Saturday, August 15, 2009

Heat Pumps in this Texas Heat? YES!

In June, I asked my neighborhood group for advice about a heat pump for an all-electric condo. Advice ranged from "don't do it," "only works in deserts," "to do it," "you'll save up to 75%."

Well, I went ahead and did it: had Strand Brothers install a Lennox heat pump (heat pumps are the only AC system that the City of Austin will give a rebate on for all-electric condos.) Also got 10 more inches of insulation in the attic, new duct-work, larger duct outlets in the upstairs bedrooms, an additional air intake opening to the indoor AC unit, and solar screens. The new AC system takes a 2" filter that needs changing only every 3 months.

Results: we went from using 2728 KWHs in June, to 1404 KWHs in July. Electricity cost went from $300. 61 to $147.18. The new heat pump was installed 7/6; but the insulation, new ducts, duct-work and solar screens were installed 7/21. Because the weather was equally hot in June and July, and no other variables changed, we are expecting even more savings in next month's bill because of the increased attic insulation and solar screens.

Plus, all the crew members from Strand Brothers were very professional and took tremendous pride in the work they were doing.

The rebates are still coming in, but we expect that they will cover about 30% of the cost of the installation.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

I Won't Fly United Airlines Anymore: Now I Won't Fly Delta Either - EVER

Click on title above to read When Nature Calls, the story to which I am referring.

I laughed when Continental put out that little blue carpet for their big spenders to walk on. It was amusing to watch a few passengers purposefully, sometimes arrogantly, stride across that 2' x 5' strip of blue. I thought, "Do they know how dumb they look." After the final blue carpet treader had left his, usually, footprints on the rug, the gate agents would chain off the little piece of blue carpet, and the rest of us "regular" passengers would walk parallel to the blue carpet - just inches away from it - then through the same door that the blue-carpet people walked through, merging into one line to board the plane.

That little charade is fairly harmless and slightly amusing to all but the most obtuse; but, when a passenger, locked inside a metal tube flying through space and time, has to GO, all bets are off. Anyone who ever has had the diarrhea knows that diarrhea waits for no person, and certainly not for a beverage cart. Good grief, Delta Morons, get a modicum of common sense.

A FELONY! I wonder how many passenger fares this idiotic response to a bodily function has cost Delta? I am hoping LOTS. If this is an American business' idea of how to treat its customers, that business deserves to disappear. If this is a flight attendant's idea of how to treat a passenger, then that flight attendant needs to see a psychiatrist PRONTO. She is NUTS, and does not belong on any plane or in any position dealing with humans or animals. Rocks, maybe, but that's it.

Maybe its just me. I grew up in the white society of the 50' and 60's when we we taught that America was better than other countries because everyone was treated equally. No kings, queens or royalty for us. Even though I discovered that the "equally" part was NOT SO TRUE, especially if your skin color was a different shade from mine, I held onto, and worked for, the ideal of equal treatment for everyone, regardless of skin color. As those "Colored Only" signs came down from restrooms, water fountains, doctor's waiting rooms, movie theaters, bus sections, train cars and restaurants, it seemed a huge victory for equality, as well as for common sense. Never did I EVER imagine that in the 21st Century, someone in America could be charged with a FELONY for using a segregated restroom - segregated, not by skin color, but by class. Not by royalty and peasant class, but by airplane seat section class.

It is bad enough that someone, somewhere in the American Business World, came up with this rule that only certain people could use the tiny little pottie in the forward part of a plane NO MATTER HOW BAD THEY HAD TO GO OR HOW BLOCKED OFF THE OTHER TOILET MIGHT BE; but what about those other people who joined in and said "Oh, that's a grand idea. Let's implement that!" What is worse, is that a flight attendant, a person who is trained in safety, people skills, and care-giving; that that person physically would try to block another human being, with diarrhea, from using a toilet. It makes one want to shout, "Have these people lost their f***ing minds!"

Truly, Delta, you have lost my business forever. You join that other no-fly airline, United, whose flight attendants in 2003, treated, not just me, but all passengers in my part of coach seating, on a flight from Paris to JFK, with such rudeness, disdain, and inattention, refusing even to make eye contact with passengers, that I swore I would never fly United again.

Here is a memo to all those rule makers at the airlines: You offer low fares; we buy them. When we buy them, we do not pay for them with our dignity. Never assume that. NEVER.