"pete...@gmail.com" <petertrei@gmail.com> writes:
>On Wednesday, December 7, 2022 at 11:58:56 AM UTC-5, Paul S Person wrote:
>> On Tue, 6 Dec 2022 12:44:01 -0800 (PST), "pete...@gmail.com"
>> <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> >
>> >My house has oil heat, in rural Massachusetts. We also installed
>> >heat pumps a year ago. Its unclear whether they save us money.
>> I have been keeping extensive records of my furnace's performance and,
>> compared to the data from the furnace that died, can say definitely
>> that the salesperson's promises of monetary savings were /definitely/
>> 99% handwavium.
>
>National Grid raising the price of electricity 60% a couple weeks ago
>tossed our estimates in the trash.

How did a british company come to control utilities in the northeastern
USA? Sounds like they're recouping their UK losses in Ma.

On Thursday, December 8, 2022 at 9:29:35 AM UTC-5, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> "pete...@gmail.com" <pete...@gmail.com> writes:
> >On Wednesday, December 7, 2022 at 11:58:56 AM UTC-5, Paul S Person wrote:
> >> On Tue, 6 Dec 2022 12:44:01 -0800 (PST), "pete...@gmail.com"
> >> <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> >
> >> >My house has oil heat, in rural Massachusetts. We also installed
> >> >heat pumps a year ago. Its unclear whether they save us money.
> >> I have been keeping extensive records of my furnace's performance and,
> >> compared to the data from the furnace that died, can say definitely
> >> that the salesperson's promises of monetary savings were /definitely/
> >> 99% handwavium.
> >
> >National Grid raising the price of electricity 60% a couple weeks ago
> >tossed our estimates in the trash.
> How did a british company come to control utilities in the northeastern
> USA? Sounds like they're recouping their UK losses in Ma.

Not sure how it happened, but at the moment, they supply gas and electric
to 20M customers in NY, RI, and MA.

pt

On Wed, 07 Dec 2022 17:18:35 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
wrote:

>Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>On Tue, 06 Dec 2022 19:48:44 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
>>wrote:
>>
>>>"Michael F. Stemper" <michael.stemper@gmail.com> writes:
>>>>On 06/12/2022 10.40, Paul S Person wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, 5 Dec 2022 17:00:58 GMT, djheydt@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> In article <0cdebc5d-398d-49e8-9569-b31d7378f7ean@googlegroups.com>,
>>>>>> pete...@gmail.com <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>>> Bonus question: There's one place most Americans see mils used on
>>>>>>> a daily basis. Where is it?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Any gas station.
>>>>>
>>>>> Or fuel oil delivery receipt.
>>>>
>>>>Most Americans? I strongly doubt that.
>>>>
>>>>I've certainly never had fuel oil delivered to my house, and I don't
>>>>think that I'm at all unusual in that way. My parents' house had oil
>>>>heat, but I've never known anyone after them who had it.
>>>
>>>My last home delivery propane bill lists the price in 1000s of mills:
>>>
>>> $4.128000 per gallon (corrected to 60F).
>>
>>Mine shows $5.6390, but no correction based on degrees Fahrenheit.
>
>Note that it is the size of a gallon that is adjusted for
>delivery temperature, not the price.

Something our companies appear to be unaware of. Perhaps there's a
consumer protection law involved. Either here or there.

Or it's just understood, not that I understand it, so they don't
bother to print it on the delivery notice.

I imagine the theory is that 40F gallons are bigger than 80F gallons
when converted to 60F gallons. Or vice-versa. Or maybe something else
altogether.
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

On Wed, 7 Dec 2022 13:47:31 -0600, Lynn McGuire
<lynnmcguire5@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 12/7/2022 10:58 AM, Paul S Person wrote:
>> On Tue, 6 Dec 2022 12:44:01 -0800 (PST), "pete...@gmail.com"
>> <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On Tuesday, December 6, 2022 at 1:28:31 PM UTC-5, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
>>>> On 06/12/2022 10.40, Paul S Person wrote:
>>>>> On Mon, 5 Dec 2022 17:00:58 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
>>>>> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> In article <0cdebc5d-398d-49e8...@googlegroups.com>,
>>>>>> pete...@gmail.com <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>>>> Bonus question: There's one place most Americans see mils used on
>>>>>>> a daily basis. Where is it?
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Any gas station.
>>>>>
>>>>> Or fuel oil delivery receipt.
>>>> Most Americans? I strongly doubt that.
>>>>
>>>> I've certainly never had fuel oil delivered to my house, and I don't
>>>> think that I'm at all unusual in that way. My parents' house had oil
>>>> heat, but I've never known anyone after them who had it.
>>>
>>> Depends where you live.
>>>
>>> My house has oil heat, in rural Massachusetts. We also installed
>>> heat pumps a year ago. Its unclear whether they save us money.
>>
>> I have been keeping extensive records of my furnace's performance and,
>> compared to the data from the furnace that died, can say definitely
>> that the salesperson's promises of monetary savings were /definitely/
>> 99% handwavium.
>
>Is your new furnace an electric heat pump, a natural gas 90% efficient
>furnace, or a heating oil furnace ?

