Alexander's Horse, Thank you...:)

[Eli]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Vel

[Velociryx]

Just concluded a fascinating conversation with my future mother in law, who's got more than 20 years experience working with an HVAC company....will post my findings AFTER dinner...

-=Vel=-

[Az]

Vel
Dinner

[Velociryx]

Just back from a FANTABULOUS dinner!

Interesting tidings to report, too.

Christina's mom is the office manager for an HVAC company in Myrtle Beach...has been for twenty years. Knows spookylots about the technology and gave me a crash course in it this evening.

Highlights:
* All ac units are given a SEER Rating (Seasonal Energy Efficiency Rating, or somesuch)

* As of the first of the year, the minimum SEER unit allowed to be sold will be a 12 (not precisely sure what the numbers MEAN, but it's a measure of effie...higher = better).

* Construction companies don't do an assessment of how much heating/cooling power you need for a house. The rough it out, based on square feet (x sq. feet per ton of coolant), and this is how they determine how much ductwork to run, etc.

* The ductwork is done on the cheap ($1k/ton, as figured above), and so, the HVAC companies hired by builders will, by default, put in the cheapest AC unit they can legally get away with.

* What that means is that in houses that are 15-20 years old (the range my house is in), the AC units will have SEER ratings in the 6-10 range. Top of the line units selling today have SEER ratings of 20-21. Double your SEER rating, and you double (or better) the effie of the unit.

* Basic maintenance (clean the coils 1x/ 3 months) and using better than standard filters (HEPA filters placed at the air handlers rather than the box filters placed at the exchange) can give you an average of 20% greater unit effie. (and the advantage to the BIG HEPA filters placed at the air handlers is that they only have to be replaced 1x per year).

The primary unit outside is the eldest of the two, SEER rating of 8. The newer unit (auxillary downstairs and primary for upstairs) is SEER 10. Both still have several years of service left in them, but replacing them with a SEER 20 unit could dramatically cut the juice bill. I'll have to get estimates on how much of a reduction I could expect and see if the cost to replace might be worth it, and in the meantime, I'm makin' plans to get some special coil cleaner and will go check out the special filters...that'll help some, regardless of whether or not I decide to replace the units, and I may wait....if they've still got life in them, unless the savings are truly compelling, my inclination is to let it ride until one or the other starts to fail.

Anyway, I was pretty intrigued by the information....had no idea how cheap the construction companies were when it came to HVAC...the duct work is cheaply made, can gather mould if it gets waterlogged, and is structurally weak and easily damaged. The ductwork she recommended was plate steel construction...pricey, and not something I'm gonna do with this house, but when we move from here eventually, it's something I'm definitely keeping in mind!

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Additional research yielded this quote re: diesel trucks:

Attempting to justify buying a large pickup truck by going with diesel instead of gasoline is a bit like justifying hitting yourself in the head with a brick by saying, “It’s a rather small brick.”

An article touting the wonders of diesel engines says that, properly geared, you’ll get up to 23 mpg out of a diesel truck (or as little as 17 mpg). That’s about the bottom end of what you’ll get from a passenger car, and what you’ll get from a small car will nearly double that.
As a bonus, truck emissions are regulated less strictly. If you drive a truck or an SUV, you are not only consuming petroleum products at almost twice the rate of the little car you’re looking down at, but you’re also belching out extra pollutants for each of those gallons.

The simple fact is, unless you actually use a truck, as in hauling large objects on a regular basis, there’s no justification for owning one. Buying one that runs on diesel doesn’t change that.

Before you convince yourself that all those weekend projects really do justify buying a truck, do this exercise: Find out what it costs to rent a truck. Balance that against the price difference between a truck and a car, plus the fuel cost difference for all the times you drive the truck when a car would do as well. You may be surprised at just how much hauling you have to do to amortize those additional costs.

Looks like that's that then....on to cars...

-=Vel=-

EDIT: Two top contenders, at present seem to be:

VW Jetta (Automatic) 43mpg
Peugeot 407 (Automatic) 51! mpg (nod to the 407!)

(Vel HATES driving manual transmission cars, even tho they get slightly better gas mileage!)

[Eli]

Manual Transmission
Scifi Autodrivers

[Az]

Manual transmission
Enjoying driving
Robotic transmission
Auto

[Barinthus]

Originally posted by Velociryx
The simple fact is, unless you actually use a truck, as in hauling large objects on a regular basis, there’s no justification for owning one. Buying one that runs on diesel doesn’t change that.

This is exactly why when I'm in my socialist mood I will say that trucks, SUVs, and any other large civilian/recreational vehicles ought be banned. They serve absolutely no purpose for the average citizen other than status and image projection. The difficult part is how to grant those who have sincere need for those vehicles the ok to buy, own and operate those.

[Zkribbler]

Originally posted by alva
alva has visions of Vel appearing on the US remake of 'The Good life'.

