Do you use your home efficiency?

[steve244]

Mr Vanderbilt your car is ready.

Oops doxxed.
_________________
82 AC vanagon approx 200K miles (3K are mine).
DD is a 2015 Leaf
Road Trip to Hell (FL 2023)
The Vanagon's drivetrain and chassis restomod thread. Best sung to the tune of I Did It My Way...

[mark tucker]

I think glenn is trying to pull another scam.....

[Glenn]

[madmike]

The only reason a guy would build Big House Is,,,,so he can Hide from the bitchie O'lady
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'Black Ice'Drag Buggy 'Turbo'
Rail Buggy 1915 turbo
76 Drag/Street bug 2180cc 'Turbo' 11:85 @113 mph"If I go any faster I'll burn up the Hamster" ,gets 28 mpg. also 10/09/22 11.90 @115 mph
"If I'm ever on Life Support,UNPLUG Me, Then Plug me back In see if that Works"

[skills@eurocarsplus]

I'll play

House to the left, hangar/air strip to the right

2800 sqft house built in the end of 08. 3 bed/3 bathroom house, but could be 5 bedrooms pretty easily.

Blew my wad on insulation, whole house is spray foam, wrapped in 1/4", foundation/floor in 2" Styrofoam panels.

We use pretty much all of it, the "bonus room" is basically a walk in attic but it's 95% finished.

Basement was poured to 11' as I recall, so it could be finished with a drop ceiling to hide the mechanicals and not bang your head on anything.
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[oprn]

[oprn]

My aunt and uncle were in a 500 sq. ft. 3 bedroom home with 5 children for some years (the oldest lived in an adjacent small outbuilding and ate with the family) while my uncle built a new house. The new one was 3500 sq. ft. 4 level split with 5 bedrooms, 3 baths, 2 furnaces, 2 hot water heaters and an attached garage. By the time they moved in the first son was gone. In the next 8 or so years saw the rest of the family off on their own and they spent the next 25 years shutting down furnaces and boarding up unused rooms to get utility costs down.

I have seen this scenario played out over and over in the past. Life seems backward, by the time we can afford a nice home we don't need it and it just becomes a burden!
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[Abscate]

It’s the equity driven housing market. No one wants to loan 100k mortgages , not enough profit to skim. Instead of building reasonable houses for needs , we build for Wall Street and then convince people 3500 square feet is normal.

We had 8-9 people raised in 2000 square feet , then downsized for retirement
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.ssS!

[steve244]

It's land prices and zoning.

A 1/4 acre lot in Marietta costs $400,000. No one is going to buy a small home and pay $550,000 when they could buy a McMansion for $650,000.

As much as I like my house, it's a waste of space. They should have torn it down in the 90s and built cheap townhomes. Zoning prevents that.
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82 AC vanagon approx 200K miles (3K are mine).
DD is a 2015 Leaf
Road Trip to Hell (FL 2023)
The Vanagon's drivetrain and chassis restomod thread. Best sung to the tune of I Did It My Way...

[NJ John]

The McMansion developments are popping up everywhere. Beautiful big houses with no property and a HOA. No trailers or old beetles sitting in the driveway. But, most of those houses are very impressive inside. And great if you got little kids. Not for me.
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1973 standard, yellow, lowered, 3” narrowed front, 1600 blo-thru turbo w/single dell 15.4@86, so far
11.41 et buggy. Long gone
Let’s go O’s! Let’s go O’s!
https://www.youtube.com/@AirSpooledGarage

[photogdave]

2700 sq.ft. two-level 100+-year-old house with unfinished basement and barely any insulation.
Gas furnace ducted to most of the rooms except one upstairs guest bedroom and an addition on the back of the house. The guest room as an electric fireplace, the addition has a gas fireplace plus electric baseboard and we have a wood burner in the living room for extra comfort/ambiance.

There are only two of us full time but I feel it's important to heat all the rooms to prevent mold etc. The only rooms we don't use regularly are the two guest bedrooms and guest bath.

Our heating costs are about the same in peak winter, and much lower in spring and fall, than our previous 1200 sq. ft. townhouse that was heated solely with electric baseboard.
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89 Syncro GL Westfalia 2.1 WBX/WBXaustSS

My Westy Movies:
photogdave On Vimeo
photogdave On YouTube

Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!

