Dead right! I envy travellers who don't have to stump up such huge bills.
I hear you re. the electricity prices. Ours're even more than yours, but I'm not sure off-hand what the water costs. I know it's a lot, but then we use a lot.
water delivery
Re: water delivery
time to buy candles.
oh wait, punkin can make them.
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Icey
Re: water delivery
LOL - yes! You have an advantage there. I think I'll look into it!
I like candlelight, but we all need washing machines these days, dryers (over here it's a must) and other appliances. There's no way that with a family of 4, I'd be able to do just one wash a week. We do several a day. Then start thinking about what else you use all the time, and it soon mounts up. I get a bit mean with lights being left on. They might not take up too much electricity, but they do when you have a lot of them.
An annual standing charge can be over £200 (more than $306) whether you use the electricity or not, plus you have VAT on top of it. One kW of energy (similar to having a washing machine on for an hour) can be as much as 9.397 pence + VAT. Now start adding up all the gadgets you use daily - the vacuum cleaner, fridge/freezer, TV, computers, lights, washing machines and dryers, kettles, irons, electric cookers .... plus an array of other things. By the time your bill drops in, your jaw drops even further! : )
I like candlelight, but we all need washing machines these days, dryers (over here it's a must) and other appliances. There's no way that with a family of 4, I'd be able to do just one wash a week. We do several a day. Then start thinking about what else you use all the time, and it soon mounts up. I get a bit mean with lights being left on. They might not take up too much electricity, but they do when you have a lot of them.
An annual standing charge can be over £200 (more than $306) whether you use the electricity or not, plus you have VAT on top of it. One kW of energy (similar to having a washing machine on for an hour) can be as much as 9.397 pence + VAT. Now start adding up all the gadgets you use daily - the vacuum cleaner, fridge/freezer, TV, computers, lights, washing machines and dryers, kettles, irons, electric cookers .... plus an array of other things. By the time your bill drops in, your jaw drops even further! : )
Last edited by Icey on 02 Sep 2015, 21:29, edited 1 time in total.
Re: water delivery
We have several folks a little further west of us who are still on well water.
Even so, they have to pay 30 to 50 bucks a month for the sanitary sewer line, and must be connected to it.
What I can't figure out is why is the sewer bills here 3 to 5 times higher than the water bill, and why is it so much higher than back home, when they have so few miles of sewer lines here.
It can't possibly cost more to treat the waste from 150,000 homes as it does from 750,000 homes.
Even so, they have to pay 30 to 50 bucks a month for the sanitary sewer line, and must be connected to it.
What I can't figure out is why is the sewer bills here 3 to 5 times higher than the water bill, and why is it so much higher than back home, when they have so few miles of sewer lines here.
It can't possibly cost more to treat the waste from 150,000 homes as it does from 750,000 homes.
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Icey
Re: water delivery
Hi Gary. Well it's similar over here in that charges're higher in the more affluent areas, and yes, anyone still drawing well water only, has to pay for it.
I suppose that the more miles of sewage pipes you have, ordinarily the more they'd have to charge to maintain them - plus maintain the sewage plants which deal with it all, but as you know, if "they" can get more money out of folk, they will.
I suppose that the more miles of sewage pipes you have, ordinarily the more they'd have to charge to maintain them - plus maintain the sewage plants which deal with it all, but as you know, if "they" can get more money out of folk, they will.
Re: water delivery
Back home our Metropolitan Sewer District maintained:
2,980 miles of Stormwater Sewers
4,741 miles of Sanitary Sewers
1,928 miles of Flow Lines - Which does not include miles of Watershed they maintain.
This comes to 9,649 miles of Sewers.
Our cost was $1.88 ccf = 750 gallons Sanitary.
I have to include our 4,200 miles of water mains in the County, due to the comparison following.
Our cost was $1.52 ccf.
Total miles of pipes 13,849
Here in east Podunk, the Knoxville Utility Board only maintains 5,162 miles of Sewer and Water lines combined.
We only have Sanitary Sewer lines in my area, no Storm Sewers much of anywhere here.
$6.42 ccf Wastewater
$2.62 ccf Water + tax
$1.88 ccf back home for Sewer vs $6.42 ccf here in Knoxville - WHY the HUGE price difference?
$1.52 ccf for water back home, vs $2.62 ccf here in Knoxville - WHY is it Double the price?
The difference is simply, back home our utilities are privately owned although controlled by the government.
Down here, they are owned and operated by a highly inefficient government with plenty of bloat on their payroll.
Where I used to live, we had private trash hauling by a great company Wilson Refuse. They collected your garbage cans from beside your garage so you didn't have to lug them down to the street. No extra charge for twice weekly pickup if you had a lot of garbage due to kids, etc.
