LOL ... a country boy, without doubt! Your experience, unlike some of the other posts in this thread, obviously did not come solely from the rural areas of the Internet! :)
Wheat straw, which is the most desired for straw bale construction, has so little nutritional value that even the critters won't choose it as a desirable place to be. IME, leave it stacked in a barn for months and you will see relatively few rodents and crawling critters residing around the stack compared to a hay.
AAMOF, I used a newer form of Icynene on the interior of the traditional frame walls, as well as the underside of the ceiling and the crawlspace. I convinced the owner that there was little sense in having walls of R48 and the rest of the envelope at R16/32, and the attic in this house is in the thermal building envelope also:
We contemplated going for LEEDS certification on this particular house, but although I'm absolutely certain it would qualify as it now stands, the owner left the original planning in the hands of an unqualified "builder/designer" and much of LEEDS certification is based on Energy Star rating requirements, which have to be taken into consideration in the planning stage and require third party participation, which the original "builder/designer" failed to apply to.
It's a shame, as I would like to have had a LEEDS house under my belt and this was an excellent opportunity to do so.
There are several reports that Toyota has offered their proprietary hybrid technology to GM. The reasoning is to make this technology the world's de facto standard.
I also remember reading somewhere that much of the early development of this technology was done by GM who sold it to Toyota since GM could not see any foreseeable value in it. Can't verify that but it does fit with the corporate attitude. Their customers were the stock holders and not the consumers. gloomy gus, jo4hn
Pithy, dude ..., pithy!
That's precisely what you get with the advent of MBA's.
Where I grew up, and "thrashing" was still common, the straw was piled outside next to the barn in the pen where the cows were kept at night.
A mental block, can remember the proper name of that stack of straw.
Lew
Yep! ... that kind of experience definitely has a bearing on your style of architecture ... Linda and I did precisely the same in NOLA, thus our home:
It "looked" similar but IIRC the injector pump and distributor were in different locations on the engines, they both were driven by the cam. IIRC the mains were 4 bolt and eventually GM used roller lifters. The Olds engine that the diesel looked like used pivots to paor the rocker arms, the diesel did not. The heads we totally different animals with glow plug chambers.
I'll not argue with you there, the fuel system was a hodge podge of reputable manufacturers but virtually no diesel fuel filtration set up.
Successful operation and engine longetivity.
IIRC we were buying the units for about $125, 25 years ago. In 1985 I saw a very similar unit come equiped from the factory.
Oddly the diesel car engine is making a come back but the new emission laws restricting sulfur content has retarded the come back.
I suspect that GM was too arrogant to accept that technology although they let Toyota build the mid 80's Chevy Nova and later on some of the Geo models.
But it's more then just reliability, it is also the "feel" of the car. When I'm in an American car it just feels loose and unresponsive. We built are share of great muscle cars, but those days have been gone for too many years to thing about. My first car was a '65 Mustang, and of course I loved it. I now drive an '02 Mini Cooper S with 175k on it. This was the first new car I ever bought and it was number 166 off the line. Even with the "first rev" thing going against it I have had minimal problems. I got this with just about all the bells and whistles for ~24k and I would be hard pressed to find anything in the American stable in that price range that could come close to the engineering and fun.
I have to agree with Ron. The Unions, while at one time probably a good idea, basically destroyed an industry and essentially priced themselves out of business.
-Jim
jtpryan wrote: ...
That all depends on the car and suspension choices, etc., ...
A Buick LeSabre (or whatever the present replacement is) doesn't have the same market niche as a whatever rice-burner...
I'll put my 300M equipped w/ the touring package against most any other touring sedan within reasonably comparable price range...
--
:-)
Another thing worth mentioning about oats hay: the bales are *heavy* when you put them in the barn -- there's probably a peck or so of grain in each square bale. Six months later, they don't weigh nearly so much: the mice are very efficient at finding the grain.
Yep, I'd agree with that.
I'll take that challange with my 07 Tundra. LOL
Where we lived, it was common that one could actually harvest the grain from the nurse crop -- the alfalfa didn't grow fast enough to overtake the grain.
:-)
Was that irrigated or dry land farming? what was the growing season?
Up here in Saskatchewan, I can't picture that scenario. If the alfalfa isn't growing, it's probably 'cause there's no water for anything.
djb
Irrigated farming near Denver, Colorado. Growing season is relatively short, 90 day corn is pretty solid, 120 day corn can be dicey depending upon the year. Cool nights kept the alfalfa from growing fast, but the oats or barley would grow quick enough to mature before being overtaken.
Agreed, and I'll add a few more to the list. My shop also includes tools made in Austria, Australia, Canada, Sweden, and New Zealand -- no quality problems with any of them.
Before you go off on US workers, consider a few points:
- They don't control the design of the parts they are supposed to assemble, that's up to the engineers.
- Those engineers are told to design within certain cost limits by the bean counters and managers.
- They don't control the quality of the parts they are supposed to assemble, that's up to the bean counters and managers who specify cost and suppliers for those parts.
- There are some structural problems with US corporations which almost inevitably lead to lower quality and higher prices. These include but are not limited to laws which require short-term profit-seeking for shareholders over long-term company health, laws that allow for control of corporations by boards of directors who set their own salaries but are not accountable to the shareholders, laws which allow corporate personhood, and ridiculous health care costs due to a dysfunctional health care delivery system.
US workers don't want to produce poor products, they want to make high-quality products and earn living wages. Always slamming the workers is criticizing those who have the least control, and demanding constantly lower wages only hastens the race to the bottom and lowers general quality of life for our society. Want to live and work in Mexico or China?
And those cost limits you mentioned aren't directly affected by the cost of the labor? Hmm...
That is all good and well until you consider that those same workers build Toyota and Honda. The American car workers are way past spoiled with over paid jobs.
I will accept the bulk of your argument. We'll ignore those free- loaders who want big fat paycheques for doing as little as possible...I believe they are in the low percentages.
Most people would rather do a good job. Those same people take pride in their work and feel better about their paycheques.
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