russ
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Energy-savings no-brainers - or are they?
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Jun 11 16:21 UTC 2000 |
Sometimes you see things that make you go "Why the heck aren't they
doing something about this? They'd make out like bandits!"
Case in point:
40-unit apartment building. Laundry room is on the 2nd floor on the
north; the building goes east-west. The laundry room has its own
water heater in a closet off the room proper.
There is a flue and some kind of unused pipe coming into the closet
area. Running a gas heater would appear to be a piece of cake.
Despite this, the water heater runs on ELECTRICITY at probably four
times the cost. So do the dryers.
Across the narrow dimension of the building is a blank wall. It
would appear to be simple to mount flat-plate solar collectors
to this wall and heat (or pre-heat) the laundry-room water, for
free. It would even have qualified - maybe still qualifies -
for tax credits. But the sunlight that falls there just heats
up the bricks.
IIRC, sunlight in Michigan in the summer averages around 500 calories
per cm^2 per day. A two-yard-by-five-yard collector (about 9 m^2)
running at 70% capture efficiency and 20% losses would be able to heat
about 160 gallons of water from 50 F to 122 F, every day. Compared to
electricity, this would save up to about $2.30 a day, several hundred
dollars a year. $4000 invested in solar collectors would appear to
have a near-guaranteed payoff much higher than the mortgage interest
rate; financially, a no-brainer.
And they're still using electricity. Aside from being cheapskates on
the capital cost, can anyone tell me *why*?
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