[Alfisti]

Originally Posted by KRS_SN

Not much growth not much inflation just flat lining and dipping in real term economic affordability in general. Hence I hear from friends here who visit there frequently that compared to transatlantic counterparts food clothing etc are rather affordable overall here.

Your prices are insane, i know a few blokes from the Uk and man, i realise you earn less in terms of pounds vs dollars but jesus H the differnce.

[KRS_SN]

Originally Posted by Alfisti

Your prices are insane, i know a few blokes from the Uk and man, i realise you earn less in terms of pounds vs dollars but jesus H the differnce.

Full time work around here is 40 hrs/week. This is a factor. Lots of free time not a lot of money to play around with

[Car-Addicted]

I guess the EV folks are just as dishonest as the ICE folks.
Consumer Reports Exposes 10 EVs that Lied About Their Range
December 7, 2023
When choosing an electric vehicle (EV), the accuracy of its range estimate is a key factor for consumers, especially given the developing state of charging infrastructure in the U.S. To provide clarity, Consumer Reports conducted tests to determine the real-world highway range of various EVs, using a methodology similar to the EPA’s for measuring miles per gallon. Their findings revealed that while some EVs exceeded their range estimates, others didn’t live up to expectations.
2023 Nissan Aryia Platinum + AWD promising a range of 257 miles. In real-world testing, it achieved a respectable 253.
2022 Hyundai Ioniq6 SEL AWD advertised a 270-mile range. Impressively, it managed to clock 265 miles.
2023 Subaru Solterra Limited claiming a range of 222 miles, resulted in 210 miles during testing.
2023 Kia Niro EV Wind 253-mile range, achieved 239 miles in tests.
2022 Audi Q4 50 E-Tron Premium Plus promised a range of 241 miles but delivered 226 miles in tests.
2023 Genesis Electrified GV70 Advanced claimed a range of 236 miles but achieved 220 miles.
2023 Lexus RZ 450e Premium claimed a 220-mile range but reached 202 miles in testing.
2021 Tesla Model S Long Range boasts a substantial 405-mile range but managed 366 miles in tests.
2023 Lucid Air Touring claimed 384-mile range, achieved 344 miles.
2022 F-150 Lightning Lariat Extended Range promised an impressive 320-mile range but achieved only 270 miles in tests.
2023 Mercedes-Benz EQE 350 4MATIC exceeded expectations by achieving a 332-mile range in tests compared to the EPA’s 260-mile estimate.
2023 BMW i4 M50 delivered a commendable 318 miles in testing against an EPA estimate of 324 miles.
2023 BMW iX xDrive50 exceeded its advertised range, achieving 370 miles compared to the 324-mile EPA estimate.
https://teslatale.com/ev-lied-range/

[M5Rick]

Originally Posted by Murf the Surf

The UK used to be expensive compared to Canada. It's just sad really.

Just over 10 years ago it was US $2 to the £ and our trip to LA was like a dream with Cali tax refund for UK visitors also for clothes shopping etc. What a difference 10+ years and change in gubment make

[KRS_SN]

I was travelling in my EV
There was a passenger in the front seat and one in the back. The seats started behaving erratically culminating in the back seats folding forward.i had to drive off the highway and into the underground parking lot of a small shopping centre.
Got out to inspect and saw some hissing and gurgling sounds from underneath the back seats and some fluid seeping out.
Smelled this and felt like battery acid. Then I could see fumes there was fire.
I think about how the owner of the small shop would feel now that his establishment will burn to the ground.
I think about my mrs who will.say 'told you so' when buying an EV.
I go outside the parking lot to call the emergency fire response service to tell them they've got work.
Then I go back into the parking lot to have one last look at my car and I see a large suitcase where my car was parked and no car..
I realize its a dream....It was a good merlot.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

Here's a quote from Cummins' DER web page. It should give you comfort...

"Demand response resources are electric loads which can be shaped, reduced or disconnected on demand. In some regions, for example, homeowners have the option to participate in demand-response programs. The utility or the program manager installs remotely controlled disconnect switches on the air conditioning (AC) unit or electric water heater of participating homeowners, for example. Each individual AC unit or water heater can thus be switched off as needed to reduce the load on the electric grid. Larger virtual DERs aggregate several hundred or thousand homes. The result is a resource comparable in size and function to a small power plant."

