[AT] OOOPS - Do as I say not as I do - now rambling off topic

[Larry D. Goss]

You're on the right track to eliminate all natural gas in your house,
Farmer.  When we moved into this house 16 years ago, I was not looking
forward to the utility bills, but I was mildly shocked to find that the
all-electric solution for heating, cooling, and cooking saved us money.
This house is over twice the size of the one we moved out of, but the
utility bills are lower.  The big difference -- no gas.  Since we moved
in, we've taken steps to make the use of energy more efficient than it
already was.  All windows and doors have been replaced.  The heat pump
is now a high-efficiency model.  The water heater is high efficiency.
We're replacing all the toilets with pressure flush models, etc.

One of the big helps is the windows.  We had double glazed windows with
the standard unsealed storms, but now all windows and door lights are
triple glazed.  My Dad did triple glazing on the farm house where I was
born in northern Indiana.  Before he did it, he did the calculations on
the energy savings.  It turned out that the utility bill savings in a
single heating season was greater than the total added cost of the
triple glazing at all the windows.  Bottom line, IMHO you can't afford
not to do it.  One of my colleagues at the university decided he needed
to do the same thing to his house, so he's changing out his windows at a
rate of one per year.  He's doing it that way because of the limits on
energy credits on income taxes.  If he does one window per year, he
stays under $1000 per year and can get credits for the whole conversion.
I suspect that he's being a bit short-sighted on that deal.  He probably
would save more money by getting the whole house converted so his
utility bills would be lower immediately.

Before the flames begin, you obviously can't have the house sealed as
well as it ends up being with triple glazed windows if you're using
natural or LP gas for anything inside unless you provide for combustion
air.  That's even taken care of in this house.  It has combustion air
for the fireplace ducted to the hearth and the fireplace liner provides
heat to the house through separate ducting.

Larry 

-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com
[mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of Indiana
Robinson
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 8:52 AM
To: Antique tractor email discussion group
Subject: Re: [AT] OOOPS - Do as I say not as I do - now rambling off
topic

On 28 Jul 2005 at 8:00, George Willer wrote:

> What!!!  Turn the compressor off???  You've got to be kidding, Dean.
I 
> leave my system on 24/7/358, and have for many years.  I do switch it
off 
> when we go to Portland for the week.  Having air instantly available
at any 
> of the 8 outlets is just too handy to mess with turning it off
anywhere.
> 
> For Portland week only I also turn the power off to the water system.
Do 
> you turn your water off when you aren't using it also?
> 
> George Willer




	I also leave mine on 24-7 but I have to shut it off in cold
weather since my shop is 
cold. It has trouble starting in cold weather. When we leave for more
than a day trip I 
do shut the water (and water heater) off at the breaker box.

	In a similar vein, 2 years ago my mother had a small leak
develop in an unused natural 
gas wall furnace. it apparently started at the beginning of the billing
cycle and when 
the bill came it was $1800 high for the month. With the help of an old
school friend (I 
say "old" because he is a year older than I am) with the gas company I
traced it to a 
constant small leak to that extra furnace and shut down that line. This
was not in the 
heating season. The next bill had another $400 in "leak" cost on it.
Since it was on our 
side of the meter they would forgive none of it. I never bothered to
look for the actual 
leak but since all of that line was in the basement and a closed crawl
space I am 
assuming that it was leaking at the furnace electric control valve and
venting to the 
outside up on the roof. Otherwise we would have smelled it (or blown
up). I plan to 
remove that area furnace and replace it with an electric baseboard
heater. It was an 
expensive Warm Morning wall unit installed to heat 2 added rooms but it
is quite noisy by 
design. It sounds like a wind tunnel.  I might even convert the whole
house to all 
electric. One less bill each month. My present house is all electric
(except my pellet 
stove heat {was wood}) and has been since we put it up 29 years ago this
month. I have 
been satisfied with the all electric. At times we thought about other
fuels when electric 
got a bit high but then the other fuels would jump up and down, mostly
up   ;-)  in 
price. My electric heat has a thermostat in each room and is completely
quiet. I have 
been in houses where the furnace fan was so loud that you could hardly
hear a TV above it 
when it kicked on. My pellet stove is a tiny bit louder than I like
since it sits in a 
nook very near my lazyboy but at least it is constant. When I move to
the other house, 
probably next summer, I plan to put a large capacity corn / pellet stove
in the basement 
to provide most of the heat for the house and the regular basement
furnace (with a quiet 
blower system) will be used to distribute the heat to the main floor.
The furnace burner 
will come on only in very cold weather if I use it at all. I might even
install electric 
baseboard heat in the rest of the house to take up any possible slack in
very cold 
weather or I may use radiant hot water heat under the floors heated by
the corn stove. I 
would still like to get the gas out of the house altogether. Every
couple of years there 
is a house destroyed by a gas explosion around here... House go boom,
fall down...  :-)
	There are 5 gas lines in that house. One for the furnace, one
for the second furnace, 
one for the water heater, one for the dryer and another for an unused
gas heater that was 
installed in the basement when the house was built on to years ago.
There is a large line 
to the shop and another to the old milk house. Most of those lines are
about 40 years old 
now and the potential for leaks is getting higher. It does not take many
$2200 leaks to 
eat up any possible savings...   :-)  


-- 
"farmer", Esquire
At Hewick Midwest
      Wealth beyond belief, just no money...

Paternal Robinson's here by way of Norway (Clan Gunn), Scottish
Highlands,
Cleasby Yorkshire England, Virginia, Kentucky then Indiana. In America
100 
years 
before the revolution.


Francis Robinson
Central Indiana USA
robinson at svs.net

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