What does it take to succesfully transition to a green energy economy?

[DLS79]

I have yet to see one tooling down I-25 There's no need to ban owning or operating IC vehicles, because once sales of new ones ceases, attrition will take most of them off the road soon enough. Some will become highly prized, but lightly-used, possessions, just like your typical "hypercar" or lovingly restored classic today.

Around here you can find everything from model Ts to Hudsons, to classic muscle cars on the road when it's nice outside.

 

[JaMaSt]

As an Architect/General Contractor, with 35 years of experience, and working for a Commercial Real Estate Developer in SW Washington, the 2021 Washington State Energy Code (adopted in March) is adding to the cost of construction - which is transferred to our tenants. I'm managing 5 commercial developments which, when completed, will have 30 to 35 buildings with around 50 to 60 tenants. Most of them are small businesses. Mom and Pop tenants.

The total cost of construction will be around 120 million dollars. The total square footage will be around 208,000 sf. The cost added by the 2021 energy code will be around $24/sf. That's $5,000,000. Roughly, $83,000 will have to be recouped in higher lease rates - paid for by the tenants. This added cost will not be offset by savings in reduced energy consumption by the tenants. And the Natural Gas ban will only drive electrical prices higher as the local Utility District scrambles to build redundant, parallel "sustainable" infrastructure that operates at around 50% efficiency and has a very short lifespan.

 

[EJ3]

Around here you can find everything from model Ts to Hudsons, to classic muscle cars on the road when it's nice outside.

Yep, Thank God we're still semi-free!

 

[EJ3]

I've never had my property value increase from energy saving improvements. Property assessment is tied to comparable sales that have increased or decreased or adding square footage or making unlivable square footage livable, finishing basement or attic or adding garage. I did take advantage of tax incentives for energy improvements.

And where do you live?
Your place, laws, codes, etc. are likely vastly different than mine. Just as they are vastly different here on James Island, SC than they are in Guam.
Your experience is not a valid metric for my experience. Because it's different.
Just as if I took a piece of 120V 60Hz audio gear and plugged it into a 240V 60Hz outlet and if nothing happened yet, then turned it on.
The results would be vastly different than if I took a piece of 220V 50HZ audio gear and plugged it into a 110V 60Hz outlet and if nothing happened yet, then turned it on.

 

[EJ3]

Yes, yes but that is a government for the people and by the people but with all the consolidation, anti-competitive practices, data mining, lobbying much of it is for the corporations by the corporations. Many places outside out class the US with national energy, transportation,, health and education, also have far less poor people per capita. Don't me wrong our free enterprise system is model for the rest of the world and works for a more diverse population but some basic systems work better with common not for profit coordinated regulated structure and that is supported by facts of standard of living, health and education in many other countries.

Which countries would that be?
I have family in Austria, Germany, Italy & France. And have, in the past, owned a condo in Salzburg, Austria (which I sold to a cousin there, while he was in the University there). He no longer lives in that condo but is still the owner (It is available to family members such as myself and my mother {should we decide to go visit our "born in" city} again).
So I have very deep ties with those four countries. And (at least for Austria, am pretty well versed in the government there).

 

[EJ3]

Were such things available to me without punishing tariffs, I could see myself wanting a Baojun Yep. Around my town, average driving speeds would be well within it's capabilities. Love how it resembles a scaled-down Suzuki Jimny, which itself looks a bit toylike. 1006 kg curb weight, aerodynamics of a brick
View attachment 398177

I would hope that it is more sturdy than the Suzuki Jimmy, which is not as sturdy as a toy Tonka Truck of my youth.

 

[EJ3]

I have owned a 1979 "Bright Blue" (it had some green in it giving it an ever so very slight turquoise/aquamarine coloring) with a 6.6 Litre decal on the hood scoop (designating a 403 Oldsmobile engine with an Automatic Transmission).
A white 78 Trans Am 400 Pontiac Engine 6.6 Litre (designating a lower performance [of the 2 available Pontiac 400's} or an Oldsmobile 403 engine] with an automatic).
And a 1979 Trans Am SE (Black & Gold, like the Smokey & the Bandit movie car (but a manual 4 speed transmission [and a T-Top car with no air conditioning]) with a T/A 6.6 Decal on the shaker hood scoop, indicating the High performance Pontiac 400 engine and (this decal & designation only applies to the 1979 models, in earlier years it could have had the automatic).
It was rated quite a bit higher in power by the NHRA (National Hot Rodding Association). Perhaps the factory rating was taken from the rear wheels on a chassis dyno rather than at the engine flywheel (that would corelate well with the difference of the factories rating of 220 HP & the NHRA's rating of 290 HP).
It was easy to make 400 HP (I built mine to 473 HP at the flywheel).

