Re: VNC, No Matching Security Types

On 27 Nov 2023 at 20:56:50 CET, "Richard Falken" <Richard Falken> wrote

Where I live in the campo of Murcia, most people use bottled gas for cooking as it is much cheaper (per thermal unit) than electricity.

Stephen

We used gas for decades and were happy with it, but we moved house nearly

More recently I learned that cooking with gas produces nitrogen dioxide in the house at levels that would be illegal outside! It never occurred to me before, but it's bleedin' obvious that a blue gas flame in air is going to be at temperatures that inevitably produce nitrogen dioxide.

Nitrogen dioxide is a powerful irritant to the lungs.

David

There are potentially competing elements here - "fast", "cheap", "convenient" and "robust" ... oh, and "safe".

A fireplace or wood/coal stove is "robust" - doesn't matter if the whole grid disappears (though, to a fair extent, so will anything to cook). Got a farm ? The starving masses will take it over ... eat everything, and then be starving again.

Alas having an actual FIRE inside your house may not be very "safe".

Gas is fairly efficient and convenient, but suffocation or explosion is hardly unknown. Depending it may or may not be "cheap".

Philosopher says he has a KEROSENE stove - and that, for now, the fuel is cheap. It's still a fire though, and with liquid fuel that can leak.

Electric resistance stoves are maybe the best compromise, but electric prices vary by local and if out in the sticks may not be entirely reliable. Hot elements CAN start fires too, but less likely than gas/kerosene.

Induction is the latest gimmick - but it still requires electricity. Haven't experimented with them. What happens if you, say, leave a fork or bit of tinfoil in range of the field ? What if you're wearing a metal watch-band and lean in too close ? What if you have a phone in your pocket and lean-in too close ???

Solar-reflectors are cheap and safe - but likely a bad idea for northern Europe/UK. Solar-electric ... big up-front expense and only semi-"robust" since the cells degrade. A wood/coal/peat/manure/whatever 'Franklin' stove can still be working 250 years from now - I've seen it.

So there's no "best" answer. "It depends".

I fear a major economic implosion. Covid was the final straw, but bad bad politics/economics is speeding that along. The pols will keep the bread and circuses coming for as long as they can, no matter the damage, but one day ....

Then your "stove" is an open fire (so long as there's wood) or maybe an old metal oil drum with dried whatever in it. Electricity IS a luxury ... most forget that it's only been "widespread" for less than 100 years and requires a lot of industry to KEEP it going. The "rural USA" wasn't "electrified" until the latter 1930s, parts of Europe even later.

There were unexpected benefits to us switching in the opposite direction. A friend had just moved into a house whose stove was shot, so we gave him our old (but serviceable) electric (non-induction) stove. In return he gave me an old violin. And now I'm playing bluegrass fiddle, and viola in an orchestra. Go figure.

Hmmm, hadn't heard that one. We must have good ventilation.

It is very regional.

You tend to use whatever is cheap. For the first time in years I can smell bituminous coal being burnt in open fireplaces.

Because electricity is very expensive and so are gas and oil. And the price of burnable wood is way up too.

And people have to keep warm.

As far as cooking goes the vast majority here is gas or electric.

Probably as a 50-50 mix. Nearly all ovens are electric. Only gas hobs are fitted these days.

It is very regional.

You tend to use whatever is cheap. For the first time in years I can smell bituminous coal being burnt in open fireplaces.

Because electricity is very expensive and so are gas and oil. And the price of burnable wood is way up too.

And people have to keep warm.

As far as cooking goes the vast majority here is gas or electric.

Probably as a 50-50 mix. Nearly all ovens are electric. Only gas hobs are fitted these days.

Not only that, but modern airproof insulation has house internal CO2 levels in a range that would make any climate alarmist run screaming for tranquillizers.

Nitrogen dioxide isn't as bad as its cracked up to be. Like all of these latter day 'pollutants' its a convenient way to sell newer tech and tax the public more and increase government control.

The most serious pollution comes from the mass media and government itself.

Insulating and sealing a house up without providing heat exchange ventilation is daft.

If you want to know more about designing and building energy-efficient houses, you can do a lot worse than getting a copy of

"The Autonomous House" by Brenda and Robert Vale.

Much of its content is still relevant even though its most recent edition was published in 1975 while or just after they graduated from Cambridge.

I've used it to work out whether I could power and heat my house from solar cells and and a solar roof: calculations used methods from the book showed that it could work apart from hot water in the coldest three months of winter, but the fact that my town council owns a row of rather large oaks just beyond the northern side of my garden and, as its a major effort to get them to do anything to those trees to prevent them shading my garden, let alone any part of the roof, I gave up on solar energy.

If you want to know more about designing and building energy-efficient houses, you can do a lot worse than getting a copy of

"The Autonomous House" by Brenda and Robert Vale.

Much of its content is still relevant even though its most recent edition was published in 1975 while or just after they graduated from Cambridge.

I've used it to work out whether I could power and heat my house from solar cells and and a solar roof: calculations used methods from the book showed that it could work apart from hot water in the coldest three months of winter, but the fact that my town council owns a row of rather large oaks just beyond the northern side of my garden and, as its a major effort to get them to do anything to those trees to prevent them shading my garden, let alone any part of the roof, I gave up on solar energy.

Re: Re: VNC, No Matching Security Types By: 56g.1173 to Richard Falken on Wed Nov 29 2023 11:43 pm

That one looks great, but it also has to be hard to get started if the chimney is cold.

THerefore I suggest adding an electric resistence controlled by a raspberry pi in order to pre-heat the chimney before the actual fire is started.

Do look into the olde-tyme "Franklin Stove". Not "perfect" but simple, versatile and very robust. Add radiator fins to the exhaust duct and you can recover extra heat.

I've seen cast-iron versions STILL being useful after about 200 years. Stainless steel might last 500.

Now ... how to control/monitor a Franklin stove with a Pi ? :-)

Look on the bright side - nobody can hack your stove and hold your heat for ransom. Or bleed you monthly with that newfangled HaaS (heat as a service) paradigm.

I believe the accepted way is to put little wad of extra-burney material (cotton/old linen/paper) on top near the chimney pipe inlet. That gets a draft started and has relatively clean smoke - and then the rest of the fuel ignites.

Franklin and Pot-Belly stoves are quite fuel- efficient and have a nice flat top where you can cook things. The cast iron construction retains heat, so you can let the fire safely go out overnight and still keep a room warm. The downside is that you have a really hot chunk of metal where people, esp kids, can bump up against it. Safety mods are possible though.

Hmm ... automated fuel delivery ? Servo to push more wood/coal/whatever in when a cool-off is detected ? Input airflow modulation ?

Careful, they'll start charging for CO2/ash production - and have aerial/sat maps of where it's is coming from :-) If a tech CAN be used to rip you off .........

Drones with multi-spectral sensors see ALL.

Now how could a Pi help disguise your waste signature ?

There's also a potential FUEL problem depending on where you are. A larger city isn't going to have enough wood for everyone - maybe hardly anyone - and it's worse in areas with few trees to begin with. I was looking at sats of Idaho the other day ... mostly just dry kinda yellow dirt and rock unless you're right next to a river. Huge areas where there's nothing and nobody.

Oh, check the suburban development model in Idaho ... most of the cities are 'grey' - and zooming in you see they are windey suburbs TIGHTLY packed-in with barely an inch between the standard-sized houses. Awful !

My Aga has exactly that. There are two paraffin flow rates. A mains powered LV thermostat heats a wax capsule that expands and selects low fuel rate when the oven is up to the selected temperature.