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Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

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Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#81

Post by tehjoker »

tpmoney wrote: post #67
tehjoker wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your landlord stand for election? That's a huge huge difference. The landlord is only out for themselves, but the government can potentially make decisions that benefit society as a whole and are rational. The basic problem in America today is an absolute lack of democratic control of the government and our capitalist class. I can go into this in some detail but it is a large digression from the topic at hand. B…

> Does your landlord stand for election? Yes, every time my lease was up, I elected to stay or move. I did that multiple times for 15 years. By contrast, every time I moved, I was in the same state, so never changed governments.

This is a very bizzare misunderstanding of democracy.

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#82

Post by ortusdux »

Glyptodon wrote: post #19

Nobody has incentives or cashflow that will change this. At best if we built more housing it's something landlords might face competitive pressure over. In which case it might change. But currently cases where someone has a choice between two equivalent rentals and can try to pick the efficient one are pretty few and far between. Most people just try to balance as low of a monthly rent payment as possible with their…

In my area you can request the last 12 months of utility costs for most properties. It doesn't reflect everything, but the transparency is helpful.

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#83

Post by ww520 »

There's the plug-in solar panel system. It's very easy to install. It's suitable for renters to add supplemental solar power with little cost and effort. It's portable enough that renters can bring them to their next rentals.

It's very popular in Germany, with several million units installed. They call it balcony solar panel. People hang the panels on their balconies in apartment buildings. Germany allows up to 800-watt systems.

It's a very simple system, a solar panel coupled with a micro inverter that converts DC to AC power. It is plugged into a regular wall outlet to provide additional power to the home. The added power is an additional source of electricity in addition to the grid. Any electrical devices drawing power from the circuit draw from the closet source first (due to Kirchhoff's Law), i.e. from the solar panel, then any additional need will be drawn from the farther away grid.

The micro inverter needs to be UL 16741 compliant for anti-islanding protection, to shut off in case the grid has shut power down, so that the solar panel won't back feed power into the grid.

In U.S., Utah has already passed a law to allow plug-in solar systems for up to 1200 watts without permit requirement and allowing back-feed into the grid. A few other states are considering.

There are limits to the power fed into a circuit. Normal household electrical wire can handle up to 15amp (1800 watts on 120V) of electric load. The plug-in power from the solar panels should not exceed the limit. This means the power generated is meant to supplement the household power need rather than completely covering it. Any reduction from the grid helps.

I talked to my city's (in California) building department. They haven't heard of it and need time to do research. The building inspector says that as long as the solar panels are not modifying the structure of the building (on roof or on wall), they don't care. They said putting the panels on the ground in the yard is fine.

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#84

Post by [deleted] »

genter wrote: post #60
reactordev wrote: post #43

This is a silly study. Home efficiency matters to people who own a home, not renters. Renters only care about making rent and being able to eat. They don’t have the luxury of thinking about energy saving appliances when the landlord hasn’t fixed the appliances they do have. Renters are trapped with capped wages and increasing rents.

Except a lot of renters (including this one) pay their own utilities.

[deleted]

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#85

Post by reactordev »

mayneack wrote: post #58
reactordev wrote: post #43

This is a silly study. Home efficiency matters to people who own a home, not renters. Renters only care about making rent and being able to eat. They don’t have the luxury of thinking about energy saving appliances when the landlord hasn’t fixed the appliances they do have. Renters are trapped with capped wages and increasing rents.

Renters often pay for utilities.

Yes, what they don’t do is pay for a new fridge. Or energy efficient windows.

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#86

Post by tharkun__ »

gruez wrote: post #74
tharkun__ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not talking about consumers. Car makers , as that's what my parent posited. "The market made car makers do fuel efficiency all by itself!". Yeah, no. Which traditional car maker actually cared about EVs before Tesla came along? (Even Toyota, which was sorta "caring about it" did not believe in going "all in" and for a very very long time would only do Hybrid and nothing more). Every other established car maker did no…

>"The market made car makers do fuel efficiency all by itself!". Yeah, no. A "market" includes consumers, almost by definition, so the statement is true. Otherwise it just becomes a meaningless statement where companies can't be said to do anything. For a slightly less contentious example, consider gaming chairs. I think most people would assume it's something "the market" came up with, considering that there wasn't…

That's fair about the definition of a market.