From the Archive: 1979 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am Road Test​

The surprise hit of the 1970s, at the top of its form.
By Larry Griffin
View Photos
Larry Griffin|Car and Driver
From the January 1979 issue of Car and Driver.
If we had a collective pinch of sense among us, we'd organize a cooperative fund and buy up all the 1979 Trans Ams we could lay our hands on, like maybe every one that comes off the line. We'd put the everyday ones in storage and sell them for a fortune a few years down the pike, and we'd drive the hell out of the WS6 cars because they run like there's a gun-toting husband ten feet back and breathing heavy. We'd keep them forever, firing them up to vacuum the leaves of autumn into vortexes that would chase us down little-known paths of pavement through deserted woods. We'd let them slither and slew a little on the pavement sometimes, nattering with morning dew, evening showers, and midday torque, because that's how big, heavy thrash-around cars are supposed to behave, but we'd also enjoy the fine line a WS6 can describe when a practiced hand is on the wheel.
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We'd talk about the wonderful thing Pontiac did for us when it brought something into the world that, indeed, runs as if there were no tomorrow. Here and now, in 1979, there is no tomorrow for the big-engined Trans Am. For the 400 T/A Pontiac engine, this is the last year. The likes of the mighty Trans Am, as we've known it, won't be seen from General Motors again. The engine is too big and too inefficient to make the government's Corporate Average Fuel Economy grade for GM, and it's out.
View Photos
Larry Griffin|Car and Driver
So we'll get misty-eyed and the value will skyrocket. Whatever replaces the WS6 will doubtless be a better car, more in step with the times. But never again will it be really, truly the same.
Pontiac is playing its cards close, not telling just how many of its own 400-cubic-inch engines are on the shelf, ready to go into Trans Ams. No more will be built. The vast majority of Trans Ams in 1979 will come with tamer 403-cubic-inch Oldsmobile engines, basic utility devices that lend low-end oomph to other basic utility devices such as Catalina and Bonneville Safari station wagons. That's not much of a recommendation for employment as a hauler of your automotive ashes.
The redlines of the two engines are the same. Other than the V-8 configuration, that's about the end of the similarities. Pontiac finally got serious a couple of years ago about making the 400 willing to go around corners as fast as the chassis, adding a windage tray to the oil pan, which liked nothing better than voiding its pickup of oil in hard corners. With that problem solved, the 400's newly gained semi-rasty camshaft, more spark advance, and improved breathing (through a single-catalyst, dual-resonator, no-muffler exhaust) bumped the horsepower up from 200 SAE net to 220. The Trans Am became something more than just a contender in the get-down-and-grunt corner-exiting contest.
Corners are where the WS6 option comes in. It takes over at the point where Trans Ams have always been good. Wrap a Trans Am body around the WS6 suspension and brake pieces, and you discover maybe the best-handling production car ever from an American manufacturer. That's what the driver can feel all the time and what onlookers can imagine if the driver has any idea at all what the car is for and how to use it.
Onlookers don't need to imagine the looks. The budget portion allotted to engine and chassis development last year was siphoned into a nose job this year. The snoot of the car has been extended still further and completely reshaped. The strong Corvette similarity is not accidental.
View Photos
Larry Griffin|Car and Driver
For the sake of styling, the quad headlights are still rectangular. The radiator intake has sunk beneath the leading edge of the deformable front end, divided by a vertical, plowlike center molding. The horizontal grilles are inset and house the turn signals at their outer edges. The screaming-chicken-emblazoned hood slopes forward into the drooping beak nose, and the air dam and the front tire spats have been reshaped for better integration with the schnoz. The lower lines of the psuedo front flares are nearly horizontal, and the trailing edges are less rounded, more pointed.
The Bird's tail feathers have been ruffled, too. The license-plate receptacle has been pressed lower, into an extruded, flat-faced bumper. Looping up from the bumper is the familiar rear-deck spoiler. Separating the two is a dramatic black horizontal taillight treatment. The taillights themselves are only visible at night or under braking. Otherwise, they're secreted beneath horizontal black lines; the gas cap is also out of sight, under a central panel.

