Oly, we've been putting out pet fur ever since husband was brushing our big furry lab outside one spring, and birds wre swooping in and helping themselves to the furballs. :)

Most of our clothing is 100% cotton. But cotton is heavily sprayed with pesticides and needs way too much water to grow, so you just can't win. I am looking into hemp and bamboo fabrics.

I agree, DawninCal, and I think it's insulting and self righteous to assume that we aren't aware and doing both.

I'm pointing out a hypocrisy of attitudes and conduct, I've said nothing about what I do myself so I'm hardly being self-righteous.

Dawn, here's an example. Let's take a hypothetical neighbor of yours - a person who's environmentally concerned and aware. Drives a small car, reuses bags, repurposes and reuses items to the max, tries to support the better environmental causes by their own efforts.

You've said you live in a forested area near the Oregon border. I'll bet there's a lot of wood burning for heat. Carbon is captured in trees but it's released (along with a lot of health endangering toxic products of combustion) when burned. Your hypothetical neighbor on a net basis is doing more environmental damage by burning wood than good by saving plastic bags et al but probably thinks they're giving it their all. I'm sure you know a lot of people like that. That's what I'm saying.

The big stuff makes a difference, the small stuff doesn't.

Thanks for the tip on cat fur. I have plenty of that to go around! We had baby robins in the yard a few weeks ago.

Oly, I messaged you on Thursday and I'll bet you never received a notification.

Lint goes in the garbage and cat fur gets put outside. If only my cats knew that I was supplying the enemy.

Actually, my neighbor heats her house with a Monitor that uses kerosene.

But, what my neighbors heat their homes with has nothing to do with the point I was making. My point is that there are people who will re-use a plastic bag and still also consider the big things. The two aren't mutually exclusive.

The big stuff may make a bigger difference, but the small stuff adds up especially when a lot of people are doing small stuff. Doing the little things causes no harm; I can't think of a reason why anyone would object to people doing these little environmentally small things.

"Doing the little things causes no harm; I can't think of a reason why anyone would object to people doing these little environmentally small things."

We don't need to go back and forth with this, it doesn't matter. You either didn't read what I said or you chose to jump over what I was suggesting.

My comment was about a hypothetical neighbor, not the actual person who lives next door to you. My experience is that far too many people are hypocrites and inconsistent about their environmental conduct. Thinking that by doing little things (that in aggregate amount to little or irrelevant benefit) they get a pass to be irresponsible with big things. From your reaction, maybe I've described you, are you a bag saver who burns wood? I don't want to be seen as name calling with incomplete information. Maybe you have a good reason for what you do.

I guess you have to consider what someone is using to heat their homes if they aren't burning wood in an energy efficient wood stove, one that meets EPA standards, before you condemn using wood to heat (a renewable resource, though not without its problems in forestry management). What are the choices? Here in the PNW electricity is relatively cheap because of the hydro electric dams on the rivers, which have destroyed salmon habitat to the detriment of other marine life and the traditional lives of Native Americans (to name just a couple of things among many).

Where do others get their electricity or fossil fuels to heat their homes. None of those is without a carbon footprint, except possibly nuclear, which is leaving toxic, radioactive waste for humans to manage for millennia. Coal? Oil? Natural gas? Processing and transporting it adds to the pollution caused by fossil fuels (non-renewable).

I don't feel at all guilty about burning my woodstove when needed. Most of the wood comes from my own land and I am continually planting or nurturing naturally seeded trees for the future.

Yes, Elmer, but you are off topic and I've allowed you to take me off topic with you.

The topic here is "the problem with plastic", not "what type of heat source do you use?"

Plastic is a big problem. It's choking our oceans and killing both sea life and wild life. It's in our water, our food and our bodies no matter how careful we are. If someone wants to re-use or re-purpose a plastic bag or wear only natural fiber clothing or use cloth shopping bags or invest in a re-useable water bottle, I don't have an issue with that.

I am going to exit this thread now as I have no wish to get into an argument with you and that's where I see this going. Have a nice night.

Toby, I sent too many replies to your message. Did you not receive them? Are you sorry you messaged me? lol

I did and I replied to you. I don't know if you got my reply on Thursday.

