Flux gate question

I just have a hard time trusting glorified particle board. A lot of new stuff has developed issues decades later. Like this plastic plumbing material where, after a major lawsuit, one of our engineers and thousands of others had their homes completely re-plumbed for free. Because it began to leak.

Yup. Houses built before about 1970 rule. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Except for energy efficiency. Ours has single-pane windows, thick glass but still not very insulating. In contrast to Europe window replacement is prohibitively expensive in the US (is there some sort of racket going on?). Anyhow, the point of amortization would be some time in the very distant future when we'd be in a nursing home or entered eternal life.

Ah, just turn the thermostat down. During the heating season we keep our 1960 house around 58 degrees at night, 63 in the daytime.

(Personally I'd like to keep it at 63 even in the A/C season, but oh well.)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

That would absolutely not fly with my wife. She wants it at least 69F in the living room. That's where the wood stove is and the office area will be 64-66F usually. This area didn't see many harsh winters in the past (pre-globalwarming or whatever they call that) so houses weren't built for that. Even back around 2000 we could heat it with roughly two cords of wood per winter. Now we need five, although this winter might squeeze through at four cords plus. Unless another cold snap happens.

That became a lot easier when I installed an evap cooler. Plus no more dry air and thus no more headaches. It's very pleasant in the house when that thing runs.

Running a swamp cooler in NY in the summer would produce no effect.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

You might be surprised. On days where it is fairly humid out here (30-50%) it won't produce much cooling but those are also not very hot days. Of course if you have lots of 110F days with tropical humididty it won't work.

According to this link NY and CA aren't all that different:

Ok, NY ain't on there but I assume CT is close, in the afternoon even lower than CA. Sometimes we just run it on low to keep a light breeze throughout the house.

Nope. Likewise, 63°F in my Arizona house in winter is painfully cold, because the humidity is 7% outdoors, and even drier inside. ...Jim Thompson

The times you really need A/C are when it's 90 degrees and 90% humidity. Usually one or two weeks per year.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Maybe in NY. Here in GA or AL it's from June to September.

Which is one reason I don't live there.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

It sure beats -30F and shoveling snow. I left that crap (and the NE taxes) behind for good.

firefighters

glass

replacement

It's a rare winter that it gets down to zero Fahrenheit here, and I shovel snow about twice a year. Guys like George Herold are the ones with the snow problem.

I'm from the Canadian Riviera, anyway.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

Vancouver Island? Why did you ever leave that area? It's supposedly gorgeous up there. Can't say that so much for NY, except maybe some areas in the Catskills.

Ok, Big Blue is a good reason but after retiring from there I'd most likely get out of NY.

I didn't retire from IBM--I'm just about the same age as you. I was 49 when I left.

I left Vancouver to go to grad school at Stanford, and then went to IBM Research. I had another opportunity at HP Labs, but I really hated living in the Bay Area. Westchester is a beautiful place--if you think otherwise, come visit some time and I'll show you around. The Hudson Valley is amazing. I could use some lower taxes, it's true, but at this point most of my toys are tax-deductible anyway. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

... dang, you are right.

Can't blame you. No ten horses would get me to live there.

Westchester is a beautiful place--if you think

There certainly must be pretty areas as well. But when an engineer whom I knew in NY exclaimed "I can't afford that property tax any longer!" (they had just received a humongous tax hike notice in the mail) and had to sell the house, that's when I decided to never ever live in that state.

Property tax here is a bit on the high side, it's true. It depends very much on what town you live in, though. Folks I know in Pocantico pay about the same property tax I do, on a house about three times the size.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I lived in P'ok for almost 20 years. It wasn't unusual at all to see

I much prefer the Redneck Riviera. The beaches are much nicer. September is a perfect time to go.

c/Catskills/Adirondacks/

..but it's still NY.

Bingo!