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

Thu Jul 28 08:12:46 PDT 2005

One of the few really smart things we did when we moved out here was to
install a geothermal heat pump for both heating and cooling.  We have a lot
of subsurface water...we are on sand and about 1000 yards from the Loup
River...so water is not a problem.  It's one thing to cool with hundred
degree air in the summer and heat with -20 degree air in the winter, but
it's quite another, we find, to use 60 degree water for both.  A closed
coolant subsurface loop does the same thing without pulling up the water but
we find we use very little water in both heating and cooling our huge old
house even pumping and dumping (we use it to water the lawn and trees, so it
gets another use before making a very small wet spot below the yard.  I
highly recommend the system.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Larry D. Goss" <rlgoss at evansville.net>
To: "'Antique tractor email discussion group'"
<at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 9:44 AM
Subject: RE: [AT] OOOPS - Do as I say not as I do - now rambling off topic

> 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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