In my area, olychick, I believe the vast majority of wood burning "fixtures", whether fireplaces or (much less commonly) wood stoves, do not meet EPA requirements and are known to be heavy polluters. Are you suggesting that would be any different in other areas?

In the southern SF Bay area, there are No Burn nights declared in advance during the wintertime because the resulting air pollution when there's a temperature inversion is nothing short of noxious.

@ blfenton

"If only my cats knew that I was supplying the enemy".

On the contrary ... wouldn't your cats thank you for helping the nest building birds produce possible lunch, about 4 months down the road?

So long as they and their buddies, also the owls, hawks and coyotes don't grab the parents in the meantime who are busily feeding those potential lunches.

ole joyful

Toby, yes and I replied to your Thursday message - a couple of times. PM me your personal email and let's get this conversation off of this site.

Just want to point out the following:

1. Plastics and papers are not recyclable. The are just delayed pollution. They can only be "recycled" a limited few times.

2. Metals and glass are better for recycling.

3. Paper making uses more water than any other manufacturing.

dcarch

dcarch, what you say is true but consider that product manufacturers make what people want to buy. Especially for mass market products, cost is a major driver and for packaging, plastic is cheaper than alternatives. Its use results in lower product costs, which affects sales and product acceptance.

As for paper, people use paper.

This issue is not unlike the golf saying to "play the ball as it lies". Unless the use of plastic were to face greater regulation by law, which has happened to a very limited extent at the margins (like mandatory charges for grocery bags) but is unlikely on a large scale, I think the challenge is to better deal with the existing flow of wastes of all kinds. The waste flow will continue no matter what.

Thinking of plastic, i found an alternative to plastic wrap. I read that the restaurants in London alone use enough plastic wrap to go around the world twice in A DAY! So I have this waxed fabric and it's great stuff.https://www.amazon.com/s?k=wax+fabric+wrap+for+food&crid=2NMBEIDGOGU9F&sprefix=Waxed+fabric+wra%2Caps%2C908&ref=nb_sb_ss_sc_1_16

Olychick, good thread.

I think about these issues a lot. Back in the 1970s I began considering landsfills.

I like cotton and wool, metal and glass and clay. But they are not suitable materials for many uses. Cotton is resource rich, involves pesticides and is expensive. Wool is expensive. I’m not sure why (I like lamb, love wool).

We heat with wood in a stove with a catalyst to grab unburned gases. The alternative is electric heat. Expensive and coal supplied. Wood is abundant here and our heating costs are ~ $550year.

My SUV is over 20 yrs old, but the seat fully articulates and I need that. It also carries cargo and has a trailer hitch, which I need. I put less than 5K to 6K miles on it per year (25mpg). Another newer hybrid or high fuel economy vehicle is not an option. $$

I don’t take jet or plane trips. We don’t tend to consume a lot, I love patched clothes.

I’ll put my carbon footprint up against others and come out pretty good.

Plastic: it is everywhere and in everything. Not in my deep well water, but it’s been found in a lot of municipal drinking water and surface water supplies. A lot of it gets recycled, but shows up again in other stuff — fleece fabric, door mats, car parts, for example. It (microplastic) finds its way into animal and human tissue.

Poly-Fleece fabric is popular. Blankets, clothing, outdoor ware. I have a few yards of some that I was going to use for baby or toddler blankets. I never did, but I began wondering — would any of the tiny shed particles get inhaled by infants, toddlers and adults. It would have a good chance of staying there.

Plastic waste and debris loose in the environment. Ever wonder where the tons of debris “ends up” after a flood, hurricane, typhoon, tsunami or tornado? Look at the stuff. Lots of plastic.

Consider the enormous volumes of medical, hospital, restaurant waste. Medical related waste probably isn’t recyclable. Huge amounts of it contain plastic.

We recycle, but that industry is under strain if not underwater. A lot ends up in landfills or is incinerated. A lot of plastic isn’t recycled with municipal pickup — polystyrene and a lot of packaging, plastic film, and plastic utensils are not for our recycling bin, even if clean. During this pandemic beverage bottles and cans are not able to be taken to redemption centers.

We don’t use dryer lint for starter. Birch bark, twigs, splints of wood instead. But, In the scope of things, I am not alarmed by dryer lint. I would not put it out for nesting animals or birds.

