Every Thursday morning I try to meet with a group of men teachers that have been meeting for about 20 years. They are all retired, as I am. Most are between 70 and 80 years old. A friend of mind very close to my age also meets with this group.
It is an interesting group. Everyone pays their own way and usually there is no comment about what anyone orders unless it is significantly different that what he usually orders. A couple of guys order oatmeal with all the additions, (fruit raisins, walnuts, brown sugar (don't tell their wives) and milk. A couple of the guys only order fruit, but once those has taken to ordering a half waffle with his fruit. He gets a take out container to drag home the waffle to his wife (I suspect). A couple of guys order country potatoes and scrambled eggs. My order varies on the whim but it is usually a half waffle, a couple eggs and a small meat portion. It could be ham (my latest choice) or sausage(two) and the eggs can vary from scrambled to poached.
The purpose of the meetings is conversation. Politics are usually avoided as some of the folks tend to listen to or watch the inflammatory channels and after the intial statement from these sources there is really not much to discuss. In other contexts my discussions with a right wind set seems to crumble after the shock headline to a simple statement that goes something like this..... but isn't true that we will lose status in the eyes of other governments for all the things we have done. It all wraps up in their imagination that the US is dependent upon other nations for our status by what we do or do not do. I guess I am over that. Or status can by screwed up so easily.
So with politics off the table what is there to talk about. Today one guy was talking about the concept of how the new houses were being built in his neighborhood. One of them was 2600 sq feet with a three car garage out in front that allowed two cars to be slotted. So actually you have a 4 car garage. He was amazed that there was a significant slope sliding from the back car to the font car which would allow for easy conversion to a new room if wanted later. The lot that this house was on was pretty small. They were asking 394K for it.
Today we heard the horrors of putting your 403K into your trust. One guy said that when a death occured the trust is bound by the state to cash out the 403K directly. This brings up taxation issues that wouldn't occur if the 403K were maintained outside of the trust.
Another guy was excited because his driver won the NASCAR race at Indianapolis this weekend. Jeff Gordon has won more NASCAR races there than any other driver in its 20th year. He was pretty excited that he won because he was given the key to the city earlier and was predicted by his crew chief that he would win prior to the race. He did not have the pole position to start, just a mighty fine car for that race on that day.
One guy had tales of his father running accountancy for the Fresno boxing events in the old days including a brush with Don King. Everything was cash. I entered into the conversation with a tale about my boss who sold his house in Livingston to a drug dealer that paid him off in cash, and then was hauled in to the courts to describe how his was paid for his real estate and whether or not he received a discount for his cash payment. The courts found fault with the realtor for the transaction.
The credit union board member had a tale about getting paid 4300 dollars for a used car on a weekend. He arranged payment in the lobby of the open credit union and when she finished counting out the 20s told him it was a stick up....ha ha... he had to admonish them that it was not a good place for a joke of that kind with the cameras used for security in the lobby.
We heard the foils of a to do list from a landlord that came just after a tenant had caught up with her rent. It was just a laundry list of little things.
There were some reminiscences of times in the classroom but it seems that these guys are living more in the prospect of the future than the glories of the past. It is a very good group to see each Thursday morning.
Thursday, July 31, 2014
Monday, July 28, 2014
Whole House Fans and the Central Valley
I have been in pursuit of a whole house fan for almost a year.
My coffee drinking buddy had two installed in his house over a year ago. But his house has got more square feet than ours by quite a bit.
My mother and father-in-law had one in their Ft Collins, Colorado home. It replaced the ubiquitous 20 inch fans they brought out each evening to eat dinner beside and watch the news. They worked reasonably well and my wife was completely sold for them in the Colorado climate. Their temperature, a good dry heat most of the time was completely abrogated by the afternoon cloud cover and the by 3:30 there was no more build up to the heat and most people endured their summer weather without air conditioning. The whole house fan was installed to reduce the evening heat build up in the attic and to draw cool air in from the windows especially when it came time to bed time. The 20 inch fans worked wonders in drawing cool air into the living spaces and making the evenings pleasant indoors but they failed to address the issue of very hot attics that returned the heat to the living space after the fans were turned off. My mother and father-in-law would have the whole house fan work just an hour or two and summer evening and could come indoors away from the pesky mosquitoes that tortured outdoor living.
The central valley summer night heat is another animal. Our heat generally continues to fire through the afternoon and into the evening until the sun goes down. Then in a couple of hours 10 to 15 degrees are dropped out of the 90 plus degree temperatures reaching our coolest temperature about 2 am sometimes in the 60's. From 11am through to the evening we live under the air and the the attic even though vented with 3 turbines and end cap releases still harbor air most of the night. Our "cool" water at the sink doesn't get cool without running quite a bit of it as the attic temperature heats the copper pipes as the water makes it way to the various spots it is used in the house.
So how would a whole house fan work in that environment? Using outside air that is warmer than what you have cool using air conditioning doesn't make sense. Our inside air is set at 78 degrees. The air needs to be below that temperature to be affective. The use of the whole house fan before 9 am is when the most effective use of the fan is noted. On many weeks we have days that the temperature does not reach 90 degrees. Those days can be very effective for evening use of the fan.
