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

[Indiana Robinson]

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