Oil furnace.

Alleged to be /far/ more efficient than the older one.

To be fair, he ignored the fact that old furnace had had its burner
replaced with a more efficient about 20 years earlier and was relying
on our paying extra for an especially-efficient burner. I pointed this
last out to him /at least/ three times, but he went right on waving
his hands.

The core point, however, is that the salesman is not equipped to
actually /know/ how efficient your current furnace is, particularly
when it has been shut off because the heat exchanger cracked and was
inserting poisonous fumes into the air ducts (per the maintenance guy,
anyway) and so compares whatever he (the salesman) chooses to assume
to whatever the advertising bumpf he brought with him says.

Buying an oil furnace is buying a pig in a poke. And research on heat
pumps, /even when I know the brand currently being pushed/, shows that
the situation is no different with them: the web sites have lots of
handwavium and no real answers to how they are installed. Probably
because each installation is, to some extent, customized to the
location.

But I can't even find out if we would need to have a third wire run
from the (new, since it would include A/C control) thermostat to the
heat pump (or the indoor part of the heat pump, where the duct fans
would presumably still live).

It does proudly advertise the ability to let your utility company
control it for you using WiFi, however. As if /that/ were a good idea.
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

On Wed, 7 Dec 2022 14:08:55 -0600, "Michael F. Stemper"
<michael.stemper@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 07/12/2022 10.58, Paul S Person wrote:
>> On Tue, 6 Dec 2022 12:44:01 -0800 (PST), "pete...@gmail.com"
>> <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, December 6, 2022 at 1:28:31 PM UTC-5, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
>>>> On 06/12/2022 10.40, Paul S Person wrote:
>
>>>>> Or fuel oil delivery receipt.
>>>> Most Americans? I strongly doubt that.
>>>>
>>>> I've certainly never had fuel oil delivered to my house, and I don't
>>>> think that I'm at all unusual in that way. My parents' house had oil
>>>> heat, but I've never known anyone after them who had it.
>>>
>>> Depends where you live.
>>>
>>> My house has oil heat, in rural Massachusetts. We also installed
>>> heat pumps a year ago. Its unclear whether they save us money.
>>
>> I have been keeping extensive records of my furnace's performance and,
>> compared to the data from the furnace that died, can say definitely
>> that the salesperson's promises of monetary savings were /definitely/
>> 99% handwavium.
>
>How do you compare across years? Do you track heating-degree days and
>adjust consumption on that basis? I'd thought about doing that once upon
>a time, but it was just too complicated.

"Complicated" is putting it mildly. I maintain three "sheets" in an
ODS file:

one lists pertinant information from each delivery, including both the
info from the delivery receipt and computed values that, until the
last delivery, always matched

one is organized per delivery, and uses monthly HDD ("heating degree
days", as opposed to other "degree days") to distribute the oil burned
between deliveries on a monthly basis

one uses the per-delivery monthly data to produce per-heating-season
(one per year) values

The latter includes a comparison to what the old furnace was doing
toward the end. This provides a measure of how much has been saved by
the new furnace through each heating season. Of course, how /accurate/
that is may be another story.

The former companies printed a "K factor" on the bill. This turned out
to be a close match to the inverse of gal/DD, which is what I use as a
measure of efficiency -- on the theory that a more efficient furnace
burns less fuel to produce the same amount of heat.

