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How Much Money Can You Really Save With A Smart Home?
Submitted by Michael McDonald via OilPrice.com,
It has become conventional wisdom that the wave of the future is “smart home” technology from smart utility meters that read a houses energy usage automatically to smart lights that turn off when not in use. The industry has been in development for years, but moved to the forefront of the start-up world when Google bought Nest Labs last year for more than $3B. Nest Labs makes a variety of smart home devices including thermostats and smoke alarms.
Smart home technology marries two of the most talked about trends in business right now – the internet of things and green technology. Given the excitement around these products then, it is little surprise that smart home devices from Nest and others have been able to command astronomical price tags in home improvement stores across the country.
How useful are smart home devices really though? A recent report by the British government suggests that the smart home revolution may be starting to hit some bumps in the road. The British government wanted to begin a national rollout of smart meters to all households across the UK this year. Smart meters are utility meters outside of a home that automatically read energy usage by a house and send that information wirelessly to the utility company. This avoids companies having to estimate bills for customers, cuts down on the costs of meter reading by utility company employees, and can provide consumers with useful information to save money by monitoring energy usage in real time. The most obvious application is in the area of electric meters, but gas meters and water meters also have potential as well.
As the British are discovering with smart meters, what sounds good on paper does not always work in reality. Problems that are cropping up include difficulty with people who are switching energy companies, labor shortages for the necessary 50 million plus installations of smart meters, and technology compatibility issues. The smart meters are going to cost UK consumers roughly $300 apiece spread out over several years. But the savings that come from smart home tech are far from assured.
Smart home equipment does not come cheap. Most smart home devices cost several hundred dollars bringing the cost of a complete home upgrade to thousands. Yet smart home companies cite an average saving up about 10% or roughly $100 per year for the average household. Even the least financially savvy consumers are likely to balk at the idea of spending $5,000 to upgrade their home with technology that will save them $100 a year for the life of that technology. Part of the selling point for this technology may be consumers wanting to help with climate change issues, but saving money alone is unlikely to drive the technology forward.
Perhaps the best evidence for how shaky the case is for smart home tech is not who is talking about it, but who is not talking about it. The US Department of Energy under the current administration has made repeated appeals to consumers to upgrade the energy efficiency of their home. But while solar panels, weatherization, and high efficiency appliances all get prominent mentions by the DOE, smart home technology is not a major talking point on that agency’s website.
Instead the DOE’s focus seems to be on the so-called “smart grid” which revolves around improving automation in the infrastructure that delivers energy to consumers. That implies that the government thinks this area is where the biggest savings and energy efficiency improvements can be achieved. Of course smart meters would fall into the smart grid category. And as the British are discovering, new technology does not always live up to the hype. And if the reality is disappointing for the most promising technologies like smart meters in the smart gird, then how likely are other smart technologies to live up to their own hype?
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Get the fuck off the grid, then you might save something. Otherwise accept your place as a cog in the machine.
"smart technology" == digital slavery
A few years ago I went to a local natural gas utility rate hearing. Started asking questions and it turns out that these public utilities are guaranteed a return on their investments. If everyone super insulated their homes and reduced their usage of gas, the price would rise because the utility is guaranteed x amount of money. So even though demand goes down, supply would be constant, the price increases. Anything spent on the super insulation, new windows, smart thermostats, etc is rewarded with the same fuel bill with less usage.
Get off the grid.
I sat down and did the math once.
It cost about $5/yr to run a 100w regular light bulb, $2/yr for a CFL and $1/yr for a LED
The regular bulb cost $2, the CFL $8 and LED $20+
Breakeven time frame for the bulb is 2-3 years for a CFL and 4-5 years for the LED
That's just to be at breakeven for total out of pocket cost. It takes you another 2-5 years to "save" all of $5-10 in electricity cost
But your math only holds as long as the US MIC is able to enforce PetroDollar supremacy, and you happily buy cheap energy from da man...
Produce your own electricty off grid and each kwh saved NOW is much moar valuable (both in terms of OpEx and CapEx)...
Fuck the smart home gadget bullshit. Put your money in insulation and windows and turn the lights off when you leave the fucking room. Idiots.
Wow. That was kind of an unnecessarily angry post. Sorry guys.
Doesn't getting "off the grid" include being online with respect to "them folks" looking over your shoulders?