[OB Bus]

1949 house we have owned for 40 years.
Originally it was 3 bedroom, 1.5 bath and 1300 sq feet. No insulation at all.
When we started having kids we added a second story with 3 bedrooms and 2 full baths. The house is now 5 bedrooms, 4 bathrooms (2 full, 1 half and one 3/4). 2400 Sq feet.
Insulation on the 2nd floor was R19 in the walls and R30 in the ceiling. We were able to retrofit about half of the first story with R11.
This all was very comfortable with 3 kids, family visits, 2 dogs and 2+ cats.

With just two of us here (and all of our "kids" living out of state) it is way too much. We use one bedroom and one bath upstairs, one downstairs bedroom is the office. But we love it here and do not plan to move.
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Larry in OB
Stop dead photo links! Post your photos to The Samba Gallery!
69 Westfalia and 2002 Eurovan Camper.

[my59]

Now in an 1832 1900 sf house with limited insulation, 2 unheated sheds, and a good sized barn. House is post and beam, clapboard over 2" plank sheathing with lath and plaster. The shitty vinyl windows have a better R value than the walls. The house is a bitch to heat, unless I gut it and build into the house to add insulation. Oil fired steam heat with radiators located as far from the outside walls as possible. Have a forced air wood/coal furnace in basement that heats the first floor and keeps the rest of the upstairs tolerable.
When I saw #2 fuel oil at $6 gal in June I bought 6 tons of coal....
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my59: Well son, my grandfather died before I got to drive it, so does that answer your question?
our79: sunroof bus w/camper interior and 2.0 FI
Other:'12 Jetta, '77 Benz 300D, and a 74 MG Midget.

[skills@eurocarsplus]

[my59]

Yeah, Ct, close to the sound.

The plan has always been to gradually redo the exterior walls from the plank in, put in half inch continous rigid insulation on the sheathing and build 2x4 interior stud furring filled with closed cell spray foam, and putting in hot water heat. It also means redoing all the window and door casings, jamb extensions and baseboard.
Contractor bids right now say I can buy a lot of coal and not live in a construction site.
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my59: Well son, my grandfather died before I got to drive it, so does that answer your question?
our79: sunroof bus w/camper interior and 2.0 FI
Other:'12 Jetta, '77 Benz 300D, and a 74 MG Midget.

[crukab]

Our place was built in 1984, we bought in '95, 3.5 acres, 2000 sqft, 3 bed, 2 bath, faces South, built into the hill, super insulated, we burn about 4 cords of wood a year, if it's sunny in the Winter, we don't feed the fire until nighttime, otherwise it gets up to 80-85 degrees upstairs, the downstairs is fully finished living space, where the wood stove is, we have a Gas hot air backup system, but hardly ever use it. We have a Tesla battery for backup power.
12 solar electric panels & 2 solar hot water.
We use about 65% of the house, the kids have long moved away, the wife wants to build a handicapped accessible house in our back field for us, for when we are old and drooling in our oatmeal, which for me feels like it's getting closer everyday!

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Tom

My Pops:
http://www.thesamba.com/vw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=604100&highlight=
I know you will always be with me, rest in peace with no more pain. 8/13/14.....

In the yard right now:
'51 Dodge 5 window truck
'65 Bug
'66 Singlecab
'82 Rabbit Truck Diesel from CALI
'86 Doublecab W/T
'91 Vanagon carat/wolfsbrg.Tiico
'88 Dodge Ram pickup
'11 Jetta Wagon

[steve244]

Just add a hoist to the 2nd level to haul your ass up. A 12V electric winch will do the trick.

Cool setup. Did you do all the wiring plumbing?
_________________
82 AC vanagon approx 200K miles (3K are mine).
DD is a 2015 Leaf
Road Trip to Hell (FL 2023)
The Vanagon's drivetrain and chassis restomod thread. Best sung to the tune of I Did It My Way...

[crukab]

[steve244]

Very nice.

Did you have a hard time rationalizing the cost of solar?
_________________
82 AC vanagon approx 200K miles (3K are mine).
DD is a 2015 Leaf
Road Trip to Hell (FL 2023)
The Vanagon's drivetrain and chassis restomod thread. Best sung to the tune of I Did It My Way...

[crukab]