The same shaker hood scoop looms, but nobody who cares is about to confuse a new Trans Am with an old one.

Although the basic shape of the Trans Am has remained the same, the new front and rear treatments garner lots of stares. The same shaker hood scoop looms up out of the hood, the same exhaust vents punctuate the front quarter panels, and the same walrus-mustache tailpipes droop below the rear quarters, but nobody who cares is about to confuse a new Trans Am with an old one.
Pontiac has also done some work on the interior, making its fast-moving pouch more comfortable for its occupants. Sitting in the Trans Am is a lot like peeking out of a mama kangaroo's front pocket. The seats are right on the floor, so you kind of scrunch way down inside next to the furry carpet, all warm and cozy from the transmission tunnel, and peer out over the top of the pouch past an inoperative hood scoop such as no 'roo has ever had.
The seats have been reworked, their padding increased and shifted around for improved lateral and lower-back support. The side bolsters could be still larger, but the seats are a considerable improvement over last year's. They're quite comfortable for long hours of touring and adequate for three-fourths of the serious driving you're likely to do, but it's when you're hard after the final 25 percent that the solid support of Recaro- or Scheel-type driving seats would help you get the most out of the willing chassis.
View Photos
Larry Griffin|Car and Driver
Handling as you like it: understeer
You would probably also find your own chassis considerably more willing after a really long day if the seats reclined. They don't, so you'll have to content yourself with the optional plush velour upholstery, which keeps your seat in the seat. The standard vinyl doesn't look bad, but a quick run down through Pine Hollow will smoothly transfer your buns from one corner of the car to another no matter how snugly you've tugged the harness.
The steering wheel is the same tilting, padded three-spoker that, when tilted too low, has hidden the important parts of the tach and speedometer in the Trans Am for years. A telescoping feature would be nice, but at least the tilt usually allows a reasonable compromise in arm and leg reach.
Ergonomically, the gear-shifting motion is hindered by an encroaching console that promises tennis elbow with every shift to the far side of the four-speed pattern. The console's sole saving grace is that it's narrow and deep enough to keep a couple of chocolate malteds from belching their contents all over your heel-and-toe loafers. The heel-and-toeing is another thing that works well. Here's a car with the pedals set up for heel-and-toeing, a nice change from the pedal mismatch so common in all kinds of iron, both domestic and foreign.
The shiny, engine-turned dash fascia confuses instrument legibility, but the layout and the selection of white-on-black gauges are good, offering oil pressure, water temp, voltmeter, clock, speedo, and a 6000-rpm tach that's orange-zoned at 4500 rpm, redlined at a comparatively low 5000.
View Photos
Larry Griffin|Car and Driver
Handling: Neutral
There's an intermittent mode for the supremely efficient windshield wipers, a potent rear defogger, and, at long last, a column-mounted headlight-dimmer stalk integrated with the turn signals.
The Trans Am's back seat is still as silly as always, a fit place for neither man nor beast, unless it is a relatively small beast and one untroubled by claustrophobia. If you're really serious about putting people back there, you'll need a shoehorn for getting them in and a winch for getting them out.
The trunk is no better than the back seat. If you sell thimbles, a small sample case may fit, but if your market is in bowling balls, try a Vespa with saddle bags. Pontiac has somehow stuffed in a best-solution-in-the-face-of-adversity Space-Saver spare, but maybe the designers should've knocked out the rear bulkhead, eliminated the back seat, and given us a tremendous trunk.
Maybe that's not important. If all cars did everything well, there'd be no need for arguments or road tests anymore. The Trans Am is supposed to be a runner, pure and simple. That's important to us, and we're as impractical as the next guy, so we left air conditioning off the order form. It would've added 108 pounds, most of it over the front wheels, and it would've dragged on the engine like a lifetime of tar and nicotine, three packs a day.
Our WS6 runner came through gold in color, and that's the way it drove, all sparkle and shine. The heavy-usage WS6 option puts the legs of a marathoner under the Trans Am's sheetmetal torso and V-8 lungs.
View Photos
Larry Griffin|Car and Driver
Handling: Oversteer
The package includes the Pontiac high-output engine; eight-inch-wide, snowflake-spoked aluminum wheels, instead of the Trans Am's normal sevens; special steel-belted P225/70R-15 Goodyears; a 1.25-inch front anti-roll bar with plastic bushings; a 0.75-inch rear bar; stiffer rear-shackle bushings; firmer shock valving; and special steering gear. And this year, finally, the frosting on the cake is four-wheel disc brakes.
Other than for its refinement, the suspension is thoroughly unremarkable: independent, unequal-length control arms and coil springs in front; a live axle sprung by semi-elliptic leaf springs in back. The magic 400 engine uses unleaded gas, pumped into its 8.1:1 compression-ratio combustion chambers by a single Rochester Quadrajet four-barrel. It makes 220 brake horsepower at 4000 rpm and a hefty 320 pound-feet of torque at 2800 rpm. It lives and breathes in the low and middle rpm ranges, disdaining high revs through the gears but capable of pulling past its recommended 5000-rpm limit to no less than 132 miles per hour at 5400 rpm. The EPA estimates that it will consume a gallon of gas every twelve miles, about what we got.

