Recirculating pump for instant hot water....

[Ricky]

On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 8:28:53 PM UTC-4, Tabby wrote:

On Tuesday, 14 March 2023 at 17:03:41 UTC, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 6:11:27 AM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 10:45, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 4:59:28 AM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 05:16, Ricky wrote:
On Monday, March 13, 2023 at 7:57:57 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 14. marts 2023 kl. 00.35.00 UTC+1 skrev Lamont Cranston:
On Monday, March 13, 2023 at 6:15:00 PM UTC-5, Tabby wrote:
returning the water via the cold circuit is multiple kinds of wrong. Power the circulating pump from a kitchen PIR.
But, I\'m sure you can understand that in most instances, people are not willing to re-plumb their home to make use
of a recirculating pump. Also, recirculating the water is preferable to dumping in the drain. In my area the cost for sewer
is almost 2 times the cost of the water.
btw, could you list those multiple kinds of wrong?
Mikek
you generally don\'t want any risk of getting contamination, including your hot water, into the potable cold water system

So hot water is not potable??? I never knew that. I guess everytime I run the hot water, I should then run the cold water a while to clean the tap?

This whole idea of running hot water through the system to keep the water in the pipe hot is silly. They make instant hot water heaters for sinks, that do this job and only need an outlet.
Not everybody can use those; they need an ample electricity supply..

For a sink, it uses a standard 120V, 15A connection. Who doesn\'t have that??? Are you talking about some third world country? If they can\'t power this unit, how could they possibly power a hot water tank? Mine is 240V, 18A.
Most houses here have a contract that limits total instant power to 3..5
KW. It certainly is not a third world country. You can have more power,
up to 15 KW, but it is significantly more expensive.

Hot water tanks take 1 KW, maybe two if the tank is big. Mine I changed
to take 0.5 KW.
It must take forever to heat a tank of water. Sounds rather dysfunctional. My microwave oven uses more than 0.5 kW and it is some 40 years old. A hair dryer uses 1.44 kW. I guess you have to turn off all sorts of things to use a stove. But then maybe you have gas. No, if that were true, you would have a gas hot water heater.

Sorry, this is not very easy for me to digest. The water uses the same amount of energy to heat up if you do it at 0.5 kW, or 5 kW. I just can\'t picture how it can be practical at 0.5 kW. I can take a shower and have a tank full of hot water in an hour. At 500 watts, it takes 10 hours.

I just can\'t picture how this is useful. Ok, not third world. Maybe world 2.5.

--

Rick C.
Years ago I saw flats each on a 5A feed. Residents had problems. Solution was to mark current draw on every plug & not exceed 5A total. Perfectly doable, though hardly ideal.

LOL!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGPMadwqPKQ

--

Rick C.

+- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
+- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Ricky]

On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 11:12:02 PM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2023-03-14 18:03, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 6:11:27 AM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 10:45, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 4:59:28 AM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 05:16, Ricky wrote:
On Monday, March 13, 2023 at 7:57:57 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 14. marts 2023 kl. 00.35.00 UTC+1 skrev Lamont Cranston:
On Monday, March 13, 2023 at 6:15:00 PM UTC-5, Tabby wrote:
returning the water via the cold circuit is multiple kinds of wrong. Power the circulating pump from a kitchen PIR.
But, I\'m sure you can understand that in most instances, people are not willing to re-plumb their home to make use
of a recirculating pump. Also, recirculating the water is preferable to dumping in the drain. In my area the cost for sewer
is almost 2 times the cost of the water.
btw, could you list those multiple kinds of wrong?
Mikek
you generally don\'t want any risk of getting contamination, including your hot water, into the potable cold water system

So hot water is not potable??? I never knew that. I guess everytime I run the hot water, I should then run the cold water a while to clean the tap?

This whole idea of running hot water through the system to keep the water in the pipe hot is silly. They make instant hot water heaters for sinks, that do this job and only need an outlet.
Not everybody can use those; they need an ample electricity supply.

For a sink, it uses a standard 120V, 15A connection. Who doesn\'t have that??? Are you talking about some third world country? If they can\'t power this unit, how could they possibly power a hot water tank? Mine is 240V, 18A.
Most houses here have a contract that limits total instant power to 3.5
KW. It certainly is not a third world country. You can have more power,
up to 15 KW, but it is significantly more expensive.

Hot water tanks take 1 KW, maybe two if the tank is big. Mine I changed
to take 0.5 KW.

It must take forever to heat a tank of water. Sounds rather dysfunctional. My microwave oven uses more than 0.5 kW and it is some 40 years old. A hair dryer uses 1.44 kW. I guess you have to turn off all sorts of things to use a stove. But then maybe you have gas. No, if that were true, you would have a gas hot water heater.

Sorry, this is not very easy for me to digest. The water uses the same amount of energy to heat up if you do it at 0.5 kW, or 5 kW. I just can\'t picture how it can be practical at 0.5 kW. I can take a shower and have a tank full of hot water in an hour. At 500 watts, it takes 10 hours.
Actually, it takes about four hours, the tank has 50 litres. Runs on a
timer during the night, if I activate it. I prefer the gas fired on
demand hot water system (yes, I have both systems). There is only one
person in the house, I don\'t need the hot water tank to reheat till next
day.

Wow! I\'m sorry, but that\'s clearly not first world. Or something is wrong with the math. 4 hours of 500W is 2 kWh, or 7.2 million joules. Divide by 4.186 (water specific heat) to get 1.7 million g°C, or 1,700 liter°C. That\'s around 34 °C for 50 liters. So room temperature to 130°F or about 55°C. Is your hot water room temperature when you finish your shower? That\'s not a very comfortable shower.

Reminds me of Puerto Rico, where they don\'t feel a need for hot water. They are happy with tepid water or just room temperature. The water from the street is not cold either, most places. Cold is not a word that is often used.

I just can\'t picture how this is useful. Ok, not third world. Maybe world 2.5.

No, you simply are wasteful and think the rest of the world runs the
same way

Yes, just like driving cars and using electric lights is wasteful.

Yep, third world. I like hot showers, and I\'m not ashamed to admit it.

--

Rick C.

++ Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
++ Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Don Y]

On 3/14/2023 8:38 PM, Lamont Cranston wrote:

On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 10:12:02 PM UTC-5, Carlos E.R. wrote:

No, you simply are wasteful and think the rest of the world runs the same
way

Carlos you are correct, we live in a country of abundance, we can get almost
anything we want in a few days.

We have everything at our fingertips.

We have time and money to waste and there is no doubt we do waste both. Just
look on Youtube for things we GET to waste our time and money on!

My wife is from a 3rd world country, but has been here over 40 years, she
did take on some of my wasteful ways over the years although was always
frugal. But now in retirement, I notice she is reverting back to more frugal
ways, worried about water use, keeping heating/cooling costs low, saving
rain water in buckets, and having a garden to grow some food. She picks up
items others throw away, because she knows with a little care, she or I can
fix it and she will sell it to someone, she has a large network of people
that she knows. A few days ago she wheeled home a 22\" self propelled lawn
mower. It had a plastic guard that was broken, I said I wasn\'t going to
spend any time fixing the plastic if it was any trouble to start, \"darn it\"
it started on the 3rd pull. a few sq inches of scrap aluminum and 8 woods
screws and the plastic was fixed.

Sadly, most folks simply don\'t want \"old\" things -- regardless of
whether or not they work, show no signs of wear, etc.

A neighbor gave me one of these, yesterday:
<https://www.ebay.com/itm/266159332945>
dog had chewed the power cords. What\'s that, an hour to repair
(at zero cost as you just cut the \"modular\" end off a power cord
and wire that in place of the damaged cord)?

[I made a point of selecting a very long cord as power tools
invariably have cords that *should* be a little longer]

When I went to return it (2 hours later), she told me to keep it; she\'d
already bought a replacement (before she gave me the broken one).
Now, I\'ll have to try to find someone who will want it as I\'ve already
got 3 hammer drills (various sizes).

I used to repair (large) *discarded* LCD TVs. But, quickly ran out of
people to give them to! Ditto computer monitors. (I now have ~30 that
I\'ve rescued and repaired... it\'s interesting just how many you can
put to use when they are \"free\"! :-/ Sadly, I need a *small* one,
with VESA mount, and can\'t seem to find anything like that.)

I repaired/refurbished electric wheelchairs for a time (too many of
them being donated to us and then scrapped). I managed to find homes
for *two*. And, took two for myself (using one in my automation project,
the other I converted into an electric wheelbarrow). And, all the rest
(about one-and-a-half per month) just into the tip.

<https://marcsmobility.com/permobil-m300-powered-wheelchair-seat-lift-tilt-recline-legs-2544.html>

One of mine is silver, the other blue. And, have the upscale controller
(bluetooth, color LCD, phone charger, headlights, turn signals, seat
memory, etc.) and seating system (Corpus 3G w/ ROHO)

(This is almost understandable... the folks who need chairs likely need
someone to service them, call on when thy have a problem, \"fit\" them,
etc. And, often have insurance to cover those costs -- so where\'s
the incentive to save?)

When.if the apocalypse movies come to be, there\'ll not be a shortage
of \"stuff\" to exploit for quite some time! :<

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2023-03-15 05:22, Ricky wrote:

On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 11:12:02 PM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 18:03, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 6:11:27 AM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 10:45, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 4:59:28 AM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 05:16, Ricky wrote:
On Monday, March 13, 2023 at 7:57:57 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 14. marts 2023 kl. 00.35.00 UTC+1 skrev Lamont Cranston:
On Monday, March 13, 2023 at 6:15:00 PM UTC-5, Tabby wrote:
returning the water via the cold circuit is multiple kinds of wrong. Power the circulating pump from a kitchen PIR.
But, I\'m sure you can understand that in most instances, people are not willing to re-plumb their home to make use
of a recirculating pump. Also, recirculating the water is preferable to dumping in the drain. In my area the cost for sewer
is almost 2 times the cost of the water.
btw, could you list those multiple kinds of wrong?
Mikek
you generally don\'t want any risk of getting contamination, including your hot water, into the potable cold water system

So hot water is not potable??? I never knew that. I guess everytime I run the hot water, I should then run the cold water a while to clean the tap?