But "the market" (i.e. consumers) did not "do it by itself". Regulations had to force car makers to care about fuel economy. And while once Tesla came around (or a bit earlier a Prius) some consumers did buy those vehicles, they were premium vehicles. Prius owners were laughed at not imitated by the general public to an extent where both Toyota and every other car maker suddenly only made Hybrids or started making EVs. Thus my apprehension for my parent's "the market did it!" ;)

Like, let's go back to what made me reply from my parent:

    Imagine if car makers didn't bother with fuel efficiency because buyers had almost no choice and any car is better than nothing
Yeah, exactly. That is exactly what car maker didn't bother with because buyers had no choice. All of the car makers made cars that didn't really care for fuel economy because (especially in the US) gas was super cheap.

Guess why in Europe smaller cars and cars with better fuel economy were and are more popular? Because gas is more expensive through regulation. "Regulation" there takes multiple forms. The earliest being simply taxes on gas, which are much higher in Europe. But also previously mentioned by me EV mandate, which is a Tesla+ era regulation. And before that the CO2 emission kind of regulations, which made me mention the "skirting". As in, manufacturer are skirting the CO2 emission rules, e.g. because some of those regulations only apply to a manufacturer entire assortment of offers. How is it the poor manufacturer's fault that people only buy their high emission models, when they have a "SMART" type choice on offer too? Essentially the market didn't work (again especially in the US with too cheap gas) with people buying SUVs and F150 type trucks over a Fiat Panda or SMART.

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#87

Post by antisthenes »

lostlogin wrote: post #64
antonymoose wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would certainly need to be a serious long-term renter. I purchased a home with a walk-out basement (brick exterior, cinder block foundation, >80% above grade). As it turned out, the prior owners had pulled a fast one and faked their framing with 1x4s and added no insulation. Our monthly power bills ranged from 400-500$ on a 2,000 sqft home. I spent most of last year gutting the interior of the basement, framing,…

Worst case scenario that’s a 5.5 year ROI. That seems good.

The labor put in would be _at least_ as much as materials, so $20k total cost for this project to lower the bills from $450 to $225 on average.

That puts it roughly at 7.5 year ROI.

How many renters rent a single space for that long? There goes the answer to the article.

It's a great project if it's your forever home, though.

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#88

Post by relaxing »

gruez wrote: post #78
IncreasePosts wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you had two identical looking houses for identical rent, one could cost $100/mo to heat/cool and the other could cost $300. This isn't really something that renters are realistically able to discriminate on.

>This isn't really something that renters are realistically able to discriminate on. Surely they can ask for what the expected utilities are? Failing that, asking for what the trailing 12 month's bills were.

Good luck with that. If you’ve got the runway and free time, maybe you can find a corporate landlord with a conscience. For small rentals, utilities are in the tenants name so the landlord might not even know.

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#89

Post by ghaff »

mindslight wrote: post #75
ghaff wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pre-fire, I got cabinet above fridge taken out because fridges have basically gotten taller. And the over-the-range microwave is what caused the fire in the middle of the night in the first place while I was sleeping. Dishwashers are pretty standard as are stovetop widths although I decided to shift to a range from my prior double ovens and cooktop.

> And the over-the-range microwave is what caused the fire in the middle of the night Any idea of the specific failure mode?

No idea. There was apparently a control panel short circuit of some sort.

Re: Most renters shut out of energy-saving upgrades – study

#90

Post by tpmoney »

tehjoker wrote: post #81
tpmoney wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does your landlord stand for election? Yes, every time my lease was up, I elected to stay or move. I did that multiple times for 15 years. By contrast, every time I moved, I was in the same state, so never changed governments.

This is a very bizzare misunderstanding of democracy.

The purpose of an election would be to effect a change in "management". For 15 years, whenever I wanted a change in management for where I was living, I simply changed what property I was renting at the end of my lease. And every time I signed a new lease, I got to choose how long I wanted to have to wait before I could change again. Within any given area, I would have a choice of tens to hundreds of different managers. And if something is sufficiently important that voters feel it's necessary for all rentals to implement, we still have the option of voting for a legislative body to craft those laws.

By comparison, if I had lived in a world where all residential property was owned by the state, I would likely have to wait anywhere from 2-6 years before I could even begin to make a change in management. Then I would have to hope that the majority of voters in my area wanted the same things I wanted from my management. Then assuming that my preferences carried the day, I would have to hope that whatever changes I voted for were implemented before the next election or run the risk that they would be overturned by a subsequent election loss. And all of that for no additional upsides. The ability of the public to dictate rental law remains the same. The only difference is now every possible change, whether it would normally rise to the importance of a legislative debate or not, is now subject to that legislative debate process.

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