Housing Boom's Shoddy Construction Buying Frenzy

CNN/Money magazine finally did an article to warn home-buyers that homes built during booms are often slipshod because builders rush to the next overpriced paycheck while buyers frenzily outbid each other on new construction that can be inferior to an older home built during leaner times.

"The house is essentially splitting in two."

"He said the walls were life-threateningly out of plumb."

Unfortunately, the housing boom ended last year (or the year before) so this article warning people about buying new homes during a boom is a few years too late for thousands of boom buyers.

The Difference between Energy and Power: Do Not Confuse

"Work" Preface: A joule is used as either a unit of energy or a unit of work. Technically, energy is the ability to do work (effort or input for potential work) while work is the measured effect of applied energy (accomplishment or result or output); directional mechanical work = force * distance and the motively similar thermodynamic work = energy transferred. Your electric bill measures what reached your meter (the work/accomplishment from the power company's view), not how much benefit you wrung out of it.

• energy = work (technically, the ability to do work)
  
• power = work rate (energy per time)

• joule (J) = energy (work)
• watt (W) = power (rate of work, energy per time)
• watt-hour (Wh) = energy (work)

• energy = J
• power = J/s

The trick is that the word "watt" includes a built-in time component:

• 1 watt = 1 joule per second (Jps or J/s)

So, a watt is a transmitting speed, or rate per time, like miles per hour (mph) or bytes per second (bps). You do not see the "ph" or "ps" at the end of "watt" because "watt" replaces "Jps" or "J/s."

• 1,000 watts = 1,000 joules per second

You can think of watts like a speed but it is never "watts per second," it's either "watts" or "joules per second." Solar panels and generators usually are rated at their maximum "speed" of watts or kilowatts (not kilowatt-hours, not kWh).

• 12,000 joules PER SECOND = 12,000 watts = 12 kilowatts

You can drive a car 60mph but whether you did 60mph for 1 second or for 12 hours determines how far you traveled. That's where watt-hours or kilowatt-hours (kWh) enter the picture. A watt-hour (Wh) is a sum of all joules used over time, a cumulative energy total like miles driven on an odometer.

• 1 watt-hour (Wh) = 1 joule per second for an hour (3,600 seconds) = 3,600 joules (energy)

• 1kW=1,000W (power)
• 1kWh=1,000Wh (energy)

If you did a "speed" of 0.5kW for 24 hours, then you totaled 12kWh.
If you did a "speed" of 1kW for 12 hours, then you totaled 12kWh.
If you did a "speed" of 2kW for 6 hours, then you totaled 12kWh.

A final definition will allow you to make sense of many consumer electronic labels:

• watts (W) = volts (V) * amperes (A)

High-school algebra works perfectly on all these letters:

• W * h = Wh
• 2W * 3h = 6Wh

Algebraic division works perfectly on "joules per second" and other time rates.

• J/s = 1 joule divided by 1 second

Now you can use algebra to transform units when comparing information that appeared apples-oranges at first.

Good luck.

Myth of Photo-Voltaic Solar Power?

I felt that this part of a previous post deserved promotion to its own post:

The Myth of Photo-Voltaic Solar Power?

Solar power provides about 1,000W (1kW) per square meter at the equator's sea level. However, typical photo-voltaic (PV) solar panels are only 15% efficient so a square meter of solar panels provides only 150W. Further, even compact fluorescent lights (CFL) are only 20% efficient so 150W of CFLs provide only 30W of light. Incandescent light bulbs are only 5% efficient so 150W of incandescent light bulbs provide about 8w of light—less than 1% of the solar power that hit the solar panels.

So, the expensive “solar” system is 97-99% inefficient at providing electric light.

(For a similar reason, PV solar-electric water-heating is less efficient than passive solar water-heating which puts the water tank in direct sunlight.)

Then consider that the sky is not always clear and sunny. Solar panels will generate less in winter and more energy in summer because of the number of daylight hours. However, even a seemingly clear day might have particles that reduce available power to 80%, moderate clouds can reduce available power to 33% and heavy clouds can reduce it to 5% (a 45W panel would provide about 2W).

