|
Post by the light works on Feb 5, 2016 17:13:49 GMT
finland is one of the few countries that has higher residential consumption than the US, mostly because our climate and a lot of apartment buildings are 1980's junk with pure electrical heating. and bad insulation?
|
|
|
Post by GTCGreg on Feb 5, 2016 17:34:53 GMT
You're right. I have a 75 gallon heater and it cost over twice as much is a 50. The only reason I didn't go with two 50's is because of space limitations. I could probably even find a kit to wire two 50s to share a circuit. It's a gas heater. It's a matter of floor area. One 75 takes up less floor space than two 50's. I use to have one 40 gallon in that space. By the time my wife did the dishes, the two kids took their baths or showers, my wife took her shower, I was left with cold water for my shower. Upgrading to the 75 took care of that problem. Not only because there is more hot water storage, but it has a much higher recovery rate. The old 40 had a 40,000 BTU burner while the 75 has a 65,000BTU. Compare that to an electric heater with a 4kW heater which only produces 14,000BTU. Even an electric with two 4kW heaters, they normally only operate one at a time. Unless something has changed. I haven't had an electric water heater in 30 years.
|
|
|
Post by OziRiS on Feb 5, 2016 23:21:37 GMT
Finland is purely electric stove/oven country, unlike say The netherlands, where it's mostly gaslines to the house and stoves. IIRC, most of Scandinavia has gone all electrical. We don't have gas lines at all anywhere in Denmark anymore. They might a few places in Sweden or Norway, but I don't think there are many left. If you want a gas stove these days, you have to buy one with a standalone gas bottle.
|
|
|
Post by GTCGreg on Feb 6, 2016 0:28:49 GMT
Finland is purely electric stove/oven country, unlike say The netherlands, where it's mostly gaslines to the house and stoves. IIRC, most of Scandinavia has gone all electrical. We don't have gas lines at all anywhere in Denmark anymore. They might a few places in Sweden or Norway, but I don't think there are many left. If you want a gas stove these days, you have to buy one with a standalone gas bottle. Many areas in the U.S. offer natural gas service, but a lot don't. If you live in an area that offers it, it's usually a far cheaper fuel for hot water and heating than electricity. I have natural gas for heating and hot water but use electricity for cooking. I actually prefer gas for cooking but my wife grew up with an electric stove and that's what she likes. I told her it's just as easy to burn things on a gas stove but, she still prefers to burn our meals with electricity. The smoke detector doesn't seem to care one way or the other.
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Feb 6, 2016 0:40:44 GMT
I could probably even find a kit to wire two 50s to share a circuit. It's a gas heater. It's a matter of floor area. One 75 takes up less floor space than two 50's. I use to have one 40 gallon in that space. By the time my wife did the dishes, the two kids took their baths or showers, my wife took her shower, I was left with cold water for my shower. Upgrading to the 75 took care of that problem. Not only because there is more hot water storage, but it has a much higher recovery rate. The old 40 had a 40,000 BTU burner while the 75 has a 65,000BTU. Compare that to an electric heater with a 4kW heater which only produces 14,000BTU. Even an electric with two 4kW heaters, they normally only operate one at a time. Unless something has changed. I haven't had an electric water heater in 30 years. the disadvantage of a bigger tank is the kids take longer showers. yes, electrics normally only run one 4.5KW element at a time. in theory, they are only heating 25 gallons at a time. you can convert them to run two circuits and drive both elements at once.
|
|
|
Post by GTCGreg on Feb 6, 2016 0:56:14 GMT
the disadvantage of a bigger tank is the kids take longer showers. That wasn't only a problem with the kids. I have trouble figuring out when to come out too. With the 65,000 BTU burner on the 75 gallon tank, it will keep up with a shower indefinitely.
|
|
|
Post by kharnynb on Feb 6, 2016 7:18:49 GMT
finland is one of the few countries that has higher residential consumption than the US, mostly because our climate and a lot of apartment buildings are 1980's junk with pure electrical heating. and bad insulation? Insulation is very good in general, if anything the buildings made in the 80's overinsulated and didn't breath enough, causing mold issues. All finnish houses have rather thicker walls than central european, well insulated and windows are usually 2 sperate frames, first an outer single pane window, then an inner 2 pane window.
