Dave Heil wrote:
Michael Coslo wrote:
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.
Older homes are simply off the radar, for some reason. Is it just me,
or is this a real trend? What's behind it?

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.

I wish I could say the same for my area. Many of the largest, most
expensive houses have very little insulation. There is a dead giveaway
- after a snowstorm, they are the first houses to lose the snow on the
roof. A good bit of my wife's work comes from designing remodels on 2
or 3 year old McMansions.

Wow, Mike, I don't know of many houses anywhere which are being built
with other than 2x6 walls. Ceiling insulation is, of course, one of the
cheapest and easiest things to fix. You can always add more. It is
tougher to do much about wall insulation if the wall is already full of
the stuff.

It's the poor construction, not the specific size of the walls.



I think maybe that during the 80's and early 90's home construction
related to insulation was pretty good, but as the housing market took
off, and people seemed to be willing to buy anything for any amount of
money, the quality dropped.

Maybe folks in some areas aren't paying enough attention to the plans
they see from their contractor.

And how! Here we have had people "build" a house and move to th earea
after it was finished. Did you ever see those commercials where someone
says "Just tell me what to do!" That was them. In boom times, some not
very good contractors show up, and when coupled with those inattentive
buyers, a lot of really poorly constructed houses have been put up.



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

It is truly impressive what can be done with a little work. The caveat
it that when you have a tightly sealed house, you have to be very
careful about chemical exposure.

It can be an issue, especially for the first couple of years with the
new flooring, carpeting and the like.

My sister has something fairly similar. She lives in a large modified
A frame with one side all glass. Has a wind generator, Geothermal heat
system, and uses a wood pellet stove for the comfy glow you get from
radiant heat. She lives on the first hill south of Lake Erie shore
near Erie, so there is always some wind.

She's a good bit straight north of us. I wouldn't want to do an Erie
winter.

She agrees! The odd thing about Erie is that the part right next to the
shore isn't too bad, but within a mile of the shore, it gets brutal. The
odd thing is that they hope for cold winters, so that the lake freezes
over and stops putting so much moisture in the air.

In the summer it is gorgeous though, so they get a little compensation.

In talking to those who know, those geothermal systems can easily be
retrofitted to existing homes. They cost a couple of thousand more than
if installed at the time the home is built. For small yards, the drill
vertical holes rather than horizontal trenching.


I would love to be able to put up a tower in the back yard

And there's simply no way to do it? Did I miss something? I thought
you had no antenna restrictions.

Oops, wrong context. I'd love to put up a tower in *her* back yard. It's
just about the highest place in that neck of the woods. Of course I'd
have to travel to Erie to do it.

I can still do it in our yard if I wanted to.


The Indiana fellow I wrote about is
W8RHM. He's in farming country near Milan and is populating the first
of his two heavy duty crank up towers. Roger will have hard line runs
from the tower bases to the house. He has metal bulkheads fitted with
antenna and rotor cable disconnects.

This sounds like an excellent setup all the way around - he should look
into giving tours! hi


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
like to think about what the gas bill might be these days. That's
the only place I ever lived where I could find frost on a closet wall
on a cold day.

brrrr.. Was that the averaged out bill per month?

No, that was the typical monthly bill in winter. I never got on the
even billing plan. I liked having lower rates in summer for a few months.

Okay, that is still quite the bill for the time.

Don't you have access to Natural gas now from the gas company? Sounds
like Karma compensating for the earlier expense.


I eventually installed a wood stove system but that was messy coming
into the basement and messay hauling the ashes out. The upstairs never
got warm enough at night though the first floor and the basement shack
were toasty. Almost all of the basement except for a 10x10 storage area
and the laundry room was ham shack. Collecting boat anchor rigs takes
lots of ROOM.

Wood does indeed heat you several times - cutting it, splitting it,
stacking it, burning it, and hauling it out at the end. Yet still, I
like our fireplace.


- 73 de Mike N3LI -

"Michael Coslo" wrote

Wow, Mike, I don't know of many houses anywhere which are being built
with other than 2x6 walls. Ceiling insulation is, of course, one of the
cheapest and easiest things to fix. You can always add more. It is
tougher to do much about wall insulation if the wall is already full of
the stuff.

It's the poor construction, not the specific size of the walls.

Right. Apparently, regardless how much insulation is installed between the
studs, if the house isn't very well sealed, that insulation's effectiveness
is going to be reduced. I asked a builder in NY what their typical R-value
is. He said it's not about R-value, but how well the house is sealed, inside
and out. If I do have a new house built when I move to 1-land, it'll have
expanding foam insulation to make sure the exterior shell is all
well-sealed. That'll be done after the coax and ladder-line feed throughs
are installed, of course. :-)

Howard N7SO