Least that's where some of our Progressive folks go. But then again...
Oh yes, I fully understand the getting off the grid for energy savings, conservation efforts and power usage.
Just don't confuse privacy with the grid
BTW, if you do a bit of a search there was recently a paper published (by mistake I think) outlining the protocols and procedures of "them" using the "grid" (As in electrical wires, power to and inside your house) to read everything you do online.
Many thanks, Conspiracy Theory to Fact, again. (Mere Van Eck Phreaking, kiddies)
As I said many times, a mere problem of signal to noise ratios.....
But the smart home advertisements are so damn sophisticated bourgeois sexy !! A refrigerator that can keep track of the food (not that you would use it) the ability to show off that you can control lighting, temp etc. from the smart phone that you also don't need.
A much better ROI for government, greens and utilities would be to rig up residences with a separate, low-voltage power supply (like 12V) alongside the 220V. Things like LEDs, device chargers and many appliances run much more efficiently if they don't have to step doen the voltage.
Coersion is so much easier though.
"greens and utilities would be to rig up residences with a separate, low-voltage power supply (like 12V) alongside the 220V. Things like LEDs, device chargers and many appliances run much more efficiently if they don't have to step doen the voltage."
Not really. You haven't thought this out.
1. To provide 12V, the Pole transformer would still need to step down the voltage, thus there is still step down losses, your just switching who eats the cost. The Utiltities already eat the bulk of voltage converson losses by stepping down street pole voltages (4.2Kv to 22Kv) to residential voltages.
2. To provide power for 12V devices you would need to run seperate wiring (more $$$) and need heavier gauge wire to power low voltage devices (also more $$$) It cheaper to pull 100W at 220V than it is at 12V. P/V = I. 1/20 of the voltage = 20 times the current Ploss = RI^2
3. Switchmode power supplies are very efficient. Some has high as 98%, most modern Swithmode power supplies are about 95% efficient.
4. Manufacters would have to design, manufacture and ship devices that run on both AC and Low voltage DC instead of just universal AC.
5. Small devices such ascell phones are virtually irrelevent since they don't need a lot of power. The slight loss in voltage conversion is peanuts. Its the big stuff that costs (HVAC, Applicance with motors) that need higher voltages to operate and consume the bulk of the household electric demand.
<dupe print>
Re-run your numbers today.
I swapped out about half my lighting for LED; LED bulbs are much cheaper now than when you ran your numbers.
Likely more efficient as well.
And some bulbs are in hard to reach or dangerous locations, so having to never swap them out vs. every one or two years has an additional cost savings.
Bunga Bunga and back to the Jungla. To get off the grid. That's a funny one. Spend $20,000 to save $1000. It's got a worse payback than an LED bulb. Let's turn the lights on please., Bunga.
Get off the Grid? Easier said than done. E.g., Good Luck in finding a woman who's happy off the grid. And lotsa luck finding one that's also "easy on the eyes".
The biggest reason men are not ruled by their Big Head, is because of the Little Head. Women know it, and TPTB know it.
And in case some of you missed it, I didn't say it couldn't be done, but merely that the odds are not in your favor at all.
That's the part that most of these morons don't get. You reduce demand through conservation/efficiencies and the price gradually goes up to reflect your ability to pay for more expensive utilities. The .gov crowd is not missing out on the party either through taxes levied on these services/products.
Utility suppliers sell the same amount of product but for a higher price i.e at higher margins. The same logic applies to electricity, gas, fuel etc. The question only becomes how high to crank up the prices before the public begins to complain and then back off a tiny bit.
Any discussion about 'competitive markets' etc, should be just flushed down a toilet. There is obvious covert and covert collusion and price fixing in all markets. We've all seen it across the board.
You are correct. The utilities will also want a slice of your savings pie.
In the summer in Houston, I receive a $18 gas bill: $16 in account maintance fees. $1.75 in tax and $.25 in gas usage.
Can you get it shut off in the summer, or are the disconnect/reconnect fees even higher?
Yeah, one of my apartments at the beach is rarely used so has electricity usage of around $1.50/month. Then there is the "account maintenance fee" of $11.50/month as if their computer system has to use $11.50 worth of energy to go read my digital, automatically read, meter. Being a utility company is where it's at - charge whatever you want and it has to be paid.