What do you get at the end of the day? The Southwest USA accumulates the equivalent of about 5 full sun hours per day. However, much of the US population should expect only about 3 hours or less of full sun equivalent per day (at 3 hours, a 45W solar panel would provide 135Wh per day, which might power a medium TV for 1 hour per day) . Northern Michigan should expect only 1 full sun hour per day (a 45W panel would provide 45Wh per day, which might power a 60W light bulb for about a half-hour per day after accounting for system inefficiencies).

Backup Logic

Backup power should be independent of what it is replacing, or have an inverse relationship to it. The obvious disadvantage of solar-electric lighting as a backup to natural solar lighting is that you are trying to squeeze more energy from the very thing that is disappearing on you.

Electric Hotel 1905

A post about 19th-Century solar power reminded me of Spanish film pioneer Segundo de Chomon's Hotel Electrico (1905, sometimes dated 1908), which uses Wright-Brothers-era stop-motion special effects to show a cross between Popular Science's The Kitchen of Tomorrow and a haunted house.

View The Electric Hotel on YouTube.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmLJvLP34ok

Enjoy.

La Casa Hechizada (1906)

Flow Rates, Shower, Faucet, Bathroom, Kitchen

New fixtures should comply with the Federal Energy Policy Act of 1992.

From About Home Repair:

Lavatory Faucet

Low Flow: 0.5 -1.5 GPM

Meets Code / 1992 Standard: 2.2 GPM

Pre-1992 Faucet: 3.0 - 5.0 GPM

Kitchen Faucet

Low Flow: Not appropriate for dish cleaning

Meets Code / 1992 Standard: 2.2 GPM

Pre-1992 Faucet: 3.0 - 7.0 GPM

Shower Head

Low Flow: 1.0 - 2.0 GPM

Meets Code / 1992 Standard: 2.2 GPM

Pre-1992 Faucet: 4.0 - 8.0 GPM

Per Capita Daily Water Use

From Aquacraft.com:

Mean daily per capita water use, 12 study sites

Fixture/EndUse	Avg. gallons per capita per day	Avg. liters per capita per day	Indoor use percent	Total use percent
Toilet	18.5	70.0	30.9%	10.8%
Clothes washer	15	56.8	25.1%	8.7%
Shower	11.6	43.9	19.4%	6.8%
Faucet	10.9	41.3	18.2%	6.3%
Other domestic	1.6	6.1	2.7%	0.9%
Bath	1.2	4.5	2.0%	0.7%
Dishwasher	1	3.8	1.7%	0.6%
Indoor Total	59.8	226.3	100.0%	34.8%
Leak	9.5	36.0	NA	5.5%
Unknown	1.7	6.4	NA	1.0%
Outdoor	100.8	381.5	NA	58.7%
TOTAL	171.8	650.3	NA	100.0%

Domestic DC Water Pumps Price GPH

Can Direct Current (DC) boat "bilge pumps" move your household water economically?

Bilge pumps specialize in:

• Short-duration
• High-volume (gallons per hour, gph)
• Little head/lift

This niche is quite different from high head/lift well pumps or continuous-run solar pumps.

Rule of thumb = A DC bilge pump can lift half its rated gph a distance of 1 foot per 100gph of its rating (caution: very rough estimate, based on a first few consumer reports and manufacturer notes, subject to amendment).

Supply (pump cost and performance estimate):

$10-20 = 360-500gph = 3-5ft @ 150-250gph
$25-50 = 1,000gph = 10ft @ 500gph (600gph in one report)

Demand = 120gph (2gpm) for today's faucets and shower heads, and 80-100 gallons per person per day (20-150 at the extremes).

Possible applications:

• Raise water to sink level, shower level, or 2nd-story level, depending upon size of pump.
• Daisy-chain pumps like canal locks.
• Use for basement sump pump, shop, garage, shed, pool cabana, RV, camping, cabin, or off-grid home.
• Control with a manual start and stop toggle switch, manual "momentary on" switch, or an automatic float switch.