"We heat with wood in a stove with a catalyst to grab unburned gases. "

Catalysts in wood stoves reduce smoke and particulates. They don't capture environmentally damaging carbon and carbon compounds that are released from the wood by the combustion.

"The alternative is electric heat. Expensive and coal supplied. "

There's a baseline load from power plants that's produced and goes unused during periods of low customer consumption, as in wintertime. If you had a heat pump for heating, you could in good conscience use it knowing that your use produced NO incremental emissions.

If it concerns you, you could also install solar panels to reduce your power consumption to near net zero, covering a heat pump and other household consumption. But if buying a more efficient car isn't financially possible, perhaps installing solar panels would be the same issue.

"I’ll put my carbon footprint up against others and come out pretty good."

Sorry, no, not if you burn wood for heat. You're at the other end of the scale, with a heavier footprint than others.

Well, you’re wrong, Elmer.

You don’t know how much wood I burn, or how, or what temperature I keep my house, what type of wood I burn and for how many days of the year, how many hours of the day.

If you or someone else would like to provide me with a heat pump, solar panels, or a new vehicular with a large cargo area, fully articulated sear and a trailer hitch, I’ll consider it.

We have a very low carbon footprint all things considered.

You often make good points; this isn’t one of those times.

To quote you:

Feel good attitudes while not seeing the forest for the trees. It's not annoying, it's disappointing to me how widespread the narrow thinking is.

Burning any wood releases more carbon than burning no wood and most people burn no wood. How could it be otherwise?

Thank you for remembering and quoting the comment I'd made. I do think it applies to your thoughts.

I am speaking of our entire “carbon footprint.” And as for the carbon released, again, you don’t know any of the details.

There is a lot of carbon (CO2) going into the atmosphere from fallen trees (natural ice storms). Forest fires from people insisting on living on cleared land in California’s canyons and foothills. Industry to produce a lot of carp people think they must have, trips on airliners, vacations, frequent car trips or lots of driving.

Bully for you if you think people can afford solar panels and heat pumps and new vehicles.

I spend less than $500 for heat. I stay home, working, most days. My carbon budget may be different than yours. Yes, I put some carbon into the atmosphere. We all do. You are sounding awfully smug. About what?

You are only looking through a straw at a small shrub.

We live very simply and that greatly reduces our carbon footprint. I think it’s interesting how much even well meaning people consume (includes resources, transportation of goods and consumables, on and on) without realizing it.

— no fertilizer or chemicals on “lawn.”

— no carbon vacations

— no dry cleaning

— we grow trees

— toss only one 13 - 26 gallon bag of un-compacted trash out per week

— do not use municipal water, etc. (low volume also), very light on municipal and state resources and services. Imaginative, rich life, but simple, as suits us.

— read a lot

— low lights (LED)

— pass very little gas

— try not to insist on expelling a lot of air getting the last word and tilting at windmills.

Our yearly, year after year carbon footprint (in total) is low.

Want to buy some trees to help the planet —

ash, maple, beech, birch, pine, hemlock, cedar, oak?

It does get cold during the winter months. I do need to heat the house, and keep some rooms at 50 -55 deg F. We make do with the budget we have and the heating system we were given hookup for. Exercise is splitting wood, growing shrubs and trees and weeds, digging in gardens. No pool or gym has to be heated for us.

I‘d like to think that most of us try to be good earth denizens, within our means.

Heat pump for heating is not a very efficient way. Heat pump is mostly used in areas where you don't need much heating, like Florida or you are not far from electric power source.

dcarch

I think that poo-pooing those trying to take small steps toward limiting plastic use while bragging about being world travelers is a bit hypocritical. Or trying to shame people who heat with wood. When comparing coal burning to wood burning you also have to consider the environmental damage cause by coal mining and the carbon released in transporting it.

Air travel emissions

Someone on one of these threads linked to this company. I've given many of these as gifts. They harvest plastics from the world's oceans, employ people in less developed countries to do the harvesting, then make jewelry out of some of that plastic and recycle the rest.
https://4ocean.com/

I do hate to fly, so that's not an issue, and when the weather allows my clothes get hung outside on a line, which reduces the dreaded dryer lint. I don't put it out for the birds, although Grandma did, and I see little difference between using it as a fire starter and throwing it into the landfill. It exists and something must be done with it. I don't have any municipal garbage pick-up or recycling, and so I hire a garbage service, but it must be "bagged", cannot include yard waste or chemicals and I'm limited to the number of bags. If I produced more bags of garbage, I'd have to pay for a better "plan", which would include pick up for more bags. The county does have a yearly "clean up" and will take things like air conditioners, old paint and tires. Tires become swings, paint gets put onto things like corn cribs (purple corn crib anyone, LOL?). Fortunately I don't live in one of those places where everyone has to have matching mailboxes and can't hang their clothes outside!