The County took over trash hauling and placed the cost as a part of our Real Estate taxes.
The price was double of what we were used to paying, pickup was only once per week at the curb, limit to two 45 gallon or three 30 gallon trash cans without paying a surcharge.
Government has never been able to do better than private industry in any field of endeavor!
2,980 miles of Stormwater Sewers
4,741 miles of Sanitary Sewers
1,928 miles of Flow Lines - Which does not include miles of Watershed they maintain.
This comes to 9,649 miles of Sewers.
Our cost was $1.88 ccf = 750 gallons Sanitary.
I have to include our 4,200 miles of water mains in the County, due to the comparison following.
Our cost was $1.52 ccf.
Total miles of pipes 13,849
Here in east Podunk, the Knoxville Utility Board only maintains 5,162 miles of Sewer and Water lines combined.
We only have Sanitary Sewer lines in my area, no Storm Sewers much of anywhere here.
$6.42 ccf Wastewater
$2.62 ccf Water + tax
$1.88 ccf back home for Sewer vs $6.42 ccf here in Knoxville - WHY the HUGE price difference?
$1.52 ccf for water back home, vs $2.62 ccf here in Knoxville - WHY is it Double the price?
The difference is simply, back home our utilities are privately owned although controlled by the government.
Down here, they are owned and operated by a highly inefficient government with plenty of bloat on their payroll.
Where I used to live, we had private trash hauling by a great company Wilson Refuse. They collected your garbage cans from beside your garage so you didn't have to lug them down to the street. No extra charge for twice weekly pickup if you had a lot of garbage due to kids, etc.
The County took over trash hauling and placed the cost as a part of our Real Estate taxes.
The price was double of what we were used to paying, pickup was only once per week at the curb, limit to two 45 gallon or three 30 gallon trash cans without paying a surcharge.
Government has never been able to do better than private industry in any field of endeavor!
-
Icey
Re: water delivery
I think if the system went back into private hands again, you'd find that their charges'd increase considerably. This's happened over here. As soon as the railways and other businesses were privatised, the costs've just kept rising, often more than inflation, and they continue to do so.
The cutbacks which've been made to services here are outrageous. We have regular refuse collections, but if you have any extra bags, they're sometimes left, and if your wheelie bin lid won't close, not only might they leave those as well, but you can receive a fine. Someone also has the unpleasant job of going through certain bins to make sure that the contents are what they're supposed to be. If someone puts a polythene bag into the bin for recycling by mistake, believe it or not, they have officers whose job it is to trace where it came from, and people can receive fines for that as well.
It's almost laughable, except that residents're now doing the unpaid work of what the collectors/sorters used to do, by having to sort out different types of rubbish into different- coloured bins.
As for the water, I personally can't complain about it at all. Ours isn't fluoridated, and although some people in Manchester've had to boil theirs recently, due to bugs being found in their supply, work to rectify the problem started immediately. Ours is as as good as it gets, and although overall cost baffles some people. This's one of the reasons I'm glad we haven't got a water meter installed at home. We use loads of it, yet only pay a set amount per month, which in our case's very fair.
The cutbacks which've been made to services here are outrageous. We have regular refuse collections, but if you have any extra bags, they're sometimes left, and if your wheelie bin lid won't close, not only might they leave those as well, but you can receive a fine. Someone also has the unpleasant job of going through certain bins to make sure that the contents are what they're supposed to be. If someone puts a polythene bag into the bin for recycling by mistake, believe it or not, they have officers whose job it is to trace where it came from, and people can receive fines for that as well.
It's almost laughable, except that residents're now doing the unpaid work of what the collectors/sorters used to do, by having to sort out different types of rubbish into different- coloured bins.
As for the water, I personally can't complain about it at all. Ours isn't fluoridated, and although some people in Manchester've had to boil theirs recently, due to bugs being found in their supply, work to rectify the problem started immediately. Ours is as as good as it gets, and although overall cost baffles some people. This's one of the reasons I'm glad we haven't got a water meter installed at home. We use loads of it, yet only pay a set amount per month, which in our case's very fair.
Re: water delivery
Changing or allowing a privatized utility can in many cases create a Monopoly, such as we currently have here with the Cable TV companies.
As usual, we have government working against the people to line their own pockets.
Government says they are NOT a monopoly because we have three different Cable Companies serving our City.
Yet the People DO NOT HAVE A CHOICE of which one they get. We have ONE CHOICE and ONE CHOICE ONLY, which makes them a Monopoly. Their high prices also PROVE they are a Monopoly.
Naturally it would be ridiculous to have more than one company supplying an area with a utility, as both would have to run wires, or pipes, or whatever. But there is a solution to the problem which would allow consumers to pick and choose which company they wanted to deal with. It is not as hard to do as it sounds either.