I actually signed up for this type of program for my vacation home. Mine is a very specific use case and it has more or less worked out for me. The hook is a discount on the per KW charge. The times I've been out there under the program where the power company has shut off the power has been zero so far and that's with owning the home since 2012. And the grid out there seems to be pretty stable from the lack of complaints from my neighbors.

Just wanted to bring up my situation as where it has worked to my benefit but again it's very specific for my situation. My primary home, no way, I'm opting in on this type of program.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by Car-Addicted

Now who here trusts Google NEST and Amazon Echo to not be involved in data sharing and government compliance in a "emergency"?

I installed a NEST thermostat when they first came out and were not a Google company. It was nice to be able to remotely control the HVAC from anywhere in the world (for me just the USA really). I liked its feature that it tracks the weather via the internet in advance and adjusts operation of the HVAC accordingly. I live in a unique house mainly built in 1852 that is a few levels above a tent with regards to retaining conditioned air. So, better control of the HVAC and some automatic control based on the weather was welcomed tech.

Then Google bought NEST. Fuck that; Google doesn't need to know how I heat and cool my home. I've kept the NEST disconnected from the wifi ever since.

[zx10guy]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I installed a NEST thermostat when they first came out and were not a Google company. It was nice to be able to remotely control the HVAC from anywhere in the world (for me just the USA really). I liked its feature that it tracks the weather via the internet in advance and adjusts operation of the HVAC accordingly. I live in a unique house mainly built in 1852 that is a few levels above a tent with regards to retaining conditioned air. So, better control of the HVAC and some automatic control based on the weather was welcomed tech.

Then Google bought NEST. Fuck that; Google doesn't need to know how I heat and cool my home. I've kept the NEST disconnected from the wifi ever since.

It's actually extremely scary how people have just voluntarily handed off their privacy to these corporations. There was a thread over in the off topic where a member was excited about a drone that Amazon or Google was proposing for a home to "investigate" a possible home security incident. Never mind that this thing will have cameras and other sensors capturing everything in your home.

In addition, people have been so short sighted with how these companies have been conditioning them to accept the "you own nothing and will be happy" mantra. From making products disposable to getting your content via subscription streaming services to making your products reliant on some server in the cloud. The last point is an expansion of what you said concerning privacy. But it also has implications on your usage of said product. Companies can just turn off that server forcing you to trash bin a product that was working just fine. Louis Rossman had put out a video recently on a IP camera sold on Amazon. The company didn't alert users that the company no longer supported the camera and didn't pull the product from being sold over the retail channel. Users bought the camera to find out the camera wouldn't work. The only response from the company was to give them a discount on purchasing a new camera that would work.

I myself had this situation happen with a product that work fabulously. It was a Slingbox. Before you were able to use it without the intervention of a cloud server brokering the connection between the remote client and that box. Then they switched the operating model with their newer versions forcing you to use their server. Then AT&T came in and bought out the IP for the company and shut it down. We got a year warning the server is going to go offline. The system work great for me but I was forced to scrap it. I ended up cobbling together a similar but not so elegant solution. Unfortunately it does utilize a cloud based device for the remote control functions. But I figure I can get another solution that does the same thing without a problem if this one fails.

As to the smart thermostat situation, I opted to get a Honeywell product. I figure it was the lesser of the evils out there. I have it installed at my vacation home. The main reason is to be able to get the house conditioned to a comfortable internal temperature when I arrive. I have the temp permanently set pretty high in the summer months and pretty low in the winter months to save on unnecessary energy costs when I'm not there. The thermostat did come in handy one time when my HVAC wasn't working during a really cold winter season. I got email alerts from the thermostat that the temperature of the house was too low. Drove out immediately to check on the house and indeed the HVAC wasn't working.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by M5Rick

Just over 10 years ago it was US $2 to the £ and our trip to LA was like a dream with Cali tax refund for UK visitors also for clothes shopping etc. What a difference 10+ years and change in gubment make

Just for grins. This is the average US gasoline price since 2001 broken into specific segments of time. Each segment average price was then adjusted to 2023 for comparison purposes. Price data from Forbes. These data (trend) pretty much mirror my personal recorded gas price data (for premium - about 42 cents more than regular) for the same time periods.

[Car-Addicted]

Originally Posted by Murf the Surf

We looked into Solar panels, our roof doesn't face the right direction so would have to put a big panel out on our back yard. The price we got was about $40K in stalled, there are some government rebates but not that much.