It's tennis elbow from an encroaching console, and taillights hidden from a quickly receding world.

This year's geartrain is different on one count: The final-drive ratio has been changed from 3.42:1 to 3.23. The bone-snapping Muncie M-22 "Rock Crusher" transmission favored a few years ago has long since been dropped in favor of the smoother Borg-Warner Super T-10. The new gearing allows the car to top out 4 mph faster, and the Super T-10 with updated linkage doesn't require a bionic arm to ram it into the next gear. The new linkage makes the drag strip all sweetness and light instead of the prelude to a visit to the chiropractor. The V-8 hustles its 3700-pound load through the quarter in 15.3 seconds at 96.6 mph. The high torque requires feathering the throttle off the line to avoid excess wheelspin, then standing on the gas when the revs begin to climb a somewhat normal curve. Third gear is good to 99 mph, so the Trans Am doesn't want fourth until just after a quarter-mile of pavement has been inhaled. First gear is good to 50 mph, 60 coming up in 6.7 seconds.
In really hard driving and on bad roads, Trans Ams (and Camaros) have always felt as if they have a big hinge at the base of the windshield. They do. The front of the car is supported by an add-on subframe that extends forward from the unit body. The mating of the two isn't really up to the rigors of backroad bashing; it's a culture shock for the coupe that began life as a cruiser and graduated to the big time. Herb Adams, of Pontiac racing fame, has some add-on stiffening members that help minimize the problem, but without them, kick-ass romps and washboard roads turn into a motorized Chubby Checker session and general rattle-counting fest.
Beyond that, it's the land of the free and the home of the brave. The only excuse you have for not making good time is bad eyesight or the cops. A weak heart is no excuse: The car's too stable and too forgiving for that to hold up.
The four-wheel discs live up to their advanced billing in fade resistance and stopping ability, arresting your 70-mph forward progress in a mere 179 feet. The booster can have a slight feel of fighting back, of trying to outthink you, but stop you do.
View Photos
Larry Griffin|Car and Driver
The new brake system is very well coordinated with the suspension. Braking in corners, over elevation changes, or when crossing irregularities has little effect on your direction of travel, and your rate of travel can be halved or eliminated in a trice. Pedal pressure is fairly high, but with a system like this, it should be. Call them adrenaline brakes, because they work superlatively when yours is up, yet they help keep it as low as possible. Driving a Trans Am fast is nothing to get excited about.
The Tran Am is easier to drive really fast than any American car has ever been. But its stability is not to be fooled with, not to be taken lightly. The failsafe point at which it begins to come unstuck is so high that, if something goes really wrong, the interest will compound very rapidly: the interest of the police, the interest of the doctors, the interest of the judge, the interest of the insurance company.

The steering is quick, progressive, direct, and talkative, describing to your hands the bumps the suspension is handling better than a 3700-pound rear-leaf-sprung car has any right to.