We can take the MaBell breakup as an example, and actually improve on it considerably too!
Using Cable TV/Internet cables as an example:
Exclusives were given to the cable companies for a particular area to get them to install the cabling. The length of time they were guaranteed exclusivity was never addressed.
What if a Cable services provider was not allowed to own the lines their services were sent over?
They had to lease lines from the cable owner, much the way cell towers are operated today.
Four, five, or six companies have antenna's on a cell tower.
If you have three cable TV companies serving your city, you could then select which one you want to provide services to your home, over the shared cable lines.
This could also work with Water, Electric, Gas, etc. just as easily.
The McCarthy Brothers could open a water purification and pumping company. They start out with only 100 customers, so they must pump into the water mains enough water for these 100 customers usage. Jake Hillerman and Company also open a water purification and pumping company. They too start out with only 100 customers, so must pump into the water mains enough water for these 100 customers usage. The other 100,000 users are still using the municipal water service, which is now fed on privately owned water mains. Or in the case of the mains still being owned by the city in question, the lease cost to use their own mains will have to be separated from the sale price of the water.
Naturally McCarthy Brothers and Jake Hillerman and Company are going to charge less for water to get more of the cities clients away from the overpriced city.
In lieu of the above, sorta like we did back home, every expense borne by our privately owned utilities was scrutinized and no excess profits were allowed. This is why our water was at a fair price, while down here it is over five times higher. It does not cost this city any more to pump water out of the river than it does my back home city, or treat the water, or pump the water. All the excess profits are going into the poly-TICK-ians pockets.
OK, enough rambling for one day.
As usual, we have government working against the people to line their own pockets.
Government says they are NOT a monopoly because we have three different Cable Companies serving our City.
Yet the People DO NOT HAVE A CHOICE of which one they get. We have ONE CHOICE and ONE CHOICE ONLY, which makes them a Monopoly. Their high prices also PROVE they are a Monopoly.
Naturally it would be ridiculous to have more than one company supplying an area with a utility, as both would have to run wires, or pipes, or whatever. But there is a solution to the problem which would allow consumers to pick and choose which company they wanted to deal with. It is not as hard to do as it sounds either.
We can take the MaBell breakup as an example, and actually improve on it considerably too!
Using Cable TV/Internet cables as an example:
Exclusives were given to the cable companies for a particular area to get them to install the cabling. The length of time they were guaranteed exclusivity was never addressed.
What if a Cable services provider was not allowed to own the lines their services were sent over?
They had to lease lines from the cable owner, much the way cell towers are operated today.
Four, five, or six companies have antenna's on a cell tower.
If you have three cable TV companies serving your city, you could then select which one you want to provide services to your home, over the shared cable lines.
This could also work with Water, Electric, Gas, etc. just as easily.
The McCarthy Brothers could open a water purification and pumping company. They start out with only 100 customers, so they must pump into the water mains enough water for these 100 customers usage. Jake Hillerman and Company also open a water purification and pumping company. They too start out with only 100 customers, so must pump into the water mains enough water for these 100 customers usage. The other 100,000 users are still using the municipal water service, which is now fed on privately owned water mains. Or in the case of the mains still being owned by the city in question, the lease cost to use their own mains will have to be separated from the sale price of the water.
Naturally McCarthy Brothers and Jake Hillerman and Company are going to charge less for water to get more of the cities clients away from the overpriced city.
In lieu of the above, sorta like we did back home, every expense borne by our privately owned utilities was scrutinized and no excess profits were allowed. This is why our water was at a fair price, while down here it is over five times higher. It does not cost this city any more to pump water out of the river than it does my back home city, or treat the water, or pump the water. All the excess profits are going into the poly-TICK-ians pockets.
OK, enough rambling for one day.
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Icey
Re: water delivery
LOl - well over here, the excess profits go back to the the companies who supply the services, but obviously, the government rakes in a nice amount in taxation as well, so they like to try and keep these people happy and've been allowing frequent hikes until everyone started complaining.
Your area utilities obviously work differently to ours. We all have quite a wide choice of where we get out electricity, gas and phone lines/broadband from, but this doesn't apply to water because that's piped from various reservoirs/rivers nearest to the area and where reservoirs can be sited. A third of our water comes from reservoirs, and goes through multiple treatments before reaching our taps. Here, for instance, water that comes up from boreholes is slightly darker than water might be elsewhere, due to natural iron in it. This'd treated for aesthetic reasons, to look as clear as anywhere else, but it also goes through a natural purification system as it's filtered through limestone, and then de-bugged! Apart from natural bottled water, ours's perhaps some of the best in the UK.