I think the issue with solar on a end user basis is ROI. In this day and age few people know where and when their employment and family needs will change that will require moving. With pay back from 15 to 30 years and the value in the resale market unknown it makes this hard to justify. I built in 2005 and I spent the money on geothermal and super insulation as I plan on leaving this house feet first. If I were to build again tomorrow I doubt I would make those investments. (closer to feet first)

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by zx10guy

It's actually extremely scary how people have just voluntarily handed off their privacy to these corporations. There was a thread over in the off topic where a member was excited about a drone that Amazon or Google was proposing for a home to "investigate" a possible home security incident. Never mind that this thing will have cameras and other sensors capturing everything in your home.

In addition, people have been so short sighted with how these companies have been conditioning them to accept the "you own nothing and will be happy" mantra. From making products disposable to getting your content via subscription streaming services to making your products reliant on some server in the cloud. The last point is an expansion of what you said concerning privacy. But it also has implications on your usage of said product. Companies can just turn off that server forcing you to trash bin a product that was working just fine. Louis Rossman had put out a video recently on a IP camera sold on Amazon. The company didn't alert users that the company no longer supported the camera and didn't pull the product from being sold over the retail channel. Users bought the camera to find out the camera wouldn't work. The only response from the company was to give them a discount on purchasing a new camera that would work.

I myself had this situation happen with a product that work fabulously. It was a Slingbox. Before you were able to use it without the intervention of a cloud server brokering the connection between the remote client and that box. Then they switched the operating model with their newer versions forcing you to use their server. Then AT&T came in and bought out the IP for the company and shut it down. We got a year warning the server is going to go offline. The system work great for me but I was forced to scrap it. I ended up cobbling together a similar but not so elegant solution. Unfortunately it does utilize a cloud based device for the remote control functions. But I figure I can get another solution that does the same thing without a problem if this one fails.

As to the smart thermostat situation, I opted to get a Honeywell product. I figure it was the lesser of the evils out there. I have it installed at my vacation home. The main reason is to be able to get the house conditioned to a comfortable internal temperature when I arrive. I have the temp permanently set pretty high in the summer months and pretty low in the winter months to save on unnecessary energy costs when I'm not there. The thermostat did come in handy one time when my HVAC wasn't working during a really cold winter season. I got email alerts from the thermostat that the temperature of the house was too low. Drove out immediately to check on the house and indeed the HVAC wasn't working.

I'll have to look into the Honeywell product to see if it is not tracked by Big Tech. Somewhere in my mess of a garage I have the house's original Honeywell dumb (mercury-bulb) thermostat that I should switch back to (it might be heat-only though). My wife stays home all day now, so the only advantage of the NEST is programming for night/day temps. I'm a Boomer, I can easily live with a manual thermostat - .

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by Murf the Surf

We looked into Solar panels, our roof doesn't face the right direction so would have to put a big panel out on our back yard. The price we got was about $40K in stalled, there are some government rebates but not that much. My monthly hydro bull is around $200 so assuming hydro bill went to zero (it won't because we still have to pay delivery charges and debt retirement charge to the utility) it would take about 20 years to break even. I won't be in this house that long.

With fear of being called juvenile again... you've post pics of your awesomely cool homestead in the Canadian winter with a shit-load of snow everywhere. How does solar deal with that? Self-heating I'm guessing?

I've looked into solar as well. My place is tucked up on the north face of a 1,500 foot mountain (the house is at 860 feet ASL). There is not enough sun exposure in the winter to capture enough energy for a day without putting the array out in the front yard. Doing that kills the rural esthetics of the property and the panels then would be susceptible to the river floodplain.

Solar is just not for everyone, it's hard to convince enviro-Californians of this; they see everything from a Cali perspective. I need propane and 24/7 400-amp service for my house in the winter to keep warm. Just the way it is. Heat pump and solar won't cut it. Living on a DER grid when some m'effer doesn't plug his Tesla in and I get a brownout would be difficult to explain to my wife. It took a while for her to accept the toilet doesn't flush when the electricity goes out in a storm*.

* Yup, I do have a mini-DER (called Generac)

[Murf the Surf]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

With fear of being called juvenile again... you've post pics of your awesomely cool homestead in the Canadian winter with a shit-load of snow everywhere. How does solar deal with that? Self-heating I'm guessing?