Cost Effectiveness

These cheap bilge pumps can last years. Even some other pumps that cost over $100 have diaphragms that might need replacement after years. Multiple cheap pumps provide mutual backups and swapping flexibility. Heck, you could keep a basket of the $10 Wal-Mart bilge pumps.


http://www.edwardsaquifer.net/glossary.html
http://www.solar-stream.com/
http://redlinepumps.com/directdrivepumps.html

Fraud: Energy Star Efficiency Compliance

Home Energy magazine wrote about manufacturers overstating product capacity and governments doing flawed efficiency tests and issuing misleading "green" recommendations:

"An insidious, new form of noncompliance has recently emerged. Thanks to microprocessor controls, some appliances now recognize when they are being tested and switch into a low-energy mode. According to Consumer Reports, this appears to be the case with a new LG refrigerator, which inexplicably switches off some operations when the ambient temperature approaches the testing temperature and when doors haven’t been opened for a while. These measures cut enough electricity use to qualify the unit for Energy Star endorsement and sales-enhancing utility rebate programs. LG appears to be failing to comply with energy regulations in two countries. (Is anybody paying attention?) But LG is not alone; Japanese refrigerator manufacturers became so adept at circumventing the test that actual electricity use of refrigerators was typically twice as high as the labels claimed. The situation became so embarrassing that the government changed the test procedure to make it harder to circumvent. Many U.S. appliance manufacturers (and importers) are poised to adopt the same approach as LG and Japanese manufacturers. The FTC, DOE, and Energy Star should be on the alert."

How To Identify Old Insulation

From Home Energy magazine:

Identifying Old Insulation

Material	Description	R-Value per Inch*
Fiberglass batts	Pink, yellow, or white; blanketlike	3.0
Loose-fill fiberglass	Pink, yellow, or white loose fibrous material	2.5
Loose-fill rock wool	Denser than fiberglass, "wooly," usually gray with black specks (some newer products are white)	2.8
Loose-fill cellulose	Shredded newspaper, gray, "dusty"	3.4
Vermiculite	Gray or brown granules	2.7
Perlite	White or yellow granules	2.7
Miscellaneous wood products	Sawdust, redwood bark, balsa wood	1.0
Expanded polystyrene board	Rigid plastic foam board (may be labeled)	3.8
Extruded polystyrene board	Rigid plastic foam board (may be labeled)	4.8
Polyisocyanurate board	Rigid plastic foam board (may be labeled)	5.8
Spray polyurethane foam	Plastic foam, uneven surface	5.9
Urea formaldehyde foam+	Whitish gray or yellow, very brittle foam	4.0
Asbestos++	May be mixed with other materials; difficult to identify	1.0

* These R-values are for old insulation only. They take into account settling, as well as average R-values for old materials.
+ Urea formaldehyde foam is no longer sold due to concerns about formaldehyde outgassing.
++ If you suspect that you have asbestos, consult a hazardous material specialist before you disturb the insulation.

Sources: PG&E Stockton Training Center, 1993 ASHRAE Handbook of Fundamentals, DOE Insulation Fact Sheet

http://hes.lbl.gov/hes/makingithappen/no_regrets/insulationold.html

Candles Beat High-Tech Solar Photovoltaic?

Candles=solid-fuel energy sticks

It’s difficult to beat the price of grid power if you already are connected but new home builders might face the choice of paying to connect versus paying to set up an off-grid system.

The first step is to “daylight” (maximize natural lighting) as described in the last post and here’s why:

The Myth of Photo-Voltaic Solar Power?

Solar power provides about 1,000W (1kW) per square meter at the equator's sea level. However, typical photo-voltaic (PV) solar panels are only 15% efficient so a square meter of solar panels provides only 150W. Further, even compact fluorescent lights (CFL) are only 20% efficient so 150W of CFLs provide only 30W of light. Incandescent light bulbs are only 5% efficient so 150W of incandescent light bulbs provide about 8W of light—less than 1% of the solar power that hit the solar panels.