Any technology=magic. I've been a gearhead all my life and have an electrical engineer/computer science degree for decades and yet I have people with liberal arts degree that can barely pass a remedial basic science course telling me I don't understand technology and don't know what I'm talking about. I don't have a "smart" anything because I am smart all by my frigging self and when all these geniuses are freezing in the dark, I'll be giggling, living a simple life and shooting them as they cross the property line.....
The other thing is the security implications of all of these devices that connect your thermostat and garage door opener to the internet.
How people still don't understand that the internet is an asshole is beyond me.
@KDX- I've been a gearhead all my life and have an electrical engineer/computer science degree for decades
How can I filter the hi-freq riding on my romex from a smart meter they will not remove?
Is there a ferrite type donut I can wrap around the romex at the breaker panel?
You would have to use rf chokes coming off of your breakers since the wire coming through the meter is too heavy to wind in an inductor. You might be able to find an industrial choke that can handle 100+ amps but I do computers and networking and don't have the catalogs for anything that big. Any time I need anything that big it's specced into the service wiring at the tranformers long before I ever get involved.
He might want to back away from his keyboard, wireless mouse, and quad core 2GHz radiator too. If thats really a concern.
no wireless.
if you're referring to applebaum's discovery, power is measured in watts not frequency.
if you really want to know...
I did mean GHz where I wrote GHz. Digital systems radiate. Accelerating electrical charges and all that.
Heat is generated by power, not frequency as you radiator reference.
Frequency is a time measurement.
Amen KnuckleDragger-X.
My idea of a smart home is clamping a device on each of my main wires going out of my panel and seeing where the draw is. I've turned off a few useless things this way. I do it for a few days on each wire. Halfway through. Once that is done, I will then be finished. If I notice the bill spike, I'll do it again.
yes, sounds like another way to monitor your activity... once google buys a smart meter company your TV will come on automatically and offer you discounts on cheap roasts, when you switch on the oven..
"And if the reality is disappointing for the most promising technologies like smart meters in the smart gird"
That's an appropriate freudian slip.
"Smart" is relative, situational-dependant, and an over-used Buzzword, concocted by PR consultants.
The best 'smart' things are the simple solutions, low tech or common-sense solutions.
It begins with choosing a suitable location (geographic region in the country, with Temperate climate and adequate water), size, location in city/town or its proximity to city/town.
The next steps are the position and orientation of the house on the property; its design, use of materials and construction. Using quality materials, workmanship, top-notch insulation & natural lighting...
Wise HVAC systems, with backup from secondary energy source (Sunlight, Wood, Wind, Coal). Energy-efficient appliance, LED lamps...
All these things do not need a hi-tech solution (expensive solar panels), to save you a bundle.
What he said...
The way forward is not becoming more dependent on the latest technology that requires overpriced specialty contractors to install.
You want housing to be affordable? Build somewhere where the building department isn't fascist control freaks. Build with Cob or something similar to the earthships or something else you where you and your friends / family can do most of the work. Save money on your heating and cooling by building something that doesn't require HVAC 90% of the year. Use the money you save on the envelope (because you did the whole fucking thing yourself with material from your own property) and buy a good solar or wind system with a large battery back up.
You're now not even connected to the grid and you end up paying 50% less than the normal $/sf while getting infiniitely better end product. A true smart home doesn't require thousands of dollars in meters and control panels to be efficient and low maintenance.
Funny how so many people fail not only to account for total EROI for all of the inputs to create smart systems, but also the ever increasing expense that entropy dictates in order to maintain them.
Neither of which is that damn hard.
But, when the world's run by the mafia and their sophist minions, a century of government skooling makes all that shit just fade to the background, while wishful-thinking pervades pretty much everywhere.
No kidding. Low cost / low tech building methods have been around forever. I was 'educated' in archtiecture, have been working in the architecture field for the past 12 years, and only through independent education and curiosity have I come across anything truly interesting and helpful.
It's a wonder you're even still allowed to build a home in this country without a proper contractors license, bank approved mortgage, and set of plans stating every aspect of your house was designed to continue supporting the current unsustainable paradigm.
Heh, my house doesn't have AC.
Why? Well, it was properly sited and properly built ... back in 1910.
