Jack's Web Site

Economy cars

jackschmid — Sun, 02 Aug 2009 20:11:27 +0000

For some time I have been referring to my 1998 Chevy Metro as an imitation hybrid. A number of friends now have purchased the Toyota Prius and are quite satisfied with them. However, I know none who keep accurate records of their fuel consumption because their car does it for them. As one who records everything that goes into my car, I know sometimes our impressions of short term fuel economy might not always be entirely accurate when the records are analyzed, and fuel flow measurements always need verification.

Yesterday I saw this interesting article in Car and Driver . The little Metro stood up quite well even though it was not quite as sexy as the Honda and Toyota. I was not too surprised to hear that the fuel economy reported by the drivers panels in the two hybrids was a bit ambitious. The Toyota overestimated its fuel economy by 4 mpg and the Honda by 3 mpg.

Even so, the Honda and Toyota are probably great cars, but there is certainly a place for Metros in this world. Since the little Metro equaled the Prius in ecomony, it will remain my inexpensive hybrid substitute.

More on Energy Efficient Houses

jackschmid — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 00:06:54 +0000

I just came across this in the Willamette Week. If the capital costs are not too out of line, this is the direction we need to be going. This passivhaus or futurhaus looks interesting.

The 100K blog gives some more background on the passivhaus concept.

On a different note — why do public megaprojects often have huge cost over runs

jackschmid — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 18:32:37 +0000

Why do large public megaprojects often cost more than the originally proposed cost. To be generous, this might result from unrealistic expectations, some over zealous selling of the project, or a little deceit. Or, in the parlance of most folks, misrepresentations of the politicians pitching these big projects would be called lying. Check out the blog of Bent Flyvbjerg, now a Professor of Planning at the University of Oxford. He sheds some light on the subject of truth and untruth in the realm of public policy.

Aquastats and Hydronic heating systems

jackschmid — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 15:41:07 +0000

I have had my hands on a couple hydronic heating systems recently and was curious about the aquastat settings. One system had a recently added aquastat on the riser ( the pipe exiting the boiler supplying hot water to the heating system). This was a strap on aquastat and appears to be perform the function of limiting the maximum temperature coming out of the boiler. This post on Everthing2 offers some good information about aquastats and their functions. Another informative site was the InspectApedia site that is a guide to setting aquastat controls.

The Canadians are at it Again

jackschmid — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 05:14:31 +0000

Here is a link to a “Natural Resources Canada” site featuring an article about a Net Zero house in Quebec. The house is one of 12 funded by the Canadian government. The article describes the strategies employed in a house in Alstonvale for photovoltaic systems as well as thermal systems. The thermal system employs a 4000 liter thermal storage tank that is estimated to provide a day’s thermal storage if the house consumes power at a 6 kW rate.

I find the thermal storage/heat pump strategies interesting as well as the most detailed of any I have seen on the web so far. I will look forward to results from this endeavor.

google docs?

jackschmid — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 06:48:30 +0000

Here is the latest on
Google Docs

Get It
Do It
Done!

Radiant hydronic heating-efficiency considerations

jackschmid — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 01:50:53 +0000

Effective storage of thermal energy is only one of the important aspects of the heating system for an energy efficient house. When considering a radiant floor heating system whether or not energy storage is planned, is the energy that is expended merely pumping water through the heating system. This is referred to as “pump work” and over time can be significant amount of energy. The cost of the pump work energy shows up in the cost of electrical energy delivered to the house.

The Radiantec company has an informative site that addresses a number of radiant heating issues including “pump work”.

Following some links from the site makes leads one to believe that there is not a wealth of current information on the web about hydronic solar house heating results. One of the links is to a project completed in 1983 by Radiantec and the University of Massachusetts for the US Dept of Energy.

As recently as 2008, this work is still being cited as this edition of PHC news, a trade publication. I would assume that more current credible work would be featured if were readily available.

A Chiropractic Primer

jackschmid — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 19:29:32 +0000

If you ever thought of pursuing chiropractic treatment Daniel Florien posted a good assessment of chiropractic on his “unreasonable faith” website.

The post adds amplifying information to what I recently read in Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine, by Edzard Ernst and Simon Singh.

I don’t doubt that there are good effective practitioners out there but I think their real asset is their ability enhance the placebo effect with caring human interaction. A person who is perceived as a real healer would probably do just as well with one set of props as another. Props could be anything from chiropractic to tea leaves.

An Efficient Canadian House in Riverdale, Alberta

jackschmid — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 05:09:29 +0000

Hot on the trail for more documentation on the experience of homes where long term thermal storage is incorporated, I ran across this website about a “NetZero energy” house in Riverdale, Alberta. It is designed to produce as much energy as it uses. The encouraging thing about the design of this house is that a number of “gee whiz” green techonologies were passed over as uneconomical and the bulk of the investment in materials went to conserving the energy in the house. The house was constructed using a double walls which was considered to be economically optimum as well as being more environmentally friendly and a geothermal heatpump was passed over in favor of installing more electrical PV.

Encouragingly the designers are honest about the the economics of the house. The house is a duplex and each side was projected to cost $600,000. That is not inexpensive if one’s income is modest.

Here is a link to the blog of a builder of another “NetZero” house near Edmonton in MillCreek.

A really simple thermal storage tank

jackschmid — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 06:00:52 +0000

This is about the lowest of low tech thermal storage systems using water to store energy. The water storage tank is a hole in the ground insulated and lined with PVC. The real question would be how well does it suit the needs of a project. For some projects it may be the best solution.

Such a tank would be well suited for short term energy storage, on the order of days. The ambitious task of longer term energy storage might warrant a storage tank in the space to be where the heat was to be used so that the small amount of heat passing through the insulation would still be used for its intended purpose.