71–80 of 200 posts
> “Like, a scrambling-for-your-toilet-water-every-month kind of thing.” A few years ago I saw this coming and invented the Waterless Toilet. It's like a kitty litter box but for people who live in areas like those discussed in the article. Why scramble for toilet water when you can just use the Waterless Toilet? I've been trying to get funding for this so please reach out if interested.
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> But I can't understand the attitudes of people who are choosing to move to such a place where access to water is such a risk. From the article: "They believe that the county is not going to let five hundred homes next to one of the wealthiest cities go without water.” In their mind: "This is America." Meaning they are used to living in the "Land of plenty" never thinking that one day, it could end.
> Meaning they are used to living in the "Land of plenty" never thinking that one day, it could end. This was my thought as well. The music is about to stop. Many don't realize it. Some don't believe it. Some actively deny it. But it's happening, and faster than we're ready for.
This was an interesting read for me. I have a cabin on some land near Joshua Tree. There's water in the ground (300-400ft down) but I haven't bothered to put in a well, instead just hauling what little I need from the nearby town's bulk water dispenser. Unlike AZ apparently, CA doesn't allow any new construction without a secure and sufficient water supply. Installing new cisterns for receiving hauled water is no lon…
But I have similar experience at a cabin without winterized plumbing and an iffy cistern, so over winter we haul in water too and melt more as needed. Probably going to install an incinerating toilet to augment the privy one day. It really makes you think about need vs. want. Lots of great USB-rechargeable pumps for hand-washing and shower head doo-hickeys these days.
The final quote is chilling: “We got two great offers in, and neither of them cared about the water situation. They believe that the county is not going to let five hundred homes next to one of the wealthiest cities go without water.” We'll see what happens in 2023, when Scottsdale no longer sells water to the water haulers. The Water Knife feels more and more prophetic.
Eh, it's the same logic when people move to coastal areas that will be impacted by sea level rise. No one can imagine they'll be the ones who get screwed over, and certainly not if they're wealthy. As such, I'm not sure I would call it chilling so much as entirely predictable. The real failure is in the states and municipalities that are approving the building in the first place.
> “Like, a scrambling-for-your-toilet-water-every-month kind of thing.” A few years ago I saw this coming and invented the Waterless Toilet. It's like a kitty litter box but for people who live in areas like those discussed in the article. Why scramble for toilet water when you can just use the Waterless Toilet? I've been trying to get funding for this so please reach out if interested.
Maybe it would still be usable by cats, too?
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they said it's because there's no HOA. HOAs really are incredibly awful. And, it's getting harder and harder to find houses that are not in an HOA.
I think the whole concept of having HOAs in many neighborhoods is a very regional thing. I live in upstate NY and pretty much every single-family homes neighborhood around me does not have an HOA. The only neighborhoods which have HOAs are those with large numbers of multi-family homes, like townhomes. In some ways it's nice to not have an HOA, no one bugs me if my lawn is looking sad. But in other ways it would be n…
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>> Cooling is more energy efficient than heating. How is that? First thing ofcourse is everything we do as human, including our body is generating heat, for my cooling my home is FAR FAR FAR more expensive (thus i would assume more energy intensive) than heating my home. >>Houses in places like AZ are implicitly less wasteful (no lawns, better insulated, etc). This is largely government zoning or HOA's here, people o…
I think what the other poster meant is that “cooling in a warm client is less energy intensive than heating in a cool climate” which is generally true. This is partially because the temperature deltas are smaller. If you are aiming for 70 inside and you have 95 outside, you are fighting a 25-degree delta. But if you want 70 inside and have 25 outside, that’s a 45-degree delta the system has to overcome.
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Sure, but on average less than northern cities. At the end of the day, I don't actually care about moralizing what's wasteful or not if the owner is being charged the proper cost to acquire. If that's $1 a gallon for solar and desalination/recycled water, enjoy that lawn. (Pedantic person side note: pools are not actually that wasteful. If they are properly covered when not in use, evaporative loss is actually pretty…
> Sure, but on average less than northern cities. This isn't true. Compare NYC's average of 117 GPD[1] to TMWA's 165 GPD[2]. That's 40% more water use, per individual. The last year that NYC's residents came close to using that much water was 1996. [1]: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/dep/water/history-of-drought-water... [2]: https://www.nevadatomorrow.org/indicators/index/view?indicat...
I'll be a resident contrarian and argue that building more houses in the SW is a good thing. - The desert is probably the best place to build sprawling metropolises with the lowest ecological impact (overall) - Cooling is more energy efficient than heating. - Houses in places like AZ are implicitly less wasteful (no lawns, better insulated, etc). - People like it But the question is how to get water to these places?…
> People like it This one doesn't hold water (no pun intended). Over the next few generations, people in the US are going to have to give up a whole lot of things they like.
I'll voice an unpopular opinion: people should live in these dry areas. Deserts have wildlife, yes, but they have much less biomass than the other places humans live. A person living in Arizona or Nevada is displacing much less natural wildlife than a person like me, living in Seattle. So I say let's embrace people living in water-starved areas like the Southwest. We can enable it by smart water usage, like you see i…
What natural wildlife is someone on the 10th floor of a century-old apartment building displacing? Last time I checked, Vegas also gets the majority of its water from the Colorado River, including via Lake Mead. No amount of smart water usage is going to change the macro climate patterns here.
Besides, apartment buildings exist in desert cities too. The question wasn't about density, it was about building in deserts or not. Building in deserts is better for the environment.