Prices vary around the country, but there's not a great deal between them all. After initial encouraging offers to swap over to them, costs shoot up pretty much in line with everywhere else. : (
Your area utilities obviously work differently to ours. We all have quite a wide choice of where we get out electricity, gas and phone lines/broadband from, but this doesn't apply to water because that's piped from various reservoirs/rivers nearest to the area and where reservoirs can be sited. A third of our water comes from reservoirs, and goes through multiple treatments before reaching our taps. Here, for instance, water that comes up from boreholes is slightly darker than water might be elsewhere, due to natural iron in it. This'd treated for aesthetic reasons, to look as clear as anywhere else, but it also goes through a natural purification system as it's filtered through limestone, and then de-bugged! Apart from natural bottled water, ours's perhaps some of the best in the UK.
Prices vary around the country, but there's not a great deal between them all. After initial encouraging offers to swap over to them, costs shoot up pretty much in line with everywhere else. : (
Re: water delivery
In one home I lived in for slightly over five years, all of the major trunk lines leading from the big city to the smaller municipalities further west, passed in front of our property. Even so, we could only use the service our city had a contract with, the rest were prohibited from making connections to residents in our city.
The only exception was those cable companies using twin-cable interactive wiring, which is how we managed to be connected to Qube Cable for TV. Didn't have internet back then, hi hi...
When I lived at the boundary line of the City of Kirkwood, and St. Louis County Unincorporated, the End of Kirkwood Electric's utility pole was on the east side of our property line, while the End of Union Electric's utility pole was on our west side property line. We were stuck using the higher priced Kirkwood electric because the property itself was within the city limits of Kirkwood. However, we learned from the supermarket across the street that if we owned a utility pole of our own, and placed it on our own property at the west property line where UE is the most logical to feed our private pole, then once the electric was fed to a private pole, where it went from there was out of Kirkwood's jurisdiction.
It only cost 250 bucks to have a brand new utility pole installed at the time if you had UE do it. But we found a sign company who installed it for us for only 100 bucks, plus the 45 dollars for the pole itself, with taxes brought it up to around 155 bucks. It would take seven months using power from UE to break even. As UE's prices went up, we had a switch installed so we could switch which weatherhead fed our meter, the cost for this was another 80 bucks give or take. Both companies published their rates for the month, and when they were bouncing back and forth between the two, we threw the switch and used the cheaper source. There were enough times the difference between prices was considerable enough, we wound up paying for everything we spent to have these upgrades installed in under a year, and probably saved about 300 bucks per year every year thereafter for the five plus years we lived at that location.
I've never had a choice in electric companies since that time either, but can't complain about what we are charged down here, although it is higher than it should be and a bit higher than what we were promised if we voted in the nuclear power plant.
The only exception was those cable companies using twin-cable interactive wiring, which is how we managed to be connected to Qube Cable for TV. Didn't have internet back then, hi hi...
When I lived at the boundary line of the City of Kirkwood, and St. Louis County Unincorporated, the End of Kirkwood Electric's utility pole was on the east side of our property line, while the End of Union Electric's utility pole was on our west side property line. We were stuck using the higher priced Kirkwood electric because the property itself was within the city limits of Kirkwood. However, we learned from the supermarket across the street that if we owned a utility pole of our own, and placed it on our own property at the west property line where UE is the most logical to feed our private pole, then once the electric was fed to a private pole, where it went from there was out of Kirkwood's jurisdiction.
It only cost 250 bucks to have a brand new utility pole installed at the time if you had UE do it. But we found a sign company who installed it for us for only 100 bucks, plus the 45 dollars for the pole itself, with taxes brought it up to around 155 bucks. It would take seven months using power from UE to break even. As UE's prices went up, we had a switch installed so we could switch which weatherhead fed our meter, the cost for this was another 80 bucks give or take. Both companies published their rates for the month, and when they were bouncing back and forth between the two, we threw the switch and used the cheaper source. There were enough times the difference between prices was considerable enough, we wound up paying for everything we spent to have these upgrades installed in under a year, and probably saved about 300 bucks per year every year thereafter for the five plus years we lived at that location.
I've never had a choice in electric companies since that time either, but can't complain about what we are charged down here, although it is higher than it should be and a bit higher than what we were promised if we voted in the nuclear power plant.
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Icey
Re: water delivery
I have to answer that last bit first again. They'll ALWAYS try and tell you that nuclear power, or wind turbines're cleaner and cheaper, but when people're forced to use them, the prices STILL go up - as expected. : (
The National Grid supplies power to almost everyone in the UK, but you can approach the plethora of companies who then sell it on more cheaply than the next company. It might all start off well, but then the prices start to rise. In the end, there's not a lot of difference between them all, and one of the problems is in offering a multitude of tariffs which're not easy to work out. The government's said that power companies must make these options clearer to people, to give everyone a genuine choice, but obviously there are catches, otherwise all but the most stupid of people'd turn to the lowest one they could find. For instance, some're capped for a year or whatever, during which time, if prices rise, these aren't passed onto the customers, but they're probably paying at a higher rate than necessary anyway, so the companies're still raking in their money.