If that happens, the car won't have done it to you, you'll have done it to yourself. It will forgive you til hell won't have it. It understeers slightly, its attitude firm, poised, ready to defend against the unexpected. The steering, at 2.4 turns lock-to-lock, is quick, progressive, direct, and talkative, describing to your hands the bumps the suspension is handling better than a 3700-pound rear-leaf-sprung car has any right to. The back end dances a little over the worst of it, but the bad bumps are usually so visible you can drive neatly around them, crisply rearranging your line as you go. And all the while it rides well, not beating your noggin on the headliner, your shins on the radio, or your kidneys on your spine.
On smooth or mildly lumpy pavement the sensations are awesome for a street car: skating at 100 or 110, adjusting in increments with throttle and wheel, balancing, playing a slick nibbling ragtime on the tires, calling up a reservoir of power oversteer to expel yourself from the classroom of one corner to the next, always learning but never left behind. If you go in too hot and lift, the tail won't come around unless you've been woefully ignorant. All four tires react in coordinated patterns, freeing you from the necessity of overseeing an unruly and domineering machine. You need only look where you want to be in a few moments' time, and if you have taken the time to learn the car, it will have you there in very short order.
That's what a Trans Am is for. It's a short-order specialist and it will feed a need. It would be nicer if it could carry more, if it were smaller, if it were easier to see out of, if it were less thirsty. But none of that matters. This is not the time to be practical. This car is here and now, and it will not pass this way again.
The surprise hit of the 1970s, at the top of its form.

1979 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am
Vehicle Type: front-engine, rear-wheel-drive, 2+2-passenger, 2-door coupe

PRICE
Base/As Tested: $6299/$7285
Options: WS6 Package, $434; 400 T/A engine, $90; custom interior, $150; hood decal, $95; AM radio, $86; tinted glass, $64; floor mats, $25; custom seatbelts, $23; lamp group, $19.

ENGINE
SOHC V-8, iron block and heads
Displacement: 400 in3, 6550 cm3
Power: 220 hp @ 4000 rpm
Torque: 320 lb-ft @ 2800 rpm

TRANSMISSION
4-speed manual

CHASSIS
Suspension, F/R: control arms/multilink
Brakes, F/R: 11.0-in vented disc/11.1-in vented disc
Tires: Goodyear Polysteel Radial
225/70R-15

DIMENSIONS
Wheelbase: 108.2 in
Length: 197.1 in
Width: 73.0 in
Height: 49.3 in
Curb Weight: 3700 lb

C/D TEST RESULTS
30 mph: 2.9 sec
60 mph: 6.7 sec
1/4-Mile: 15.3 sec @ 97 mph
100 mph: 16.9 sec
Top Speed (redline limited): 124 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 179 ft

C/D FUEL ECONOMY
Observed: 12 mpg After my changes I got 16-18 city and 21.7 HWY and did not drive it easy.

 

[EJ3]

LoL... I knew a guy that hopped up everything he drove and he had a shop truck a little Datsun that was a beater and he put a big Holley carb on it and said that it improved the driving experience. I went for a ride in the truck but I never noticed anything out of the ordinary. But he did it... LoL.

I think that there were 4 vehicles in my life that I did not modify. They were all short term vehicles (driven for 3 weeks, I'd be gone a year, driven for 3 weeks, I'd be gone 3 years, back for 3 weeks, sell an old used vehicle, someone would "gift' me a beater, gone for three years again (so, not enough time to mod them).

 

[EJ3]

As an Architect/General Contractor, with 35 years of experience, and working for a Commercial Real Estate Developer in SW Washington, the 2021 Washington State Energy Code (adopted in March) is adding to the cost of construction - which is transferred to our tenants. I'm managing 5 commercial developments which, when completed, will have 30 to 35 buildings with around 50 to 60 tenants. Most of them are small businesses. Mom and Pop tenants.

The total cost of construction will be around 120 million dollars. The total square footage will be around 208,000 sf. The cost added by the 2021 energy code will be around $24/sf. That's $5,000,000. Roughly, $83,000 will have to be recouped in higher lease rates - paid for by the tenants. This added cost will not be offset by savings in reduced energy consumption by the tenants. And the Natural Gas ban will only drive electrical prices higher as the local Utility District scrambles to build redundant, parallel "sustainable" infrastructure that operates at around 50% efficiency and has a very short lifespan.