This whole idea of running hot water through the system to keep the water in the pipe hot is silly. They make instant hot water heaters for sinks, that do this job and only need an outlet.
Not everybody can use those; they need an ample electricity supply.

For a sink, it uses a standard 120V, 15A connection. Who doesn\'t have that??? Are you talking about some third world country? If they can\'t power this unit, how could they possibly power a hot water tank? Mine is 240V, 18A.
Most houses here have a contract that limits total instant power to 3.5
KW. It certainly is not a third world country. You can have more power,
up to 15 KW, but it is significantly more expensive.

Hot water tanks take 1 KW, maybe two if the tank is big. Mine I changed
to take 0.5 KW.

It must take forever to heat a tank of water. Sounds rather dysfunctional. My microwave oven uses more than 0.5 kW and it is some 40 years old. A hair dryer uses 1.44 kW. I guess you have to turn off all sorts of things to use a stove. But then maybe you have gas. No, if that were true, you would have a gas hot water heater.

Sorry, this is not very easy for me to digest. The water uses the same amount of energy to heat up if you do it at 0.5 kW, or 5 kW. I just can\'t picture how it can be practical at 0.5 kW. I can take a shower and have a tank full of hot water in an hour. At 500 watts, it takes 10 hours.
Actually, it takes about four hours, the tank has 50 litres. Runs on a
timer during the night, if I activate it. I prefer the gas fired on
demand hot water system (yes, I have both systems). There is only one
person in the house, I don\'t need the hot water tank to reheat till next
day.

Wow! I\'m sorry, but that\'s clearly not first world. Or something is wrong with the math. 4 hours of 500W is 2 kWh, or 7.2 million joules. Divide by 4.186 (water specific heat) to get 1.7 million g°C, or 1,700 liter°C. That\'s around 34 °C for 50 liters. So room temperature to 130°F or about 55°C.

Well, if it starts at 20°C then in 4 hours it goes to 54°C, which is hot
enough to burn the skin. If the tank was not fully spent, it goes up to
70°C, which is about the max temp I set.

(room temp typically 20°C)


--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2023-03-15 06:47, Don Y wrote:

On 3/14/2023 8:38 PM, Lamont Cranston wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 10:12:02 PM UTC-5, Carlos E.R. wrote:

No, you simply are wasteful and think the rest of the world runs the
same way

Carlos you are correct, we live in a country of abundance, we can get
almost anything we want in a few days.

We have everything at our fingertips.

We have time and money to waste and there is no doubt we do waste
both. Just look on Youtube for things we GET to waste our time and money on!

My wife is from a 3rd world country, but has been here over 40 years, she
did take on some of my wasteful ways over the years although was always
frugal. But now in retirement, I notice she is reverting back to more frugal
ways, worried about water use, keeping heating/cooling costs low, saving
rain water in buckets, and having a garden to grow some food. She picks up
items others throw away, because she knows with a little care, she or I can
fix it and she will sell it to someone, she has a large network of people
that she knows.  A few days ago she wheeled home a 22\" self propelled lawn
mower. It had a plastic guard that was broken, I said I wasn\'t going to
spend any time fixing the plastic if it was any trouble to start, \"darn it\"
it started on the 3rd pull. a few sq inches of scrap aluminum and 8 woods
screws and the plastic was fixed.

Sadly, most folks simply don\'t want \"old\" things -- regardless of
whether or not they work, show no signs of wear, etc.

A neighbor gave me one of these, yesterday:
    <https://www.ebay.com/itm/266159332945
dog had chewed the power cords.  What\'s that, an hour to repair
(at zero cost as you just cut the \"modular\" end off a power cord
and wire that in place of the damaged cord)?

[I made a point of selecting a very long cord as power tools
invariably have cords that *should* be a little longer]

When I went to return it (2 hours later), she told me to keep it; she\'d
already bought a replacement (before she gave me the broken one).
Now, I\'ll have to try to find someone who will want it as I\'ve already
got 3 hammer drills (various sizes).

Wow, garbaging a drill just because a bad cable.

Well, it makes sense if she doesn\'t know how to repair it herself, and a
repair shop is too expensive.

At a beach house the clothes washing machine broke down. The intake
valve, I knew. My guests, from the other side of the pond, said never
mind, we\'ll go to a laundry shop for a few days. I said, nah, I\'ll call
the repair man, it is only a valve. I called him, he charged just 35€.

My guests were surprised at how cheap that was. Well, on Madrid it might
be 50€ or 75€, they charge only for coming along.


Yes, of course, I could have repaired it myself, but would have taken
days, finding the correct valve, and tinkering to open the old machine,
and hurting my old back.

I used to repair (large) *discarded* LCD TVs.  But, quickly ran out of
people to give them to!  Ditto computer monitors.  (I now have ~30 that
I\'ve rescued and repaired... it\'s interesting just how many you can
put to use when they are \"free\"!  :-/   Sadly, I need a *small* one,
with VESA mount, and can\'t seem to find anything like that.)

I recogn I garbaged an LG TV recently. They asked too much, they said
they need to replace the entire power supply module.

I haven\'t done much electronic repairs since the 90\'s... My job path
didn\'t go that way. So my few repair skills are too rusty.

I repaired/refurbished electric wheelchairs for a time (too many of
them being donated to us and then scrapped).  I managed to find homes
for *two*.  And, took two for myself (using one in my automation project,
the other I converted into an electric wheelbarrow).  And, all the rest
(about one-and-a-half per month) just into the tip.

https://marcsmobility.com/permobil-m300-powered-wheelchair-seat-lift-tilt-recline-legs-2544.html

One of mine is silver, the other blue.  And, have the upscale controller
(bluetooth, color LCD, phone charger, headlights, turn signals, seat
memory, etc.) and seating system (Corpus 3G w/ ROHO)

(This is almost understandable... the folks who need chairs likely need
someone to service them, call on when thy have a problem, \"fit\" them,
etc.  And, often have insurance to cover those costs -- so where\'s
the incentive to save?)

I knew of a chap around here who made rich repairing chairs and
equipment for disabled people. He is an invalid himself. I believe he
now hires repairmen, or rather he works as intermediary between invalids
all around the country and the repairmen he knows, arranging the
shipments. He knows many invalids, and knows where to find repairmen, I
think it is.

When.if the apocalypse movies come to be, there\'ll not be a shortage
of \"stuff\" to exploit for quite some time!  :

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2023-03-14 14:34, Don Y wrote:

On 3/14/2023 2:24 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
It is interesting to see how different places approach these
\"utilities\".
In parts of MX, water is *delivered* (via a truck) to a storage tank
mounted high on your residence (roof).  Gravity feed so there\'s a limit
to the sort of pressure you expect.

On the roof? Well, yes, we had that at a house my parents had. But
that reservoir was just 300 or 400 litres. There was another reservoir
under the ground, some 14 cubic metres. An automatic pump filled the
roof reservoir as needed.

Ah, that would make more sense!  As I\'ve never taken any of my friends
up on their offers to \"spend a week by the sea\", I\'m only surmising what
they have.  I\'ve heard reference to \"The Water Truck\" and \"on the roof\".
My assumption was that the tank was on the roof but it could also be
that\'s just how it\'s filled (save the trouble of having to leave the
vehicle to position hoses, etc.)

I think here, for those houses that are off the water network, the truck
demands that they pour the water down, by gravity.

In this case, there was municipal water, but during the high season it
was a trickle. The big tank was underground precisely to capture that
trickle during the night ;-)

My parents eventually sold that beach place and bought another, which
had instead a single reservoir in the garage, with a pump, metal
sphere and pressure switch. Less hassle. If the municipal pressure was
high enough, the system deactivated automatically (just a non return
valve).

And, more importantly, a limit to the amount of water you have
available!
(I like REALLY long, hot showers so always decline invitations to visit
friends, there.  \"Oh, you can bathe in the ocean and a sponge bath to
remove
all of the SALT!\"  NoThankYouVeryMuch.  I left \"summer camp\" decades
ago!  :> )

:-D

We take for normal what we have

Sadly, yes.  I recall, growing up, it was common to \"sweep the driveway\"
with a hose (instead of a broom).  Someone doing that here would promptly
be told to stop (by concerned neighbors).

Yes, we should do that here as well. We typically \"mind our own
business\". There are too many houses with pools (when the beach is
meters away), or have a well kept grass garden.

This is a dry area. Water came from wells, then from rivers up to 150
Km away, and now from desalinization of the Mediterranean sea.

Our water source is ground water, augmented by water from the colorado
river via the Central Arizona Project (CAP) -- a 300+ mile man-made canal
that transports water the length (N-S) of the state.

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

I might have seen some documentary.

As water is becoming scarcer (Lakes Mead and Powell are at historic lows),
there is heightened concern over water supplies.  In most (AZ)
municipalities,
you have to ensure a 100 year water supply (what bank would want to finance
development if the area wouldn\'t be habitable when the balance comes due?)

Some developers have skirted the law by developing \"subdivisions\" of *5*
homes (too small for water supply regulations to apply -- even though
they put up a dozen of these developments on the same parcel of land!
(ah, but then it would be 50-100 homes and subject to legal constraints!)
The homeowners purchasing, there, suddenly find themselves without
access to water.

{chuckle}

[Seems to me, you\'d want to be sure of that before sinking a few hundred
kilobucks into an investment!]

Here there was a spree of building golf courses with lots of houses
around to sell mostly to British folk.

Next advancement here will be installing huge solar panels to power
them and thus lower the costs.

That\'s the logical solution, here, as the Gulf of California is just
~150 miles, as the crow flies, from our southern border.  And, we have
an overabundance of sunshine making solar very practical -- esp  on such
a large scale.