It's slightly different with phones. You have the choice of using, as an instance, rental from underground cable companies or wired connections fed from poles. Then you have a choice of several different firms advertising each one. The introductory offers might start off really low, but after so many months, they shoot up to double or triple and you still have so many months of your contract to run. Whereas you have cities with specific company contracts, over here, almost all of them're available nationwide. If they're not, these companies're working towards it, to cover most of the country.
The National Grid supplies power to almost everyone in the UK, but you can approach the plethora of companies who then sell it on more cheaply than the next company. It might all start off well, but then the prices start to rise. In the end, there's not a lot of difference between them all, and one of the problems is in offering a multitude of tariffs which're not easy to work out. The government's said that power companies must make these options clearer to people, to give everyone a genuine choice, but obviously there are catches, otherwise all but the most stupid of people'd turn to the lowest one they could find. For instance, some're capped for a year or whatever, during which time, if prices rise, these aren't passed onto the customers, but they're probably paying at a higher rate than necessary anyway, so the companies're still raking in their money.
It's slightly different with phones. You have the choice of using, as an instance, rental from underground cable companies or wired connections fed from poles. Then you have a choice of several different firms advertising each one. The introductory offers might start off really low, but after so many months, they shoot up to double or triple and you still have so many months of your contract to run. Whereas you have cities with specific company contracts, over here, almost all of them're available nationwide. If they're not, these companies're working towards it, to cover most of the country.
Re: water delivery
I'm all for alternative power sources, but keep government bribery and coercion out of the reports.
Oh wait, they already do! They don't let you know the reason they are showing a profit is because of a kickback from the government which is unreported on the reports showing profitability.
We have a solar array company about a mile from my home. They sell all kinds of solar panels and various structures.
I'll come back to this in a second.
We have more power outages down here than anyplace I've lived in my entire life. I argued with the powers that be to get my electric from the east utility poles instead of the west utility poles. I also asked WHY are the two circuits NOT joined on the grid.
Turns out, our local utility company uses single line direct wiring and do not use a security grid system at all.
They did install a new substation on the lines that feed my house, which was supposed to reduce the number of times we were without power. Didn't help, they now have larger area power outages, all because of a single broken wire somewhere, and because they are not grid wired the way modern cities are.
OK, moving back to the solar. The frau wanted me to buy a generator like we had back home, if the power goes out, it kicks on and powers up automatically. Those are expensive. Then she started looking into Solar Arrays.
What the Solar Array companies NEVER TELL YOU, and it is blatantly missing from 100% of their advertising spiels.
After spending ten or twenty thousand dollars to have their Array installed, if the power from the power company goes out, you are still without electricity until the power company comes back on line again.
Unless of course, you spend an additional twenty thousand dollars to install a power backup system which has a really high annual maintenance cost.
Ask yourself WHY are the Power Companies so Eager to allow you to install a Solar Array and feed the power back into the grid (even when there is no grid), AND they will pay you for the electric you supply to the grid.
They learned right away a reverse running electric meter was NOT the way to do it. They want to sell you the electric YOU USE at their normal super high rate, but only pay you a quarter penny on the dollar for what they buy back from you. There is only about three to four hours per day, and only on about two-thirds of the days of the year, when your array will produce enough electric that you are putting electric onto the grid, rather than taking it off the grid.
So, the amount of money you make back is not even negligible.
Plus, if the power goes out, you are out too, same as before.
In other words, it all sounds GREAT, until you do the MATHWORK and find out it is not so great after all.
But that's the problem, most people don't do the Mathwork, they rely on what the salesman and poly-TICK-ians tell them.
I can get a 10,000 dollar tax credit for installing the proper sized solar array. Sounds great doesn't it?
Until you go to fill out your income taxes, and find you will gain absolutely nothing by this credit, because you are already at your maximum deduction level, or do not have enough income for the tax credit to apply.
In other words, it is all smoke and mirrors, false data presented on every angle.
I live in an area where the average wind levels are high enough, even higher since I'm at the top of a mountain (Rodgers Ridge, a foothill of the Smoky's). They make a fairly silent running wind turbine which also warns birds to keep away somehow. At my age, the cost of installing same would never pan out for me, but for someone in their thirties, it could pay for itself if they don't have too many major maintenance issues. If maintenance costs stay within average, it would take twenty-five years to break even, and that is only if you did not finance the installation and had to pay interest on the loan. A wind turbine does not generate power until a certain wind speed is reached, then it kicks the generator in. By the same token, if the wind speed gets too high, it also shuts down to protect the turbine from wind damage.
