The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs • Hacker News Board

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#91

Post by bradfa » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 5:56 PM UTC

phpisthebest wrote: post #64

bradfa wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>>no one bugs me if my lawn is looking sad. But in other ways it would be nice to have a unified group to take care of some neighborhood things, like unifying garbage pickup since we have private garbage companies here: In many locations neither of those items are purview of the HOA, those would be City ordinances and City Services. HOA's in my experience fit 2 molds, with some over lap The first takes care of common…

My town has no interest in operating garbage service. A few of the area villages do have village-provided garbage service and often the quality and cost is less than the private companies, but it seems garbage service is not a big enough deal for people to try and unite over it.

Pools and structures like decks or sheds are regulated by the building code of the town, but they do not impact your property value for property taxes. Pools specifically also don't seem to impact property value when you sell, a pool is only useful here for 3 months of the year and lots of people don't want to deal with maintaining them. I would happily pay an HOA to take care of a nice neighborhood pool instead of maintaining my own but I've never seen a local single-family home neighborhood with a community pool here.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#92

Post by jdgoesmarching » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 5:57 PM UTC

D13Fd wrote: post #65

phpisthebest wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

Yep, and it’s why building codes are usually more rigorous in northern states. The approach to homebuilding in the south is to assemble our flimsy, leaky boxes as quickly as possible and slap an oversized AC on it.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#93

Post by eesmith » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 5:57 PM UTC

D13Fd wrote: post #65

phpisthebest wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

Passive houses are much easier to build in cold climates than warm. Your analysis left out that the occupants and their machines generate heat.

"Together with the comprehensive energy conservation measures taken, this means that a conventional central heating system is not necessary, although they are sometimes installed due to client skepticism." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house#Space_heating . See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_heating_building .

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#94

Post by _dain_ » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 5:57 PM UTC

bombcar wrote: post #46

knappe wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I too want to find this article (I'm certain it was linked from HN). It isn't a strong towns article, but it had some great diagrams showing how the city centers are the only economically viable places for utilities because of density. The suburbs were just not cost effective and thus were going to go bankrupt because of the lack of efficiency. I've tried to find this article in the past and it has been long enough t…

I have strong suspicions that the data doesn't hold up if examined closely, because "suburbs" are just low density towns, and small towns continue to exist nearly everywhere. Sure maintenance comes around, but it always seems to work out, somehow.

No, (North American) suburbs are fundamentally different to small towns. They don't have their own retail or small businesses, they're just places where people live and commute into the city.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#95

Post by s0rce » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 5:57 PM UTC

throw8383833jj wrote: post #58

bradfa wrote: post #5

I can feel for the people who have been living there for a long time and now have to deal with the water situation. 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. I have no information about this, but I would expect that homeowner's insurance should get much more expensive for these locations as without access to water it's quite hard to h…

It's the real estate agent's duty to inform house buyers that they property they're buying may not have water in the future and what a huge pain point that would be. The only logical conclusion i can come to is that the buyers real estate agents have not been honest in this regard.

Are they really duty bound to disclose this? What about fire, flood, earthquake and any other risk. My experience is they don't, other than legally mandated things like asbestos or lead.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#96

Post by phpisthebest » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 5:58 PM UTC

D13Fd wrote: post #65

phpisthebest wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

As the other commenter posted you have solar effects, and as I stated you have other things that are putting off excess heat.

For me even when it is 25 outside occupied my home will settle at about 40-50 or so with no heat, due to just cooking, lighting, compters, TV etc that are all outputing heat...

so the delta I am attempting to heat is not really 25 to 70, but more like 50 to 70 due to the waste heat and solar heating effect

For cooling I am not not only battling the outside delta, but also all of that waste heat and solar heating effects

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#97

Post by Scoundreller » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 5:58 PM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #54

> “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.

There's many designs that are used all over. I like my cabin's privy and going to do some upgrades to make it odourless: solar powered exhaust fan.

In the desert where the water table is hundreds of feet below you (and getting lower!), groundwater contamination isn't exactly an issue.

But there's also composting toilets and incinerating toilets that exist. A fancy incinerating toilet costs like $5k (Cinderalla toilet, I'm looking at you!), but I'm sure they'll cost a fraction of that in time. But there is an electricity cost to each 'flush' then.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#98

Post by blastro » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 6:01 PM UTC

paulcole wrote: post #54

> “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.

Buckminster Fuller made a few designs for this, as well.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#99

Post by Scoundreller » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 6:04 PM UTC

D13Fd wrote: post #87

Scoundreller wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Delta is one thing, but you're also fighting solar gain when trying to cool. Sure you can mitigate, but when heating, the sun is working in your favour. Winds are another variable.

That’s true, although solar heating in warm climates can be mitigated in some ways (roof color, attic structure/ventilation) and solar heating in cold climates is tough with a layer of snow on the roof. Bottom line is that there are many variables but a big delta tends to be energy intensive to overcome.

> cold climates is tough with a layer of snow on the roof

Snow is actually helpful by insulating. The sun is closer to the horizon over winter, so it's your vertical windows doing the heating anyway.

An obvious issue is how much sunlight you get over winter. Not just in hours, but in N. Europe, you might have continuous cloudcover and not see the sun for weeks at a time.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#100

Post by coryrc » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 6:04 PM UTC

Scoundreller wrote: post #82

coryrc wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heat pumps have COP of 2-4, so in either heating or cooling mode, they generate more heating/cooling than electricity used. But the reason cooling is cheaper is the temperature differential. AZ might get to, say, 110°F peak (and far cooler at night), for a temp delta of 35°F while the Midwest will stay below 20°F for months, and even colder at night, for a temp differential no better than 50°F during the day and 60°F…

And heat pump efficiency takes a dump when it has to go through defrost cycles in heating mode at near/below freezing temps. In cooling mode they provide a source of fresh-distilled water! It always bothered me when air conditioners just dump that water down the sanitary drain instead of pumping it in a garden or misting it on the outside coils.

Yeah, air source has problems at cold temperatures, especially if they cheap out on ice detection.

Fresh is not the word I would use for condensate. Try drinking some of you disagree :). It's corrosive for metal,{EDIT: maybe I just have that confused, see replies} which is why it usually doesn't find a purpose, but you could run it to plants. I have a window A/C which uses it for cooling the outside coils though.