Out here we have a well, no municipal water supply, and I do not buy plastic bottles of water because the water from my tap is good. If I lived somewhere like Flint, I'd be buying something, so much depends on personal lifestyle and circumstances. Because my husband worked for one of the large utility companies, we have LED lights throughout the house, although with only two of us, most of the time the lights are not on. The room where we spend most of our time has a wall of East facing windows, so it stays well light through natural light, except in the dark days of winter. We do have a gas powered generator and a pellet stove, because we can use that during the winter to heat the house enough to keep pipes from freezing during the times we lose power in winter storms. It takes far too much power to run the big back up furnace, so if the power goes out we spend our time closer to the pellet stove and make sure the bathtub is filled with enough water to flush the toilet.

I plead guilty to not attending a gym. My exercise consists of walking a mile of fence daily, looking for places where deer have run through and "shorted" the electric system, shoveling manure from barns and hoeing the garden, along with various other farm tasks.

I think everyone should do what they can and no one can be "perfect". Everyone has a "carbon footprint", whether large or small. We are a "disposable" society and use too much of everything. Just do the best you can, I'm not going to discourage anyone from doing anything, even if it's something tiny, every little bit helps.

Annie

"I think that poo-pooing those trying to take small steps toward limiting
plastic use while bragging about being world travelers is a bit
hypocritical."

People who wear black shoes with brown slacks aren't entitled to observations and opinions and also shouldn't be suggesting what colors to choose to decorate a living room.

My comment was about people who miss forests (an apt word in this case) for the trees, and my view that doing little things with little impact while ignoring things with much greater consequences fools only oneself and others so inclined. Many people do that.

Check again about heat pumps, dcarch, they're very efficient and in use in all but the very coldest parts of the US. In those places, ground source heat pumps can be used. annie1992, in a state not known for temperate winters (Michigan), has said she has one with loops sunk in a pond. A friend of mine, with a home in Montana not far from the Canadian border, has one too.

I am not sure if we are talking about the same thing for the same conditions

.You are correct that heat pumps is very very efficient used for heating in the summer time in Florida. But the colder it gets the less efficient if works. Heat pump gets to be no more efficient than resistance heating. By definition, all resistance heating is 100% efficient, but you wouldn't want to use electric resistance heating if you live in Calgary Canada.

Of course, if you have geothermal heat source to run heat pump, you are not talking about the same thing.

A heat pump is the exact same machine as an air conditioner running backwards. An air conditioner works very efficiently in the wintertime in Calgary.

dcarch

dcarch, I asked you check again and I'll repeat the request. There are cold climate air source heat pumps (not ground source) that provide heat down to high teens/low twenties of outdoor temps, and some that go even lower. Such installs will have backup heat for colder weather, not necessarily only electrical resistance.

And again, from a pollution standpoint, such equipment can be viewed as causing no incremental power plant emissions because the power would be otherwise going unused.

You can check and learn new things or keep repeating what you think you understand. Your choice. Here's one link, there's a lot of information available. This is not new equipment, it's been around awhile. Suitable for much of the Midwest and much of the NorthEastern US, as well as elsewhere.

Look up "Greenspeed heat pumps", designed for colder climates. There are hundreds to choose from, this is well regarded.

Cold Climate Air source heat pumps

Elmer, thank you for your advice. I followed your advice and read more. The following are few samples I have come across:

“-----The report notes that cold-climate heat pumps can heat homes even when outdoor temperatures dip to -12 degrees Fahrenheit and found that supplemental electric resistance heating was needed just 3 percent of the time in Bozeman and 10 percent of the time in Duluth.---“

“---The report found that when air-source heat pumps or heat pump water heaters are installed in a new home also outfitted with a tight building envelope and rooftop solar PV panels, electrification is economical even in regions with the harshest
winters.---“

“--- “If you do electrification in combination with other deep energy-efficiency measures such as building envelope improvements and reducing the amount of infiltration going into your building, then it actually can be more cost-effective than having a natural-gas code baseline home.”