Salesman talk about the latter feature, but never mention the fact they don't do anything until the minimum speed is reached.
FWIW: I've seen solar panel prices which range from over five dollars per watt to under a quarter per watt. Way too much fluctuation in the prices for solar, since it is basically an uncontrolled industry, with a lot of snake oil salesmen in the mix.
Oh wait, they already do! They don't let you know the reason they are showing a profit is because of a kickback from the government which is unreported on the reports showing profitability.
We have a solar array company about a mile from my home. They sell all kinds of solar panels and various structures.
I'll come back to this in a second.
We have more power outages down here than anyplace I've lived in my entire life. I argued with the powers that be to get my electric from the east utility poles instead of the west utility poles. I also asked WHY are the two circuits NOT joined on the grid.
Turns out, our local utility company uses single line direct wiring and do not use a security grid system at all.
They did install a new substation on the lines that feed my house, which was supposed to reduce the number of times we were without power. Didn't help, they now have larger area power outages, all because of a single broken wire somewhere, and because they are not grid wired the way modern cities are.
OK, moving back to the solar. The frau wanted me to buy a generator like we had back home, if the power goes out, it kicks on and powers up automatically. Those are expensive. Then she started looking into Solar Arrays.
What the Solar Array companies NEVER TELL YOU, and it is blatantly missing from 100% of their advertising spiels.
After spending ten or twenty thousand dollars to have their Array installed, if the power from the power company goes out, you are still without electricity until the power company comes back on line again.
Unless of course, you spend an additional twenty thousand dollars to install a power backup system which has a really high annual maintenance cost.
Ask yourself WHY are the Power Companies so Eager to allow you to install a Solar Array and feed the power back into the grid (even when there is no grid), AND they will pay you for the electric you supply to the grid.
They learned right away a reverse running electric meter was NOT the way to do it. They want to sell you the electric YOU USE at their normal super high rate, but only pay you a quarter penny on the dollar for what they buy back from you. There is only about three to four hours per day, and only on about two-thirds of the days of the year, when your array will produce enough electric that you are putting electric onto the grid, rather than taking it off the grid.
So, the amount of money you make back is not even negligible.
Plus, if the power goes out, you are out too, same as before.
In other words, it all sounds GREAT, until you do the MATHWORK and find out it is not so great after all.
But that's the problem, most people don't do the Mathwork, they rely on what the salesman and poly-TICK-ians tell them.
I can get a 10,000 dollar tax credit for installing the proper sized solar array. Sounds great doesn't it?
Until you go to fill out your income taxes, and find you will gain absolutely nothing by this credit, because you are already at your maximum deduction level, or do not have enough income for the tax credit to apply.
In other words, it is all smoke and mirrors, false data presented on every angle.
I live in an area where the average wind levels are high enough, even higher since I'm at the top of a mountain (Rodgers Ridge, a foothill of the Smoky's). They make a fairly silent running wind turbine which also warns birds to keep away somehow. At my age, the cost of installing same would never pan out for me, but for someone in their thirties, it could pay for itself if they don't have too many major maintenance issues. If maintenance costs stay within average, it would take twenty-five years to break even, and that is only if you did not finance the installation and had to pay interest on the loan. A wind turbine does not generate power until a certain wind speed is reached, then it kicks the generator in. By the same token, if the wind speed gets too high, it also shuts down to protect the turbine from wind damage.
Salesman talk about the latter feature, but never mention the fact they don't do anything until the minimum speed is reached.
FWIW: I've seen solar panel prices which range from over five dollars per watt to under a quarter per watt. Way too much fluctuation in the prices for solar, since it is basically an uncontrolled industry, with a lot of snake oil salesmen in the mix.
-
Icey
Re: water delivery
Yes, it's not good is it?
Over here, prices of solar panels've come right down, but're due to rise sharply in 2016 due to an EU ruling which says that the installers must pay more in VAT! They should keep their noses out - but anyway, some people can still have them on their homes for no up-front charge, but the amount of excess electricity which can be sold back to the Grid's set to plummet dramatically.
If someone has a whole roof of these panels, in 20 years, they'll see a profit of (let me just convert this ...) $10,246.84. It's negligible isn't it?
An average house over here'd need 18 panels - 28.7 sq. mtrs. of space for optimum energy (that's using all basic electrical items for maybe 5 hours of full power a day).
It's a good idea, but might not suit everyone.
Over here, prices of solar panels've come right down, but're due to rise sharply in 2016 due to an EU ruling which says that the installers must pay more in VAT! They should keep their noses out - but anyway, some people can still have them on their homes for no up-front charge, but the amount of excess electricity which can be sold back to the Grid's set to plummet dramatically.