And, it sidesteps the energy storage issue; you \"store\" the energy \"in\" the
desalinated water which is easy to transport and store (no worries of
\"oil spills\", etc.)

But, this would require a long-term agreement with MX -- and, the US (esp
AZ) is hostile towards their state/peoples...

Tsk, tsk...

Finally, someone would want someone ELSE to pay for it!

:-D

Regional right wing politicians want to bring water from other
regions, but the politicians in those regions, all sides, say no way
in hell. So, I guess that\'s a no, no matter how much they bitch here.
Desalinization it will be :-}

The real solution is to adjust water usage.  I still see people with
natural grass, here.  And, swimming pools that lose 6 *ft* of depth to
evaporation, annually (the bigger the pool, the greater the volume).
Of course, *covering* the water cuts down those losses immensely
(and gives you a \"heated pool\") but that requires 10 minutes of
effort, daily.  Far more than most folks are (apparently) willing
to spend!

And, people watering with \"spray\" irrigation (40% loss).

Indeed.

Agricultural production here (Murcia) is high. Lots of sun hours. While
water is cheap, it is very profitable. We export veggies up north to
Germany and around.

But we are now using more water than we have, and complaining we don\'t
get more water from other regions.

Of course, growing cotton in the desert is equally brain damaged.

[We\'ve prepared for our citrus to be curtailed by planting smaller
varieties -- less losses to transpiration... less fruit, too!  :< ]

But, this part of the country is accustomed to being water wary.
Other parts are going to really find it hard to make the adjustment.
No, you won\'t be washing your car in your driveway.  And, maybe that
lawn is a thing of the past.

Utah has been notorious for being water wasters.  Now, I see,
their \"Great\" Salt Lake is likely to disappear, in a few *years*
(not \"generations\").  With the downside of exposing lots of
*dried* nasty compounds to wind-blown dispersal in their metro
area.  Ooops!  Kinda like pissing in your own sink...

Gosh.

Send the water to the bad water to the sea in trucks :-D

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Fred Bloggs]

On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 11:06:03 PM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2023-03-14 13:58, Fred Bloggs wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 8:42:16 AM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 13:07, Fred Bloggs wrote:
On Sunday, March 12, 2023 at 6:06:31 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 12 Mar 2023 14:47:19 -0700 (PDT), Ed Lee
edward....@gmail.com> wrote:
...
On-demand or point-of-use hot water heaters are problematic. For one thing they all have a minimum flow rate requirement to energize the heater, and this is variable and kind of on the high side for most of them, in the 0.5- 1.0 GPM range usually. Modern faucets are mostly flow rate limited to 1.0GPM, so you need to turn the water on \'full blast\' to get heat- now how much water is that going to save... Bathtub spigots, at 2.0 GPM shouldn\'t be a problem, but showers just might be. Then there is the apparently insurmountable issue of scale formation and periodic maintenance. Who needs that?
They are not problematic here. That is, every system has its advantages
and cons.

There is a minimum flow, yes, but that\'s not a problem with modern
electronically controlled units.

There are two main types here: constant gas flow, or dynamically
controlled to keep a constant water temperature.

Constant gas flow is cheaper. There is a manual regulator. The
temperature changes with the water flow: half water flow, double
temperature. The electronics can run from batteries.

The other is significantly more expensive. The heater needs electricity
for the controller and actuators. It is typically double use: it also
drives the house heating (hot water radiators).

The current generation are called \"condenser type\". The fumes exhaust is
at almost ambient temperature, so that the water vapor condenses into
water. This type requires that the gas is good quality, and yearly
maintenance, because that water can be acidic and corrosive. But uses
much less gas than \"normal\" heaters.


Scale formation? I haven\'t hit that problem yet. Depends on the city, I
guess. They last typically about 15 years, which is about the same for
electric heaters.

Mandatory inspection every 5 years (for every type of gas installation).


It is cheap: my unit spends one butane bottle (13KG) every two months.
Sanitary water only, not condensing, no automatic temperature
regulation, one person.

That\'s a different on-demand. There are whole house on-demand but I don\'t think they work spectacularly well because they usually install several of them. The type you have is good when you only have one or two faucets on it at one time. The modern water heater heater tanks are so good at retaining heat, I don\'t see any advantage to on-demand when you still have the heat loss problem through long runs of pipe from the heater to point of use. And you can\'t beat the price when they\'re a high volume commodity.
No, the system I talk about is whole house on demand, gas fired. It is
very common here. One per home, typically a kitchen and two bathrooms.

Granted, for simultaneous use it better be the dynamically controlled
expensive type or the temperature will fluctuate a lot.

The advantage is price, and endless hot water.

I have never seen here a gas fired hot water tank, only electric.
Instant on demand, electric powered, is very rare, I have never seen
anyone use it; only seen it at one hardware store.

I\'m not all that familiar with the gas products other than if you need really big capacity on-demand, gas is the way to go. Gas fired hot water tanks are popular add-ons to homes already piped for gas to supply things like furnaces and cooking appliances.

All the heaters, regardless of type, are ON/OFF controllers, meaning they don\'t modulate the heat source. So of course you\'re going to have that flow rate dependence of water temperature. You have to go to a storage tank (conventional) system for constant water temperature.
Most modern residential architectural design clusters the plumbing fixtures, either stacked vertically and/or horizontal adjacent rooms, to minimize cost and eliminate problems like long wait times for the hot water. If you have an addition on your house that includes a bathroom and is located something like 50 ft or more from the existing tank, a little 40 gal tank can be installed in a 3 x 3 ft. space, so just add a small closet to the bathroom.. Unless you require a really BIG water tank, like 75 gals, I don\'t see the advantage to going with on-demand. In office buildings or motels/hotels, the plumbing lines run a loooong way, so they absolutely have to recirculate the water to have hot water on tap.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2023-03-15 12:19, Fred Bloggs wrote:

On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 11:06:03 PM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 13:58, Fred Bloggs wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 8:42:16 AM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 13:07, Fred Bloggs wrote:
On Sunday, March 12, 2023 at 6:06:31 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 12 Mar 2023 14:47:19 -0700 (PDT), Ed Lee
edward....@gmail.com> wrote:
...
On-demand or point-of-use hot water heaters are problematic. For one thing they all have a minimum flow rate requirement to energize the heater, and this is variable and kind of on the high side for most of them, in the 0.5- 1.0 GPM range usually. Modern faucets are mostly flow rate limited to 1.0GPM, so you need to turn the water on \'full blast\' to get heat- now how much water is that going to save... Bathtub spigots, at 2.0 GPM shouldn\'t be a problem, but showers just might be. Then there is the apparently insurmountable issue of scale formation and periodic maintenance. Who needs that?
They are not problematic here. That is, every system has its advantages
and cons.

There is a minimum flow, yes, but that\'s not a problem with modern
electronically controlled units.

There are two main types here: constant gas flow, or dynamically
controlled to keep a constant water temperature.

Constant gas flow is cheaper. There is a manual regulator. The
temperature changes with the water flow: half water flow, double
temperature. The electronics can run from batteries.

The other is significantly more expensive. The heater needs electricity
for the controller and actuators. It is typically double use: it also
drives the house heating (hot water radiators).

The current generation are called \"condenser type\". The fumes exhaust is
at almost ambient temperature, so that the water vapor condenses into
water. This type requires that the gas is good quality, and yearly
maintenance, because that water can be acidic and corrosive. But uses
much less gas than \"normal\" heaters.


Scale formation? I haven\'t hit that problem yet. Depends on the city, I
guess. They last typically about 15 years, which is about the same for
electric heaters.

Mandatory inspection every 5 years (for every type of gas installation).


It is cheap: my unit spends one butane bottle (13KG) every two months.
Sanitary water only, not condensing, no automatic temperature
regulation, one person.

That\'s a different on-demand. There are whole house on-demand but I don\'t think they work spectacularly well because they usually install several of them. The type you have is good when you only have one or two faucets on it at one time. The modern water heater heater tanks are so good at retaining heat, I don\'t see any advantage to on-demand when you still have the heat loss problem through long runs of pipe from the heater to point of use. And you can\'t beat the price when they\'re a high volume commodity.
No, the system I talk about is whole house on demand, gas fired. It is
very common here. One per home, typically a kitchen and two bathrooms.

Granted, for simultaneous use it better be the dynamically controlled
expensive type or the temperature will fluctuate a lot.

The advantage is price, and endless hot water.

I have never seen here a gas fired hot water tank, only electric.
Instant on demand, electric powered, is very rare, I have never seen
anyone use it; only seen it at one hardware store.

I\'m not all that familiar with the gas products other than if you need really big capacity on-demand, gas is the way to go. Gas fired hot water tanks are popular add-ons to homes already piped for gas to supply things like furnaces and cooking appliances.

All the heaters, regardless of type, are ON/OFF controllers, meaning they don\'t modulate the heat source. So of course you\'re going to have that flow rate dependence of water temperature. You have to go to a storage tank (conventional) system for constant water temperature.

No, not true any longer.

We have instant gas heaters capable of keeping a constant water
temperature. It is an electronic control. Yes, the size of the flame can
be modulated.

Another method is having a small water tank (say, 5 litres) which
circulates with a pump and heats the tap water flow using a heat
exchanger. That little reservoir is heated intermittently.


In Spanish, so use google translate:

<https://www.leroymerlin.es/ideas-y-consejos/como-elegir/como-elegir-calentadores.html>

«In addition, heaters with automatic flame modulation or thermostatic
heaters offer energy savings of around 20% because they control the
flame output via the gas flow rate to match the heat input to the hot
water demand.»


