[Greenbuilding] one more pleasure (or not) of heating with wood

Reuben Deumling 9watts at gmail.com
Fri Dec 31 09:56:34 CST 2010


On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 7:44 AM, Ron Cascio <roncascio at verizon.net> wrote:

>  Along with the codes, those who mortgage and insure homes want to be
> assured that the structure will be conditioned and not have pipes freeze
> along with the ensuing water damage.
>
That makes (some) sense, but you could (might want to) also run this risk
calculation backwards and ask what happens to the pipes when the intended
fuel is no longer affordable or available? This reminds me of my discovery
of the reason (or the reason given at least) for why manual defrost
refrigerators were ineligible for an Energy Star rating for the first five
years of the program (1997-2002). I was told it was because manual defrost
refrigerators "required user input to maintain their efficiency." *
Never mind that the ostensible goal (if minimizing energy consumption of the
appliance in question was the goal) of the Energy Star program would have
been advanced by including manual defrost fridges which by statute were
required to use less energy.

* This is as it turns out also mostly nonsense, as the energy penalty from
frost buildup is slight to nonexistant, notwithstanding longstanding
assertions by all sorts of energy authorities that it was not only
significant, but by implication greater than the energy penalty associated
with the auto defrost apparatus for an equal-sized fridge.
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