Green mountain solar for the win!

Yeah it seems open system have been in the realm of diy for a long time in our area. The problems aren’t a result of open systems themselves but of unqualified design and install. That’s given them a bad rap.

I agree the roi is long, but dollar per btu the spacepak is cheaper than propane and oil even at $.185/kWh down to about 0 in this setup. Aiming for short run times is directly contradictory to achieving high efficiency with a condensing boiler and high mass setup.

And it wasn’t my house, we just built it. But you couldn’t convince me to use a combi if it was free. I’ll always want an indirect with recirc

The key is to avoid needing recovery by having a finely tuned reset curve and very balanced loop flows. We built 1500sf of shop/garage and 1000sf of living space heated with a spacepak. Propane only kicks on below -5 or for domestic water heating. Average calls for heating are in the 6-8hr range, it’s basically on and heating all winter. Not cheap or easy and likely not worth it…

I’ll add that air to water heat pumps can’t actually deliver even 140 water on a design day in VT. They’re down to near 1 for COP at those differentials.

Air to water only works in vt in a well insulated house with very low temp emitters. Think radiant slab or tile.

The catch is you will be limited to single stage non condensing efficiencies in the mid 80s%. That’s not as huge a concern if you have old radiation, but you will give up some efficiency and comfort over a modern modulating boiler with outdoor reset.

Properly sized they won’t struggle until well below zero.

They are expensive. You get free AC though and heating costs will less than half average oil, closer to 1/4 to 1/3 this year.

Replacement parts aren’t hard if you pony up for a reputable brand. (Mitsubishi, daikin, maybe Fujitsu)

Technically their efficiently isn’t dependent on how well insulated your home is, it’s simply dependent on indoor/outdoor temp. Their cost install and to operate is though. And their cost to install is more directly proportional to size unlike fossil fuel boilers. This makes insulating and installing smaller heat pumps more immediately beneficial than insulating and installing a new boiler.

Edit: not trying to sell you on them. They are expensive to install and not to everyone’s preference. Just wanted to provide info so you can make an informed decision!

“an association of manufacturers or suppliers with the purpose of maintaining prices at a high level and restricting competition.”

Yes. Many corporate property owners using common software to set prices enabling prices to be artificially inflated certainly looks like a cartel.

Do you disagree? And if so why?

If you don’t want to learn then don’t ask.

It’s a thing nationally as well over half of corporate owned rentals are managed by one software. They can and do inflate prices which drags up all rental prices nationally.

Yeah. Capitalism is great, but it often requires guardrails. We’ve built a lot of new roads in the last few decades. Time to add some guardrails.

I don’t see how Vt state government can address the massive consolidation in algorithmic rental pricing. They don’t have the reach or power. Sure they can address smaller issues such as short term rentals and barriers to development, but those arent the main drivers of the broader housing issues.

I still maintain that it requires regulation of corporate landlords and their pricing practices. That’s an issue for national legislators.

No. See the comment with sources. Read.

What will? Simply encouraging development won’t fix it if most of the new units are owned by huge companies. That’s like trying to lower gas prices by encouraging opec to drill more…

I’m telling you that adding more supply doesn’t necessary lower costs when the price is controlled by what is essentially a cartel.

Nationally it’s not lack of development, it’s the rental management companies algorithmically pricing rents with no regards for anything but profit.

Footnotes:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/arstechnica.com/informationtechnology/2022/10/rent-going-up-one-companys-algorithm-could-be-why/%3famp=1

https://www.multifamilyexecutive.com/property-management/revenuerevolution-pushing-rents-becomes-the-norm_o

https://extranewsfeed.com/a-history-of-landlords-rent-the-feudal-origins-of-a-nonworking-class-e718e6c82e2f

https://popular.info/p/death-by-eviction https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna52111 https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/08/nyregion/queens-landlordconvicted-in-plot-to-kill-two-tenants.html

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2002/may/02/worlddispatch.oliverburkeman

