[ale] [OT] Load Control Switch

Wed Apr 13 18:00:17 EDT 2011

On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 5:37 PM, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 5:11 PM, Greg Clifton <gccfof5 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Jim,
>>
>> I know you majored in Physics, I in Botany. How much exactly is "a full
>> metric crapton of power?" I've never encountered that unit of measure before
>> ;-)
>>
>
> As it's metric, most Americans struggle with the concept. It's between a
> a$$load and a sh*tload BUT due to the conversion factor between British
> pounds Sterling and American pounds and the Euro, it requires an extra cubic
> furlong of methane equivalent on the odd months to round it out during
> daylight savings time (in France).
>
> yeah. physics major with a minor in math and BS :-)
>

Now I would have guessed a MAJOR in BS ;-)

>
>> GAP sent a letter last spring saying they would be around to swap out the
>> meter with a "smarty drawers" one that they could turn off & on without a
>> truck roll. I don't have a bad-ass dog, actually a rather wimpy one, so I
>> expect they did the deed, but haven't taken note  of the fact.
>>
>
> Look for a digital readout on the front instead of the spinny disk thing.
>

My house is actually a moved (as in on house mover's the truck) house &
rebuilt to codes about 5 yrs. ago with new electric & HVAC. My original
meter was digital. Maybe I didn't need the swap out but their mail merge
wasn't smart enough to know.

>
>> In my house, I have sprayed in polyurethane foam in the walls and that
>> stuff is THE BOMB, pretty much kills infiltration which is a MAJOR
>> contributor to home comfort/energy consumption. The attic insulation,
>> however, is fiberglass and it needs more. HVAC is via relatively
>> high efficiency heat pumps (SEER 13 IIRC). I opted to go total electric on
>> account of the stupid gas deregulation whereby you pay $19.99/mo to AGL for
>> the pipes in the ground and an additional $4.99/mo "customer service fee"
>> [read BILLING FEE] even with 0 therms of gas usage. Ergo I calculated that I
>> would be paying ~ $300/yr just to have gas service. I figured that would buy
>> me at least 2 months of electricity in the low months and in the past 4
>> years I have had <$150 electric bills several months My worst was this Jan,
>> I think and just under $600.
>>
>
> Foam in poly is flammable and poisonous when heated near combustion point
> so keep the smoke detectors in perfect working order and RUN if they go off.
> But it does a great job. I have cellulose in my attic. Better R value per
> inch than fiberglass but the squirrels and roof rats love it for bedding.
> Grr. It settles faster than blown in fiberglass but costs much less to add
> more. Plus it doesn't itch at all. It's treated with a flame retardent that
> makes it basically fireproof without an applied flame.
>
This stuff has a fire retardant so that you can't get it to burn. I actually
took a propane torch to a chunk of it cut out after the foam in and it would
barely smolder, never went up in flames. Not NEARLY as entertaining as
hanging a (LDPE?) milk jug from a stick and lighting it and
watching/listening to the little fire balls go ziippppp, ziipppp...

>
> My sister has a propane tank for her gas. I'm giving that serious thought.
>

If e- goes crazy I may consider propane as a backup heat source, that or
perhaps an outside boiler. But so far the heat pumps along with the ceramic
space heaters are doing a pretty good job of keeping the house livable as
long as temps don't get into the 20's or lower.

>
>> Now if they'll just hurry up with that Volt-gle (sp?) nuclear plant
>> expansion so that electricity will "be too cheap to meter" I'll be setting
>> pretty.
>>
>> Yeah. Nuke powers famous promise. Too bad no one listened to the engineers
> on that one. We really need a crap-fuel recycling plant that can "burn" all
> the radioactive "sludge" from the older reactors. Plus a total redesign to
> not require active emergency cooling. Maybe pumps to keep the emergency
> cooling from automatically flooding the reactor and shutting it down during
> use? Heat powered hydraulic rods that automatically insert above a given
> temp and must be manually removed? And that process kills the pumps holding
> back the cooling flood.
>
> Seems simple.
>
>
>From what I've read (mostly Popular Science) the newer designs are much
smaller with pelletized fuel that can't get hot enough melt down and don't
depend on water for cooling at all. One I read about some years back was to
use helium gas instead of H20 to drive the turbines. Seems strange to me,
wouldn't think helium would be dense/massive enough to drive the turbines
very well.

