What went wrong with weatherization

[terry]

Witness the sorry state of the USA at end of 2008!!!!!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

I would certainly like to replace my ( single pane ) windows with storms.

As I understand it, you get "tax credits" for your costs. I'm a SeniorCitizen living pretty much on Social Security. I don't have enough income to pay federal taxes. So Tax Credits would be useless to me.

[Stormin Mormon]

I'd sure like a serious cut in government taxes, and a cut in the services which are not dictated by the Constitution. The sorry state of the US is in large part due to government intervention.

[harry]

`The whole problem is that Americans pay far too little for their fuels of all types.This has led to them squandering the world's resources. If your fuels price doubled (and they will) the economics of fuel efficiency would become apparent. The time to do it is now because the cost of insulating your house is also related to fuel price. In ten years fuel will cost four times what it is now. Only if you have "future proofed" your home will you be saved. My home is future proofed, I have 2 feet of insulation in my walls and roof and need no furnace at all. I wonder how the cost of houses in DC or New York compares with SEast UK?

[harry]

The Chinese have a virtual slave labour work force. We will never compete with them. The only way to win is by innovation.

[harry]

US government owned don't you mean? Well we have a couple too. The ones we lost were mostly bought by Yanks & then sold on.

[HeyBub]

Good point.

Still, for eight years the unemployment rate dipped as low as 4%, extremely low inflation, and 26 consecutive quarters of economic growth (a record). All this in spite of two wars, Katrina, and 9-11.

What changed, in the last quarter of '08, was the impending inauguration of Barak Obama.

But we still have hopey and changey; early next year the three Bush tax cuts expire and the inheritance tax jumps to 55% (from 0% today).

[Don Klipstein]

In , HeyBub wrote in part:

We had 30 consecutive quarters of economic growth from the 2nd quarter of 1993 through the third quarter of 2000.

- Don Klipstein ( [e-mail])

[aemeijers]

harry wrote: (snip)

No, we pay something close to what it actually costs. You folks in the nanny states pay that, plus the confiscatory taxes your government imposes because they think they know better than you do what is appropriate.

-- aem sends...

[HeyBub]

You're absolutely correct. Still, the Bush economic years were kinda like the earthquake in Chile - not a record, but still pretty good.

No, wait...

[trader4]

And talk about squandering, it's the govts that take the money in the form of high energy taxes that then squander it away on more nanny state projects.

[trader4]

So these superior Germans who build these tight houses never heard of heat recovery ventilators and instead leave the windows open? Maybe they should come to the USA. My friend bought a 5 year old house that has one.

[HeyBub]

[Douglas Johnson]

Old news, my friend. Maybe 20 years old. The Chinese are free to work where they want, for who they want, for a wage they negotiate. Well, almost free to work anywhere, there are some internal immigration controls, largely ignored.

At local levels, the Chinese are some of the most capitalistic, entrepreneurial people you will ever meet.

Not so much at the national level. They are still figuring out capitalism and the rule of law. Most especially, figuring out how to transition from a totalitarian regime (20 years ago) to whatever version of democracy they intend, while staying in power and avoiding revolution.

But your second point is spot on. We can't compete on raw labor. The Chinese have too many people for whom $4 a day is a huge raise.

-- Doug

[Jules Richardson]

As someone who used to live in the UK and now lives in the US, I agree - US houses generally built big and with comparatively little insulation, with the heating left to pick up the slack.

Things *are* getting better (not only better insulation, but better heating systems too), but slowly. It gets down to about -30F in the winter here, and we probably spend about $1200/year on heating (and that's running things at 65F during the day and 60F at night; lots of folk prefer their homes to be considerably warmer).

One day I'll have to replace the siding on our house - and the windows are due replacement, too. As we've got deep soffits, I'm toying with the idea of making the exerior walls thicker and so giving an extra 3-4" of insulation.

There certainly seem to be a lot around that are heavy and with poor handling and quite inefficient engines. That does seem to be changing too, though - and I see various vehicles that are no different to European counterparts, just sold under a different brand name.

cheers

Jules

[Jules Richardson]

Insulation performance measured according to D-value? :-)

We've got two dogs and three cats, and they make for great little portable space heaters.

[Jules Richardson]

As someone who lives in Minnesota, I agree 100%. Modern-build houses aren't nearly as bad, of course, but there's an awful lot of old housing stock around still.

Our place was built in 1949 - walls are just 2x4" frame, which doesn't provide a lot of space for insulation, and I don't think there was ever any kind of sealing done where the wooden frame meets the concrete foundation walls. Windows are all single-glazed French-style with 8x10" panes, so they leak air quite nicely too. It's very much typical for this area (and probably 200 miles in any direction), though.

cheers

Jules

[AZ Nomad]

If you visit a construction site most likely you're not looking at

1949 practicies. I would bet that most new construction in MN is airtight as hell.

[harry]

Well, these houses were built on 4x2 frames. The exterior was clad with feather edged boards, looked like some sort of fibre bonded cement. Lots of scope for infiltration (air leaks) and only had poorly fitted mineral wool isulation. The iside was clad in 1/2" what we would call plasterboard. I couldn't figure out what kept the walls square and rigid. The heating was incredibly primitive, air exchange gas heaters in the basement and massive water storage heaters for domestic hot water. Windows single glazed. The concrete poured for the basement was not cured and very little reinforcing. The roofs were clad in what looked like tarred paper. We build better garden sheds in the UK.