If someone has a whole roof of these panels, in 20 years, they'll see a profit of (let me just convert this ...) $10,246.84. It's negligible isn't it?
An average house over here'd need 18 panels - 28.7 sq. mtrs. of space for optimum energy (that's using all basic electrical items for maybe 5 hours of full power a day).
It's a good idea, but might not suit everyone.
Re: water delivery
We have some nifty solar panels that do not look like solar panels, but they are unaffordable for most folks.
One office building located in the Alcoa area was built with it's windows as solar collectors. They are clear like a normal window, well more like a bluish tinted window which is common.
From what I understand, they are NOT connected to the power grid, and what electricity they do produce is used to run the buildings own lighting systems, which are on 24/7 anyhow.
I did look into home use controllers that blend your power with the utilities power coming into your home so you get maximum use from your solar panels.
Turns out there is so much more to it than a simple controller, without a simple price hi hi...
Solar panels put out DC power, and inverter changes this to AC, and for the right price you can buy an inverter that produces a pure sine wave instead of a chopped sine wave. You still then need a controller/blender.
Where my brother's boat is docked, they have solar panels on most of the covered docks now. None of them are used to produce AC power though. Since they put out DC power, they eliminated the cost of the inverter, and instead installed another type of box that keeps the output at a steady 12 volts DC. All of the lighting on the docks is now 12 volts DC lighting on dusk to dawn sensors. At the end of each dock is a cabinet which holds several large deep cycle marine batteries. There are eight of them in the cabinet on the dock my brothers boat is in.
At first, all the lights were replaced with 12 volt 100 watt standard looking incandescent light bulbs.
I forgot to mention, since this is a boat dock, and the owner is a marine dealer, he chose the type batteries he could get at cost, in lieu of industrial type deep cycle batteries normally used in solar backup systems.
They consumed a lot of juice from the batteries, so as each burned out, they were initially replaced with a specially fitted Tensor type light. They put out the light of a 100 watt bulb, but only consumed about 40 watts of power.
Trouble is, they don't last very long, not intended for long term lighting hi hi...
They do make DC fluorescent but were considered not affordable.
Now this is going to sound crazy, but the owner of the docks bought replacement LED lighting panels as used in a certain style refrigerator. I know he would not have bought them unless he got a fantastic deal. The design does not match the lighting used in my refrigerator, so maybe he got them as overstock after a design change for the fridges.
He did have to install twice as many of these as he originally had 100 watt light bulbs to get the amount of lumens hitting the dock, and they do have a bluish tint instead of the yellowish tint of an incandescent.
But at least they have light now that lasts without dimming. They only draw about 9 watts each lighting panel.
As an aside:
I'm sure you remember me talking about my house back home that I had set up exactly how I wanted it for my retirement years.
Inside the ceiling mounted light fixtures in my house was a single 12 Volt automotive lamp. Two in the bathroom lighting fixtures. Any time our electric went out, the little 12 Volt lamps would come on. The exception was the bathroom, one of the two lamps in there stayed on 24/7. This way we didn't have to turn on the bright lights to do our 3am tinkle, hi hi... Plus it let me know when it was time to replace the storage battery that powered all the lights.
A simple wall wart type trickle charger kept the battery at full charge.
In the bathroom down here, I just have a 7 watt night light I added into the ceiling fixture which burns 24/7 also. It runs on the AC power, so when the power is out, it goes out too. However, we have little portable lights in the hallway that turn on when the power goes off, and it has like 20 bright LEDs in it, plus a yellow night mode LED light too. It only lasts about 3 hours if we try to run anything from it though other than the built in lights.
One office building located in the Alcoa area was built with it's windows as solar collectors. They are clear like a normal window, well more like a bluish tinted window which is common.
From what I understand, they are NOT connected to the power grid, and what electricity they do produce is used to run the buildings own lighting systems, which are on 24/7 anyhow.
I did look into home use controllers that blend your power with the utilities power coming into your home so you get maximum use from your solar panels.
Turns out there is so much more to it than a simple controller, without a simple price hi hi...
Solar panels put out DC power, and inverter changes this to AC, and for the right price you can buy an inverter that produces a pure sine wave instead of a chopped sine wave. You still then need a controller/blender.
Where my brother's boat is docked, they have solar panels on most of the covered docks now. None of them are used to produce AC power though. Since they put out DC power, they eliminated the cost of the inverter, and instead installed another type of box that keeps the output at a steady 12 volts DC. All of the lighting on the docks is now 12 volts DC lighting on dusk to dawn sensors. At the end of each dock is a cabinet which holds several large deep cycle marine batteries. There are eight of them in the cabinet on the dock my brothers boat is in.