“---They found that baseline all-electric homes cost less to build upfront but more to operate in utility costs thereafter compared to baseline natural-gas homes.”

“Cold-climate air source heat pumps are available as both central-ducted systems and ductless systems. ... Ducted systems typically use a propane furnace as a backup. These backups take over the load of the system at an outdoor air temperature where the capacity of the heat pump is no longer sufficient.”

As with all air-source heat pumps, centrally ducted heat pumps generally need supplemental heat on subzero days.”

I can't figure out why air source heat pumps, if so efficient, why do they need supplemental backup heat source? and why do they need you to spend a huge amount of money to super insulate your house or add solar panels?

I also don't understand your statement, "---from a pollution standpoint, such equipment can be viewed as causing no incremental power plant emissions because the power would be otherwise going unused.---"

I have a power generator, When the generator is not loaded, the engine just goes to idle using very little fuel. Having the capacity does not mean that it always use the same amount of fuel at full capacity for a generator.

dcarch

I apologize for my ungenerous tone. Sorry I wasn't more friendly.

"I can't figure out why air source heat pumps, if so efficient, why do they need supplemental backup heat source?"

They're efficient BUT at lower outdoor temperatures performance is limited. if it's 10 degrees outside, there's very little heat to harvest outdoors to bring indoors At 25, different story but at 35 or 40, very different story. Think of the supplemental heat source as a backup, or fail-safe for when the temp drops below where the heat pump can function. In areas with no natural gas, it's often a propane furnace that gets triggered only at the coldest of times as you've quoted. Or, resistance heat strips.

"why do they need you to spend a huge amount of money to super insulate your house or add solar panels?"

The better insulated and tighter (air leakage wise) a structure is, the less heat it needs when it's cold outside. Add solar panels - an environmentally way to negate the negative of using electricity produced at a power plant who knows how. Money spent insulating and sealing pays off on houses that aren't recently built.

"I also don't understand your statement, "---from a pollution
standpoint, such equipment can be viewed as causing no incremental power
plant emissions because the power would be otherwise going unused.---"."

Large power plants (individual units) are either on or off. No such thing as half on, 75% on, etc. It's expensive to fire one up and takes several days. They do better when kept running. So they're kept running, they can't be throttled up and down as a home generator sitting on the driveway does.

System managers on a regional basis forecast expected demand, manage production orders and build in wiggle room for shutdowns and unexpected demand. There's usually at least 10% excess or more. The production facilities that produce what we can call the "base load" remain on. Even at night when use plummets and remember that wintertime power usage is also low. The base load produced is reduced but there's still plenty of power generated that isn't used.

So unplanned demand comes along? It's rare that there isn't plenty of power generated already going unused that can handle it. Tens and hundreds of thousands of heat pumps can appear over time in any particular area and the affect on the production schedule isn't that great.

Okay?

(forgive the continued tangent, but wanted to provide a link to: wiki/Load_following_power_plant I used to work with guys involved in power grid management. There are some mighty smart and innovative people working to reduce wasted power, wasted money, wasted natural resources. It would make a fascinating subject for a journalist....)

Elmer,

Thank you for your response. You certainly have a passion regarding this global environmental crises.

No question that heat pumps are installed everywhere. In addition to what we discussed, there are other reasons.

Earthquake zones and flood zones where basements are not practical for conventional heating systems.

First cost is the biggest reason for heat pumps. If you have an air conditioner, you already have a heat pump, vice versa.

-------------------------------------------------

Not thing is that simple when it comes to environmental solutions (especially solutions proposed by politicians)

Solar panels for home - How many trees home owners chopped down to maximize sunlight? What if your neighbor grows a tall tree? How much it would cost to remove/reinstall the solar system each time you have to replace roofing?

Big solar panel farm takes over areas for vegetation. Solar panels generate electricity, also collects a lot of heat. Solar panels need huge batteries. Solar panels and batteries do not last forever.

Wind mills are huge. They have a limited life span. Windmills cannot be recycled. Have you seen a windmill graveyard?

dcarch

nickel, my snippets of exposure suggested that the pace of engineering and technological changes in the electric power industry is painfully slow. IT and computerization have been adopted but otherwise, much happens at a snail's pace.