That is a challenge as is the shorter days as you go further north, which is ironic because if you're going to heat using electricity you need the solar array to work during the cold months. We installed a new state of the art heat pump/furnace in January '23. The government here is pushing them as a way to get off fossil fuels, the problem is that our top of the line heat pump can work below -10C but really struggles. So we have saved about 25-30% of our propane consumption, we still need the propane half of the furnace for the colder months, January & February are often well below -10C. Our new heat pump will take about 15-20 years to pay for itself. And thank you for the comment on our home.

[Car-Addicted]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I'll have to look into the Honeywell product to see if it is not tracked by Big Tech.

I have Honeywell T6 Pro's controlling the geothermal in shop and house. It does connect to outside weather and has geo-fencing available and connects to Honeywell so your guess is as good as mine. It is not happy with out WiFi but still works with no ability to change settings.
https://www.honeywellhome.com/us/en/...th6320u2008-u/

All these companies are evil if we are the product.

[Murf the Surf]

Originally Posted by Car-Addicted

I have Honeywell T6 Pro's controlling the geothermal in shop and house. It does connect to outside weather and has geo-fencing available and connects to Honeywell so your guess is as good as mine. It is not happy with out WiFi but still works with no ability to change settings.
https://www.honeywellhome.com/us/en/...th6320u2008-u/

All these companies are evil if we are the product.

Our system is Lennox with their branded thermostat which we had to buy with the new furnace and heat pump, we had a NEST but it wasn't compatible. I'm not sure if anyone had their hands on the Lennox besides Lennox themselves.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by Car-Addicted

I have Honeywell T6 Pro's controlling the geothermal in shop and house. It does connect to outside weather and has geo-fencing available and connects to Honeywell so your guess is as good as mine. It is not happy with out WiFi but still works with no ability to change settings.
https://www.honeywellhome.com/us/en/...th6320u2008-u/

All these companies are evil if we are the product.

If I'd ever move to a new-built house with enough land*, I'd definitely go geothermal.

* I've got 40 acres now, but it's mostly vertical. 35 of it is original-growth forest. Big 'ole carbon sink/oxygen spewer.

[Car-Addicted]

Still like the geothermal for comfort and cost of operation but it does require a stable power grid.
Was going to get LP generator this year but blew the budget on the M4.
Top of the list for 2024 as most of our power comes from Ohio and they are tearing down coal power plants with no viable replacements

[Car-Addicted]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

If I'd ever move to a new-built house with enough land*, I'd definitely go geothermal.

The only second guess I made was using a slinky field for the geothermal. (they are rated slightly higher for heat transfer) I would likely go bentonite well next time. The sinking of the ground over the slinky field is a pain in the ass. I bet I have several tons of top soil added in the past 10 years to flatten out the yard. Then again it is a good excuse for tractor time

[Car-Addicted]

Originally Posted by Murf the Surf

Our system is Lennox with their branded thermostat which we had to buy with the new furnace and heat pump

Not a HVAC expert but I have wired in a number of thermostats over the years and the later HVAC units have 2 or 3 heating settings and 1 or 2 cooling and my current systems is a 5 wire 3/2 system but I have had a 10 wire outside temp sensor systems in the past. Point is I doubt the the Lennox is any different than any other HVAC unit. Maybe a non Lennox tech is what you really need? Then again my general rule is if it ain't broken don't fix it as there is always enough stuff to fix.

[Efthreeoh]

Originally Posted by Car-Addicted

Still like the geothermal for comfort and cost of operation but it does require a stable power grid.
Was going to get LP generator this year but blew the budget on the M4.
Top of the list for 2024 as most of our power comes from Ohio and they are tearing down coal power plants with no viable replacements

I could switch to one of those outdoor hot water boiler systems that use firewood to heat the water for a furnace heat exchanger. Just in felled wood alone I probably have 10 years of wood to burn.

[Car-Addicted]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

I could switch to one of those outdoor hot water boiler systems that use firewood to heat the water for a furnace heat exchanger. Just in felled wood alone I probably have 10 years of wood to burn.

I'm in Amish country and those things are all over the place. Personally I think that is ideal for heating a shop but I'm a little too old and soft to use it for my house. The thought of getting up a 5:00am to stoke the boiler is just not my cup of tea.

[M5Rick]

Originally Posted by Efthreeoh

Just for grins. This is the average US gasoline price since 2001 broken into specific segments of time. Each segment average price was then adjusted to 2023 for comparison purposes. Price data from Forbes. These data (trend) pretty much mirror my personal recorded gas price data (for premium - about 42 cents more than regular) for the same time periods.

Doesn't look bad at all to me.