For example, this unit, about 300€:

<https://www.leroymerlin.es/productos/fontaneria/agua-caliente-sanitaria/calentadores-de-agua/calentador-gas-gils-itaca-estanco-nox-12l-gas-butano-85163788.html>



I can not find at the site a section on electric instant heaters, but I
see no problem modulating the electric power with power electronics to
produce a fixed temp.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Fred Bloggs]

On Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 7:49:36 AM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2023-03-15 12:19, Fred Bloggs wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 11:06:03 PM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 13:58, Fred Bloggs wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 8:42:16 AM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 13:07, Fred Bloggs wrote:
On Sunday, March 12, 2023 at 6:06:31 PM UTC-4, John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 12 Mar 2023 14:47:19 -0700 (PDT), Ed Lee
edward....@gmail.com> wrote:
...
On-demand or point-of-use hot water heaters are problematic. For one thing they all have a minimum flow rate requirement to energize the heater, and this is variable and kind of on the high side for most of them, in the 0.5- 1.0 GPM range usually. Modern faucets are mostly flow rate limited to 1.0GPM, so you need to turn the water on \'full blast\' to get heat- now how much water is that going to save... Bathtub spigots, at 2.0 GPM shouldn\'t be a problem, but showers just might be. Then there is the apparently insurmountable issue of scale formation and periodic maintenance. Who needs that?
They are not problematic here. That is, every system has its advantages
and cons.

There is a minimum flow, yes, but that\'s not a problem with modern
electronically controlled units.

There are two main types here: constant gas flow, or dynamically
controlled to keep a constant water temperature.

Constant gas flow is cheaper. There is a manual regulator. The
temperature changes with the water flow: half water flow, double
temperature. The electronics can run from batteries.

The other is significantly more expensive. The heater needs electricity
for the controller and actuators. It is typically double use: it also
drives the house heating (hot water radiators).

The current generation are called \"condenser type\". The fumes exhaust is
at almost ambient temperature, so that the water vapor condenses into
water. This type requires that the gas is good quality, and yearly
maintenance, because that water can be acidic and corrosive. But uses
much less gas than \"normal\" heaters.


Scale formation? I haven\'t hit that problem yet. Depends on the city, I
guess. They last typically about 15 years, which is about the same for
electric heaters.

Mandatory inspection every 5 years (for every type of gas installation).


It is cheap: my unit spends one butane bottle (13KG) every two months.
Sanitary water only, not condensing, no automatic temperature
regulation, one person.

That\'s a different on-demand. There are whole house on-demand but I don\'t think they work spectacularly well because they usually install several of them. The type you have is good when you only have one or two faucets on it at one time. The modern water heater heater tanks are so good at retaining heat, I don\'t see any advantage to on-demand when you still have the heat loss problem through long runs of pipe from the heater to point of use.. And you can\'t beat the price when they\'re a high volume commodity.
No, the system I talk about is whole house on demand, gas fired. It is
very common here. One per home, typically a kitchen and two bathrooms.

Granted, for simultaneous use it better be the dynamically controlled
expensive type or the temperature will fluctuate a lot.

The advantage is price, and endless hot water.

I have never seen here a gas fired hot water tank, only electric.
Instant on demand, electric powered, is very rare, I have never seen
anyone use it; only seen it at one hardware store.

I\'m not all that familiar with the gas products other than if you need really big capacity on-demand, gas is the way to go. Gas fired hot water tanks are popular add-ons to homes already piped for gas to supply things like furnaces and cooking appliances.

All the heaters, regardless of type, are ON/OFF controllers, meaning they don\'t modulate the heat source. So of course you\'re going to have that flow rate dependence of water temperature. You have to go to a storage tank (conventional) system for constant water temperature.
No, not true any longer.

We have instant gas heaters capable of keeping a constant water
temperature. It is an electronic control. Yes, the size of the flame can
be modulated.

Another method is having a small water tank (say, 5 litres) which
circulates with a pump and heats the tap water flow using a heat
exchanger. That little reservoir is heated intermittently.


In Spanish, so use google translate:

https://www.leroymerlin.es/ideas-y-consejos/como-elegir/como-elegir-calentadores.html

«In addition, heaters with automatic flame modulation or thermostatic
heaters offer energy savings of around 20% because they control the
flame output via the gas flow rate to match the heat input to the hot
water demand.»


For example, this unit, about 300€:

https://www.leroymerlin.es/productos/fontaneria/agua-caliente-sanitaria/calentadores-de-agua/calentador-gas-gils-itaca-estanco-nox-12l-gas-butano-85163788.html



I can not find at the site a section on electric instant heaters, but I
see no problem modulating the electric power with power electronics to
produce a fixed temp.

Here\'s one in English:

https://www.e-tankless.com/tankless-concept.php

https://www.stiebel-eltron-usa.com/

I would research replacement costs of single sourced parts before I bought something like that. If there\'s no \"after market\" industry support, I wouldn\'t touch it.

This is about as cheap as it gets, and requires a 100A circuit, no thanks:

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Stiebel-Eltron-Tempra-24-Plus-Adv-Flow-Control-and-Self-Modulating-24-kW-4-68-GPM-Residential-Electric-Tankless-Water-Heater-Tempra-24-Plus/306745520

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Don Y]

On 3/15/2023 3:53 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

Sadly, most folks simply don\'t want \"old\" things -- regardless of
whether or not they work, show no signs of wear, etc.

A neighbor gave me one of these, yesterday:
     <https://www.ebay.com/itm/266159332945
dog had chewed the power cords.  What\'s that, an hour to repair
(at zero cost as you just cut the \"modular\" end off a power cord
and wire that in place of the damaged cord)?

[I made a point of selecting a very long cord as power tools
invariably have cords that *should* be a little longer]

When I went to return it (2 hours later), she told me to keep it; she\'d
already bought a replacement (before she gave me the broken one).
Now, I\'ll have to try to find someone who will want it as I\'ve already
got 3 hammer drills (various sizes).

Wow, garbaging a drill just because a bad cable.

Well, it makes sense if she doesn\'t know how to repair it herself, and a repair
shop is too expensive.

I don\'t know if there are such things as \"repair shops\", anymore.
Major appliances are usually serviced by \"appliance companies\"
(third parties) who either have an agreement with the manifacturer
to provide \"in warranty\" service (billing the manufacturer for
their activities) *or* the homeowner.

The standing joke is: $100 to drive out to your house. This
is probably par for other services (plumber, electrician, etc.).
*Landscapers* will want $150+ to \"maintain\" your yard (note
that we don\'t have lawns, here, so there\'s no *grass* to mow)
and that\'s just one visit per month... \"unskilled\" labor.

At a beach house the clothes washing machine broke down. The intake valve, I
knew. My guests, from the other side of the pond, said never mind, we\'ll go to
a laundry shop for a few days. I said, nah, I\'ll call the repair man, it is
only a valve. I called him, he charged just 35€.

My guests were surprised at how cheap that was. Well, on Madrid it might be 50€
or 75€, they charge only for coming along.

Yes, see above.

Yes, of course, I could have repaired it myself, but would have taken days,
finding the correct valve, and tinkering to open the old machine, and hurting
my old back.

I try to find a balance. Things like TVs/monitors, hammer drills, etc.
are relatively easy. And, as I\'m not at risk of *losing* the item
(it was broken when I got it!), there\'s less pressure to get it done
quickly -- or at all!

OTOH, the blower motor in the furnace was making a lot of noise,
recently (the large squirrel-cage blower is supported solely by
the motor shaft so the bearings see a bit of wear). A new motor
was ~$200 and about an hour of my time. A serviceman would have
pitched replacing the furnace -- to the tune of ~$10K (\"Well, we\'ll
have to replace the A-coil, as well. And, might as well replace
the compressor... BUT, we\'ll give you a brand new thermostat,
FOR FREE!\"

The cooling fan in the compressor failed some years ago. $8 for
a new cap -- and another hour of my time (to drive to the store).

I used to repair (large) *discarded* LCD TVs.  But, quickly ran out of
people to give them to!  Ditto computer monitors.  (I now have ~30 that
I\'ve rescued and repaired... it\'s interesting just how many you can
put to use when they are \"free\"!  :-/   Sadly, I need a *small* one,
with VESA mount, and can\'t seem to find anything like that.)

I recogn I garbaged an LG TV recently. They asked too much, they said they need
to replace the entire power supply module.

Well, of course, that\'s not what they *needed* to do; it\'s just how
they approach repairs (swap boards). I find a lot of TVs lose
an LDO for a standby supply or similar.

I haven\'t done much electronic repairs since the 90\'s... My job path didn\'t go
that way. So my few repair skills are too rusty.

I replace a lot of bad electrolytics. I\'ve got a SAS HBA that needs
attention. \"Buying new\" is out of the question (no longer in
production).

The same approach deals with many monitor failures (inverters for
the CFLs... possibly taking out some FETs along the way).

I repaired/refurbished electric wheelchairs for a time (too many of
them being donated to us and then scrapped).  I managed to find homes
for *two*.  And, took two for myself (using one in my automation project,
the other I converted into an electric wheelbarrow).  And, all the rest
(about one-and-a-half per month) just into the tip.

https://marcsmobility.com/permobil-m300-powered-wheelchair-seat-lift-tilt-recline-legs-2544.html

One of mine is silver, the other blue.  And, have the upscale controller
(bluetooth, color LCD, phone charger, headlights, turn signals, seat
memory, etc.) and seating system (Corpus 3G w/ ROHO)

(This is almost understandable... the folks who need chairs likely need
someone to service them, call on when thy have a problem, \"fit\" them,
etc.  And, often have insurance to cover those costs -- so where\'s
the incentive to save?)

I knew of a chap around here who made rich repairing chairs and equipment for
disabled people. He is an invalid himself. I believe he now hires repairmen, or
rather he works as intermediary between invalids all around the country and the
repairmen he knows, arranging the shipments. He knows many invalids, and knows
where to find repairmen, I think it is.

I donate ~10/hrs per week to various \"charities\". Have done so for more
than 20 years as a way to \"give back\". I try to find activities that can
exploit my abilities in ways that others might not be able to offer
(e.g., I\'m not going to tear down discarded kit to recycle its component
parts -- let some \"less skilled\" person take on that job).