So, the expensive “solar” system is 97-99% inefficient at providing electric light.

(For a similar reason, PV solar-electric water-heating is less efficient than passive solar water-heating which puts the water tank in direct sunlight.)

Then consider that the sky is not always clear and sunny. Solar panels will generate less in winter and more energy in summer because of the number of daylight hours. However, even a seemingly clear day might have particles that reduce available power to 80%, moderate clouds can reduce available power to 33% and heavy clouds can reduce it to 5% (a 45W panel would provide about 2W).

What do you get at the end of the day? The Southwest USA accumulates the equivalent of about 5 full sun hours per day. However, much of the US population should expect only about 3 hours or less of full sun equivalent per day (at 3 hours, a 45W solar panel would provide 135Wh per day, which might power a medium TV for 1 hour per day) . Northern Michigan should expect only 1 full sun hour per day (a 45W panel would provide 45Wh per day, which might power a 60W light bulb for about a half-hour per day after accounting for system inefficiencies).

Night

For night, let’s say that you need 5 hours per day of artificial lighting and your location and setup give solar panels the equivalent of 5 full-power hours of sunlight per day (likely only in the very favorable Southwest USA).

Which is the best way to spend $350 for lighting?:

• PV Solar-Panel System: $350 can buy a 45W solar-panel kit from Harborfreight.com for $200, the required 300-watt inverter for $50, and a good Trojan T-105 battery for $100, to provide 225 watt-hours (Wh) per day, indefinitely (actually, you would need a pair of 6V T-105 batteries for a common 12V system but you could buy cheaper batteries too).
• Tea Lamp Candles: $350 can buy 4,375 5-hour (5h) 40W "tea lamp" (a.k.a. "tea light") candles at about 8 cents each, which is almost 12 years of 5 hours of light per day. The 4,375 candles total 21,875 hours of light and 875,000Wh (875kWh) of energy. At a consumption of 225Wh/day, the candles would equal 10.65 years of solar panel output at the assumed optimistic rate. The tea lamp candles cost 40 cents per kWh, which is higher than typical grid power's 10 cents per kWh but remember we're comparing to the infrastructure and operating cost of PV solar energy.
• Food Warmer (Votive) Candles: $350 can buy about 3,100 10h food-warmer (votive) candles at about 11 cents each (cheaper per hour than the tea lamp candles), which is 31,000 hours of light, which is almost 17 years of 5 hours of light per day. We need to know the wattage of votive candles to calculate cost per kWh. If for the moment we assume that the food-warmer/votive candles are the same power as the tealight candles, 40W, then $350 of food-warmer/votive candles would provide 1.24 megawatt-hours (1.24mWh=1,240kWh) of energy at 28 cents per kWh. I hope to get a definite wattage for this calculation.

Update 3/6/07: I found a tealight candle price of 4.375 cents each: $350 would buy 8,000 candles for almost 22 years of light (5h/day) and, at 200Wh each (40W * 5h), provide 1.6 megawatt-hours (1.6mWh=1,600kWh) of energy at 22 cents per kWh.

Cost Effectiveness

The PV $350 is more expensive than the candle $350 because the PV has to be a 100% up front investment before you get the first watt (with an interest/inflation factor in the payback period) while the candles are more pay-as-you-go ($10-$35 at a time). Remember that you might have to replace a solar panel or battery, which would postpone your break-even date.

Backup Logic

Backup power should be independent of what it is replacing, or have an inverse relationship to it. The obvious disadvantage of solar-electric lighting as a backup to natural solar lighting is that you are trying to squeeze more energy from the very thing that is disappearing on you.

Are candles powerful enough for your needs?

Even a 40W candle can provide all necessary ambient light for a room. You can focus candlepower with parabolic reflectors or Fresnel lenses (techniques used in flashlights and automobile headlights). The first lighthouse lantern room, the 1696 Eddystone Light in England, used candles to warn ships at sea.