Yep, in the name of "green" energy, price people out of being able to make a living. Because those commercial tenants MUST pass the costs on to their customers.
It's a viscous destruction of everyone's living conditions perpetrated by people who are supposedly compassionate. (apparently something other than their fellow human beings).
Otherwise, things would get implemented in a much more orderly and sequential fashion that would be slowly integrated into the infrastructure over time (if, it in fact, bears up to scrutiny as being something that actually helps things)

 

[SIY]

We have had central baseboard radiant heat

I'm spending a pile to rip mine out. It makes furniture placement (especially bookcases) a real challenge and the boiler heats up the subbasement inordinately (that's where I like to store food and wine). Looking at other alternatives, no idea what yet.

 

[JustJones]

And where do you live?

Louisville, KY
Property taxes are local so it's entirely possible they can be different.

But as I said I have never had my assessment go up for doing energy efficiency improvements. Sale price is the biggest factor as well as Square Footage improvements. My taxes were lowered after the 2008 housing mess though they have gone back up.

How value is assessed by PVA where I live.

Property sales in Jefferson County are researched annually and valid sales (fair arm’s-length transactions) are verified. When a sale price is accepted by PVA as a valid sale, it represents the property value for approximately 2 years. A valid “arms length transaction” is considered as: a property that is sold at “fair cash value” between a willing Seller and a willing Buyer after being advertised on the Open Market. Property Comparison Worksheets are included with the Conference Form for Residential and Commercial properties. For more information on how to find valid sales, view the Sales Search Tutorial. All valid sales are compiled and applied into a computer-assisted mass appraisal (CAMA) system. CAMA utilizes valid sales, and property characteristics such as location, lot size, square footage of improvements (house, garage, outbuildings, pavement, fencing, etc.), number of bedrooms and bathrooms, age and condition, etc. in order to value comparable properties at current fair market value. Depreciation factors and other adjustments that influence value are also applied in CAMA when applicable. CAMA is closely monitored by PVA for quality control.

 

[EJ3]

I'm spending a pile to rip mine out. It makes furniture placement (especially bookcases) a real challenge and the boiler heats up the subbasement inordinately (that's where I like to store food and wine). Looking at other alternatives, no idea what yet.

Ours takes less than 3 inches of space along the bottom of some (not all) of the walls. We have what we call a boiler room (some call it a mud room or a laundry room [it has 3 openings, one to the 2 car garage, one to the outside & one to a bath & 1/2 room whose other door opens up into the den]). It is a place with a laundry sink that you could was a 50LB. dog in, has the washer & dryer, a 6ft long built onto the wall work bench with a place to hang tools above it, the boiler (runs on natural gas) for all the hot water in the house, (during non heat needing times of the year, we to a much smaller electric water heater just for normal hot water use) including the base board heat for a 3 levels of the home (one level is only 4 steps up from the slab and has crawl space & then there is the upstairs which is the second story above the slab. This house was designed by my parents and built by them & friends in 1964. It also has central vacuum cleaning and a (tube based) intercom system with the base unit in the kitchen, the 3 satellites in each bedroom and a speaker with a push to talk button at the front door.
We moved into it in 1965.
I can't visualize any reason to rip ours out. It's quiet, efficient and doesn't blow on you or make any noise at all within the living space.

 

[SIY]

Ours takes less than 3 inches of space along the bottom of some (not all) of the walls.

But those are places I can't put furniture. Trust me, I have a LOT of bookcases. I can absolutely see why for those without my book fetish (or desire to use my subbasement for food and wine storage, when the heaters are running, the subbasement gets sweltering from the boiler and the pipes), they can be a great alternative. Just not for me. I have a contractor coming in this week to discuss options.

 

[JustJones]

If you do massive home renovation then yes your taxes could go up but energy efficient windows, added insulation, energy efficient AC/furnace , no .

I've done $30k bathroom remodel and sunroom remodel and my taxes didn't increase because I didn't add square footage.

 

[SIY]

If you do massive home renovation then yes your taxes could go up but energy efficient windows, added insulation, energy efficient AC/furnace , no .

I'm paying about 9% per year of assessed value. I am highly discouraged from doing significant renovation.

 

[JustJones]

I'm paying about 9% per year of assessed value. I am highly discouraged from doing significant renovation.

