WWTBAM Bored

A friend sent this to me:



House #1 A 20 room mansion ( not including 8 bathrooms )
heated by natural gas. Add on a pool ( and a pool house) and a
separate guest house, all heated by gas. In one month this residence
consumes more energy than the average American household does
in a year. The average bill for electricity and natural gas runs over
$2400. per month. In natural gas alone, this property consumes more
than 20 times the national average for an American home. This house
is not situated in a Northern or Midwestern "snow belt" area. It's in the South.



House #2 Designed by an architecture professor at a leading
national university. This house incorporates every "green" feature
current home construction can provide. The house is 4,000 square
feet ( 4 bedrooms ) and is nestled on a high prairie in the American
southwest. A central closet in the house holds geothermal heat-pumps
drawing ground water through pipes sunk 300 feet into the ground.

The water (usually 67 degrees F.) heats the house in the winter and
cools i t in the summer. The system uses no fossil fuels such as oil or
natural gas and it consumes one-quarter electricity required for a
conventional heating/cooling system. Rainwater from the roof is
collected and funneled into a 25,000 gallon underground cistern.
Wastewater from showers, sinks and toilets goes into underground
purifying tanks and then into the cistern. The collected water then
irrigates the land surrounding the house. Surrounding flowers and
shrubs native to the area enable the property to blend into the
surrounding rural landscape.

HOUSE #1 is outsid e of Nashville, Tennessee; it is the abode of
the Al Gore.

HOUSE #2 is on a ranch near Crawford, Texas; it is the residence the of the President of the United States, George W. Bush.

I've seen that before. That's not a photo of Gore's house.

Bob Juch wrote:I've seen that before. That's not a photo of Gore's house.

But the descriptions are true.

Just shows that Bush, an oil man, was well aware that energy was going to get expensive.

Bob Juch wrote:I've seen that before. That's not a photo of Gore's house.

Sorry, it was in my email.

Is this his house?

Jeemie wrote:

Bob Juch wrote:I've seen that before. That's not a photo of Gore's house.

But the descriptions are true.

Just shows that Bush, an oil man, was well aware that energy was going to get expensive.

And Al the enviro genius didn't?

themanintheseersuckersuit wrote:

Jeemie wrote:

Bob Juch wrote:I've seen that before. That's not a photo of Gore's house.

But the descriptions are true.

Just shows that Bush, an oil man, was well aware that energy was going to get expensive.

And Al the enviro genius didn't?

Obviously not.

I dunno why I'm biting here, but anyway:

The cost of making your mansion ecologically cool is scarily prohibitive even for millionaires. For all that state of the art stuff, you have to spend.

The only thing here that impresses me is that Bush can take 67 degrees when its colder out. I imagine it does get cold some days in Texas, in the winter; it did in Arizona when I was there. Now, my thermostat in Somerville, MA is set at 68 degrees F in the winter. But then I don't have, uh, energy to burn. 68 in the summer would be nice (I'd prefer 65) but I have no way to get it there.

ghostjmf wrote:The only thing here that impresses me is that Bush can take 67 degrees when its colder out. I imagine it does get cold some days in Texas, in the winter; it did in Arizona when I was there. Now, my thermostat in Somerville, MA is set at 68 degrees F in the winter. But then I don't have, uh, energy to burn. 68 in the summer would be nice (I'd prefer 65) but I have no way to get it there.

A heat pump takes the heat out of that 67 degree water and concentrates it, so to speak, to heat the house to a higher temperature, just as your refrigerator can pump heat out of it and into a warmer room.

Shoot. I thought this would be about the Montagues and the Capulets.

Ritterskoop wrote:Shoot. I thought this would be about the Montagues and the Capulets.

Sorry.

Gore has a nice house.

If you've booked passage on the Titanic, why go steerage?

ne1410s wrote:

If you've booked passage on the Titanic, why go steerage?

Exactly. That's what the little people are for.

ghostjmf wrote:I dunno why I'm biting here, but anyway:

The cost of making your mansion ecologically cool is scarily prohibitive even for millionaires. For all that state of the art stuff, you have to spend.

The only thing here that impresses me is that Bush can take 67 degrees when its colder out. I imagine it does get cold some days in Texas, in the winter; it did in Arizona when I was there. Now, my thermostat in Somerville, MA is set at 68 degrees F in the winter. But then I don't have, uh, energy to burn. 68 in the summer would be nice (I'd prefer 65) but I have no way to get it there.

Isn't it funny how much sensation of temperature is subjective?

You say you'd prefer 65 degrees in summer, yet a temperature two degrees warmer is too cold for you in winter.

PS- I set the temp for 64 in winter and 74-76 in summer- the trick is to have a good dehumidifier in summer, and a warm mist HUMIDIFIER in winter.