Energy Storage, Reliability, and Safety

A candle, as a day-or-night, on-hand, on-demand energy supply, does not vanish from your drawer the way the Sun can "vansih" from the sky. A candle, as a storage battery of energy, does not have the discharge (energy leak) issue that an electric battery has. A candle, as a solid fuel, is stable and stores without high-pressure, liquid-spill, or volatile-gas dangers. You must act safely with any system, whether it is open flame or battery acid.

This very preliminary review suggests that candles are a viable alternative to the commonly recommended PV-CFL combination for lighting.

Use a votive candle to warm your coffee and light the room at the same time (replacing a 20W CFL and 20W electric hot plate)?

Please post the best $/kWh candles in Comments. Thank you.

http://www.solar4power.com/map2-global-solar-power.html
http://www.candlecauldron.com/burntimes.html

DayLighting; Sun Tubes, Solar, PV, CFL

Minimize infrastructure, minimize moving parts, and minimize operating costs.

Even a cloudy day can illuminate your entire home if you design it correctly to bypass the electronic hardware, and during the summer even indirect natural light through canopied windows can illuminate the home without adding undue heat.

Daylighting (passive solar natural light):

• Design the home with south-facing windows in the northern hemisphere to get free solar lighting. Use clerestory windows (tall windows near the ceiling) or transom windows (short windows over doors or other windows).
  
• Minimize interior walls that block sunlight. Use half walls or 9/10 walls so free sunlight can spill across the ceiling to the other parts of the home (these methods also improve ventilation and passive HVAC air circulation, or you can supplement with an active central ceiling fan).
• Maximize ceiling and wall reflectivity. Use smooth ceilings (not “stucco”-textured or pebbled or flat paint). Use gloss bright white paint (gloss paint is smoother than flat paint; white reflects the most light, which is why snow-covered sunny days can feel warmer, and why in the extreme people go “snow blind” from intense glare) on ceilings and "light shelves" (below windows to reflect light onto the ceiling). Gloss white is a bit too bright on walls for most people but remember that furniture typically reduces the room's luminosity. If the furnished room will be too bright, subdue the walls just enough to be comfortable. For instance, use a flat near-white on the walls, with a hint of blue or red or anything if you want to add a bit of color and differentiate rooms. Lighter colors also make rooms seem larger. Remember that even a small divergence from pure white can reduce reflectivity significantly: “Bone” is about 3/4 as reflective and “Almond” is about 1/2 as reflective.

So far you’ve had no extra infrastructure cost, only walls, windows, and paint that you would have anyway.

• Use “sun tubes” (a.k.a. "light tubes" or "light pipes") to direct free sunlight where needed if the previous methods were not enough. Sun tubes are tubular skylights, basically reflective ducts to channel sunlight. The ducts are lighting infrastructure that cost money but they might save some conventional wiring.

So far you haven’t spent a penny to generate light, you’ve only designed and painted your home smartly to harness freely available light.

OK, eventually it gets dark:

• Use solar storage lights, such as solar garden lights, or solar shed lights, or solar security lights.

You still haven’t spent a penny to generate light but the photovoltaic (PV) and battery infrastructure to store light is a bit pricey.

• Use candles (prevent candle soot from darkening or roughening your ceilings).

The passive techniques help everyone, and the passive and/or the "active" candle lighting especially help off-grid people by allowing smaller generators, battery banks, inverters, bio-diesel processing, etc.

• If you insist on using an AC light bulb as a last resort, use a compact fluorescent lamp (CFL), which is 4x more efficient than an incandescent bulb (converting 20% of electric consumption to light instead of 5%), so a 15-watt CFL provides about the same lumens as a 60-watt incandescent light bulb. LED lights are even better than CFL lights to recuce power consumption and LED lights are best at directional task lighting.

Even a small light pointed up at a reflective ceiling can provide an impressive amount of light.