291–300 of 307 posts
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It was next to the hot water line and not insulated (enough) and it had pretty much just been sitting there all night.
It's possible there's a faulty faucet mixing valve somewhere in the building causing hot water to mix into the cold line.
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If you burn the gas in a power plant you turn something like 40% into electricity. You can deliver something like half of the remaining Joules as heat to homes, raising the overall efficiency to 60% or so. You can then use the 40% you have as electricity to run heat pumps, which put out something like 2-5 Joules of heat per Joule of electricity. In total this gives you a lot more Joules of heat per unit of gas than j…
That assumes the power plant is near the people. In many places the power plants are in another state.
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Houses last 100 years? They can, but typically after 20 years it starts to make economic sense to scoop the remains of the house into a dump truck and build a fancier house on the now much more expensive land under it. In my neighborhood (admittedly, originally built in the 50s) every single sale I can remember from the last 15 years has resulted it a complete teardown and rebuild bigger. And one of those rebuilds re…
European houses are usually built out of bricks and concrete on proper foundations instead of wood and drywall, which means the substance lasts a lot longer itself and it becomes actually economical to do upgrades like heat insulation, PV energy and the likes. Also, we don't have regular extreme weather events like hurricanes that devastate entire countries (and thus make it uneconomical to build expensive houses).
Wood doesn't get any weaker with age. Assuming no water damage, 200 year old timber houses are just as durable now as when they were built. In fact 200 year old timber houses in America are more durable than anything you can build now because the quality of wood 200 years ago, even 100 years ago, is better than what you can get now, and the quality of wood 100 years ago in America is better than anything Europe has had for multiple hundreds of years!
Also drywall is a nice material for many reasons. Need a new wall? One day of work. Want to remove a wall? If there isn't a support beam, not an issue. American houses can be reconfigured as the needs of family and society change. My 1950s house has had walls removed and added throughout its life and owners, which is why it has an up to date flow despite what was a very constricted original floor plan.
Also dry wall is easy to fix and paint.
Water is an issue, yes. That part sucks.
Finally, in regards to natural disasters, wood construction can withstand earthquakes far better than stone construction!
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I think their point was less to assign blame, but whether or not it was war related.
The parent's use of "only after" doesn't sit right It implies a forced (no choice) reaction to an unjust or unexpected cause. A more neutral tone would have just said "after" "I ran from the police after they pulled me over for speeding" "I ran from the police only after they pulled me over for speeding"
I don't read that as the speaker being forced to run, or that being pulled over was unjust.
It describes the order of operations. The fact that someone ran only after being pulled over could be very relevant.
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Well, if you want to hear from the darkside... Romania. Badly maintained infrastructure (as an American you're probably familiar with the idea). Keeps breaking down. Not enough money invested to bring it to modern standards. Pipes are not well insulated, they break down constantly, huge leakages and losses. Cost of heating is so high that about 20% or more of the entire Bucharest city budget (I've just checked, budge…
How can anyone function if their heat is down for days? Bucharest isn’t in a tropical climate!
And it's usually quite localized, some blocks don't have it, obviously if it affects large chunks of the population priority goes up.
I've proposed several times on HN a "box of rocks" at the house level to store heat/cold when electricity is cheap, and release heat/cold when electricity is expensive. It was ridiculed every time. I should have patented it :-)
Well, those old storage heaters were pretty much that. And they went away for a reason Doesn't mean the idea can't be implemented better, of course. In fact I do think there's a lot of low-hanging fruit that remains to be explored in energy production.
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The parent's use of "only after" doesn't sit right It implies a forced (no choice) reaction to an unjust or unexpected cause. A more neutral tone would have just said "after" "I ran from the police after they pulled me over for speeding" "I ran from the police only after they pulled me over for speeding"
I think your example negates your point. I don't read that as the speaker being forced to run, or that being pulled over was unjust. It describes the order of operations. The fact that someone ran only after being pulled over could be very relevant.
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I think your example negates your point. I don't read that as the speaker being forced to run, or that being pulled over was unjust. It describes the order of operations. The fact that someone ran only after being pulled over could be very relevant.
That's fair. Maybe it's because I only qualify "after" with "only" if I'm making some point.
The same holds true for Russia. They would not have demanded payment in rubles if they had access to Swift.
The problem is that people confuse conditionality and moral justification.
I would not have run if they never pulled me over is no more of an excuse then I would never have shot him if he didn't look at me weird.
Something can be conditional and true but still a bad reason.
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European houses are usually built out of bricks and concrete on proper foundations instead of wood and drywall, which means the substance lasts a lot longer itself and it becomes actually economical to do upgrades like heat insulation, PV energy and the likes. Also, we don't have regular extreme weather events like hurricanes that devastate entire countries (and thus make it uneconomical to build expensive houses).
> instead of wood and drywall Wood doesn't get any weaker with age. Assuming no water damage, 200 year old timber houses are just as durable now as when they were built. In fact 200 year old timber houses in America are more durable than anything you can build now because the quality of wood 200 years ago, even 100 years ago, is better than what you can get now, and the quality of wood 100 years ago in America is bet…
Most common major structural work with stick built houses is jacking them up and replacing the foundation. That's because the concrete or masonry foundation has deteriorated but the wood framing is in good condition.
I've proposed several times on HN a "box of rocks" at the house level to store heat/cold when electricity is cheap, and release heat/cold when electricity is expensive. It was ridiculed every time. I should have patented it :-)