Home Improvement

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Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
11,333
5,322
Windows can vary wildly and the payback period is shit purely utility wise just because they're so expensive.

If you have a decent house id go with clad wood or fiberglass. Prob 400-800 each installed.
 
Deathwing

Deathwing

<Bronze Donator>
16,744
7,768
Ugh, ~19 windows. Wish there was something else besides that plastic film stuff. My heating costs aren't really that bad, I average $125/month electric & gas over the course of a year to heat 2100 sqft. New windows aren't going to pay that back for a long time. I just don't like the moisture buildup inside.
 
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Picasso3

Silver Baronet of the Realm
11,333
5,322
Just bashed a 3" cleanout plug out of cast iron soil stack. Would like to use a bushing to reduce down to 2" and tie in with new sink but there's only 1 to 3 good threads left. May try to find a rubber compression bushing to reduce.
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
38,278
15,112
So this is our first winter owning a home. Like I said before we installed some ductless ac system in the summer. Installer told us they were efficient to heat the house down to 15 degrees. Figured I'd not use oil and from November to December just use the central unit. That was a mistake. Electric bill was $518 for a single month.

Turned on the boiler / radiators and not only is my house 100% warmer, but the thing is barely working to keep the house warm. Fucking jackass.

They are awesome for cooling the house though, I'll give them that. Might be efficient if we had a couple more head units.
 
Khane

Khane

Got something right about marriage
20,346
14,012
Sucks noodlebro. Any time someone tries to tell you heating your house via electricity is more efficient than gas or oil... you tell them to fuck right off.
 
Oldbased

Oldbased

> Than U
28,436
67,419
Picasso_sl said:
Just bashed a 3" cleanout plug out of cast iron soil stack. Would like to use a bushing to reduce down to 2" and tie in with new sink but there's only 1 to 3 good threads left. May try to find a rubber compression bushing to reduce.
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Not a big fan of those, but they are approved for venting/drain use, or at least I assume they are since I see licensed plumbers use them all the time, especially on galvanized repairs.
Either way you got to do the repairs yourself, I think most places require plumbers to replace cast stacks now.
 
Oldbased

Oldbased

> Than U
28,436
67,419
Noodleface_sl said:
So this is our first winter owning a home. Like I said before we installed some ductless ac system in the summer. Installer told us they were efficient to heat the house down to 15 degrees. Figured I'd not use oil and from November to December just use the central unit. That was a mistake. Electric bill was $518 for a single month.

Turned on the boiler / radiators and not only is my house 100% warmer, but the thing is barely working to keep the house warm. Fucking jackass.

They are awesome for cooling the house though, I'll give them that. Might be efficient if we had a couple more head units.
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You going through what I am this winter. If you saw post I made today in screenshots 1st world problems you'd understand.
Last months bill was $300 electric, but this month I am track for a $500 bill.
But damn for a $510 bill you'd have to be using like 7100 watts per hour nonstop at like $.10 per kwh
 
lurkingdirk

lurkingdirk

AssHat Taint
<Medals Crew>
46,701
215,031
Two wood stoves, free wood. Only had to feed one today to keep the part of the house in use warm on a butt cold day. I did laundry and did some cooking, but that's all the gas I used.

Burn wood. Chopping it makes you manly.

smile.png
 
lurker

lurker

Vyemm Raider
1,527
3,349
Noodleface_sl said:
So this is our first winter owning a home. Like I said before we installed some ductless ac system in the summer. Installer told us they were efficient to heat the house down to 15 degrees. Figured I'd not use oil and from November to December just use the central unit. That was a mistake. Electric bill was $518 for a single month.

Turned on the boiler / radiators and not only is my house 100% warmer, but the thing is barely working to keep the house warm. Fucking jackass.

They are awesome for cooling the house though, I'll give them that. Might be efficient if we had a couple more head units.
Click to expand...
I'm guessing that AC system you installed is really a heat pump. Run it one direction, it's an AC. Run the other direction, it creates heat. I'm also assuming a heat pump is news to you. If not, ignore this, but there are a couple of points to know about heat pumps.

1) Don't turn them on and off. They are fairly efficient at maintaining a set temp, but if the difference between the house temp and the set temp is 2 degrees or more, the emergency heat (resistance) will come on and that will really spin the meter.