The fan takes the outside air from windows that are opened and doors that are opened and shoots the indoor air up into the attic and eventually in less than 30 minutes the outside air into the attic too. The house stays cooler longer with realistic attic temperatures. Windows need to opened to allow the air to come inside. The wider the window is opened the more air flows into the room. At least 3 windows need to opened or the fan could crack your windows.
This year at the fair there was vendor that was selling the fan and installation. They would provide a 300 dollar discount if you signed up at the fair. They had a booth at the Merced county fair but Sue wasn't with me when I went in to find out the particulars. So it got set aside. At the Stanislaus County Fair they were there too. Sue was with me and we signed up. One week later and 1600 dollars later it was installed in our main hall.
A member of the two man install team crawled up into my attic at 7:30 am. He pulled away from the attic floor the insulation and sunk four holes into my ceiling wallboard with nails. From those four nails, after carefully measuring from down below, a saws-all type saw cut the hole that they mounted the frame for the louvers. Out in the front 2x6 wooden framing was fabricated and lifted into place and supported by my ceiling truss. The fan was positioned and and secured in place. Electrical was found and attached to the dead doorbell connection. The wall mounted control area was located just under the programmable thermostat. No exposed wires were needed. It also came with a thin remote control. The louvers were installed on the outside of the frame and a stopper peg was installed so that the louvers would not stay open. A quick run through and check was made of the remote and the various positions on the device. The two guys brought in a power vac and cleaned up after themselves and were out the door with my check in hand in just under 2 hours.
Sue was not too happy about where it was installed. She thinks that she will end up staring at from the living room way too often. I reminded her that she could have had a say in where it was going to be but opted out. That didn't win me any friends. She thinks that she will get used to its location eventually.
Right now we are using it almost every night to get the house under its 78 degree cooling temp. Most nights it can drop the temperature in the house to under 72 degrees... as far as comfort ... it is yummy. Yesterday was the first night that we did not use it. The outside temperature did not drop to under 78 until after 2:30. We kind of missed out cool breeze. It still worked pretty nicely when I fired it up this morning at 7:00 and shut it down to let the air conditioning take its place at 10:30.
The company works out of Sacramento and Fresno sending installation teams all over the valley. The installer said that he had put in over 200 of them last year. This year he seems to be doing more. The Sacramento team was doing about the same.
My coffee drinking buddy had two installed in his house over a year ago. But his house has got more square feet than ours by quite a bit.
My mother and father-in-law had one in their Ft Collins, Colorado home. It replaced the ubiquitous 20 inch fans they brought out each evening to eat dinner beside and watch the news. They worked reasonably well and my wife was completely sold for them in the Colorado climate. Their temperature, a good dry heat most of the time was completely abrogated by the afternoon cloud cover and the by 3:30 there was no more build up to the heat and most people endured their summer weather without air conditioning. The whole house fan was installed to reduce the evening heat build up in the attic and to draw cool air in from the windows especially when it came time to bed time. The 20 inch fans worked wonders in drawing cool air into the living spaces and making the evenings pleasant indoors but they failed to address the issue of very hot attics that returned the heat to the living space after the fans were turned off. My mother and father-in-law would have the whole house fan work just an hour or two and summer evening and could come indoors away from the pesky mosquitoes that tortured outdoor living.
The central valley summer night heat is another animal. Our heat generally continues to fire through the afternoon and into the evening until the sun goes down. Then in a couple of hours 10 to 15 degrees are dropped out of the 90 plus degree temperatures reaching our coolest temperature about 2 am sometimes in the 60's. From 11am through to the evening we live under the air and the the attic even though vented with 3 turbines and end cap releases still harbor air most of the night. Our "cool" water at the sink doesn't get cool without running quite a bit of it as the attic temperature heats the copper pipes as the water makes it way to the various spots it is used in the house.
So how would a whole house fan work in that environment? Using outside air that is warmer than what you have cool using air conditioning doesn't make sense. Our inside air is set at 78 degrees. The air needs to be below that temperature to be affective. The use of the whole house fan before 9 am is when the most effective use of the fan is noted. On many weeks we have days that the temperature does not reach 90 degrees. Those days can be very effective for evening use of the fan.
The fan takes the outside air from windows that are opened and doors that are opened and shoots the indoor air up into the attic and eventually in less than 30 minutes the outside air into the attic too. The house stays cooler longer with realistic attic temperatures. Windows need to opened to allow the air to come inside. The wider the window is opened the more air flows into the room. At least 3 windows need to opened or the fan could crack your windows.
This year at the fair there was vendor that was selling the fan and installation. They would provide a 300 dollar discount if you signed up at the fair. They had a booth at the Merced county fair but Sue wasn't with me when I went in to find out the particulars. So it got set aside. At the Stanislaus County Fair they were there too. Sue was with me and we signed up. One week later and 1600 dollars later it was installed in our main hall.