(They also printed a "Next DD", which apparently was used to determine
when to automatically deliver fuel oil. Just because they aren't
printing it out doesn't mean they don't have it lying about somewhere
and still use it to schedule deliveries.)
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

On Wed, 7 Dec 2022 18:40:33 -0800 (PST), "pete...@gmail.com"
<petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Wednesday, December 7, 2022 at 11:58:56 AM UTC-5, Paul S Person wrote:
>> On Tue, 6 Dec 2022 12:44:01 -0800 (PST), "pete...@gmail.com"
>> <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >On Tuesday, December 6, 2022 at 1:28:31 PM UTC-5, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
>> >> On 06/12/2022 10.40, Paul S Person wrote:
>> >> > On Mon, 5 Dec 2022 17:00:58 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
>> >> > wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> >> In article <0cdebc5d-398d-49e8...@googlegroups.com>,
>> >> >> pete...@gmail.com <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> >>> Bonus question: There's one place most Americans see mils used on
>> >> >>> a daily basis. Where is it?
>> >> >>
>> >> >> Any gas station.
>> >> >
>> >> > Or fuel oil delivery receipt.
>> >> Most Americans? I strongly doubt that.
>> >>
>> >> I've certainly never had fuel oil delivered to my house, and I don't
>> >> think that I'm at all unusual in that way. My parents' house had oil
>> >> heat, but I've never known anyone after them who had it.
>> >
>> >Depends where you live.
>> >
>> >My house has oil heat, in rural Massachusetts. We also installed
>> >heat pumps a year ago. Its unclear whether they save us money.
>> I have been keeping extensive records of my furnace's performance and,
>> compared to the data from the furnace that died, can say definitely
>> that the salesperson's promises of monetary savings were /definitely/
>> 99% handwavium.
>
>National Grid raising the price of electricity 60% a couple weeks ago
>tossed our estimates in the trash.

Which is why, for such records, I use such measures as:

-- gal/DD burned for fuel oil
-- CCF (1 CCF == 748 gallons, a rather crude measure, but what can you
do?) for water
-- KWH for electricity

As I pointed out to my brothers/co-owners when we started: "we can't
control the cost, but we /can/ control the usage".
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

On Thu, 8 Dec 2022 13:16:55 -0000 (UTC), rkshullat@rosettacondot.com
wrote:

>pete...@gmail.com <petertrei@gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tuesday, December 6, 2022 at 1:28:31 PM UTC-5, Michael F. Stemper wrote:
>>> On 06/12/2022 10.40, Paul S Person wrote:
>>> > On Mon, 5 Dec 2022 17:00:58 GMT, djh...@kithrup.com (Dorothy J Heydt)
>>> > wrote:
>>> >
>>> >> In article <0cdebc5d-398d-49e8...@googlegroups.com>,
>>> >> pete...@gmail.com <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> >>> Bonus question: There's one place most Americans see mils used on
>>> >>> a daily basis. Where is it?
>>> >>
>>> >> Any gas station.
>>> >
>>> > Or fuel oil delivery receipt.
>>> Most Americans? I strongly doubt that.
>>>
>>> I've certainly never had fuel oil delivered to my house, and I don't
>>> think that I'm at all unusual in that way. My parents' house had oil
>>> heat, but I've never known anyone after them who had it.
>>
>> Depends where you live.
>>
>> My house has oil heat, in rural Massachusetts. We also installed
>> heat pumps a year ago. Its unclear whether they save us money.
>
>We're in an exurb of Dallas and they're really the only cost-effective
>solution. Propane is expensive (and also very expensive to install) and in
>a "normal" winter we rarely get below freezing (a few nights a year into the
>upper 20's).
>The two drawbacks I've discovered are that in a cold winter things get
>expensive fast...somewhere around the freezing point ours turns on 10kW
>of resistance heating (and in the "big chill" we were wishing for 15kW).
>Yes, there are more efficient units. They're also more expensive and
>physically take up more space. Fitting one in would require a $15k+ rebuild
>of our HVAC, above and beyond the new unit.
>The other is that in locations like Dallas where there are a lot of both
>heating and cooling days (frequently in the same months) the heat pump is
>doing double duty. A/C and furnace take turns and spread the wear.
>They also have failure modes that A/C lacks (reversing valves, we hates them).

Since it gets pretty cold up here on a regular annually-recurring
basis, that may be helpful, as the auxiliary heating will be electric
-- if I get a heat pump, there will be no "keep the oil furnace for
winter" nonsense.

It /used/ to be that we didn't really get that hot in Summer, but
given the last several years, that appears to be changing, making A/C
more and more attractive.
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."

Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>On Wed, 07 Dec 2022 17:18:35 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
>wrote:
>

>>>>>I've certainly never had fuel oil delivered to my house, and I don't
>>>>>think that I'm at all unusual in that way. My parents' house had oil
>>>>>heat, but I've never known anyone after them who had it.
>>>>
>>>>My last home delivery propane bill lists the price in 1000s of mills:
>>>>
>>>> $4.128000 per gallon (corrected to 60F).
>>>
>>>Mine shows $5.6390, but no correction based on degrees Fahrenheit.
>>
>>Note that it is the size of a gallon that is adjusted for
>>delivery temperature, not the price.
>
>Something our companies appear to be unaware of. Perhaps there's a
>consumer protection law involved. Either here or there.