In the US, it showed up a "Good Neighbors." I don't know why the name change. Excellent show. I have a trio of them on videotape.

[Velociryx]

It's been an interesting weekend, in terms of planning and research for the new project. I've gotten Christina all kinds of jazzed about it now...so much so that she's helping me as we begin the arduous process of researching various vehicles.

Our search has led us in a variety of directions....the early front runner, and still odds-on favorite is the Peugeot 407...awesome car, and quite easy on the eyes. It's drawback, is that it is not sold in the USA, and would cost more to GET one here than it'd be worth.

So...strike that, but should the company venture back to the USA before I get the cash together to replace the vehicle, they'll definitely get the vote.

Golf...too small. Jetta looks better in terms of fitting into the thing, but we'll have to do some test driving to see. Both have the advantage that they're actually SOLD here.

Two Audi models made the cut, but they are less efficient from a mpg standpoint than either the Golf or the Jetta.

So....we're leaning strongly in the direction of a VW...IF I can squeeze into one.

Might go find that out with what's left of the weekend.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

I spent the rest of my evening this long weekend gathering information. My findings are as follows:

* Golf and Jetta (diesel, automatic) get *exactly* the same fuel economy, and the Jetta is the nicer of the two cars.

None of my other contenders are in the same ballpark, and my favorite (which also gets even BETTER gas mileage) isn't sold in the states, so...Jetta wins by default.

I ran a fuel economy comparison, dating back as far as 1999, and the Jetta's numbers are consistent through the entire period, 1999 - 2005, 32mpg in the city, 42 highway (and almost all of my driving is done on the highway). So...replacing my aging Ranger with a Jetta will double my fuel effie, which should in turn, halve my annual fuel needs, and more than halve my annual fuel cost (since diesel is cheaper than regular unleaded in Cola-Town).

Good.

I test drove the Jetta and enjoyed it. Not only did I fit, but I fit with room to spare. Surprising amound of room in the relatively smallish car. I was impressed.

An interesting side note here....the diesel model is on a 60+ day back order. It seems that the recent spike in gas prices has sparked a surge in demand for diesel here in the states...or at least in SC. I would imagine though, that we are not unique in that regard.

Next stop, after the test drive, was to Lowes. I talked to Robbie, the young fellow in the plant department, who told me that while Lowes doesn't carry the Jatropha tree as a regular item, it was extremely probable that they could be ordered.

I asked him to check into it to verify that for me, and get me pricing on Jatropha saplings. I'm also attaching a picture of my new favorite tree.

After that, Christina and I went off to investigate the lightbulb scene at Lowes (yep, we truly lead exciting lives...LOL)

The high effie bulbs are just a smidgeon over four bucks each, consuming 13w of power and emitting the equivalent of 100w of light.

I'll replace a total of twenty bulbs in the house, which will put my initial outlay for this project at 80-odd bucks.

We'll see what that does to consumption levels.

And that's all I have to report on the continuing research.

-=Vel=-

[Velociryx]

Meet the Jatropha tree. It's oil production capabilities are second only to the Palm (Palm Oil is the A-#1 largest yield producing of all the plants that I've found), but even tho Jatropha comes in second, it has some advantages.

Chief among them are that Jatropha is an extremely hardy tree, and can be grown in almost any climate. And it doesn't sap much in the way of nutrients, or require much in the way of care. Very much a plant and forget type of tree, and that's the name of the game. I intend to structure my energy independence plan in such a way that I have to invest as few man hours into achieving the goal as possible. I don't want to have to jump thru hoops to get the oil ready for processing (with palm oil, you have to cook the seeds first, before taking them to seed press...not the case with Jatropha-the-wonder-tree!...just pluck the seeds and dump 'em in the press. Voila! Out comes oil.

Cool beans.

Plans are shaping up!

So....two things need to happen relatively soonish then.

1) Replace those 20 bulbs...relatively inexpensive, and should save me 1195W of power used.

2) Get lossa Jatropha saplings and get them in the ground. They'll need to grow for a time (at least a year, possibly two) before they begin producing copious amounts of seeds, so the sooner I plant them, the sooner I get seeds.

And that's the state of the project.

[mrmitchell]

Hey Velocyrix, have you thought about independence from medicine?

Beef up and get strong and healthy now, because when the Apocalypse comes, you won't be able to go to the clinic or take a Tylenol...

[The Mad Monk]

Vel, Consumer Reports is saying in its October 2005 issue that the government has been routinely over-estimating the fuel economy of the vehicles it tests.

If you are comparing your ranger's known milage to the Jetta's reported milage, you may be in for a bit of a shock.

See if you can rent one, and do your own tests.

[KrazyHorse]

Originally posted by alva
It's a famous English '80 show about a couple doing just that.

________
My ex's Golf did about 100 Km on 4,5 to 5 liters, I'd 60+ miles to the gallon(?) something like that.

Someone here will do the exact math, I'm sure.

More like 50 miles to the US gallon