On Jul 24, 3:16�pm, Dave Heil wrote:
wrote:
It seems to me that a lot of amateurs insist on a new house, or at
least a newer house, meaning something no older than 10-20 years.

A lot of it might be in heating and cooling costs. �
Most newer homes are
super insulated--built with 2x6 walls, wrapped with Tyvek and have
joints sealed with expanding foam.

*Some* of them are. And the effectiveness of those things is highly
dependent on the quality of the work and the design of the house.
I've seen/heard of some pretty shoddy work in newer homes.

�Many of them offer geothermal
heating/cooling systems as well.

Geothermal is the way of the future for both A/C and heating in many
places.

�One of my pals lives in Indiana. �His
total energy bills this past year have averaged
$125 per month with his
geothermal system. �That is for a five year old,
all electric home with
a geothermal system. �That isn't bad for lights, cooking, heating
water, watching TV, ham radio, computers, etc.

But how many kWh per month?

The price of residential electricity varies all over the place in
CONUS; from almost 20 cents per kWh from ConEd to a nickle or so in
some parts of the South and Pacific Northwest. Imagine if gasoline was
$1 in some places and $4 in some other places, all in the USA.

There's also the issue of how big the place is, how many people live
there and how they live. Things such as how much laundry they generate
(kids who play certain sports tend to generate a lot of really
dirty laundry), and whether they use a clothesline can make a big
difference. Stuff like old inefficient appliances and leaving things
on/doors open can be real money-wasters.

Older homes can be refitted to improve their efficiency, too. New
double-insulate windows are not a big deal and can reduce maintenance
cost. Insulation can be blown into the walls of a frame house from the
inside or outside at low cost. Geothermal can be retrofitted too.

This all has a direct bearing on the subject, because too many folks
(IMHO) set their house-choice criteria too narrowly.

At the same time, as the price-of-electricity variation shows, what is
true in one place may not be true elsewhere. I know places where
$300,000 will buy you a big house on a big lot in an excellent
location, with all the modern stuff in excellent condition. And I know
other places, maybe an hour or two away, where $300,000 will get you a
tiny fixer-upper on a postage-stamp lot - if you're lucky.

I've owned only two homes in my life. �My Cincinnati home was
a full
masonry brick house (plaster inside directly attached to two
courses of
brick). �That place was costing me $200-$250 per month during
the winter
for natural gas in the late seventies/early eighties. �I don't li
ke to
think about what the gas bill might be these days. �That's the on
ly
place I ever lived where I could find frost on a closet wall on a
cold day.

When I moved to western New York State in the late 1970s I lived for a
time in a rented two-bedroom all-electric townhome of then-recent
construction. $300 electric bills in the winter were normal, even
though there were two party walls and the thermostat was kept low.

My first house, a wood-frame single just a few miles away in New York
State, was built in 1900 and had gas heat with radiators, gas hot
water and gas stove. $85/month for gas in the winter was a big bill.

The house on RadioTelegraph Hill was a stone-and-stucco twin built in
1923. It cost a little more to heat and cool than the New York State
house.

Present location was built in 1950, original heater replaced in 2000
and the whole house heavily modified/upgraded in 2005.

There's an easy test for how well insulated/sealed your house is: When
it's very cold or very hot outside, let the heat or A/C run long
enough to get the house to a reasonable temperature.

Then turn off the heat or A/C and see how long it takes for the house
to cool off or heat up a certain number of degrees. Use the thermostat
indication for uniformity.

I've had a setback-thermostat since the new heater was installed, but
since 2005 it doesn't do much because the house doesn't cool or heat
more than a couple of degrees in several hours with the thermostat on
the maximum "nobody home" setting.

We hams have lots of options, but as it was said in the first post of
this thread, we have to plan from the beginning.

73 de Jim, N2EY