Load adjusting plants are an interesting concept. Lower hanging fruit, though, is the excess of wind, solar and conventional production that goes unused and can't be time shifted. When ways of storing energy are more developed (and there's much more being looked at than just conventional electrical batteries that can be charged now and discharged later), that will make a huge difference.

Some of the storage means I've heard of include pumping water uphill at night, releasing it during the day (already done in limited places for decades. An example is the Castaic pumped storage plant north of Los Angeles), compressing air with excess power and releasing it to turn turbines later, using excess power to produce hydrogen and then using the hydrogen to run electricity producing fuel cells. I'm sure there are others and there will be more.

"If you have an air conditioner, you already have a heat pump, vice versa."

Almost. A heat pump is an "air conditioner" with a few extra pieces of equipment on it so that it can run backwards as well as forwards. If forwards for an AC unit can be thought of as capturing heat from inside and taking it outside, then backwards would be the opposite, capturing heat from outside (which is there even when it's cold) and taking it inside. The backwards description is what a heat pump does.

"Earthquake zones and flood zones where basements are not practical for conventional heating systems."

I've never lived in a flood zone but am a lifelong resident of California. Basements are quite rare. Some "old houses" (like pre-WWII) sometimes have them, but for anything built more recently, they're not found. One exception - some parts of the SF Bay area (I'm thinking of like Los Altos and Palo Alto) where houses are small and affluent people want more space on small lots in conventional neighborhoods, people are starting to "build down" when town planners won't allow building a taller structure. That's a more recent phenomenon. Otherwise, gas furnaces and other HVAC equipment are placed in garages, interior closets, and in cheaper and mass construction, in attics. Heat pumps haven't been seen much as electricity is expensive but with solar panels and restrictions being put into the building codes limiting the use of gas appliances, they're becoming more common.

"Solar panels for home - How many trees home owners chopped down to maximize sunlight? "

Tree trimming or placement in a sunny place has a small cost, where the resulting benefit is much larger both financially and environmentally.

"Big solar panel farm takes over areas for vegetation"

In the west, they're most frequently found in desolate and uninhabited areas.

"Wind mills are huge. They have a limited life span. Windmills cannot be recycled. Have you seen a windmill graveyard?"

It depends on your perspective. I'd much rather see storage areas for discarded equipment of this sort that can't be recycled/repurposed than environmental damage from combustion plants.

A tip for those crazy ones like me:

If you really want to turn down your thermostat in the freezing winter, Get a few of those phase-change gel packs, microwave one or two to very hot and put them inside your clothing. You will feel very toasty warm for a few hours even your thermostat says your house is freezing.

dcarch

In reading Annie’s post, I had to nod my head a lot. We live out of the way with a deep well, so also have to fill the tub with water if we expect a possible power outage. We used to have more frequent outages.

We have ample and delicious deep well water — another reason not to use chemicals on the weed lawn.

Most important, though, I completely forgot that in a power outage, in cold New England, our wood stove keeps us and pipes from freezing. We can also cook on it.

In December 2008 there was an enormous regional ice storm that cover miles of New England and lasted for hours, taking down thousands of trees, utility poles, and transformers. Electricity was out for weeks over much of NH, Maine, Vermont, NY, Massachusetts and CT. And that night, what a fascinating and eerie racket the falling trees, poles and exploding transformers made. I made some recordings of it. Longtime residents including an 80 year old neighbor had never seen anything as dramatic and devastating.

Our hilly wooded road was a sheet of ice with trees, downed wires and debris scattered everywhere. We had no generator, no electricity or running water for 12 days straight. Our wood stove, Coleman lanterns and a few candles and flashlights save us.

I’m not sure If I even had one smart phone, so we couldn’t find out what was happening and the extent, other than in a very course way from an old battery radio that was focused on all of the northeast or Boston.

After a few days, the little road was opened, but no electricity (water, lights, electric heat) for 10 more days. The thick ice remained on branches for days and was beautiful. We ended up tossing out the contents of freezers and fridge. What an adventure.

This conversation is interesting, albeit over my head unless I find more time to read more.

