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The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

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Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#121

Post by Scoundreller »

D13Fd wrote: post #106
Scoundreller wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Snow is not helpful for solar heating, as I said, and if your roof has a big r-value to begin with the snow is not adding a ton of insulation.

oh yeah, and snow reflects light off the ground. It's much brighter outside after coverage by snowfall.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#122

Post by legitster »

phpisthebest wrote: post #51
legitster wrote: post #44

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?…

>> 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…

Houses in AZ use less energy on average than other states: https://www.eia.gov/consumption/residential/reports/2009/sta...

And in aggregate, cities in warm climates are more sustainable than in cold: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/1/014...

>> This would require a cultural shift.

Agreed. Or people can move to places like AZ or NV where lawns are the exception.

>> I would never in a million years live in the south west US

Agreed. I like the PNW too much to move. But my argument here is just letting people do what they want (move to warm deserts) is a net benefit to society.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#123

Post by legitster »

tristor wrote: post #89
Finnucane wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but my local government prevents that They mandate you have a grass lawn?

Yes, unfortunately, this is very common. I'm in South Texas (for a few more weeks before I move) and my municipal ordinance requires homes to have a grass lawn and for it to be maintained. No HOA here (main reason I bought this house). I pay a lawn service company monthly to manage it for me, because it's a huge pain otherwise due to the climate.

Are you sure? Most places I have lived, the wording of the local ordinance says "IF you have a grass lawn, it must be maintained". I don't think many places would have issue with a nice xeriscaped native garden or even a cinder lawn.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#124

Post by chasd00 »

_dain_ wrote: post #94
bombcar wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well a counterpoint would be the northern suburbs of Dallas like Plano, Richardson, and Frisco. They have so much economic activity that I would not be surprised if more people commuted from Dallas to those suburbs for work than vice versa. Also, I bet the people living in the far north exurbs are commuting to the suburbs and not all the way to Dallas proper.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#125

Post by scrumbledober »

rightbyte wrote: post #112
bradfa wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but even with a volunteer fire department, at least there's normally water that they can use to save the neighbor houses once they arrive on-scene. If there's no water then there's no way to save anything from a fire.

Don't US fire trucks carry water?

yes but they also usually hook up to fire hydrants to have enough time to put fires out. I don't have figures but from what I remember most fire trucks only have enough water on board for the first 5-10 minutes of spraying.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#126

Post by coryrc »

Scoundreller wrote: post #104
coryrc wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Still wouldn't drink it unless I'm desperate, but I don't see why it would be corrosive. Maybe slightly basic from being in contact with metals, but it couldn't be much unless your coils and fins are disappearing before your eyes. Legionella is a concern though. https://www.environmentalleader.com/2013/01/air-conditioning...

I think it's the lack of minerals? But it obviously forms on metal coils to begin with. Maybe I'm confusing it with condensate from condensing natural gas burners.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#127

Post by time_to_smile »

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…

> 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.

Denial is incredibly powerful. Most people can't really comprehend that there isn't enough water in that region (even though it should be obvious). We've lived in a time of plenty for so long the idea that something as fundamental as water could be limited just seems impossible.

You see this everywhere, and only tend to notice the denial when the problems don't impact you. Comments pointing out concerns that impact tech or everyone are frequently downvoted to oblivion here on HN. I saw a comment claiming that democracy in the US has been under threat, something no one who was observing the US from outside would deny, get downvoted to oblivion and decried as pure hyperbole.

We're all living in a constant and escalating state of cognitive dissonance, the world around is collapsing in multiple ways, but locally you aren't allowed to acknowledge this. The "this is fine meme" summarizes our current environment perfectly.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#128

Post by D13Fd »

eesmith wrote: post #93
D13Fd wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Neither of your links say that passive houses are easier in cold climates.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#129

Post by bradfa »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #85
bradfa wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My neighborhood was built starting around 2005-2006. Then during 2008-ish building paused for a bit, then resumed around 2012, then paused again around 2014, then resumed around 2018. It's now complete. There's lots of new single-family home neighborhoods being built in my town, afaict none of them have HOAs.

Where is this? I am familiar with developments in CA/WA/OR/TX/TN/FL. All the FL/TX ones even come with gates.

I live in Webster, NY. It's a suburb of Rochester, NY. There's not a TON of new developments but there's a steady stream of new builds around the various suburbs of Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse. Mostly it seems like younger families buying these new builds.

Re: The Water Wars Come to the Suburbs

#130

Post by tristor »

legitster wrote: post #123
tristor wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, unfortunately, this is very common. I'm in South Texas (for a few more weeks before I move) and my municipal ordinance requires homes to have a grass lawn and for it to be maintained. No HOA here (main reason I bought this house). I pay a lawn service company monthly to manage it for me, because it's a huge pain otherwise due to the climate.

Are you sure? Most places I have lived, the wording of the local ordinance says " IF you have a grass lawn, it must be maintained". I don't think many places would have issue with a nice xeriscaped native garden or even a cinder lawn.

Depends on the place, for sure. Where I currently reside, the town is named after a particular species of tree, and it was required when all the homes were built that each property had one of this species of tree on the property. You are obligated to both maintain that tree (or replace it if it dies) and to have a lawn, this is actually the ordinance here.

I agree it's kind of ridiculous, but I also live in an area known for its onerous HOAs, and these ordinances are basically just a subset of that writ large, but without the worst of it. I'll still take this over living in an HOA.

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