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.laprogressive.com/.amp/homeles sness/studies-find-rent-control-works https://www.housinghumanright.org/is-billionaire-landlord-sam-zellthe-quintessential-corporate-vulture/ https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/102915/how-sam-zell-madehis-fortune.asp

https://www.agriculture.com/news/business/risk-and-reward-aconversation-with-sam-zell https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-09-27/steve-schwarzman-buys-80-millionenglish-country-estate

https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.jpost.com/50-most-influential-jews/article-717735/amp

https://fintechmagazine.com/venture-capital/stephen-a-schwarzman-the-billionare-who-builtblackstone

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/090915/how-stephen-schwarzman-built-blackstonegroup.asp

https://www.invitationtenants.com/blackstone-profits-from-the-foreclosure-crisis/

https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/b14zb99vmk6h6n/blackstones-stephen-schwarzman-onnot-wasting-a-serious-crisis

https://www.google.com/amp/s/qz.com/2118625/corporate-landlords-are-benefiting-frominflation/amp/

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/rich-investors-make-easy-scapegoat-risingrents/606607/

https://archive.ph/TjPXE

This is not accurate. The rental management market has been massively consolidated over the last 10-20 years. Statistically we don’t need that much more housing. But we do need prices to reflect costs, not be a conduit for maximum profit.

Spot on.

Slow development is partly to blame. Air bnb is partly to blame.

But the huge surge is rental prices is directly attributable to a surge and consolidation in software based rental pricing industry. Basically they’ve realized it’s more profitable to continually raise rents and have large turnover and higher vacancy. These companies (mostly one) manage enough properties that they’ve dragged all prices up.

We’re not actually short on housing nationally by most metrics. Housing construction isn’t lagging by most metrics. Enough cards are held by theses companies that they can manipulate the market. Adding more housing that are managed this way won’t lower rents.

Edit: I know I give you crap on many of your posts, but I fully agree with many of your takes. It’ll take national legislation to sort out the root causes of this issue.

Mind if i ask what school? Mine (a small charter school) was in the same boat until enrollment dropped and they had to go full public. I was firmly pro school choice based on my experience and I still am for schools that have no high school.

However I now think the potential negative consequences of sending public money to private institutions far outweigh the potential benefits. It should be limited to schools that have open enrollment.

I grew up in one of those towns. They should continue to offer vouchers to surrounding PUBLIC schools. Same as they always have.

I don’t think it’ll instantly destroy education. In fact I think it’s worse because it’ll slowly drive rich high achieving kids out of public schools. Those schools will then stop offering higher lever curriculums which hurts average kids who aren’t rich.

Notice I said rich high achieving? A voucher only covers part of private tuition so parents still need to make up the rest. You have to be at least extremely comfortable to pony up the extra 10k per kid to send them to a private school.

It’s not reasonable to blame each individual parent for wanting what’s best for their child. It is reasonable to expect parents who choose to skip the publicly funded option to pay for the private school themselves.

Public education only works if we all have a vested interest in its continued success. Vouchers help undermine the idea that we all in it together and therefor undermine the public education system for the benefit of a few.

If you want your kids to not go to public school that’s great. Pony up the cash.

We have two daikin 15k high walls and they have worked great. We also have a 24k Samsung that has been working great. Samsungs suck in reliability and service/parts so I’d steer away, but it was free leftover for a job so it went in our shop.

That said, when it’s below 20 or so we run our wood stove. Based on the submittal sheet they should heat our place sufficiently down to about -10f, they just won’t be efficient while doing it.

This is not accurate. Most units auto shutdown at some temp below zero to avoid damaging the compressor. The few units that will not do this generally have resistive backup to help keep the low side pressures within an acceptable range.

The shutdown temps range from -5 to -30f depending on make, model and refrigerant. Most are in the -15 to -25 range. Fortunately we’re not at those temps until tomorrow morning for a few hours.

Id bet dollars to donuts he’d then post links to his blog…

If it’s that obvious then why’d ya post it?

Depending where your mechanical equipment, what it is and how it’s insulated you may or may not gain much insulting the floor system. Depending what type of foundation you have (concrete, block, stone) it’s pretty darn easy to install 2” foam on exterior walls. Foam board on the foundation walls will certainly help all aspects.