Going off grid is really the only way. I went off grid with a system that cost $3800, 750 watts of solar, 1800 ah battery bank. I use a wood stove for heat. I havent paid a utility bill in almost 2 years. Tax credit paid for 1/3rd of the cost. The trick is that it is easier to kill a watt than make a watt. So when we are not home everything but our refrigerator is turned off. The biggest drain on power is the cable box, it uses more than your refrigerator. Also your Ice maker is pulling more energy than your refrigerator.
Yep. Every cable or satellite box I have metered with a Kill-A-Watt uses about the same amount of power whether ON or "OFF" if you replace your comcast box with a SiliconDust cable modem and a recent notebook computer or dinky media PC you can save 25 to 30W, 24/7. At 35c/kWh, the marginal price of electricity from PG and E, that adds up. 1000 hours is about 6 weeks from memory, so the damn things eat 30kWh in 6 weeks. $8 or $9 bucks if my math isnt wrong.
I lived for years with the fridge unplugged. Anything requiring refrigeration I bought fresh and ate it before it had a chance to spoil. The majority of foods - non-perishables. Instead of heating the whole house I had a heated waterbed, well insulated, consuming 10-30W of electricity (half a light bulb worth). Computer was my biggest power drain. Nowdays it's possible to live consuming virtually no electricity, if you cook with gas.
The biggest problems with going solar are having a place to put the panels. Not everyone has a house with a nicely light roof. The 2nd obstacle is the myraid of prohibitive regulations. It might seem initially like the government encourages you to go green, until you start digging through papers.
I'm all for going off the grid. If you can do it - do it. The conversion will pay for itself in about 5 years. I had a summer house next to a stream long time ago. There I was allowed to tap into that power. I made a primitive watermill and hooked it to a beefy alternator from a burned out car. Ran the tv, the cooler and the electric kettle with it. Since water was running 24/7, didn't even need a battery bank.
careful with the electric blankets/beds. epidemiological studies show increased cancer risk from those things when close to ones body.
Distrust All Digital
I am on the board of directors in a housing complex. We have a 25 year old gas furnace - nice and robust. Runs like a clock. The financial institution handing our finances is pressuring us to update to a smart furnace. Supposedly it'll save us money on gas bills. Then we talked to a contractor handing repairs and he tells us to stay the hell away from smart tech. He says all the new furnaces are built like shit and since they're full of electronics, they break constantly and you have to service them for a lot of money. Old furnace - you can take a chunk of material, carve it into shape in your metal shop and make spare part for nothing. 25 year old furnace will probably last another 75. It looks rusty, but who gives a damn about cosmetics. It's locked in the basement. Forget savings. You'll loose your shirt chasing pennies. Stick to what lasts and don't fix something if it ain't broken.
Im a little more cynical. I can see our utilities being throttled or shut down for using too much juice or water.
that's the plan.
Smart homes consume thousands of dollars of initial capital, and enable corporations to manage their profitability at your expense. They also enable the goverment to hijack your home and run your utilities for you. For your own good, and the children, of course. Like so many things, a good idea has been turned into shit by the PTB.
With our current mount everest-sized body of laws, technology simply makes it easier to enforce every single one of them.
The question becomes, will technology be wrested from the control of the elites and put into private capitalist use, or will we devolve to something truly like 1984.
In Greece the government wanted to collect taxes via the utility companies but the utility companies revolted. From what the US has experienced with all of the communication companies lining up to help the NSA, US .gov should have no trouble collecting taxes via utility companies if they so choose.
In Greece property tax is paid with the utility bill. If you can't pay, they cut you off.
Smart homes actually consume tens of thousands of dollars of additional initial capital, but they don't include any of the "dumbass sheeple monitoring meters" that these snakeoil salesmen push.
On a related note - apparently HELL HAS FROZEN OVER - since the DoE has apparently taken an intelligent approach to something it is (unfortunately) responsible for, but I'm sure Satan will have his little buddy Obozo correct this problem in short order...
If the author is going to write about it he should have a better grasp.
Nest (unless fixed) screws up & has to be manually rebooted if it loses power.
They're putting smart meters on everything. It turns your romex into an antenna & cooks your ass with EMF that no Rottenfellar Dr. can diagnose with the host of maladies they inflict. Speaking from a very expensive experience here!