I\'ve got the tools to \"reprogram\" the controllers in the chairs -- as well
as understanding how the mechanisms are intended to interact (each chair
is different, once owned -- because each rider has different needs; so,
you have to return it to a \"default\" condition before it has any hope of
being of use to someone else).

And, thinking like an engineer (instead of a wheelchair repairman), I
can find ways to exploit the chair\'s design to make my work easier.

E.g., to replace the batteries on my chairs, you first have to raise the
seat (straight up). But, the batteries are dead -- so, you can\'t rely
on the motorized mechanism to do that for you! Instead, you are
expected to use the *special* long wrench that you thread through a
hole in the seat base (after removing the cushions) and manually
crank it up (like a jack for an automobile).

Then, remove the cosmetic shroud to expose the batteries. Remove
each of them (pretty heavy as they are very large -- capacity!).
Unbolt the power connections. Repeat, in reverse, to reinstall.

*But*, you can feed power into the chair through the charging port!
And, isolate the (dead) batteries -- master circuit breaker -- so the
charger isn\'t dragged down by their condition. And, bypass the safety
interlock so the chair is operable in this state.

While you can\'t source enough current to \"move a person\" (the wiring
to the charging port wasn\'t designed to carry much current -- nor any
of the connections along the way back to the battery), you *can* get
the chair to move itself AND, most importantly, get the seat elevator
to operate! No need to \"crank\" it up! Likewise, get the leg lift
mechanism to lift the leg rests for better access to the front battery.
Etc.

The whole operation proceeds much faster. Watch a chair repairman
do it the \"approved way\" and just chuckle.

(They charge $1100 to replace a set of batteries. IIRC, the batteries
are about $500 of that total -- undoubtedly more if you let them
charge you THEIR inflated prices for them).

If you have insurance, the insurance company will cover this cost
(I think once every 3-5 years?). But, you\'re paying for that insurance,
of course.

And, *I* can\'t make a claim for some chair that I don\'t medically
*need* (nor can the charity). So, it pays to be able to expedite the
repair!

Now, what does a recipient of such a \"gifted\" chair do when their
batteries run out? *I* don\'t guarantee my continued availability
to service THEIR chair -- even though I may have refurbished it
prior to it being gifted to them!

When.if the apocalypse movies come to be, there\'ll not be a shortage
of \"stuff\" to exploit for quite some time!  :

 

[Don Y]

On 3/15/2023 4:06 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

We take for normal what we have

Sadly, yes.  I recall, growing up, it was common to \"sweep the driveway\"
with a hose (instead of a broom).  Someone doing that here would promptly
be told to stop (by concerned neighbors).

Yes, we should do that here as well. We typically \"mind our own business\".

Oh, the neighbors would *politely* draw your attention to your waste.
We realize that people who \"aren\'t from around here\" likely don\'t
understand the preoccupation with water; what was normal for you in
the last place you lived is likely not the same, here.

However, someone who repeatedly ignores such \"prompting\" can
just as easily find a uniformed police officer making the
same \"threat\" -- with legal consequences!

There are too many houses with pools (when the beach is meters away), or have a
well kept grass garden.

Thankfully, grass is obsolescent (though still not obsolete). The
diehards who are used to a \"lush green lawn\" move to artificial grass
(why not just PAINT the dirt green??)

Pools are laughable. I imagine 1/3 of homes have them (but they
are small -- 600-1200 sq ft) and can\'t recall seeing anyone *using*
them (maybe if the grandkids come for a visit as the *kids* are
no longer interested?).

So, it\'s a cost (water replenishment, routine cleaning, chemicals)
and a liability (you have to take steps to protect others from
accessing your pool and pay higher insurance premiums... for
something that deprives you of a usable yard!).

[\"garden\", here, tends to indicate a plot of land dedicated
to growing foodstuffs. Lawn/yard being just \"space\"]

As water is becoming scarcer (Lakes Mead and Powell are at historic lows),
there is heightened concern over water supplies.  In most (AZ) municipalities,
you have to ensure a 100 year water supply (what bank would want to finance
development if the area wouldn\'t be habitable when the balance comes due?)

Some developers have skirted the law by developing \"subdivisions\" of *5*
homes (too small for water supply regulations to apply -- even though
they put up a dozen of these developments on the same parcel of land!
(ah, but then it would be 50-100 homes and subject to legal constraints!)
The homeowners purchasing, there, suddenly find themselves without
access to water.

{chuckle}

They, of course, feel that someone else should solve THEIR problem.
Like buying a diesel truck and discovering the nearest station
that sells diesel fuel is halfway across town (d\'uh... didn\'t you
think about that BEFORE you made your purchase?)

[Seems to me, you\'d want to be sure of that before sinking a few hundred
kilobucks into an investment!]

Here there was a spree of building golf courses with lots of houses around to
sell mostly to British folk.

We have some \"world class\" courses -- well, at least some \"celebrity\"
tournaments are hosted on them. But, it\'s largely a waste of real
estate. The private ones are usually associated with a \"country
club\" (a means of transfering money from folks who want to APPEAR
wealthy to people who delight in giving them the impression that
they *are*!) with membership dues, requirements to spend $X monthly
eating *at* The Club (if you fail to spend the money, you are just
billed for it AS IF you had dined there), etc.

SWMBO used to golf (recreationally) ages ago. She\'s found more
productive things to do with her time, now. And, other neighbors
have realized that their bodies aren\'t up for the task (and NO ONe
wants anything other than a 6AM tee time during the summer months...
it\'s already 80F, here, now).

Regional right wing politicians want to bring water from other regions, but
the politicians in those regions, all sides, say no way in hell. So, I guess
that\'s a no, no matter how much they bitch here. Desalinization it will be :-}

The real solution is to adjust water usage.  I still see people with
natural grass, here.  And, swimming pools that lose 6 *ft* of depth to
evaporation, annually (the bigger the pool, the greater the volume).
Of course, *covering* the water cuts down those losses immensely
(and gives you a \"heated pool\") but that requires 10 minutes of
effort, daily.  Far more than most folks are (apparently) willing
to spend!

And, people watering with \"spray\" irrigation (40% loss).

Indeed.

Agricultural production here (Murcia) is high. Lots of sun hours. While water
is cheap, it is very profitable. We export veggies up north to Germany and around.

The local drops tend not to be chosen wisely. Pecans, cotton, etc.
are heavy water users. A Saudi-owned farm produces alfalfa (!) to
export. It\'s likely there will be some significant changes to usage
as our CAP allotment is expected to be cut by 20%. Hard to imagine
a way that a farmer can trim that much off his water budget if
he hasn\'t already done so -- other than reducing the size of his crop!

But we are now using more water than we have, and complaining we don\'t get more
water from other regions.

Exactly. One thinks of water as just being \"there\" -- wherever \"there\"
happens to be!

Of course, growing cotton in the desert is equally brain damaged.

[We\'ve prepared for our citrus to be curtailed by planting smaller
varieties -- less losses to transpiration... less fruit, too!  :< ]

But, this part of the country is accustomed to being water wary.
Other parts are going to really find it hard to make the adjustment.
No, you won\'t be washing your car in your driveway.  And, maybe that
lawn is a thing of the past.

Utah has been notorious for being water wasters.  Now, I see,
their \"Great\" Salt Lake is likely to disappear, in a few *years*
(not \"generations\").  With the downside of exposing lots of
*dried* nasty compounds to wind-blown dispersal in their metro
area.  Ooops!  Kinda like pissing in your own sink...

Gosh.

Send the water to the bad water to the sea in trucks :-D

<https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/06/us/great-salt-lake-disappearing-drought-climate/index.html>

Note the water \"off in the distance\"...

 

[Ricky]

On Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 6:37:10 AM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2023-03-15 05:22, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 11:12:02 PM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 18:03, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 6:11:27 AM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 10:45, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 4:59:28 AM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 05:16, Ricky wrote:
On Monday, March 13, 2023 at 7:57:57 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 14. marts 2023 kl. 00.35.00 UTC+1 skrev Lamont Cranston:
On Monday, March 13, 2023 at 6:15:00 PM UTC-5, Tabby wrote:
returning the water via the cold circuit is multiple kinds of wrong. Power the circulating pump from a kitchen PIR.
But, I\'m sure you can understand that in most instances, people are not willing to re-plumb their home to make use
of a recirculating pump. Also, recirculating the water is preferable to dumping in the drain. In my area the cost for sewer
is almost 2 times the cost of the water.
btw, could you list those multiple kinds of wrong?
Mikek
you generally don\'t want any risk of getting contamination, including your hot water, into the potable cold water system

So hot water is not potable??? I never knew that. I guess everytime I run the hot water, I should then run the cold water a while to clean the tap?

This whole idea of running hot water through the system to keep the water in the pipe hot is silly. They make instant hot water heaters for sinks, that do this job and only need an outlet.
Not everybody can use those; they need an ample electricity supply..

For a sink, it uses a standard 120V, 15A connection. Who doesn\'t have that??? Are you talking about some third world country? If they can\'t power this unit, how could they possibly power a hot water tank? Mine is 240V, 18A.
Most houses here have a contract that limits total instant power to 3.5
KW. It certainly is not a third world country. You can have more power,
up to 15 KW, but it is significantly more expensive.

Hot water tanks take 1 KW, maybe two if the tank is big. Mine I changed
to take 0.5 KW.

It must take forever to heat a tank of water. Sounds rather dysfunctional. My microwave oven uses more than 0.5 kW and it is some 40 years old. A hair dryer uses 1.44 kW. I guess you have to turn off all sorts of things to use a stove. But then maybe you have gas. No, if that were true, you would have a gas hot water heater.

Sorry, this is not very easy for me to digest. The water uses the same amount of energy to heat up if you do it at 0.5 kW, or 5 kW. I just can\'t picture how it can be practical at 0.5 kW. I can take a shower and have a tank full of hot water in an hour. At 500 watts, it takes 10 hours.
Actually, it takes about four hours, the tank has 50 litres. Runs on a
timer during the night, if I activate it. I prefer the gas fired on
demand hot water system (yes, I have both systems). There is only one
person in the house, I don\'t need the hot water tank to reheat till next
day.