A member of the two man install team crawled up into my attic at 7:30 am. He pulled away from the attic floor the insulation and sunk four holes into my ceiling wallboard with nails. From those four nails, after carefully measuring from down below, a saws-all type saw cut the hole that they mounted the frame for the louvers. Out in the front 2x6 wooden framing was fabricated and lifted into place and supported by my ceiling truss. The fan was positioned and and secured in place. Electrical was found and attached to the dead doorbell connection. The wall mounted control area was located just under the programmable thermostat. No exposed wires were needed. It also came with a thin remote control. The louvers were installed on the outside of the frame and a stopper peg was installed so that the louvers would not stay open. A quick run through and check was made of the remote and the various positions on the device. The two guys brought in a power vac and cleaned up after themselves and were out the door with my check in hand in just under 2 hours.
Sue was not too happy about where it was installed. She thinks that she will end up staring at from the living room way too often. I reminded her that she could have had a say in where it was going to be but opted out. That didn't win me any friends. She thinks that she will get used to its location eventually.
Right now we are using it almost every night to get the house under its 78 degree cooling temp. Most nights it can drop the temperature in the house to under 72 degrees... as far as comfort ... it is yummy. Yesterday was the first night that we did not use it. The outside temperature did not drop to under 78 until after 2:30. We kind of missed out cool breeze. It still worked pretty nicely when I fired it up this morning at 7:00 and shut it down to let the air conditioning take its place at 10:30.
The company works out of Sacramento and Fresno sending installation teams all over the valley. The installer said that he had put in over 200 of them last year. This year he seems to be doing more. The Sacramento team was doing about the same.
Tuesday, July 8, 2014
Post Forth of July
It is just after the forth of July in Merced. It can now be hot... although it has been pretty hot in the valley all Summer.
We are going through what the meteorologists call a Monsoon weather pattern. This often occurs this time of the year. It is what gives Western Mexico its yearly rain accumulation numbers. It also brings "weather" to places like Las Vegas. Massive cloud cover has been the order for the day in Merced, but not a drop of rain has fallen. It has been much to hot for rain. You smell rain in the air but it evaporates before it hits the ground.
We are supposed to reach 106 today and would have been that hot if we didn't have that cover of clouds yesterday. It only reached 97. It was one of those rare days when you could say... it is hot really hot but it is a dry heat.... no it wasn't a dry heat and surely wasn't going to be either. Today started somewhat the same way. The clouds, however broke and scurried to the mountains before noon so the earth could heat up.
We are down to watering lawns just two days a week. In past years even in drought years, we have been allowed to water for three days as a part of our not having water meters. This city has some ancient water rights even though our city water comes from wells deep below the surface. water is not supposed to end up in the gutters. As it is now, if water ends up in the gutters it is quickly dissipated by evaporation.
It has been estimated by some scientists that it takes 35 years for the water to peculate from the surface to underground reserves that we use on a daily basis. All around Merced and many other valley communities have huge evaporation areas areas around development so that excess water is allowed to get into the ground water during winter storms.
This year was particularly parched around here. Merced had the lowest rainfall in many years. We had just 4.5 inches of rain for the entire season. The average for this region is about 12-14 inches of rain. Water and water rights in the west have always been an issue of contention. In the future it will be even more important as we balance interests of Ag and their need to support their businesses with water and the needs of a growing population that needs water for domestic needs as well as recreation.
We are going through what the meteorologists call a Monsoon weather pattern. This often occurs this time of the year. It is what gives Western Mexico its yearly rain accumulation numbers. It also brings "weather" to places like Las Vegas. Massive cloud cover has been the order for the day in Merced, but not a drop of rain has fallen. It has been much to hot for rain. You smell rain in the air but it evaporates before it hits the ground.
We are supposed to reach 106 today and would have been that hot if we didn't have that cover of clouds yesterday. It only reached 97. It was one of those rare days when you could say... it is hot really hot but it is a dry heat.... no it wasn't a dry heat and surely wasn't going to be either. Today started somewhat the same way. The clouds, however broke and scurried to the mountains before noon so the earth could heat up.
We are down to watering lawns just two days a week. In past years even in drought years, we have been allowed to water for three days as a part of our not having water meters. This city has some ancient water rights even though our city water comes from wells deep below the surface. water is not supposed to end up in the gutters. As it is now, if water ends up in the gutters it is quickly dissipated by evaporation.
It has been estimated by some scientists that it takes 35 years for the water to peculate from the surface to underground reserves that we use on a daily basis. All around Merced and many other valley communities have huge evaporation areas areas around development so that excess water is allowed to get into the ground water during winter storms.
This year was particularly parched around here. Merced had the lowest rainfall in many years. We had just 4.5 inches of rain for the entire season. The average for this region is about 12-14 inches of rain. Water and water rights in the west have always been an issue of contention. In the future it will be even more important as we balance interests of Ag and their need to support their businesses with water and the needs of a growing population that needs water for domestic needs as well as recreation.
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