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Feb 6, 2016 7:22:01 GMT
Insulation is very good in general, if anything the buildings made in the 80's overinsulated and didn't breath enough, causing mold issues. All finnish houses have rather thicker walls than central european, well insulated and windows are usually 2 sperate frames, first an outer single pane window, then an inner 2 pane window. the US is currently in the oversealing stage. there was a while we had to make the bathroom fans run for a certain amount of time every day to keep the air in the house from going bad.
|
|
|
Post by kharnynb on Feb 6, 2016 7:33:56 GMT
our electric use is heating, including a lot of people having electric sauna stoves, and lighting, since we have several months of no "useful" daylight.
|
|
|
Post by silverdragon on Feb 6, 2016 8:23:58 GMT
All bathroom electricals have to be double insulated earthed in their own right and "waterproof" safe as best as cab be, with isolation switches of either pull rope design on the ceiling outside the wet area or switches outside the room. We do allow shaver circuits in the bathroom, two pin, all equipment must be self contained double insulated and not need an earth by design. 240V is only a number. If you compare the current at 240v, you will find that the 120v american and europen get the same power, just at lower voltage, its the current that kills?.. so we here have lower current on a higher voltage... swings and roundabouts.
UK is a mixture of gas and electrical heating, also some oil burners, solid fuel, its all about choice, so having a gas top and electrical Fan assisted oven as we have here is pretty much normal. My gas stove has electrical ignition as well.
Plus if we ever have power cuts, I have gas fires to provide warmth in the house. (I also have a generator, so thats not really a problem, I can run the central heating pump lights and basic electricals off the generator....)
240v is not as scary as it sounds, 480 three phase is, but then, its mostly industrial, and we use one of those phases to break down to 240.
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Feb 6, 2016 11:18:22 GMT
All bathroom electricals have to be double insulated earthed in their own right and "waterproof" safe as best as cab be, with isolation switches of either pull rope design on the ceiling outside the wet area or switches outside the room. We do allow shaver circuits in the bathroom, two pin, all equipment must be self contained double insulated and not need an earth by design. 240V is only a number. If you compare the current at 240v, you will find that the 120v american and europen get the same power, just at lower voltage, its the current that kills?.. so we here have lower current on a higher voltage... swings and roundabouts. UK is a mixture of gas and electrical heating, also some oil burners, solid fuel, its all about choice, so having a gas top and electrical Fan assisted oven as we have here is pretty much normal. My gas stove has electrical ignition as well. Plus if we ever have power cuts, I have gas fires to provide warmth in the house. (I also have a generator, so thats not really a problem, I can run the central heating pump lights and basic electricals off the generator....) 240v is not as scary as it sounds, 480 three phase is, but then, its mostly industrial, and we use one of those phases to break down to 240. unless you are current limited to less than half a milliamp, then yes, 240V makes a difference. higher voltage makes it easier to push a fatal current through a person. and 480 three phase breaks down to 277. and that, as I said, leaves a mark.
|
|
|
Post by c64 on Feb 6, 2016 11:55:18 GMT
IIRC, most of Scandinavia has gone all electrical. We don't have gas lines at all anywhere in Denmark anymore. They might a few places in Sweden or Norway, but I don't think there are many left. If you want a gas stove these days, you have to buy one with a standalone gas bottle. Many areas in the U.S. offer natural gas service, but a lot don't. If you live in an area that offers it, it's usually a far cheaper fuel for hot water and heating than electricity. I have natural gas for heating and hot water but use electricity for cooking. I actually prefer gas for cooking but my wife grew up with an electric stove and that's what she likes. I told her it's just as easy to burn things on a gas stove but, she still prefers to burn our meals with electricity. The smoke detector doesn't seem to care one way or the other. Here in Germany there are natural gas lines almost everywhere since we get our natural gas rather cheap from Russia. The only problem is that the natural gas price is linked with the oil price. Almost 100 years ago, "light heater oil" was a waste product of the refineries so they artificially increased the price of natural gas to help residents decide to install an oil furnace to get rid of the heater oil. "Light heater oil" is also known as "Diesel oil" and since the 1980s in high demand for almost anything. Not only half of the cars have switched to diesel, trains have switched from coal to Diesel and freight ships have switched from "light crude" or "heavy heater oil" to Diesel as well. Now there is an ever increasing shortage of Diesel increasing the price of Diesel which in turn artificially increases the price for natural gas as well. Natural gas (or oil) for heating water and your home is not only more economic, it is also more ecological! A modern, classic natural gas boiler has an efficiency of at least 80%. The latest coal and oil power plants barely reach 43% efficiency and most of the time, 10% of their power throughput is the "spinning reserve" and wasted in the cooling towers. Then there are the transfer losses of electricity in the lines and especially inside the transformers. So for the heat you make use of by burning one gallon of oil at home, an oil power plant needs to