Wow! I\'m sorry, but that\'s clearly not first world. Or something is wrong with the math. 4 hours of 500W is 2 kWh, or 7.2 million joules. Divide by 4.186 (water specific heat) to get 1.7 million g°C, or 1,700 liter°C. That\'s around 34 °C for 50 liters. So room temperature to 130°F or about 55°C.
Well, if it starts at 20°C then in 4 hours it goes to 54°C, which is hot
enough to burn the skin. If the tank was not fully spent, it goes up to
70°C, which is about the max temp I set.

(room temp typically 20°C)

So you live somewhere hot like Puerto Rico, where the water never comes in cold. Still, the math doesn\'t lie. I don\'t know why you would want 70°C water. That\'s dangerously hot. 55°C will give you a first degree burn if you keep your hand under it until you are forced to pull it away. 70°C will give you second degree burns, even if you pull your hand away. Not the best idea.

At least you have electricity. So 2.5 world.

--

Rick C.

--- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
--- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

 

[Lamont Cranston]

>Wow, garbaging a drill just because a bad cable.

I have a nice skilsaw, because someone cut the cord,
rather then fixing it the put it in the trash.
Mikek

 

[Don Y]

On 3/15/2023 10:23 AM, Lamont Cranston wrote:

Wow, garbaging a drill just because a bad cable.

I have a nice skilsaw, because someone cut the cord,
rather then fixing it the put it in the trash.

In the last month, I\'ve rescued a chainsaw (bar oiler problem),
power washer (gummed up carburetor), the hammer drill, two
3KVA UPSs (batteries needed replacing... d\'uh!), a little
\"motorized skateboard\" (no idea what the kids call these things),
a tiny PC -- 4\"x4\"x2\" (bad power adapter), an electric bike
(actually, that was last month), a rusted bolt cutter (Naval jelly,
anyone?), etc.

If there weren\'t so many other, more interesting, things to do,
I could probably keep busy 24/7 just fixing things -- not
counting from folks who would *pay* for that service!

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2023-03-15 16:16, Don Y wrote:

On 3/15/2023 4:06 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
We take for normal what we have

Sadly, yes.  I recall, growing up, it was common to \"sweep the driveway\"
with a hose (instead of a broom).  Someone doing that here would
promptly
be told to stop (by concerned neighbors).

Yes, we should do that here as well. We typically \"mind our own
business\".

Oh, the neighbors would *politely* draw your attention to your waste.
We realize that people who \"aren\'t from around here\" likely don\'t
understand the preoccupation with water; what was normal for you in
the last place you lived is likely not the same, here.

However, someone who repeatedly ignores such \"prompting\" can
just as easily find a uniformed police officer making the
same \"threat\" -- with legal consequences!

Oh, I was just thinking that there are cultural differences. Most people
here would think \"mind your own business\" and say nothing, even if
some/many bitch in private about a neighbour that wastes water.

There are too many houses with pools (when the beach is meters away),
or have a well kept grass garden.

Thankfully, grass is obsolescent (though still not obsolete).  The
diehards who are used to a \"lush green lawn\" move to artificial grass
(why not just PAINT the dirt green??)

There are other plants that keep the lawn green while using little
water. Not all of them allow to walk on it, though.

Pools are laughable.  I imagine 1/3 of homes have them (but they
are small -- 600-1200 sq ft) and can\'t recall seeing anyone *using*
them (maybe if the grandkids come for a visit as the *kids* are
no longer interested?).

So, it\'s a cost (water replenishment, routine cleaning, chemicals)
and a liability (you have to take steps to protect others from
accessing your pool and pay higher insurance premiums... for
something that deprives you of a usable yard!).

[\"garden\", here, tends to indicate a plot of land dedicated
to growing foodstuffs.  Lawn/yard being just \"space\"]

Oh! I didn\'t know that difference in meaning for garden.

As water is becoming scarcer (Lakes Mead and Powell are at historic
lows),
there is heightened concern over water supplies.  In most (AZ)
municipalities,
you have to ensure a 100 year water supply (what bank would want to
finance
development if the area wouldn\'t be habitable when the balance comes
due?)

Some developers have skirted the law by developing \"subdivisions\" of *5*
homes (too small for water supply regulations to apply -- even though
they put up a dozen of these developments on the same parcel of land!
(ah, but then it would be 50-100 homes and subject to legal
constraints!)
The homeowners purchasing, there, suddenly find themselves without
access to water.

{chuckle}

They, of course, feel that someone else should solve THEIR problem.
Like buying a diesel truck and discovering the nearest station
that sells diesel fuel is halfway across town (d\'uh... didn\'t you
think about that BEFORE you made your purchase?)

Heh.

(around here, diesel is found on every station)

[Seems to me, you\'d want to be sure of that before sinking a few hundred
kilobucks into an investment!]

Here there was a spree of building golf courses with lots of houses
around to sell mostly to British folk.

We have some \"world class\" courses -- well, at least some \"celebrity\"
tournaments are hosted on them.  But, it\'s largely a waste of real
estate.  The private ones are usually associated with a \"country
club\" (a means of transfering money from folks who want to APPEAR
wealthy to people who delight in giving them the impression that
they *are*!) with membership dues, requirements to spend $X monthly
eating *at* The Club (if you fail to spend the money, you are just
billed for it AS IF you had dined there), etc.

SWMBO used to golf (recreationally) ages ago.  She\'s found more
productive things to do with her time, now.  And, other neighbors
have realized that their bodies aren\'t up for the task (and NO ONe
wants anything other than a 6AM tee time during the summer months...
it\'s already 80F, here, now).

Yep, but it is not only the golf course itself. It is a whole
residential complex. The course, one hotel or more (different luxury
levels), individual houses (probably sharing a wall), apartments, shops,
restaurants, bars, discos, a Telco (to provide British TV programming to
them),... lots of things, huge investments. And lots of grass,
apparently the British love to see green even if this is almost the desert.

Dunno what they do now, after Brexit.


<https://goo.gl/maps/K1Naf4UwdDnZ8Wuw5>

<https://goo.gl/maps/wYnrpm8mVUUxm4uk8>

Regional right wing politicians want to bring water from other
regions, but the politicians in those regions, all sides, say no way
in hell. So, I guess that\'s a no, no matter how much they bitch
here. Desalinization it will be :-}

The real solution is to adjust water usage.  I still see people with
natural grass, here.  And, swimming pools that lose 6 *ft* of depth to
evaporation, annually (the bigger the pool, the greater the volume).
Of course, *covering* the water cuts down those losses immensely
(and gives you a \"heated pool\") but that requires 10 minutes of
effort, daily.  Far more than most folks are (apparently) willing
to spend!

And, people watering with \"spray\" irrigation (40% loss).

Indeed.

Agricultural production here (Murcia) is high. Lots of sun hours.
While water is cheap, it is very profitable. We export veggies up
north to Germany and around.

The local drops tend not to be chosen wisely.  Pecans, cotton, etc.
are heavy water users.  A Saudi-owned farm produces alfalfa (!) to
export.  It\'s likely there will be some significant changes to usage
as our CAP allotment is expected to be cut by 20%.  Hard to imagine
a way that a farmer can trim that much off his water budget if
he hasn\'t already done so -- other than reducing the size of his crop!

But we are now using more water than we have, and complaining we don\'t
get more water from other regions.

Exactly.  One thinks of water as just being \"there\" -- wherever \"there\"
happens to be!

Yep.

Of course, growing cotton in the desert is equally brain damaged.

[We\'ve prepared for our citrus to be curtailed by planting smaller
varieties -- less losses to transpiration... less fruit, too!  :< ]

But, this part of the country is accustomed to being water wary.
Other parts are going to really find it hard to make the adjustment.
No, you won\'t be washing your car in your driveway.  And, maybe that
lawn is a thing of the past.

Utah has been notorious for being water wasters.  Now, I see,
their \"Great\" Salt Lake is likely to disappear, in a few *years*
(not \"generations\").  With the downside of exposing lots of
*dried* nasty compounds to wind-blown dispersal in their metro
area.  Ooops!  Kinda like pissing in your own sink...

Gosh.

Send the water to the bad water to the sea in trucks :-D

https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/06/us/great-salt-lake-disappearing-drought-climate/index.html

Note the water \"off in the distance\"...

heh.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2023-03-15 15:55, Don Y wrote:

On 3/15/2023 3:53 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
Sadly, most folks simply don\'t want \"old\" things -- regardless of
whether or not they work, show no signs of wear, etc.

A neighbor gave me one of these, yesterday:
     <https://www.ebay.com/itm/266159332945
dog had chewed the power cords.  What\'s that, an hour to repair
(at zero cost as you just cut the \"modular\" end off a power cord
and wire that in place of the damaged cord)?

[I made a point of selecting a very long cord as power tools
invariably have cords that *should* be a little longer]

When I went to return it (2 hours later), she told me to keep it; she\'d
already bought a replacement (before she gave me the broken one).
Now, I\'ll have to try to find someone who will want it as I\'ve already
got 3 hammer drills (various sizes).

Wow, garbaging a drill just because a bad cable.

Well, it makes sense if she doesn\'t know how to repair it herself, and
a repair shop is too expensive.

I don\'t know if there are such things as \"repair shops\", anymore.
Major appliances are usually serviced by \"appliance companies\"
(third parties) who either have an agreement with the manifacturer
to provide \"in warranty\" service (billing the manufacturer for
their activities) *or* the homeowner.

We are going in that direction everywhere. :-(

....

And, thinking like an engineer (instead of a wheelchair repairman), I
can find ways to exploit the chair\'s design to make my work easier.