Oh, and I do have a rather lighter colored roof rather than black. When I
see a new dark roof being installed, I always wonder, "what were they
thinking...?"

>
>

>> On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 4:21 PM, Jim Kinney <jim.kinney at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I looked at the first link in the below list. I put the "RF Sickness" in
>>> the same category as "cellphone cancer" and "Powerline illness".
>>>
>>> The ability to turn off the AC at residential houses during a heat wave
>>> may seem intrusive, but it sure beats rolling blackouts or the cost of new
>>> power plants. The house temp will rise but not as bad as the outside temp.
>>>
>>> During summer months AC systems run at homes while the occupants are at
>>> work. It's not uncommon for people to run the AC to chill down to below 75F.
>>> When the temp outside is 100F that sucks down a full metric crapton of
>>> power. And to do it when people are not home is quite wasteful of all sorts
>>> of resources.
>>>
>>> Sadly, house construction is pretty uniform across the US and not
>>> designed to use the local area considerations well. For some dumb reason, a
>>> common roof color is BLACK in areas where the temp is often over 95F. For
>>> some dumb reason, houses are _still_ built with 2x4 walls instead of 2x6 or
>>> offset 2x3 on a 6" header. That extra 2" of insulation makes a HUGE
>>> difference. Add in the radiant heat barrier on the inside walls (foil backed
>>> sheetrock or foil faced batts) and in the attic (middle of insulation a
>>> sheet of barrier or foil faced batts in a top one up, bottom one down
>>> arrangement; i.e. wall/ceiling->foil->insulation->foil->exterior attic/wall
>>> cladding) coupled with serious attic ventilation (solar powered turbine
>>> vents with thermal switching).
>>>
>>> OP: Programmable thermostats are great! This meter will/may be able to
>>> read your thermostat and decide if your system is chugging to hard for the
>>> power delivery ability for the area and twiddle with the temp settings to
>>> cut back on power usage in summer.
>>>
>>> BTW: I have a auto-read power meter that send in the usage automagically
>>> (they decided jumping my fence and dealing with my dogs was not a happening
>>> thing :-)
>>>
>>> Water Co did the same thing but forgot to tell the meter reader how to do
>>> his job so he broke off the wires the following month doing his usual
>>> process. :-(
>>>
>>> On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 10:27 AM, Randy <handran at mindspring.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 4/13/2011 8:45 AM, Michael Potter wrote:
>>>> > This is off topic, but there seems to be other discussions about
>>>> > electric power related topics.
>>>> >
>>>> > The power company has offered a $36/unit incentive to install a load
>>>> > control switch on my AC units.
>>>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_control
>>>> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Load_control_switch
>>>> >
>>>> > I don't really care about the $36.
>>>> > I am interested in being a good citizen and cooperating to keep
>>>> > electrical rates down.
>>>> > I already have a programmable thermostat so I don't think they will
>>>> > save much with me.
>>>> >
>>>> > My questions are:
>>>> > a) Does anyone have first hand knowledge of the quality of install?
>>>> > b) Will this switch turn off a running unit, or just prevent a stopped
>>>> > unit from starting?
>>>> > c) If it abruptly stops a running unit, will that shorten the life?
>>>> >
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>> Stop Smart Meters!
>>>>
>>>> http://stopsmartmeters.org/2011/03/25/pges-opt-out-plan-a-trojan-horse-the-smart-meter-is-the-problem/
>>>>
>>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QfT2nfIn8uo
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://af.reuters.com/article/idAFLDE6860P520100908?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> http://stopsmartmeters.org/how-you-can-stop-smart-meters/ca-local-governments-on-board/
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> --
>>> James P. Kinney III
>>> I would rather stumble along in freedom than walk effortlessly in chains.
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> --
> James P. Kinney III
> I would rather stumble along in freedom than walk effortlessly in chains.
>
>
>
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