Technocracy is here and between the EMF & Chemtrails (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSQ-dp1sV5w) we are being biologically reengineered down to our DNA...See Time mag. The man made EMF is bouncing off the ionosphere causing incalcuable damage. Couple that with the cordless phones, wifi, bluetooth, cell phones/towers, you really have to take a gander at what the EMF does to your blood by standing in front of a smart meter for less than a minute. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atrmN6V0P3g
These things were not installed for any grid management. They are for snooping & electronic warfare. You can read Lilly Wave into that, not to mention if/when TSHTF they will remotely whack every utility you have & use the weapon they've created. See Kay Griggs.
As usual, just like the body snatchers, the matrix, and hunger games, hollyweird gives us a glimpse into our future. No human reproduction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvp6FnYWRZU
Easily hacked, heck they know when Putin gets ready for a dump, even before he tweets it for his fanboys.
At least his is exit only.
My energy company keep calling me asking to install a smart meter. I don't answer the phone. They have no idea what to do in those circumstances. That's how smart they are.
I have a smart meter. If I don't want to use any power I unplug things.
Works pretty well
If you don't leave the lights on or devices plugged in consuming power then you don't need the smart tech. This stuff is for people who just want to be able to turn on lights with their phone, or adjust thermostat when they're five ten minutes from the house.
My house has an ERT meter which I hope is only for reading it from the front yard, since the bugger is still inside the house. If I wanted to upgrade to higher amp service they'd make me move it outside and rewire the whole stinking house.
smart technology creates dumb users
tavistock,g4s,serco and mitre smart homes are good
on chip microwave trasmission systems by the in home thousands
does not give you cancers
sensors in everything including socks under pants mens knickers tampons and toilet paper is the saturnic future.
id track chips tracking toilet paper use is vital.
the internet of everything will keep us safe from isis.
with tel aviv owning most of the cctv security companies around the world.
and having the unique experience of being involved in boston,london 7 7 and the mother of all
rabbi jobs 911.
nobody is better placed to take control of human animal resource control than mighty israel.
welcome to the brave new world.
chertoff mossad world
take your vaccines and feel refreshed
Ah ha the man formerly known as tony wilson, suspended for several weeks for conduct unbecoming of a truthererr.
Anyroads if all you've had to feast on is the BBC throughout your enforced sabbatical then NetenYahoot was magnanimous in victory and the BBC hierarchy have removed young boys off of the lunchtime menu.
Other than that you've missed f'all.
All the best bro!
Well utility companies have to do something as some faux quants come in and rip out the savings for consumers with Congestion Contract rigging. Utility quants can't keep up and bid fast enough..
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2014/08/quant-run-investment-companies-cashing.html
The DOE will start compeling smart home devices when 2 things happen:
1) The Smart Home Device Industry starts paying the DOE bribes to compel usage.
2) The NSA forces the issue so they can have more spy devices inside every home.
Savings for customers don't mean jack shit to these bureaucrat assholes. It's all about how much money they can extort, how much personal info they gather and jack off to, and how much control they can force you to accept, and now that SCOTUS approved obamacare's use of the IRS to compel you to do/buy/accept anything and everything our fucking overlords command, we are fucked.
Your fridge is spying on you.
And not only is it spying on you, it's connected to Hitler's brain, which is being kept alive inside of a jar forever plotting revenge. it currently resides next to Stalin's brain, in a private collection of evil living brains.
If you put them in a fish tank they fight each other.
Nest is a joke in terms of energy efficiency. It's like installing a navigation system into a 1966 Cadillac. It would be rather smart to have wall insulation, sealing doors and windows and insulating glass. A single thermostat in a house is a joke, every room needs a thermostat. Bedrooms need not be heated, when sitting in the living room. And at night it's sufficient to keep the bedroom at 60 degrees and heating living room and kitchen would be a waste.
Zoned residential HVAC as you describe is expensive to do but would be nice to have.
We have it to a degree at my weekend place, using space heaters and window units.
We've got it at work, but instead of controlling the ducts they just put in separate units in the ceiling every 10' or so that are all wirelessly connected to a mothership in the building.
Which of course, was done before the office layouts were done. Which of course, means that there's no possibility of efficiency, because if these units aren't battling each other (constantly), there's plenty of stupid shit like my thermostat being on the other side of my cube wall. Oh, and the water it uses for the cooling tower is sent down the drain costing 20k a month. Meanwhile, the automatic "low-flow" faucets in the bathrooms all have to be plugged into an electrical outlet, pulling current 24/7 into the 12V DC adapters.
