All Over the Map Hot Water Heater Questions

[Ballvalve]

It isn't that hard to get residential water consumption down to European levels. We got ours down to Chinese levels (!) with the HET toilets, Energy Star dishwasher, front loading washer, and 1.5-1.6 gpm showerheads. And we aren't skipping showering, or not washing clothes, or anything like that. In fact we probably have more dishes than most because we cook most meals at home, don't eat TV dinners or eat/order out much.

Thats a great start, but to get to rural Chinese levels, you are looking at one communal Wok for the family to eat from, which is wiped clean with some ones old underwear.Thats a tier 25 on the utility rebate schedule. As to your toilet, sorry, but unless its a honey bucket and taken to the garden daily, and you use the latest communist manifesto as toilet paper, or one of Mao's little funny books, you are at best in the euro-zone. The Chinese Toto uses NO water and gives back great fruit the next season.

As to showering, my 102 year old aunt in her clay floor barn-living space-coop/milk cow house, Her energy star is off the books because she never even saw one until she went to the hospital in her 90's for a week. When you wash with home made soap, save the wash water and mix it with the kitchen slop for the pig, now you are in China or rural [fading] Czech-slovak-Polish territory.

A few years ago, I helped build a interior bathroom [!] for a family of 7 relations of mine in Banska Bystrica, SR on the Unesco world heritage list, and thank god, so far undiscovered. Imagine being 60- 70 - 80 years old and faithfully trudging through the snow to the outhouse for your entire life. The house itself has served several generations, and will likely do several more. Bought them a bath towel and floor rug set, and I thought grandma would have to be medi-vac'd out from too much crying. Probably has yet to fully open them and dare to dirty them.

Europeans with enough money to build homes build for the long term, and hope their great grandchildren will enjoy living there. In the US anything that doesn't have "payback" at resale 5 years from the day they move in isn't deemed "worth it", putting more money in to surface trappings that sell rather than what makes long-term sense. In the US without building codes for minimum R values most would stop at R8 (if there were any insulation at all), since you can't make a 5 year economic argument for more than that on heating/cooling savings in all but the very coldest parts of the US. (Indeed, many homes built before 1965 still have no wall insulation.)

Very true words, rarely spoken in the USA. The biggest abberation in US homes is the appraisers first question: 'How many square feet?' Thats tantamount to asking your blind date what her bra size is in order to judge her value. Then we have these atrocities somehow called homes made with EPS and poystyrene foam doo-dads, and trim and corbels and columns that are stuccoed or latex coated over... and done in a manner so that the structure rots inside out in a decade or less. On one that I worked on, I actually had dangerously serious visions of a need to blow the place up like Roarke in Ann Ryands Fountainhead. With the soulless owner inside. The only job in my life that I hired a lawyer and negotiated OUT of the contract finish in order to save a prison term.

Those thousands of houses in Chicago and Detroit and Milwaukee and Kenosha that you can buy now for 3 or 6.000$ were built by immigrant Slavs and Germans and Dutch to the highest of standards, and could with love, stand another 200 years. But we lost the kids to the plastic burbs, and the renters and trash that moved in forgot to re-pipe and re-roof every 30 years. The only re-pipe they do involves crack cocaine.

I've been in some repoed mobiles lately, where I really thought I might faint from the evidence of how the owners lived. My 6 year old kid has enough sense of aesthetics to have announced " I'm getting out of here before I throw up". I think I'll head to my library and find Henry Millers "The air conditioned nightmare" - his road trip across America after LIVING in Paris.

I know some folks in Romania and Hungary that might be living closer to the bleak Belarus/Ukrainian condition

Actually, Hungary is a very wealthy nation, with a mysterious language and beautiful culture that defies definition. My relations that landed early at Ellis Island were all termed" Hungarians" to their great disgust, which explains why Slovakia has several hundred incredible unrestored castles that you can hike to and camp in. [guarding the serfs] Romania, on the other hand, is a mess, and since its borders have shifted in the last 100 years like an amoeba, cannot get a good grip on itself as a nation. You do not drive there without a bodyguard and a smoking Trabant should you wish to remain whole.