This affects gasoline (petrol) pumps, although both in the
US and Canada, many older pumps dispense as if it were at 60F without
compensation (newer pumps now compensate for temperature). There
is about a 1% change in volume per every 19F temperature change.

Correcting pumps usually are marked "Volume corrected to 15C/60F".

For Canadians:

https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/mc-mc.nsf/eng/lm04344.html

For propane, the expansion is about 17x more than liquid fuels
like gasoline, which makes compensating for the delivery temperature
more important than for liquid fuels.

On 08/12/2022 08.29, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> "pete...@gmail.com" <petertrei@gmail.com> writes:
>> On Wednesday, December 7, 2022 at 11:58:56 AM UTC-5, Paul S Person wrote:
>>> On Tue, 6 Dec 2022 12:44:01 -0800 (PST), "pete...@gmail.com"
>>> <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>>>
>>>> My house has oil heat, in rural Massachusetts. We also installed
>>>> heat pumps a year ago. Its unclear whether they save us money.
>>> I have been keeping extensive records of my furnace's performance and,
>>> compared to the data from the furnace that died, can say definitely
>>> that the salesperson's promises of monetary savings were /definitely/
>>> 99% handwavium.
>>
>> National Grid raising the price of electricity 60% a couple weeks ago
>> tossed our estimates in the trash.
>
> How did a british company come to control utilities in the northeastern
> USA?

They bought them:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Grid_plc#Expansion_and_consolidation_(2000%E2%80%932015)>

--
Michael F. Stemper
What happens if you play John Cage's "4'33" at a slower tempo?

On Thursday, December 8, 2022 at 9:29:35 AM UTC-5, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> "pete...@gmail.com" <pete...@gmail.com> writes:
> >On Wednesday, December 7, 2022 at 11:58:56 AM UTC-5, Paul S Person wrote:
> >> On Tue, 6 Dec 2022 12:44:01 -0800 (PST), "pete...@gmail.com"
> >> <pete...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> >
> >> >My house has oil heat, in rural Massachusetts. We also installed
> >> >heat pumps a year ago. Its unclear whether they save us money.
> >> I have been keeping extensive records of my furnace's performance and,
> >> compared to the data from the furnace that died, can say definitely
> >> that the salesperson's promises of monetary savings were /definitely/
> >> 99% handwavium.
> >
> >National Grid raising the price of electricity 60% a couple weeks ago
> >tossed our estimates in the trash.
> How did a british company come to control utilities in the northeastern
> USA?

The "St John's Electric Light Company" (founded 1885) now owns Tuscon
Electric Power.

Decades ago, Peter Lynch suggested that TEP, then in some trouble might
be worth a look Fortis (as SJLEC is now known) did more than look.

Sadly, I've never owned shares in Fortis.

William Hyde

On Thu, 08 Dec 2022 17:59:57 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
wrote:

>Paul S Person <psperson@old.netcom.invalid> writes:
>>On Wed, 07 Dec 2022 17:18:35 GMT, scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal)
>>wrote:
>>
>
>>>>>>I've certainly never had fuel oil delivered to my house, and I don't
>>>>>>think that I'm at all unusual in that way. My parents' house had oil
>>>>>>heat, but I've never known anyone after them who had it.
>>>>>
>>>>>My last home delivery propane bill lists the price in 1000s of mills:
>>>>>
>>>>> $4.128000 per gallon (corrected to 60F).
>>>>
>>>>Mine shows $5.6390, but no correction based on degrees Fahrenheit.
>>>
>>>Note that it is the size of a gallon that is adjusted for
>>>delivery temperature, not the price.
>>
>>Something our companies appear to be unaware of. Perhaps there's a
>>consumer protection law involved. Either here or there.
>
>This affects gasoline (petrol) pumps, although both in the
>US and Canada, many older pumps dispense as if it were at 60F without
>compensation (newer pumps now compensate for temperature). There
>is about a 1% change in volume per every 19F temperature change.
>
>Correcting pumps usually are marked "Volume corrected to 15C/60F".
>
>For Canadians:
>
>https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/mc-mc.nsf/eng/lm04344.html
>
>For propane, the expansion is about 17x more than liquid fuels
>like gasoline, which makes compensating for the delivery temperature
>more important than for liquid fuels.

I suspect I missed the "propane" in the statement I was riffing on.

Never mind.
--
"In this connexion, unquestionably the most significant
development was the disintegration, under Christian
influence, of classical conceptions of the family and
of family right."