They had to replace the motherboard on my unit. $1100 for the board, and even more for the manufacturer to program it (it wasn't in our maint. contract).
They also put in a completely separate "fresh-air" system that makes it all much worse, as the fools did it without bothering to put an entropy wheel on it, or any type of conditioning to eliminate humidity. So, in the summer, the fresh air vents (which are as close as 1' to the HVAC vents) condensate with water dripping down on your desk.
Did I mention this building has a "Silver" level LEED certification?
What part of the Federal Government do you work for?
:~}
Cooler temperatures in the bedroom will help you sleep. Since body temperature is lower when asleep, the cooler surroundings will signal the nervous system that it's sleepy time.
Very true.
And at night it's sufficient to keep the bedroom at 60 degrees and heating living room and kitchen would be a waste.
***
If we're in bed or not at home the Thermostat is set at 50.
Flannel pajamas, flannel sheets, a quality comforter is all you need. And the above setup encourages cuddling.
Did look into buying some soap stone bricks last year to heat up and place at the foot of the bed - mostly for that old-timey feel.
Maybe this year.
"And the above setup encourages cuddling."
And so does being locked in a prison cell with somebody.. But that's not what were talking about here... I'll try to stay focused.
A Nest costs around $200. I have one and it saves about $10 a month. $10 / Discount Rate of 5% = right around $200. So it's a wash. On the other hand, I don't have to get out of bed to mess with the thermostat at night since I can do it from my phone.
Lame
LOL
How much are your medical bills from being so obese that you cant get out of bed to adjust a thermostat?
LOL
Smart Home is allowing the Cabal's Tech Geeks to turn up the heating in your home even when you're on holiday. Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah
That's known as "revenue enhancement."
The push for Smart Homes is to extend the monitoring of the Sheeple.
In Calif, now that there are water restrictions, the Smart Home can monitor the length of you shower.
In DC, where it's now Legal to Grow Pot ---But Only INdoors, not gardening outside pls---The Smart Home Monitors can tell WHO is growing due to the increase in elec use. So when the Congress -- who actually Own DC--come down and recind the DC Legal MJ Law...they know exactly where to go to Bust the indoor ---now Illegal--- growers.
Oh...are you a fattie....we know how many times you open that fridge door and what you stock because your fridge telling you what you need to buy at the store copies us. Insurance Premium goin' UP Fattie
And you get scared by Edward Snowden...but you willingly ---Do It To Yourselves.
Got iPhone, Got Android, Got APPS
I save $60+ a month by not having a smart phone. I use that savings to pay for any losses due to non-optimal therostate settings.
Just what every home needs--more cheap-ass Chinese electroshit that breaks down the whole system when it goes wrong and costs $500 to replace a chip after four service calls to figure it out.
And then there's the 3am no-knock raid where they kill your dog and hold your family hostage for 11 hours because the smart meter says you're a drug dealer when actually you were just recharging your nail gun overnight.
Come over to my house and kiss my ass Eric Schmidt, you malignant evil piece of shit.
First off the assumption that a house is supposed to be a profit unit is a false premise to begin with. It's a box people sleep, eat, shit and hide from the elements in. The window dressing, construction techniques and the technology that go into the house are meaningless. At the end of the day a house is a box people put their junk in to feel comfortable while not doing whatever it is they do.
Second assumption, the idea of tacking the word 'smart' in front of a house doesn't make it clever or profitable. It's just a marketing term that roughly translates into one more fucking thing to fix on a property when it breaks. Depending on your viewpoint if a house is chiq or shabby is irreverent, the reality that all home owners (or even renters) is shit breaks. When shit breaks, it costs money. In addition to the usual of: Lawns need cutting. Weeds getting picked. Those PV cells need to be replaced constantly on a schedule. The roofs need replacing. Pipes need fixing. Foundations need to be repaired. Etc. All of the 'joys of home ownership'. None of which make a house 'profitable'. Just makes for more shit to fix. In more modern terms, a house is always a money pit. Not sometimes either. All the time. The HGTV disease all the chucklefucks and their fart catching friends that run the central fiat regimes are far to stupid to comprehend that because they are all fat spoiled little bitches. They are the last people anyone should ask advice from. I mean seriously, look at how they've all fucked it up...anycase.
