Who, other than the taxpayers, should be footing the bill for building modern housing estates with safe utilities, managed forests, firebreaks, and the rest of it?
[...] This has been a taxpayer scam from the beginning. [...]
Who, other than the taxpayers, should be footing the bill for building modern housing estates with safe utilities, managed forests, firebreaks, and the rest of it?
It looks like nobody has wanted to pay for developing and implementing an overall sensible approach to what looks like a fairly predictable problem?
Who, other than the taxpayers, should be footing the bill for building modern housing estates with safe utilities, managed forests, firebreaks, and the rest of it?How about the greedy housing developers ? Same house between CA and for example middle-of-nowhere Texas, or potato-county Idaho : In CA : 1.9 million. In middle Texas 700K, in Idaho : 300K ...
how can you logically explain the same time too build, same materials, same size to have such a difference in cost ? it's not labor or material cost. it's greedy developers examining the market, seeing there is a shortage and milking all they can.
Time to change the system : micro-grids , street-level grids , solar on the roof, battery packs, bloom boxes and other stuff. You won't need big heavy distribution grids. And bury the cables. no risk for spitzensparken , no eye-sore in the landscape.
Well, if one mile firebreaks, or more, is what it takes to do it properly... it kind of is what it is?
Well, if one mile firebreaks, or more, is what it takes to do it properly... it kind of is what it is?
That kind of ruins the reason for living there! [...]
Well, if one mile firebreaks, or more, is what it takes to do it properly... it kind of is what it is?
That kind of ruins the reason for living there! [...]
Fine, then we just have to admit that the houses are disposable! - Perhaps they could have really strong concrete basements, so only the above ground part needs to be rebuilt every few years?
The problem is similar to building on a flood plain: you just know that it isn't a long term investment!
I'm not sure that battery systems can provide enough kW to cook Thanksgiving dinner. One of the things about solar is that it is useful for kWh but not so much for kW. I doubt I can afford a battery system large enough to run a 5 ton HVAC unit along with the usual kitchen appliances along with another couple of horsepower for a garbage disposal and the all important well pump (also 2 HP, I believe). There's a reason the house has a 200A service.
In fact, it turns out that running a conventional air conditioner from batteries at best only gives marginally more cooling per pound than simply making ice.
Looking around, somewhere between 2 and 1.5 more.
But splits and window air conditioners are dirt cheap commodity items, ice storage air conditioning not so much.
"Estates" is an interesting word. I don't know what it means in this context but I associate it with very high density housing - like towers and such. That's a crap way to live. I much prefer a single family dwelling on a small piece of dirt. Actually, I prefer a bigger piece of dirt but the commute becomes unreasonable.
Looking around, somewhere between 2 and 1.5 more.The combination of more advanced battery technology and a super efficient air conditioner does sway it a bit (note that I specifically did not consider geothermal due to its high cost), but for a stationary application where weight is of little importance, it's hard to beat the really low cost of water as a thermal storage medium. (Actually, you could drain the tanks and end up with something that doesn't weigh much for transport...)
Sounds good, and its done in commercial. To do so in residential is silly expensive. All the generation is mainly when there is no load. When its needed its all storage. All the extra gear required for the limited input, snowballs chance in hell there is a ROI in any reasonable time frame. If you build the home and plan on dying in it, maybe you can make the math work.
"Estates" is an interesting word. I don't know what it means in this context but I associate it with very high density housing - like towers and such. That's a crap way to live. I much prefer a single family dwelling on a small piece of dirt. Actually, I prefer a bigger piece of dirt but the commute becomes unreasonable.
"Housing estate" = "subdivision". A tract of land which is divided up into plots to build houses on.
(The word "subdivision" does not exist in Britain. If you use that word there you will not be understood.)
"Housing estate" = "subdivision". A tract of land which is divided up into plots to build houses on.
(The word "subdivision" does not exist in Britain. If you use that word there you will not be understood.)
But without the word "housing", estates are large pieces of land with a large residence for a single family on it. If it's near developing areas, it may become a housing estate if the family sells. Might be how that term evolved.
In any event, this thread has more to do with rural areas than densely developed ones. And the people that choose to live in them.
As for fires, my experience of California wildfires is they have affected plenty of people in cities and densely populated areas. I my part of the world whole chunks of Oceanside, Vista, San Marcos, Carlsbad and even Del Mar have been evacuated due to nearby fires in recent years. Houses make perfectly good fuel for fires, and whole subdivisions have been incinerated. One house goes up and they all do.
Why isn't it more common to build houses out of more fire resistant materials like brick and steel in high fire risk areas?
Why isn't it more common to build houses out of more fire resistant materials like brick and steel in high fire risk areas?
Full disclosure...where I come from, we call 200 year old buildings "new".[/i]