 

[Dana]

I dunno about "very" wealthy nation status for Hungary (at least it's not for all villages & districts), but compared to some of their eastern neighbors, sure, on average they have it pretty well off. Magyar isn't any more "mysterious" than Lapp, Lett, or Finn, or other related languages originating in the Urals but to be sure it's neither Indo-European or Mongolian, despite many borrowed words from both language groups. (I ended up learning a smattering of Magyar over the years for both professional & social reasons, but I've never been there.) I'm told that it has some common aspects with Slovak (of which I know not a word), but it's sure nothing like Czech/Polish etc.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Ballvalve]

Any words spoken in Hungary are pure Chinese to a Slovak. Their disputed border area has some mixed up words, but though I havent read of it for years, understood that it is quite a conundrum as to how this island of language - with no pure equal at all- managed to survive in the heart of Europe.

I'll take the Hungarian village over the Soviet town 'rabbit hutches', precast atrocities waiting to collapse, anyday.

As to Czech and Slovak, they understand each other perfectly, but due to arrogance, often pretend not to. Half my family is Czech and Half Slovak, I would say Czech is more romantic, softer, as comparing French to German. The Poles and the Slovaks can WORK up a bad conversation, and have a few interesting phrases that mean quite another thing in the others language.

My cousin the tour guide, has a few hilarious stories about the Polish in Slovakia inquiring about "where can I get a cigarette" [forgot the exact word] which translates perfectly to the Slovak as "where can I get a F%^&"

Since the Slovaks are bright enough to regulate prostitution, sometimes the Pole gets a real answer that takes him to an interesting house. Other times, you can imagine the result - [especially if the word "where" is removed from the question]

The Slovaks and western Ukranianians can converse quite freely.

Slovak was actually banned by the wonderful Hungarians for hundreds of years of their dreadful rule, and I believe the first Slovak dictionary came out in the 1900's.

 

[Statjunk]

I'm starting to question how many of you guys are really plumbers.... Diplomats maybe....

Great read btw. I'm an isolated American that doesn't know anything about the rest of the world. Typical, sadly.

Back to the follow up question I asked does anyone know of some kind of inline pump I can use to pump water out of the hot water tank and out of the basement? No floor drains.

Dana,

I'm going to look into that tank.

Thanks

Tom

 

[Statjunk]

Dana,

I looked into that tank and man does it get bad reviews. Now I know there are always going to be bad reviews for things but the consistency was scary. There is no way I'd take a chance on that system. With the bad customer service to boot I'm not sure why anyone would. Honestly they should have just wired the thing with an electric ignitor or a battery system with a generator that recharges the battery. Doesn't make a bunch of sense to me.

Anyhow does anyone know of a pump I could use for the water tank?

Thanks

Tom

 

[SL]

I have an electric hot water heater that I've had for about 7 years. It is located in a closet, and just yeterday, I put some hurricane supplies (a lot of water jugs) all around it. All of the sudden now, the water temp from it is MUCH hotter (maybe 15 degrees hotter) than I had it set. I did not adjust the temp controls on the water heater, and the controls could not have been accidently bumped since there is a durable cover over the controls. It would be too much of a coincidence that this would happen on the 1 day out of 7 years that I placed this stuff around the water heater. What would cause the water temp to get MUCH hotter, and is it a cause for concern?

Thanks

Steve

 

[Runs with Bison]

I have an electric hot water heater that I've had for about 7 years. It is located in a closet, and just yeterday, I put some hurricane supplies (a lot of water jugs) all around it. All of the sudden now, the water temp from it is MUCH hotter (maybe 15 degrees hotter) than I had it set. I did not adjust the temp controls on the water heater, and the controls could not have been accidently bumped since there is a durable cover over the controls. It would be too much of a coincidence that this would happen on the 1 day out of 7 years that I placed this stuff around the water heater. What would cause the water temp to get MUCH hotter, and is it a cause for concern?

There is an easy way to determine whether or not it is coincidence: take the hurricane supplies out of the closet, do a shower draw to remove some hot water, and then see if after recovery the water temp is still elevated. If it is, then there is an issue with the controls. If it isn't, then put the jugs back in the same place and repeat. If it gets hot again then you know it is specific to adding the jugs around it.

 

[Ballvalve]

Perhaps you have super insulated your heater and you now have little drop in water temp as draw down occurs. Sounds good to me. Not too good for the stored water, however. electric water heaters get all of my old and winter clothes piled around them.