Third assumption, the reboot of the housing market by introducing a new, more complex housing. The idea overlooks the single most important thing that's happening. Everyone is broke. The central banks by way of their printing money from thin air like idiots have guaranteed the housing market will shit the bed just like 2007. Except this time around it will be 200% more retarded.
So it doesn't matter what any home maker offers at this point. Everyone's broke, they can't afford the homes they are in now. Offering 'the next step' is completely and totally fucking meaningless. All that will happen is they'll make an inventory of homes that they'll have to knock flat like they've been doing all over the world with the suburban mansion. While the ideas are awesome, the logistics and the reality of the situation offers all home builders one certainty. Bankruptcy. Worse yet, it won't be the bankers that feel the whiplash. It'll be the builders again. Just like 1982...and 1988...and 1996...and 2002...and 2007...and ???
Anyone cluing in yet that you've all been handed a shit sandwich that's wrapped in the finest marketing wrapper offered? I'm going to stick with my position everyone is far too stupid to handle money or understand the value of anything. Especially housing...imagine that, whole planet that believes a box that might last a couple of decades is worth something.
TL;DR version: Entropy Bitchez!
Depending on your viewpoint if a house is chiq or shabby is irreverent, ...
Jesus H. Fucking Christ on a motorcycle, ain't that the truth.
"Smart House" Could have called it "iHouse"
Any device that you submit control to is not smart but unsafe for your well being. Can these 'smart' meters shut off your electricity? If they can, then prepare to be 'politically correct' and all that goes with it. They don't like what you say or do---they cut you off. Same for a complete digital 'money' system. If you want to be assured that you can continue to eat, avoid it at all costs! Otherwise you may one day find out your 'account' has been closed with no way to transact. Its coming.....
Precisely why I find the fears that people have about the gubermint comin to take mah guns so ridiculous. They'll have no reason to bother with coming for your guns. You can stay holed up in your house entirely without any kind of services or connection with the outside world as long as you like . . . and if you're really a problem worth any real trouble, they'll shoot you when you finally and inevitably leave your prison/house.
Smart meters using low radiation waves to communicate with other each other. If you live in a community in which every house/apartment has them, you live in a big time radiated area, which is known to cause cancers in humans. There aren't any real money savings but shifting costs externally.
NEST is bullshit, because the proper way to save is to go with an ICF home. Radiant heated floors and air conditioning that is zoned rather than central along with proper windows, heat exchange systems and shading. Panels on the roof of course. If you build your home correctly (and it's cheap to do now), you save a whole shitload on both heating AND cooling. During the summer when it heats up outside, your home stays cooler much longer before you even start to feel it. During the winter, same thing, and it keeps warmer easier using less power once you start heating.
ICF is tornado proof, essentially fireproof, you can go ahead and install that steel security door if you want, as your walls are now 16 inch thick reinforced concrete. It's actually QUIET inside, so you have more privacy. No worries about dryrot, ants, termites, or any of that other garbage. A drunk driver smashes into your house? They pancake, you rinse off the blood.
Thermals are masked and wireless signals dampened, so you get your privacy back from the cops and their toys. And with the security door and concrete, accidental no knock raids simply don't happen (so you can sleep in peace). The sound dampening means you don't have to hear their low-buzzing choppers either. Your energy bills are lower, your insurance rates are lower, upkeep is lower, resale is higher.
Here's what smart meters are good for:
Prepaid electric. We do that in China, it's simple. We have no meter readers, we go online, we buy power, it gets credited to the power meter inside of 1 minute. You can also go online and check your balance and set it up to reup your balance when it dips below a certain amount. You spend NO MORE than you want to. It'll even let you go negative for 50 RMB (about 100kwh). You have to pay it anyways, so they don't mind. Pay online, pay at a convenience store, pay with your phone, pay at a bank, pay at an ATM, it's EASY.
So there ya go: tear down that shithole (or torch it for the insurance money) and rebuild it ICF. Go with prepaid electric on a smartmeter. Slap some solar on the roof (also concrete), and you should be able to snap up between 7~10kwh a day with a decent system. Your new efficient home is using FAR LESS than this, which means you don't need to bother with batteries, the grid will be your battery. Sell your excess during the day, buy it back at night and on no-sun days. Your efficient home should ensure you come out ahead... meaning a $0 electric bill where they actually owe YOU money.
ICF is quick and easy to put up too. 3000sqft home with 4 guys can be poured in a day or two. You are paying for materials not labor. Stick frame is paying for labor, not material. Labor doesn't keep your home from turning into woodchips when a tornado comes. Materials do.