I’m not completely clear in what “Resistant Heating” is but perhaps our type of electric heat falls into that category. It is unusual and I don’t know of anyone else with it. In the ceilings of every room but the bathrooms are flexible plastic film panels with graphite embedded in them, in a pattern (resistance). Not the entire ceiling, but a good amount per each room, and each room is zoned with its own thermostat.

I think it is made by a company that sounds something like (if not) “Thermofilm.” The material (film) can be nailed through and is on the other side of skin coat plastered blue board. The graphite embedded film looks similar to this:

Or this:

I wish I had a sample of it and the owner’s manual or info. The builder has since died, but one of his adult children might have sections or the manufacturing info.

We rarely use it because of the electric costs around here. But when it is on (for example, when the wood stove needed rebuilding an Nov. came) it feels as though the sun on on my shoulders, while the room air is cool (I like cool air). It takes about 10-15 minutes for the heat to radiate from the ceiling, but it’s very comfortable, quiet and has no dust or pipes or visible radiators.

Maybe someone here would have a guess as to its relative efficiency?

Since that huge storm, we bought a little 2500 Watt gas generator, an recently got a larger generator. No trans switch though.

ETA: info and photo gallery of the December 2008 Northeastern US ice storm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2008_Northeastern_United_States_ice_storm

Resistance heating is what a toaster or a conventional stove with electric elements does when you turn them on.

Normally electricity will flow rather freely through metal wires, some kinds better than others. Copper is often used because it offers better flow rates and less "resistance" to impede the flow. If you deliberately construct an electricity pathway with material that impedes the flow, the clogged electricity heats the conductor where that happens. So, "resistance heat" is heat from a pathway that offers resistance. The products pictured above produce heat by resistance.

"Efficiency" numbers for electric heating are misleading and misunderstood by most. A starting point was needed to compare differences, and that was done like this - The efficiency of resistance heating was DEFINED as being 100%. The number in and of itself means nothing and it could have been anything, it was just a base for comparisons. That approach leads to a lot of confusion. The "efficiency" of a heat pump may be 300% or 400%, depending on where, what and when. All that means is that at 300%, a heat pump using X amount of electricity produces 3 times as much heat as resistance heating.

Put into context, electrical resistance heating is the most expensive and least environmentally friendly way (absent having home solar panels) to produce heat because it's very inefficient and produces less heat that alternatives. In places where only electrical service is available, using heat pumps is the best and cheapest alternative.

Elmer, I have already disagreed with your views on many aspects of heat pump heating. So I will not repeat what I have already said.

Electric heating means 1 Watt = 3.4 BTUs, winter or summer, 100% efficient conversion, no exceptions (Not talking about radio wave conversion).

Heat pump, depends of many environmental factors for efficiency .

Resistance heating involves one simple resistance wire or resistant conductor. OTOH, heat pump is an extremely complicated and expensive motorized mechanical large equipment using lots of various materials, including refrigerant chemical and petroleum lubricants. If you want to talk about environmental impact.

One use of electric resistance heating is unique. It can heat by conduction and by radiation. That's why you can provide heating outdoors (loading dock, outside hotel entrance, etc) in freezing temperature using reflector.

One interesting cheap cooling - swamp cooler.

Another interesting electric cooling/heating device with no moving parts, a solid state heat pump -Peltier thermal-junction device can heat or cool. Just flip a switch.

dcarch

Resistance heat, as I said, is 100% efficient (Cost of Performance= 1) but you've demonstrated what I said, that that's misunderstood. That's the figure because it was defined as such. Not measured as such.

I'm familiar with 1 kw=3400 BTU. Let's talk about cost of producing heat. To produce 100K BTUs with resistance takes 100K/3400 = 29.5 kilowatts. At 20 cents per (many places it's much more, some lower), that's $5.90. A heat pump with a COP of 3.0 would require 100K/ (3400*3.0) or $1.97. Gas heat at $1.50/ther/ 95% efficiency furnace = $1.58. Change the cost of electricity or gas, the relative advantage of a heat pump vs resistance heat stays in the same ration (2/3rds less for a heat pump) but the comparison to gas will change.

To say that resistance heat is 100 percent efficient but a gas furnace may only be 80% efficient is completely useless and invalid. The efficiency percentage for resitance heat is only to compute costs and compare its inefficiency to other forms of electric heating.

