cheap! But in the long run, they pay for themselves. Same with our masonry heater. Damned thing just about broke us to install, but since we live in the woods we've now got free heat for life.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001


Jorja, what is a masonry heater. I like the idea of free heat.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001

A masonry heater is really just a fireplace, BUT, a very uniquely designed and constructed fireplace. More of a furnace really, 'cept that it's in your living room and not the basement. The principle is to burn a really hot fire, heat up a whole bunch of masonry mass, and it radiates the heat back at you for 12 to 24 hours before needing another firing. The 'technology' is several hundred years old and very common in places like Russia and Finland.

Like anything, it has its down side. Very expensive to build, unless you do all the work yourself. We didn't have the skills or time to learn them, so bought a kit from TempCast and had our contractor build it.

Also, if you're used to just adjusting a thermostat they'll take some getting used to. If you want heat at 10:00 PM, you need to burn the fire around 6 or 7, 'cause it'll take that long to get all the rocks good and hot. And of course once hot, you can't turn it off. It will throw heat until the rocks start to cool of again - many hours later. But you get used to the critter and it's personality pretty quickly. Most applications in this country also have a back-up source of heat for when you're away and can't tend the heater. We wired for a back- up heater, but haven't installed one yet.

Oh, another neat aspect is, it doesn't care what kind of wood you feed it; hardwood, softwood, scraps. So long as the wood is good and dry, you get heat in proportion to the # of lbs. burned. We stayed warm most of the past winter burning scrapwood left over from our construction.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001


That heater sounds great, but it would never do for my city husband, he thinks he has to be able to walk around in his drawers in the winter. Dufas. I am going to look into that hot water heater though, we could handle that.

Jorja, what is a toe-kick heater? We need heaters in our bathrooms.

Blessings, Judy

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001



Judy, The other joy of on demand water heating is that you're not using energy (=money) to keep the water hot when you don't need it. They can also reduce the need for some of the hot water plumbing needed for tank systems, e.g. stand alone units for showers.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001

Toe-kick heater:

Y'know that little inset space at the bottom of your kitchen counter or bathroom vanity (this won't apply if you have a pedestal sink) so you can stand close without mashing your toes? You can get little electric heaters to fit into those spaces. Some even have thermostats, and can heat up a small space pretty fast.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001


David, to sell my husband on the "on demand" hot water hearter I will have to tell him that he will never run out of hot water, and the good thing for me would be to save energy.

Thanks Jorja, I'll look around for those heaters.

Namaste, Judy

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001


Awesome jz, someone here besides me actually knows who Amory Lovins is!

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001

soooooooooo that explains all these yellow stains on my trousers.hahahahaha. Ya, the old trickle down ,and what amazes me is I know so many people who believe this crap. Sorta like investing. If I give you duh $100 maybe a real 25 cent piece might trickle back down to me. What a really good deal. I don't know who's harder to believe the people who come up with this stuff or the people who believe it. Jorja, there you have went and done it, shamed the rest of us into quit talking about it and go do it. Wanna start a rev-o- lution.... Speaking of front loading washers, we had a maytag neptune and really liked it in that it used much less water, less soap, and the lint trap on the dryer had much less lint than when we use a top load washer . Neptune has has had some service problems according to our service tech.Frigidaire is more dependable and the capacity is about the same. The best front loader I know of is the Asko (Sweden) It has about 2/3 the capacity of the maytag or frigidaire but uses even less energy. It has a life expectancy of about 20 years and the spin speed is exceptional resulting in much less energy required for drying.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001


In my twisted little cynical mind I've always thot trickle down was a eupemisim for tinkle upon. I guess I'm not far from being right--- piss in the wind.

-- Anonymous, April 19, 2001

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