Yeah we have an ICF home. I'm realizing all of the benefits you list. Still waiting for solar to fall a little lower but at some point, we will do it.
To elaborate on your suggestion for shading - figure out your latitude and do the math on the sun angle in winter versus summer. Tune your windows so the bulk of them face mostly south and your eaves over hang just enough to totally shade the main windows in the heat of summer but still let all the sun in during the winter. None of this affects cost but doing it right can hugely improve the comfort and heating/cooling savings of the home. My house was done this way and its so great that I'd never consider a future lot that wouldn't let me orient the main windows to the south or southeast.
Even better... install Rolladen like the Germans do. Better energy savings year round, plus security. It's the major stuff that you do once and don't have to think about. And it pays off in every way over time. I'd orient the home to ensure maximum solar energy for the panels and getting desired views and natural lighting angles.
Eventually we all end up crouching in the hidden corner, rewriting 1984.
If our language survives that long.
Google Spy House.
Just addressing the "smart electric"meters. Of the hundreds, maybe thousands of them that I and my employers installed, not a one of them knew wtf you were doing. The latest ones I'm aware of only measure "one leg" to boot.
What they do, do is remove the need for a meter reader by sending a signal back along the electric line that can be read at they're metering points. It also saves a bundle when customers call to complain of a power outage. It can be determined if power is being delivered to the meter and if so, more than 95% of the time it is the customers problem usually a breaker tripped.
The signals are all low frequency and minimal. Be more afraid of cell phones, even in the car next to you than the tiny amount of frequency being used to read the meter. Also, all it "knows" is load, it doesn't know a toaster from a hair dryer. Find something else to be paranoid about. MANTSH, move along, nothing to see hear
You are dead wrong. They can be measured with an RF analyzer & if you have the meter the rest of the neighborhood pings to to transmit you're being nuked 9 ways to Sunday.
They are sensitive to every draw of power as everything has a signature down to the tick of a clock.
"Be more afraid of cell phones"...that's exactly how they transmit.
Wonder how much you took to the head installing them?
There are several different kinds, manufacturers etc. The ones I'm talking about sent signal right back up the conductor bringing in the electricity. This was ten years ago, they haven't changed them again. As each batch of several hundred or thousand gets installed a newer version comes out certainly. All ours measure is the power consumed.
Maybe in some more sophisticated [California] utility they have brilliant meters? The tick of a clock in wattage is so minimal, that even variation in temperature of the conductor changes line loss or resistance. Maybe inside the lab at Silicon Valley or Nasa you can measure clock's ticking, where I was not so much. The reason they were installed was they started out at the edge of their grid and worked back toward the source [over years] just so as not to have to read them physically.
"Wonder how much you took to the head installing them?" Quite a bit, it is accumulative, even the magnetic strip inside my wallet on my credit cards became unreadable.
True smart meters communicate with one another to exchange data so that they can build a more detailed topology of electricity use or a pattern to help utility companies to trade their surplus more effectively. To do that, they use the same WiFi frequency which is known for its dangerous health effects.
It was about firing meter readers. That's it. You can just drive through the neighborhood, collect reads wirelessly and done. No need to pay a retard with a clipboard a pension for writing a number down. Don't overthink iT
wait till it makes you sick.
no need to pay a retard retiree SS they don't have.
don't underthink it. Obola mandated it.
DBL post, whoops
That is because the government knows it can gain maximum control for minimum effort.
fify
- Ned
You won't save much if your fridge decides to order vegetables from Marks & Spencers instead of Lidl, because of a 'glitch'.
Baby offgrid clusters will be available soon .
See https://www.academia.edu/11033642/Why_Oil_Fell_
I have a smart 100% wool blanket.
I live off the grid so I'm very conscious of power consumption. We have an "e-meter" that tells us how much we are using (or making from our solar panels) and what the state of our battery bank is. This meter is not buried in the bushes, it is right next to the fridge. Believe me, it makes you pay attention in a way the monthly bill cannot. You cannot conserve what you don't measure! So...my theory is that if everyone had one of these (easily calibrated to read in $ intead of watts!) people would just naturally save more. So simple.
In Ubik by PKD, the man's smart house refused to let him out or make any phone calls until he found a way to pay his overdue bills.