Swamp coolers are OLD technology and are useless where it's humid, the water on the pads can't evaporate enough to cool the passing air.

Elmer,

I just find it interesting that you seem to only focusing on one side of the heat pump issue, almost like a heat pump salesman.

There are significant cost aspects of going to heat pump system for many typical home owners in many locations; Add better insulation to the house, add solar panels, add supplemental heating system, or add geothermal system, or move to warmer area, ---- etc.

Some one may ask, if more heating is needed, why not buy a bigger heat pump? No, you should not. Based on ASHRAE HVAC design parameters, and psychrometric theories, since the heat pump is also your cooling A/C, over sizing can get very uncomfortable.

But what about the new variable speed systems? Well, double the cost for the system.

"Swamp coolers are OLD technology and are useless where it's humid, the water on the pads can't evaporate enough to cool the passing air."

Not true. Almost all commercial buildings use cooling towers.

dcarch

As far as I understand, a "swamp cooler" is an archaic type of cooling system once found in homes when air conditioning wasn't affordable or in widespread availability. They're very rare today.

There's no coolant, they worked by passing air over damp pads then blew that into the house.

Are you aware of large numbers of homes anywhere that have them? I think there aren't any. It's an approach rarely used anymore and maybe not used at all because at best they worked poorly. Better than nothing? Sometimes, sometimes not. Tell me if that's wrong.

Commercial chillers aren't swamp coolers, they don't cool air.

1. I was referring to your statement , "useless where it's humid, the water on the pads can't evaporate enough to cool the passing air.". Cooling towers certainly work in humid weather.

2. Evaporative coolers (swamp coolers) are very common. Do a search in Amazon and you will find there are so many models to select from.

dcarch

Commercial chillers are very different from swamp coolers. The chiller fans move a significant amount of air at high speed to remove heat from coolant flowing in a heat exchanger. Swamp coolers don't work that way, relying on cooling air moving slowly over a dampened pad and that works poorly when it's humid. You can keep repeating your misinformation as much as you want, it doesn't make it so.

Swamp cooler parts for sale? Sure. You can also find horseshoes for horses, piece parts for knob and tube wiring, and vacuum tubes for amplifiers. Spend your day shopping for obsolete parts for no longer or substantially lesser used things that used to be ubiquitous.

I am absolutely confused by what you are talking about. As I understand:

Cooling tower for a commercial HVAC system is only a part of the HVAC system, not the chiller, as you seem to indicate- "A cooling tower gets rid of unwanted heat from chillers. Specifically, how do cooling towers work – as a heat removal device that utilizes water as a heat transfer medium. Heat is removed from the water supply through evaporation."

A swamp cooler works on evaporation, and a swamp cooler is identical in physics as an evaporative cooler, an evaporative cooler is not a vintage air conditioner. Many models available on Amazon.com.

All the above three work on evaporative cooling principle.

You said "---Swamp cooler parts for sale? ---" who is talking about parts for sale?

dcarch

I’ve been reading this thread with interest and along with the heating discussion, I expected to see another big picture - house size.

In 20 year intervals, the average square footage of the American home:

1920-1129

1940-1177

1960-1289

1980-1740

2000-2266

From that overview, the larger the home, the larger the carbon footprint. Just another factor to consider.

As well as those who own more than one home. Contributing more to the carbon footprint.

There have been a lot of advances in building science and construction techniques over the years. Engineers, architects and building trades have worked together to evolve the technology and know-how to significantly enhance energy efficiency.

Newer but larger houses properly built provide much greater temperature comfort using substantially less energy than much smaller homes built as recently as 20-40 years ago. Structures older than 20-25 years that haven't had work done to add properly sealing windows and doors, enhance insulation, and seal wall and ceiling passages (like electrical switches and sockets and boxes for ceiling lights) are an energy use nightmare. Such problems can be partially ameliorated with retrofit work to provide what's lacking (better windows and doors, air sealing and insulation) and to replace older energy hog HVAC equipment and appurtenances (like leaky ducts) with the substantially tighter and more efficient equipment that's sold today.

So it's not true "the larger the house, the larger the carbon footprint". Rather, it's "the older the house, the larger the carbon footprint". And many will say, "well, that doesn't apply to my house" but if it's older and mostly in "as originally built" condition, it does.