At first, all the lights were replaced with 12 volt 100 watt standard looking incandescent light bulbs.
I forgot to mention, since this is a boat dock, and the owner is a marine dealer, he chose the type batteries he could get at cost, in lieu of industrial type deep cycle batteries normally used in solar backup systems.
They consumed a lot of juice from the batteries, so as each burned out, they were initially replaced with a specially fitted Tensor type light. They put out the light of a 100 watt bulb, but only consumed about 40 watts of power.
Trouble is, they don't last very long, not intended for long term lighting hi hi...
They do make DC fluorescent but were considered not affordable.
Now this is going to sound crazy, but the owner of the docks bought replacement LED lighting panels as used in a certain style refrigerator. I know he would not have bought them unless he got a fantastic deal. The design does not match the lighting used in my refrigerator, so maybe he got them as overstock after a design change for the fridges.
He did have to install twice as many of these as he originally had 100 watt light bulbs to get the amount of lumens hitting the dock, and they do have a bluish tint instead of the yellowish tint of an incandescent.
But at least they have light now that lasts without dimming. They only draw about 9 watts each lighting panel.
As an aside:
I'm sure you remember me talking about my house back home that I had set up exactly how I wanted it for my retirement years.
Inside the ceiling mounted light fixtures in my house was a single 12 Volt automotive lamp. Two in the bathroom lighting fixtures. Any time our electric went out, the little 12 Volt lamps would come on. The exception was the bathroom, one of the two lamps in there stayed on 24/7. This way we didn't have to turn on the bright lights to do our 3am tinkle, hi hi... Plus it let me know when it was time to replace the storage battery that powered all the lights.
A simple wall wart type trickle charger kept the battery at full charge.
In the bathroom down here, I just have a 7 watt night light I added into the ceiling fixture which burns 24/7 also. It runs on the AC power, so when the power is out, it goes out too. However, we have little portable lights in the hallway that turn on when the power goes off, and it has like 20 bright LEDs in it, plus a yellow night mode LED light too. It only lasts about 3 hours if we try to run anything from it though other than the built in lights.
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Icey
Re: water delivery
Yes, I remember reading about setting up your home for your retirement years, but you still amaze me Gary. I think you're able to do ANYTHING!! If you lived over here, I'm sure I could find you a job!! : )
Re: water delivery
I don't want a job Icey, I'm retired.
Besides, I have not worked for an employer (other than family businesses) since the mid-1970's.
I have worked for companies under contracts as an independent contractor or as a business deal.
Since my heart attack and other complications, it is hard for me to make it down to the mailbox and back.
So, I sit and write all day. Currently taking a break and only playing a few games, and thinking, hi hi...
Besides, I have not worked for an employer (other than family businesses) since the mid-1970's.
I have worked for companies under contracts as an independent contractor or as a business deal.
Since my heart attack and other complications, it is hard for me to make it down to the mailbox and back.
So, I sit and write all day. Currently taking a break and only playing a few games, and thinking, hi hi...
-
Icey
Re: water delivery
Hi Gary. Well my comment was tongue-in-cheek, but your multiple abilities have my fullest admiration. I can't imagine you to've ever been stuck for ideas/remedies to functional problems!
Re: water delivery
Speaking of mailboxes and disabilities. I made my grandmother mailbox mobile.
It was a little more complicated than a New York window clothesline, since it rode on rails.
Then, after she got a new mailman, I had to change its roadside mount, because the new mailman knocked it off the track almost every day, until I made it foolproof at the road end, which was fairly easy to do.
I really wanted to make it like a little cog train, but back then the only materials available would have rendered it illegal and/or un-affordable. So I just used bale strapping, a couple of pulleys, and an old hand bench grinder to power it by hand.
Grandma never needed to leave her back porch to retrieve the mail. It was nearly a sixteenth mile down to her mailbox, a tad over 300 feet from house to mailbox.
About five years later, someone with some clout with the post office, coerced them to deliver her mail to her back door. Which they did until she moved in with mom n dad several years later.
It was a little more complicated than a New York window clothesline, since it rode on rails.
Then, after she got a new mailman, I had to change its roadside mount, because the new mailman knocked it off the track almost every day, until I made it foolproof at the road end, which was fairly easy to do.
I really wanted to make it like a little cog train, but back then the only materials available would have rendered it illegal and/or un-affordable. So I just used bale strapping, a couple of pulleys, and an old hand bench grinder to power it by hand.
Grandma never needed to leave her back porch to retrieve the mail. It was nearly a sixteenth mile down to her mailbox, a tad over 300 feet from house to mailbox.
About five years later, someone with some clout with the post office, coerced them to deliver her mail to her back door. Which they did until she moved in with mom n dad several years later.