2) They are not efficient when outside temps approach freezing. There is just not much latent heat to extract so the emergency heat will turn on. Again, really pricey.

I have 2 heat pumps on my house in AZ. Each one has 9000 watts of emergency heat strips. If they both turn on, that's like 12 space heaters. I never let that happen or $500 bills are a given. I supplement with a pellet stove or I heat with a space heater only the room I'm going to occupy. Like Khane sorta said, heating your house with electricity is expensive and don't believe otherwise.
 
Xarpolis

Xarpolis

Life's a Dream
14,661
16,351
I refuse to buy another house that doesn't have natural gas as an option. First of all, it'll make my wife happier in the Kitchen. But aside from that, it's MUCH MORE cost effective for everything else that requires heat. Hot water heater, Drying Machine, heating.. fuck electric. On top of that, you could get a whole house generator that runs off of natural gas and live 100% the same as you currently do (for a little more $$) every time you would otherwise lose power. Natural Gas is king!
 
Khane

Khane

Got something right about marriage
20,346
14,012
Yep, I've lived in homes with electric heat (by far the worst), oil and my current home has natural gas. It's the best option out there. Those generators that run on natural gas are fucking expensive though just so you know. But worth it if you live in an area prone to power outages.
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
38,278
15,112
lurker_sl said:
I'm guessing that AC system you installed is really a heat pump. Run it one direction, it's an AC. Run the other direction, it creates heat. I'm also assuming a heat pump is news to you. If not, ignore this, but there are a couple of points to know about heat pumps.

1) Don't turn them on and off. They are fairly efficient at maintaining a set temp, but if the difference between the house temp and the set temp is 2 degrees or more, the emergency heat (resistance) will come on and that will really spin the meter.

2) They are not efficient when outside temps approach freezing. There is just not much latent heat to extract so the emergency heat will turn on. Again, really pricey.

I have 2 heat pumps on my house in AZ. Each one has 9000 watts of emergency heat strips. If they both turn on, that's like 12 space heaters. I never let that happen or $500 bills are a given. I supplement with a pellet stove or I heat with a space heater only the room I'm going to occupy. Like Khane sorta said, heating your house with electricity is expensive and don't believe otherwise.
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Yeah they are heat pumps. The problem was while the one upstairs can easily heat the entire floor (it is a Cape, so upstairs is smaller and generally hotter), the one in the living room is trying to heat the whole first floor by itself. It could never heat the floor to the desired temperature, so it was going hard as a motherfucker all day long. I didn't realize how hard it was going. I assume now since it is between 0-20 degrees F outside, they're worthless.

All these factors combined = major electricity. The one downstairs was pumping out hot air so hard, I knew it couldn't possibly be pulling from the environment.

For the AC in the summer they were great.. once they cooled the house on our initial turn-on, we just set them to 72 and left them alone. They barely had to work at all to maintain a nice even temp.

We do have gas in the street, but I'm a little afraid of what it would cost to bring it into the house and set ourselves up for it. I probably don't even want to know.
 
Xarpolis

Xarpolis

Life's a Dream
14,661
16,351
Get a quote. Especially if the lines are down your street already, the power company would probably front the cost of running a line into your house for you to use. You would just need to spend cash on running the lines through your house and replacing all electric items with natural gas variants.



As far as whole house gen's that run on natural gas, yes they're expensive (10k?), but they're less than a propane or gasoline gen that would be needed as a whole house gen on an electric only property.
 
lurker

lurker

Vyemm Raider
1,527
3,349
Yup. Get a quote for tying your house to the gas line. In my neighborhood, if you had 3 NG appliances, they would hook you up to a meter on the side of your house. The rest was up to you, but a lot of that work is easy for an experienced plumber. Unfortunately for me, NG stops 2 blocks away so the whole cost of getting it to my house is all mine.
 
Noodleface

Noodleface

A Mod Real Quick
38,278
15,112
lurker_sl said:
Yup. Get a quote for tying your house to the gas line. In my neighborhood, if you had 3 NG appliances, they would hook you up to a meter on the side of your house. The rest was up to you, but a lot of that work is easy for an experienced plumber. Unfortunately for me, NG stops 2 blocks away the whole cost of getting to my house is all mine.
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Sweet, maybe I'll look into that after winter and see what they say.
 
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