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Non-Tech : Kirk's Market Thoughts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ken Adams who wrote (15102)	1/9/2023 4:10:59 PM
From: robert b furman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 26782

Hi Ken, Happy New Year! Agreed. It looks like a lot of water is coming their way. Two edged sword, mud slides and excess water draining, hopefully into reservoirs. Slow gentle rains always soak the deepest. Especially so if an interim time period allows it to soak deep and then rewet. Houston has big reservoirs and bayous. But strong rains run off. Our water is pricey but available in large quantities. The utilities calculate water usage by determining the base usage of the household during the no irrigation months of November thru February. That level is reasonable. If you want to waste water irrigating it gets pricey as sewage is also based on water usage, even if it never makes it ti the treatment plants. They have placed an incentive on drip irrigation vs misting - of which muc of it evaporates in the heat. They recommend watering in early morning hours and instead of 30 minutes very other day do two 15 minute periods with an hour in between of no watering - (it soaks in deeper). I've converted all of our flower and mulch beds into drip irrigation. The pop up sprayers for grass areas are supposed to throw drops not mists for efficiency sake. I've adjusted them also. If you water your yard so that it runs down the curb, you have a $200.00 monthly water bill - that's for just the two of us. If we shut it off in the winter and water every two days in summer, our monthly annual average is $100.00 to $120.00. In Wisconsin we have a septic system and a well. We water our 7 raised garden beds ALOT. All that reflects in an electric monthly bill of $170.00 average. That and insurance is very reasonable in Wisconsin. Where we get clobbered is heating fuel oil. I'm adding on to the home this summer and will align the new roof for solar electric and evacuated tube solar hot water generation. Uniquely I have an artesian well on my property that flows constantly. The water temperature id 52 degrees in the coldest of February and the hottest of July. I hope to find a company that can hook up that constant flow to a geo thermal pump. Hopefully I'll use fuel oil to heat the pipes in the floor of the lower level and the radiant slant fins in the upper floors, and then use heat exchangers and geothermal pumps to maintain the hotter temps vs. cold floors creeping in. The technology is there, but not sure it works that well in Wisconsin. I'll find some actual installations that hopefully confirm my thesis, before doing the plunge. We all need to become one with mother nature as best we can. If you can afford the up front costs, the future can allow one to live inexpensively. Bob