Indeed. What happened with cars in the US is an “arms race” on the road. Everyone wants to be in the bigger car so they just get bigger and bigger and reach a point where that e=mc² equation is pegged.
max selfishness → max energy
As expected, right-wing U.S. republicans disproportionately drive big cars. While liberals tend to favor small cars or bicycles.
Are flues water-tight? When I would close the flue in other homes, I would typically hear the sound of metal hitting something hard, which somewhat implies they don’t have a rubber seal.
There are 3 tubes & none of them have caps, so apparently it’s deliberate. Most of the neighbors have no caps either and I think most fireplaces are blocked off in the region.
It freezes but I guess I wouldn’t expect pressure on the masonry because the chimny seems to be a cast iron tube so I would think the expansion would be forced to happen vertically.
~48cm per year & humidity is around 70%.
Going from memory, when I was standing on the roof I think at least the first few cm/inches are open. It might be hard to get close enough to stick my head in, but maybe I can toss a snake cam in for a better view.
I briefly considered adding a 2nd floor to a 1-story home, and the 2nd floor would be a self-contained passive house, effectively, because for environmental reasons I’m unwilling to build anything that’s not passive (that needs heating and cooling). The new floor would need its own support system (could not simply be supported by the existing structure). So the cost came out to the same building costs as it would be for building a whole new home. Upon realizing this, I scrapped the idea. I might as well be building a separate home on an empty lot at that point.
One factor to consider: you never want to be the best house on the block. The low value of other homes will pull yours down while your higher value will prop their values up. Not sure if your plans are significant enough for this to matter. Or perhaps it doesn‘t matter to you anyway. Just something to be aware of.
My assumption would be it’s for airation. I’ve seen pipes like that before and have no idea why they are so high off the ground.
I know someone who has a septic tank with an airation appliance. It’s basically a dog house with AC power and an airator on a timer that you can hear periodically turn on. Perhaps that’s an alternative. I would figure an electronic appliance would more effectively air out the septic.
FWIW, I’ve heard that if you let vines grow directly on the exterior (or if you run cables and plant the kind of vines that need to climb cable), the vegetation will insulate/shade the house from the extreme sun.
I can’t say it’s 1st-hand knowledge but perhaps worth looking into. Evaporatie cooling might have a small role in that too. Of course the caveat is if you let vines grow directly on the stucco, they will destroy the stucco which many folks consider a bad trade-off. The other caveat is plantlife brings insects so you might not want to bring insects right up to your walls.
It senseless the cut off coal & marginalize the legit uses just because they are “small”. I can’t quite tell if you’re starting to see the problem with a ban on coal mining, as opposed to controlling the allocation of it.
So IIUC, you’re saying ban coal (as opposed to controlling the allocation of coal towards clean uses); thus cutting off the supply needed for solar panels and some fuel cells. Then what? We can only have wind turbines?
You don’t have to accept the science but if you can’t debunk the sources & evidence without hyperbole you won’t convince anyone. PV panels are not some kind of magic bullet that can trivialize the #climate crisis. It’s a real problem. PV panel production is itself an unclean process. If they didn’t come with their own climate problems the Belgians wouldn’t be planning to build 3 new fossil-fuel burning power plants right now. This magical fairy tale that you can sprinkle PV panels everywhere is about as living-in-a-video-game-reality as you can get.
I actually feel bad for you & your inability to represent your own position. So I’ll help you out and say (at best) you could try citing the research that is attempting to establish an alternative coal-free way of making PV panels and hope people buy into an arguement to the future fallacy.
You’re welcome.
If you’re going to correct someone you should do a bit of research and face the facts before responding without information. The documentary I saw was a PBS broadcast. IOW, a liberal source not some right-wing climate denial BS. If you search on quartz, coal, smelting, you would easily find this:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335083312_Why_do_we_burn_coal_and_trees_to_make_solar_panels
https://hiddenhistorycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/BurningCoalTreesToMakeSolarPanels.pdf
W.r.t. coal-fueled fuel cells (#cleanCoal), this is typically the first hit:
I agree in general. But I thought coal was used to produce solar panels, no? IIRC, I saw a documentary showing how coal and chrystal are baked together in the production of solar panels.
I’ve also heard coal can be used in fuel cells as another alternative to burning it.
In any case, I’m with Junior Walk on this because he’s documenting violations. The coal should be mined legally for solar panels.
Thanks for the suggestion.
When it rains sometimes it drips water along the top interior window frame. One one occasion water collected behind the interior wall paint and formed a water balloon. I took a guess at how the water was entering and corrected it. But even after that I still have water dripping from the top window frame.
I like the lime idea. Lime comes in many forms (e.g. quicklime, hydraulic lime). I’m not sure I’d be keen to work with the stuff that needs a complex number of steps with a mixer that can withstand heat. Suppose I buy “white lime” (which is marketed as a whitewash for trees as an anti-pest control, and for cosmetic changes on brick walls). Will that do the job? I think I simply mix it with water. How do I bond it? With PVA?
(edit) Since I guess you speak French, perhaps you can tell me if this stuff is right for the job:
https://www.espace-emeraude.com/chaux-blanche-white-lime-2-5-kg.html
^ I have some of that stuff already on-hand but it was opened ~14 months ago, so it might be oxidized into chalk. I’m not sure how to test to see if it’s still usable.
It appears the #Cantillana varieties of lime render are simply rendered on with no bonding steps or additives.
I would be thinking along the lines of #Steampunk. Rivets, fake leather, copper paint, exposed gears, guages, rope, etc.
The thin grid-style rebar that’s used in concrete might work. Though you’d want to paint it.
If you decide to keep the vented dryer, it’s worth noting that humidity is good for energy efficiency in the cold season. Some vented dryers in some parts of the world are even designed with no ducting (the dryer just vents where it sits). Not ideal, but just a bit of perspective. Anyway, this guy explains how and why to vent into the house.
Ideally you would have a humidistat that vents into the house until a threshold is reached, then switches to vent outdoors. If you don’t want a complex ventilation project, it might be wise to simply vent indoors in the cold season and space the loads a day apart, and manually move the ducting to go outdoors in the summer.
They barely exist in the US. Europe is far ahead in this regard. In Europe you won’t even find one of those extremely wasteful vented dryers in most shops.
I did some research on the US market for ventless dryers. The pricing is terrible but if climate matters to you, you will take the hit. One thing that really disturbed me is among the few that are available in the US, only a couple of them is not part of the #internetOfShit. So if you want a dryer that does not connect to the network options are very limited. All the non-discontinued Miele models are “smart”, but this one might be worth a look because it’s 110v and not designed to be on a network. Some Whirlpool ones are wifi-free (this was the biggest one I found but it requires 220v). And indeed it’s hard to find ventless dryers in normal sizes. Most are ½ the size of vented dryers.
(edit)
If you don’t find a suitable ventless dryer, consider putting a dehumidifier in a closet & make that the drying closet. You could perhaps rig up a drain so you don’t have to empty tanks of water.
meh, #fuckCars… let them burn. I’d rather see solar covered cycling paths keeping cyclists dry. And solar covered bus/tram/train stop shelters, which could power the ETA display.
That’s the most disgusting part of this. They are adapting the infrastructure to accommodate the child killers when the sensible approach is #fuckBigCars.
#fuckCars in general.