E.g., to replace the batteries on my chairs, you first have to raise the
seat (straight up).  But, the batteries are dead -- so, you can\'t rely
on the motorized mechanism to do that for you!  Instead, you are
expected to use the *special* long wrench that you thread through a
hole in the seat base (after removing the cushions) and manually
crank it up (like a jack for an automobile).

Then, remove the cosmetic shroud to expose the batteries.  Remove
each of them (pretty heavy as they are very large -- capacity!).
Unbolt the power connections.  Repeat, in reverse, to reinstall.

*But*, you can feed power into the chair through the charging port!
And, isolate the (dead) batteries -- master circuit breaker -- so the
charger isn\'t dragged down by their condition.  And, bypass the safety
interlock so the chair is operable in this state.

I was thinking of that.

While you can\'t source enough current to \"move a person\" (the wiring
to the charging port wasn\'t designed to carry much current -- nor any
of the connections along the way back to the battery), you *can* get
the chair to move itself AND, most importantly, get the seat elevator
to operate!  No need to \"crank\" it up!  Likewise, get the leg lift
mechanism to lift the leg rests for better access to the front battery.
Etc.

The whole operation proceeds much faster.  Watch a chair repairman
do it the \"approved way\" and just chuckle.

(They charge $1100 to replace a set of batteries.  IIRC, the batteries
are about $500 of that total -- undoubtedly more if you let them
charge you THEIR inflated prices for them).

If you have insurance, the insurance company will cover this cost
(I think once every 3-5 years?).  But, you\'re paying for that insurance,
of course.

And, *I* can\'t make a claim for some chair that I don\'t medically
*need* (nor can the charity).  So, it pays to be able to expedite the
repair!

Now, what does a recipient of such a \"gifted\" chair do when their
batteries run out?  *I* don\'t guarantee my continued availability
to service THEIR chair -- even though I may have refurbished it
prior to it being gifted to them!

Of course.

When.if the apocalypse movies come to be, there\'ll not be a shortage
of \"stuff\" to exploit for quite some time!  :

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Carlos E.R.]

On 2023-03-15 18:05, Ricky wrote:

On Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 6:37:10 AM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-15 05:22, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 11:12:02 PM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 18:03, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 6:11:27 AM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 10:45, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 4:59:28 AM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 05:16, Ricky wrote:
On Monday, March 13, 2023 at 7:57:57 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 14. marts 2023 kl. 00.35.00 UTC+1 skrev Lamont Cranston:
On Monday, March 13, 2023 at 6:15:00 PM UTC-5, Tabby wrote:
returning the water via the cold circuit is multiple kinds of wrong. Power the circulating pump from a kitchen PIR.
But, I\'m sure you can understand that in most instances, people are not willing to re-plumb their home to make use
of a recirculating pump. Also, recirculating the water is preferable to dumping in the drain. In my area the cost for sewer
is almost 2 times the cost of the water.
btw, could you list those multiple kinds of wrong?
Mikek
you generally don\'t want any risk of getting contamination, including your hot water, into the potable cold water system

So hot water is not potable??? I never knew that. I guess everytime I run the hot water, I should then run the cold water a while to clean the tap?

This whole idea of running hot water through the system to keep the water in the pipe hot is silly. They make instant hot water heaters for sinks, that do this job and only need an outlet.
Not everybody can use those; they need an ample electricity supply.

For a sink, it uses a standard 120V, 15A connection. Who doesn\'t have that??? Are you talking about some third world country? If they can\'t power this unit, how could they possibly power a hot water tank? Mine is 240V, 18A.
Most houses here have a contract that limits total instant power to 3.5
KW. It certainly is not a third world country. You can have more power,
up to 15 KW, but it is significantly more expensive.

Hot water tanks take 1 KW, maybe two if the tank is big. Mine I changed
to take 0.5 KW.

It must take forever to heat a tank of water. Sounds rather dysfunctional. My microwave oven uses more than 0.5 kW and it is some 40 years old. A hair dryer uses 1.44 kW. I guess you have to turn off all sorts of things to use a stove. But then maybe you have gas. No, if that were true, you would have a gas hot water heater.

Sorry, this is not very easy for me to digest. The water uses the same amount of energy to heat up if you do it at 0.5 kW, or 5 kW. I just can\'t picture how it can be practical at 0.5 kW. I can take a shower and have a tank full of hot water in an hour. At 500 watts, it takes 10 hours.
Actually, it takes about four hours, the tank has 50 litres. Runs on a
timer during the night, if I activate it. I prefer the gas fired on
demand hot water system (yes, I have both systems). There is only one
person in the house, I don\'t need the hot water tank to reheat till next
day.

Wow! I\'m sorry, but that\'s clearly not first world. Or something is wrong with the math. 4 hours of 500W is 2 kWh, or 7.2 million joules. Divide by 4.186 (water specific heat) to get 1.7 million g°C, or 1,700 liter°C. That\'s around 34 °C for 50 liters. So room temperature to 130°F or about 55°C.
Well, if it starts at 20°C then in 4 hours it goes to 54°C, which is hot
enough to burn the skin. If the tank was not fully spent, it goes up to
70°C, which is about the max temp I set.

(room temp typically 20°C)

So you live somewhere hot like Puerto Rico, where the water never comes in cold. Still, the math doesn\'t lie. I don\'t know why you would want 70°C water. That\'s dangerously hot. 55°C will give you a first degree burn if you keep your hand under it until you are forced to pull it away. 70°C will give you second degree burns, even if you pull your hand away. Not the best idea.

Because a 50 litres tank at 70°C lasts a longer shower than a tank at
50°C, or two people. That\'s how it is done here. You simply mix the hot
water with cold. Me, I set the tank to a hotter temp in winter than in
summer.

At least you have electricity. So 2.5 world.

Interesting how you judge countries.

--
Cheers, Carlos.

 

[Don Y]

On 3/15/2023 1:26 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2023-03-15 16:16, Don Y wrote:
On 3/15/2023 4:06 AM, Carlos E.R. wrote:
We take for normal what we have

Sadly, yes.  I recall, growing up, it was common to \"sweep the driveway\"
with a hose (instead of a broom).  Someone doing that here would promptly
be told to stop (by concerned neighbors).

Yes, we should do that here as well. We typically \"mind our own business\".

Oh, the neighbors would *politely* draw your attention to your waste.
We realize that people who \"aren\'t from around here\" likely don\'t
understand the preoccupation with water; what was normal for you in
the last place you lived is likely not the same, here.

However, someone who repeatedly ignores such \"prompting\" can
just as easily find a uniformed police officer making the
same \"threat\" -- with legal consequences!

Oh, I was just thinking that there are cultural differences. Most people here
would think \"mind your own business\" and say nothing, even if some/many bitch
in private about a neighbour that wastes water.

For other things, yes. Leave your trash cans out at the curb an extra day
and folks will grumble *privately*, but likely not comment.

Water, OTOH, affects each of us. That\'s *my* water you\'re wasting!

There are too many houses with pools (when the beach is meters away), or
have a well kept grass garden.

Thankfully, grass is obsolescent (though still not obsolete).  The
diehards who are used to a \"lush green lawn\" move to artificial grass
(why not just PAINT the dirt green??)

There are other plants that keep the lawn green while using little water. Not
all of them allow to walk on it, though.

We have crushed granite as a ground cover. Lots of plantings *in*
the yard but each has a dedicated irrigation line to ensure the
water *just* goes to its roots.

Xeriscaping (low water use landscaping) is common. E.g., we have a
couple of large (15 ft) Texas Mountain Laurels adjacent to the
front door. They are *never* watered. Yet, perpetually green.
(in bloom, presently. very pungent. they smell like grape soda)

<https://nativebackyards.com/texas-mountain-laurel-tree/>

Pools are laughable.  I imagine 1/3 of homes have them (but they
are small -- 600-1200 sq ft) and can\'t recall seeing anyone *using*
them (maybe if the grandkids come for a visit as the *kids* are
no longer interested?).

So, it\'s a cost (water replenishment, routine cleaning, chemicals)
and a liability (you have to take steps to protect others from
accessing your pool and pay higher insurance premiums... for
something that deprives you of a usable yard!).

[\"garden\", here, tends to indicate a plot of land dedicated
to growing foodstuffs.  Lawn/yard being just \"space\"]

Oh! I didn\'t know that difference in meaning for garden.

Yes. On the continent, it seems to mean \"yard\". Here,
*yard* means yard! :> Garden is a place where you deliberately
grow things: vegetables, flowers, etc. -- some people even have
*rock* gardens (I guess for folks who can\'t grow stuff! :> )

As water is becoming scarcer (Lakes Mead and Powell are at historic lows),
there is heightened concern over water supplies.  In most (AZ) municipalities,
you have to ensure a 100 year water supply (what bank would want to finance
development if the area wouldn\'t be habitable when the balance comes due?)

Some developers have skirted the law by developing \"subdivisions\" of *5*
homes (too small for water supply regulations to apply -- even though
they put up a dozen of these developments on the same parcel of land!
(ah, but then it would be 50-100 homes and subject to legal constraints!)
The homeowners purchasing, there, suddenly find themselves without
access to water.

{chuckle}

They, of course, feel that someone else should solve THEIR problem.
Like buying a diesel truck and discovering the nearest station
that sells diesel fuel is halfway across town (d\'uh... didn\'t you
think about that BEFORE you made your purchase?)

Heh.

(around here, diesel is found on every station)

It is, here, as well. But, you might live someplace that doesn\'t have
any nearby stations. (there are areas that don\'t have electricity
*or* municipal water)

One common strategy folks adopt as they get older and accumulate wealth
is to move \"farther out\" -- larger plots of land to build bigger homes,
etc. Then, as they get older still, they realize it\'s a 30 minute drive
to the nearest hospital and they are increasingly likely to *need* to
make such a drive, \"unexpectedly\".

Ooops!

Some folks have summer homes on the mountain and winter homes in town.
Pity them if they have a medical emergency in the summer as it\'s a
helicopter ride to the nearest hospital (or, over an hour in a car).
In addition to the expense, it\'s still a long commute as the
helicopters are based AT the hospitals (so they have to run up the
mountain, pick up the pt and then return back down).