I've considered completely gutting and renovating my second floor, since it wouldn't add square footage my assessed value wouldn't increase though it probably would if I sold but that would be the buyers problem and of course others with comparable houses in the area whose value would increase at the next assessment because of home sales. Of course as I said property taxes are local.

 

[JustJones]

Your experience is not a valid metric for my experience. Because it's different.

Nor is yours for mine.

 

[EERecordist]

As an Architect/General Contractor, with 35 years of experience, and working for a Commercial Real Estate Developer in SW Washington, the 2021 Washington State Energy Code (adopted in March) is adding to the cost of construction - which is transferred to our tenants. I'm managing 5 commercial developments which, when completed, will have 30 to 35 buildings with around 50 to 60 tenants. Most of them are small businesses. Mom and Pop tenants.

The total cost of construction will be around 120 million dollars. The total square footage will be around 208,000 sf. The cost added by the 2021 energy code will be around $24/sf. That's $5,000,000. Roughly, $83,000 will have to be recouped in higher lease rates - paid for by the tenants. This added cost will not be offset by savings in reduced energy consumption by the tenants. And the Natural Gas ban will only drive electrical prices higher as the local Utility District scrambles to build redundant, parallel "sustainable" infrastructure that operates at around 50% efficiency and has a very short lifespan.

I consult on the utility side. Washington State is unique with most of the state served by nonprofit electrical utilities supplied by the nonprofit Bonneville Power Administration. In 1980, the Northwest Energy Act required a 20 year power plan every 5 years and that in that plan efficiency receive a 10% premium over new generation construction. There is a regional technical process by engineers that studies efficiency and publishes the cost and savings by deemed efficiency measures.

Further Washington is a net energy exporter, primarily to California. That can be seen by the US Department of Energy real time electricity map https://www.eia.gov/electricity/gridmonitor/dashboard/electric_overview/US48/US48. If you click on a circle, there is a graph of interchange - power imports and exports. There are also some policy projects driven by the for-profit utilities I strongly disagree with to reduce the price California, primarily for-profit utilities pay for clean energy imports from Washington. That can be seen by the West Coast energy pricing system driven by California at https://www.caiso.com/todays-outlook/prices.

The point is that Washington really does not need to build as much new renewable generation as it is doing and it does not need to join the California for-profit energy market.

Since the 1980, the State of Washington has applied the ideas of the Bonneville efficiency engineering cost/benefit studies to the building code. Washington was an early leader in another dynamic efficiency system, customer load flexibility. That requires the building heating and cooling and hot water heating respond to utility signals when energy prices are high on the hottest and coldest days in the afternoon and evening. That simple flexibility can save a lot of money.

If you are building residential, the Washington code is likely requiring building sealing, thicker insulation, better doors and windows, and more efficient mechanical systems. Space heating and cooling with heat pumps is easy. I would agree heat pump water heaters are not ready for prime time, yet. Generally residential customers expect at least a 10 year life for their mechanical systems.

If you are building in Clark County, they are somewhat of a special case as a slice customer. They have an about 250MW natural gas generator that takes a long time to start and stop. They would likely seek to phase that out and replace it with renewables backed by storage, or with increased purchases from the Mid-C generators, Chelan, Douglas, and Grant.

In summary, Washington and its nonprofit utilities have world-leading energy planning policy, low electricity prices, and efficiency in buildings other states can emulate.

If you are in the Clark-Thurston area, I'm in Portland and glad to chat over coffee. I'm interested in the architect/builder efficiency experience.

 

[JP]

I'm spending a pile to rip mine out. It makes furniture placement (especially bookcases) a real challenge and the boiler heats up the subbasement inordinately (that's where I like to store food and wine). Looking at other alternatives, no idea what yet.

I've thought radiant would've been a better way for us. This leaky older house with hydro forced-air means we spend as much on electricity for the whole-house humidifier in the winter as we do for AC in the summer.

 

[Snarfie]

We need an s Star trek economy based on free energy like an Star trek Power Cell. An economy where gaining wealth is irrelevant.

Power cell

A power cell was the component, often removable or transportable, of a number of technological devices that supplied the energy necessary for the device to operate, on both small and large scales. Power cells could be reconfigured to give off false dilithium readings. (VOY: "Ashes to Ashes") In...

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