burn more than two gallons of oil to send you your heat! And there is a lot of room for improvements here! You can buy a combined heat and power unit for your home. There are two main versions of those. The classic one is a gas or diesel engine like for a car turning a classic generator. It will convert up to 40% of the fuel into electricity you can use yourself or sell. Naturally, your electricity is a lot more expensive than the utility company, but the main purpose is heating so over all you heat your home while saving electricity. The electricity you sold in winter needs to bought back in summer. Those systems are not that good for residents but very good for large companies. I had advised a telecommunications facility to install one. They had consumed large quantities of electricity for their gear and consumed a lot of natural gas for heating and defrosting in winter. The system was not that much more expensive than upgrading and modernizing their diesel generators. It is a special version which is "blackout compliant" and can run the place well in an emergency configuration. The old diesel generators are still there as a backup and still capable to run the place in a minimalistic emergency configuration (at least 2 hours full service). They now save well over 50% in energy costs, improved their power redundancy almost for free and receive some governmental funding as well. Another version is a conventional furnace hooked to a Stirling engine and generator. The power output is rather low but something. Also they need external power so they stop during a blackout. Their advantage is that they are very silent and can simply replace your old furnace. Also they work with any kinds of fuels, even caloric value systems. The output is usually sufficient to heat a small building near your main building electrical, so e.g. you can heat your tool shop cheap without running expensive pipes to it. Modern smoke detectors don't look for smoke in general, they look for smoke particles of incomplete combustion so as long as your wife burns your food hearty enough, the smoke detector won't mind. Maybe you want to buy an induction stove. They are electrically and just as using gas, the heat is gone as fast when shutting the stove down. An induction stove can be regulated just like a gas stove. Also the top of the stove is only heated by the cookware so the top of the stove won't be that hot so after a few minutes, you can put stuff onto the stove without burning it. The furniture store my dad worked for had a professional cook preparing meals every first Monday in a month and for demonstration purposes, he always had a tablecloth between the stove and the frying pan. Also an induction stove is perfect to heat bearings to shrink them onto a shaft, just use a thin, old plate to prevent leaving any evidence. The older induction stoves without computer control can even heat whole transmission shafts to get the cogs off easily, they heat the cogs and not the shafts.
|
|
|
Post by c64 on Feb 6, 2016 12:03:58 GMT
our electric use is heating, including a lot of people having electric sauna stoves, and lighting, since we have several months of no "useful" daylight. And the EU banned light bulbs even if lightening is only 1% of Germany’s residential electric power consumption. Also "passive houses" need the waste heat of light bulbs. With CFL and LED lights, they switch on a small electric heater consuming the power you save anyway. For this purpose, "heat balls" are available. Those are little devices which perfectly look like light bulbs but they are meant for heating your passive house, they just give off light as a waste product...
|
|
|
Post by c64 on Feb 6, 2016 12:24:11 GMT
All bathroom electricals have to be double insulated earthed in their own right and "waterproof" safe as best as cab be, with isolation switches of either pull rope design on the ceiling outside the wet area or switches outside the room. We do allow shaver circuits in the bathroom, two pin, all equipment must be self contained double insulated and not need an earth by design. 240V is only a number. If you compare the current at 240v, you will find that the 120v american and europen get the same power, just at lower voltage, its the current that kills?.. so we here have lower current on a higher voltage... swings and roundabouts. UK is a mixture of gas and electrical heating, also some oil burners, solid fuel, its all about choice, so having a gas top and electrical Fan assisted oven as we have here is pretty much normal. My gas stove has electrical ignition as well. Plus if we ever have power cuts, I have gas fires to provide warmth in the house. (I also have a generator, so thats not really a problem, I can run the central heating pump lights and basic electricals off the generator....) 240v is not as scary as it sounds, 480 three phase is, but then, its mostly industrial, and we use one of those phases to break down to 240. unless you are current limited to less than half a milliamp, then yes, 240V makes a difference. higher voltage makes it easier to push a fatal current through a person. and 480 three phase breaks down to 277. and that, as I said, leaves a mark. Also the higher the voltage, the greater the chance for the circuit to complete. Below 60Vpp (VDC; 48VAC), it is very unlikely for the electricity to break the insulation top layers of healthy skin (110VAC for Edison's tough skin). With higher voltages, the chance to break cloths, socks and shoe soles increase to complete a circuit of sufficient power to harm you. That's why tazers and electric fences use a very high voltage and a current limiter. The high voltage makes sure to break fur, clothes, hooves, shoe soles, etc and once the circuit is complete, the voltage breaks down to limit the current to safe levels. Once a tazer has completed the circuit, the effective voltage over the victims body is far less than 30V!