[I can be at one of 4 hospitals in 15 minutes -- obeying all traffic
signals. Give me an hour and I can be at one of 10!]

[Seems to me, you\'d want to be sure of that before sinking a few hundred
kilobucks into an investment!]

Here there was a spree of building golf courses with lots of houses around
to sell mostly to British folk.

We have some \"world class\" courses -- well, at least some \"celebrity\"
tournaments are hosted on them.  But, it\'s largely a waste of real
estate.  The private ones are usually associated with a \"country
club\" (a means of transfering money from folks who want to APPEAR
wealthy to people who delight in giving them the impression that
they *are*!) with membership dues, requirements to spend $X monthly
eating *at* The Club (if you fail to spend the money, you are just
billed for it AS IF you had dined there), etc.

SWMBO used to golf (recreationally) ages ago.  She\'s found more
productive things to do with her time, now.  And, other neighbors
have realized that their bodies aren\'t up for the task (and NO ONe
wants anything other than a 6AM tee time during the summer months...
it\'s already 80F, here, now).

Yep, but it is not only the golf course itself. It is a whole residential
complex. The course, one hotel or more (different luxury levels), individual
houses (probably sharing a wall), apartments, shops, restaurants, bars, discos,
a Telco (to provide British TV programming to them),... lots of things, huge
investments. And lots of grass, apparently the British love to see green even
if this is almost the desert.

Here, the course is just a centerpiece. Unless you *join* the associated
country club, you\'re no better than any other plebian. :> The difference
is, you likely look out onto a large expanse of grass when you step into
your back yard.

Dunno what they do now, after Brexit.

https://goo.gl/maps/K1Naf4UwdDnZ8Wuw5

https://goo.gl/maps/wYnrpm8mVUUxm4uk8

One of the more well known clubs, here:
<https://www.ventanacanyonclub.com/>

From the air:
<https://www.google.com/maps/search/ventana+canyon/@32.3204583,-110.847146,1278m/data=!3m1!1e3>

Zoom out to see how brown everything is, normally. You can spot where
each of the country clubs/courses are located just by looking for \"green\"!

What does \"RM\" stand for? Rue...? And, why some in yellow and others in
green?

 

[Don Y]

On 3/15/2023 1:34 PM, Carlos E.R. wrote:

And, thinking like an engineer (instead of a wheelchair repairman), I
can find ways to exploit the chair\'s design to make my work easier.

E.g., to replace the batteries on my chairs, you first have to raise the
seat (straight up).  But, the batteries are dead -- so, you can\'t rely
on the motorized mechanism to do that for you!  Instead, you are
expected to use the *special* long wrench that you thread through a
hole in the seat base (after removing the cushions) and manually
crank it up (like a jack for an automobile).

Then, remove the cosmetic shroud to expose the batteries.  Remove
each of them (pretty heavy as they are very large -- capacity!).
Unbolt the power connections.  Repeat, in reverse, to reinstall.

*But*, you can feed power into the chair through the charging port!
And, isolate the (dead) batteries -- master circuit breaker -- so the
charger isn\'t dragged down by their condition.  And, bypass the safety
interlock so the chair is operable in this state.

I was thinking of that.

There are two things that normally would stand in the way:
- the charger isn\'t intended to power the chair (it expects
to be loaded by a battery)
- there is a safety interlock that the charger electrically
engages to disable the chair (so you don\'t drive off with
the charger plugged in)

Both can be sidestepped *if* you plan on doing so. (and you still
have to remember to disconnect the main breaker else the battery
will just drag your power supply down -- or, burn up a wiring harness!)

I suspect employees of a \"mobility\" store likely aren\'t concerned as
to how long it takes them to do the job -- they\'re likely paid by
the hour (or by the day). Get done earlier and you\'ll just have something
else to do!

OTOH, when it\'s *your* (my) time involved, you want to figure out how
to do as much as possible in as little time.

While you can\'t source enough current to \"move a person\" (the wiring
to the charging port wasn\'t designed to carry much current -- nor any
of the connections along the way back to the battery), you *can* get
the chair to move itself AND, most importantly, get the seat elevator
to operate!  No need to \"crank\" it up!  Likewise, get the leg lift
mechanism to lift the leg rests for better access to the front battery.
Etc.

The whole operation proceeds much faster.  Watch a chair repairman
do it the \"approved way\" and just chuckle.

(They charge $1100 to replace a set of batteries.  IIRC, the batteries
are about $500 of that total -- undoubtedly more if you let them
charge you THEIR inflated prices for them).

If you have insurance, the insurance company will cover this cost
(I think once every 3-5 years?).  But, you\'re paying for that insurance,
of course.

And, *I* can\'t make a claim for some chair that I don\'t medically
*need* (nor can the charity).  So, it pays to be able to expedite the
repair!

Now, what does a recipient of such a \"gifted\" chair do when their
batteries run out?  *I* don\'t guarantee my continued availability
to service THEIR chair -- even though I may have refurbished it
prior to it being gifted to them!

Of course.

It is truly a sad state of affairs. But, short of offering my
services indefinitely (and who knows what liabilities I might
face), I don\'t see a way around it.

There was a young girl (~10yo?) that I would see waiting, with
her mother (? care giver?) for the school bus each morning.
I had a *small* electric wheelchair that would have been perfect
for her.

But, what are the rules of etiquette when approaching someone
(stranger) regarding a disability? Perhaps the reason the girl is
in a conventional (pushed!) wheelchair is related to some other
problem she might have that would make an electric wheelchair
a bad match. Would my appearance/offer just irritate an already
bad situation? <shrug>

 

[Ricky]

On Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 4:42:21 PM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:

On 2023-03-15 18:05, Ricky wrote:
On Wednesday, March 15, 2023 at 6:37:10 AM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-15 05:22, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 11:12:02 PM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 18:03, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 6:11:27 AM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 10:45, Ricky wrote:
On Tuesday, March 14, 2023 at 4:59:28 AM UTC-4, Carlos E.R. wrote:
On 2023-03-14 05:16, Ricky wrote:
On Monday, March 13, 2023 at 7:57:57 PM UTC-4, Lasse Langwadt Christensen wrote:
tirsdag den 14. marts 2023 kl. 00.35.00 UTC+1 skrev Lamont Cranston:
On Monday, March 13, 2023 at 6:15:00 PM UTC-5, Tabby wrote:
returning the water via the cold circuit is multiple kinds of wrong. Power the circulating pump from a kitchen PIR.
But, I\'m sure you can understand that in most instances, people are not willing to re-plumb their home to make use
of a recirculating pump. Also, recirculating the water is preferable to dumping in the drain. In my area the cost for sewer
is almost 2 times the cost of the water.
btw, could you list those multiple kinds of wrong?
Mikek
you generally don\'t want any risk of getting contamination, including your hot water, into the potable cold water system

So hot water is not potable??? I never knew that. I guess everytime I run the hot water, I should then run the cold water a while to clean the tap?

This whole idea of running hot water through the system to keep the water in the pipe hot is silly. They make instant hot water heaters for sinks, that do this job and only need an outlet.
Not everybody can use those; they need an ample electricity supply.

For a sink, it uses a standard 120V, 15A connection. Who doesn\'t have that??? Are you talking about some third world country? If they can\'t power this unit, how could they possibly power a hot water tank? Mine is 240V, 18A.
Most houses here have a contract that limits total instant power to 3.5
KW. It certainly is not a third world country. You can have more power,
up to 15 KW, but it is significantly more expensive.

Hot water tanks take 1 KW, maybe two if the tank is big. Mine I changed
to take 0.5 KW.

It must take forever to heat a tank of water. Sounds rather dysfunctional. My microwave oven uses more than 0.5 kW and it is some 40 years old.. A hair dryer uses 1.44 kW. I guess you have to turn off all sorts of things to use a stove. But then maybe you have gas. No, if that were true, you would have a gas hot water heater.

Sorry, this is not very easy for me to digest. The water uses the same amount of energy to heat up if you do it at 0.5 kW, or 5 kW. I just can\'t picture how it can be practical at 0.5 kW. I can take a shower and have a tank full of hot water in an hour. At 500 watts, it takes 10 hours.
Actually, it takes about four hours, the tank has 50 litres. Runs on a
timer during the night, if I activate it. I prefer the gas fired on
demand hot water system (yes, I have both systems). There is only one
person in the house, I don\'t need the hot water tank to reheat till next
day.

Wow! I\'m sorry, but that\'s clearly not first world. Or something is wrong with the math. 4 hours of 500W is 2 kWh, or 7.2 million joules. Divide by 4.186 (water specific heat) to get 1.7 million g°C, or 1,700 liter°C. That\'s around 34 °C for 50 liters. So room temperature to 130°F or about 55°C.
Well, if it starts at 20°C then in 4 hours it goes to 54°C, which is hot
enough to burn the skin. If the tank was not fully spent, it goes up to
70°C, which is about the max temp I set.

(room temp typically 20°C)

So you live somewhere hot like Puerto Rico, where the water never comes in cold. Still, the math doesn\'t lie. I don\'t know why you would want 70°C water. That\'s dangerously hot. 55°C will give you a first degree burn if you keep your hand under it until you are forced to pull it away.. 70°C will give you second degree burns, even if you pull your hand away. Not the best idea.
Because a 50 litres tank at 70°C lasts a longer shower than a tank at
50°C, or two people. That\'s how it is done here. You simply mix the hot
water with cold. Me, I set the tank to a hotter temp in winter than in
summer.

So there is not room in your home for a larger tank, so you set the hot water to dangerously hot temperatures to provide longer showers. I seem to recall some comment from you about others being wasteful. Here I thought you were talking about taking shorter showers. But clearly that\'s not the case.

At least you have electricity. So 2.5 world.
Interesting how you judge countries.

I\'m just listening to what you are describing.

--

Rick C.

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