- Joined
- Oct 30, 2003
- Posts
- 34,074
I used to live in an apartment where I had to pay my own heat. I just kept the thermostat at 55-60 and lived off the neighbors.
Eh...it depends. It all depends on how big your service is. Thankfully, the only 240v device I now have is my AC condenser, but up until a few weeks back, I also had a 240v stove. My service is large (and modern) enough that I could add another 240 circuit...but that wasn't the case with my previous house.
We currently pay $.30/therm for natural gas...which isn't a horrid price. In a hard month, our bill is not much more than $100, typically less. Example, in Jan we used 143 therms and it was a really cold month.
With this polar vortex being what it is, Feb might be double that. We haven't hit freezing in 14 days, today will be the first day with a temp of 20 in 12 days...so that's lots of heating even when the stat is turned down.
In a neighboring town, my brother is paying $.80/therm and due to some shitty dealing by their town, their per therm price is slated to go up 5x, possibly more for the months of Feb. If I was in that boat, my 143 therms would run me $572 vs the typical $42.90.
Thankfully, I don't have to dick with heating oil...
My heating is free, but it only turns on from November 15 to March 15. No thermostat. That's the norm here.
Interesting...what kind of heat is it? Forced air, radiant steam/water?
I used to live in an apartment where I had to pay my own heat. I just kept the thermostat at 55-60 and lived off the neighbors.
That's steam/heat. Your building must have a central boiler. All the apartments I lived in with free heat had a boiler system. I don't think it's possible to meter it, so it's included.No fuckin clue, smokes. Doesn't come from vents on the floor. Remember 1950s styled heaters, or whatever? Yeah. It's that. Encased in what's supposed to look like part of the wall.
You want to be warm, close all the doors and windows. Want to cool down, open a window. Hey, it's free. Quality can't compare to America, however. But then again I don't have a family, I can take this.
I think that can be a problem with electric cars. They don't make any noise, like a petrol engine car does, so pedestrians can't hear them coming.My first real interaction with a hybrid. Someone uses remote car starter to start car, sounds like normal car. Runs for awhile, some guy comes and gets into it. Then the car turns off. Then the car starts to drive. I first wonder why he turned the car off, but really just the gas engine turned off and the car was still on. I thought this to be a safety problem because the car does not make any sound in drive mode.
I think that can be a problem with electric cars. They don't make any noise, like a petrol engine car does, so pedestrians can't hear them coming.
In the US, they are not required to make a certain amount of noise at speeds under 20mph.
Almost all residences have 240V going into the property, but we use 120V across everything. It's not too expensive to have the quick charger placed at home.
That's good. Vegas tends to be a little different as you'll get a 220v outlet or two standard, but it's usually just in the laundry room or the kitchen for appliances.
Had to pay $900 to get an outlet ran to my garage, which was a lot of fun since the energy panel is on the opposite side of the house.
I've been looking at a few different electric cars as of late. I am thinking about picking up a lower cost one to play around with and see how it is. I figure worst thing would be I really like it and want to upgrade to a better or new EV. Anyhow I've seen what looks like good ones to try out running used in the 10-14k, so that may be worth it try for a couple of years or so.
The idea of having a car plugged in and it get itself warmed up and ready to go for when you leave in the morning seems pretty nice. Come home and plug it back in to be ready for the next morning, would be alright by me.
This whole having stuff shut down or limited due to the plague has really made me think about my driving and such as I don't go anywhere anymore. At first I missed getting out and such but I've gotten used to it and really don't care any more about going to all the thrift and game stores each weekend, or making runs for fast food and other nonsense driving to things I did. Basically I've cut out almost all the needless driving.. also been eating more home cooked food, and I don't really have the urge to go back to what I was doing.
My work day drive is less than 12 miles. I could snag a phev and pretty much just run on electric I think most of the time. The downside to me though is the big reason to go electric is no more gas stations, oil changes, and that sort of thing, so a hybrid would kind of give me the worst of both worlds in a way.
The other thing is that there is nothing around here used. Anything I would buy I would need to have shipped in as I couldn't drive an EV home due to the lack of charging between here and everywhere else.
If everything goes according to plan, my current car will be sold Monday and I'll be without a car for a while while I try to find something different. My Mom doesn't really drive these days much and is trying to get take her car. I'm just going to use it until I find what I want, but I don't want it full time as I would hate for her to need it and not have it.
That is about where I am for now.
Interesting...what kind of heat is it? Forced air, radiant steam/water?