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Feb 6, 2016 14:57:10 GMT
unless you are current limited to less than half a milliamp, then yes, 240V makes a difference. higher voltage makes it easier to push a fatal current through a person. and 480 three phase breaks down to 277. and that, as I said, leaves a mark. Also the higher the voltage, the greater the chance for the circuit to complete. Below 60Vpp (VDC; 48VAC), it is very unlikely for the electricity to break the insulation top layers of healthy skin (110VAC for Edison's tough skin). With higher voltages, the chance to break cloths, socks and shoe soles increase to complete a circuit of sufficient power to harm you. That's why tazers and electric fences use a very high voltage and a current limiter. The high voltage makes sure to break fur, clothes, hooves, shoe soles, etc and once the circuit is complete, the voltage breaks down to limit the current to safe levels. Once a tazer has completed the circuit, the effective voltage over the victims body is far less than 30V! TASER = Thomas A Swift's Electric Rifle.
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Feb 6, 2016 14:59:16 GMT
our electric use is heating, including a lot of people having electric sauna stoves, and lighting, since we have several months of no "useful" daylight. And the EU banned light bulbs even if lightening is only 1% of Germany’s residential electric power consumption. Also "passive houses" need the waste heat of light bulbs. With CFL and LED lights, they switch on a small electric heater consuming the power you save anyway. For this purpose, "heat balls" are available. Those are little devices which perfectly look like light bulbs but they are meant for heating your passive house, they just give off light as a waste product... true, with electric heat, if you are heating your house, you are getting 100% efficiency out of traditional light bulbs. if you upgrade to a heat pump, you are potentially losing efficiency, again.
|
|
|
Post by wvengineer on Feb 6, 2016 15:46:53 GMT
with arc fault rules, it can be as much as $70.00 for the breaker. - and it's not having 36 circuits I'm irritated at so much as having 36 circuits in a 30 circuit panel Are arc faults required everywhere now, or just bedroom circuits? Depends on the local codes. For my area, they are just required in bedroom. GFCI's are required for wet areas. Wet area includes Kitchens, bathrooms, laundry rooms, and basements. So basement bedrooms require both Arc Fault and GFCI. Those combo breakers are something like $50-70. Some people will install arc fault breakers and then put the first outlet on the circuit as a GFCI outlet, but those are more sensitive to tripping.
|
|
|
Post by the light works on Feb 6, 2016 15:56:26 GMT
Are arc faults required everywhere now, or just bedroom circuits? Depends on the local codes. For my area, they are just required in bedroom. GFCI's are required for wet areas. Wet area includes Kitchens, bathrooms, laundry rooms, and basements. So basement bedrooms require both Arc Fault and GFCI. Those combo breakers are something like $50-70. Some people will install arc fault breakers and then put the first outlet on the circuit as a GFCI outlet, but those are more sensitive to tripping. national code requires them everywhere - local codes may choose to not recognize the national requirement. here, GFCI protection is only in unfinished basements, not living space. (if your basement bedroom is a wet location there is another code that outlaws that) the manufacturer I get breakers from only makes combination breakers. they also have indicator lights to let you know what condition led to a trip.
|
|
|
Post by GTCGreg on Feb 6, 2016 16:17:36 GMT
if you upgrade to a heat pump, you are potentially losing efficiency, again. How so?
|
|
|
Post by c64 on Feb 6, 2016 16:21:44 GMT
Are arc faults required everywhere now, or just bedroom circuits? Depends on the local codes. For my area, they are just required in bedroom. GFCI's are required for wet areas. Wet area includes Kitchens, bathrooms, laundry rooms, and basements. So basement bedrooms require both Arc Fault and GFCI. Those combo breakers are something like $50-70. Some people will install arc fault breakers and then put the first outlet on the circuit as a GFCI outlet, but those are more sensitive to tripping. Here in Germany, RCDs are standard since the late 1990s. Usually you have one or more 3-phase 3x50A RCD devices feeding common breakers. Black/Brown/Grey = L₁, L₂, L₃ Blue= Neutral Green/Yellow = PE (ground) Nowadays it is common to have an extra sensitive RCD for the Bathroom outlets, usually a combo breaker but you don't have to. Here is a more modern installation of a single-family house: Bottom right is the main fuse (there is another one in the box to the cable beneath the street), in the middle the meter (a modern electronic one) and on top the main switch. On the left side: Top row: 1x door-bell transformer 2x relay (probably staircase lights & door opener) 2x breaker (probably transformer & staircase light) 1x timed relay (staircase light) 1x breaker (probably staircase outlets) 2th and 3th row: RDC (left) and breakers 4th and 5th row: same
|
|