Team USA

[VCheng]

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

 

[Deidara]

I am back on this thread to once and for all declare my love for america. The Nova Roma. The nation with 0% ghetto coefficient. Ghetto mentality is the only thing that can make me sick hence my love for this foreign land. Now i know what they meant by Roma Invicta 2000 years ago. Today we can look at USA and say Roma Invicta indeed.

 

[Penguin]

The cost of raising children in USA:

https://www.cnpp.usda.gov/tools/CRC_Calculator/

Waaaah! I'm going bankrupt....

https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=97&t=3
How much electricity does an American home use?
In 2015, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 10,812 kilowatthours (kWh), an average of 901 kWh per month. Louisiana had the highest annual electricity consumption at 15,435 kWh per residential customer, and Hawaii had the lowest at 6,166 kWh per residential customer.

... TOO MUCH!

Netherlands

Listed are

• Number of people in houshold
• Ave. Annual use
• Cost per mont in Euro's

1 / 1,870 kWh / €22
2 / 2,990 kWh / €41
3 / 3,660 kWh / €52
4 / 4,110 kWh / €59
5 / 4,610 kWh / €67
6 / 4,930 kWh / €73

Average per household (all households) 2.970 kWh > €40/mo

Source https://www.nibud.nl/consumenten/energie-en-water/
(also lists water and natural gas usage)

NOTE: Heating and hot water in NL is usually by NATURAL GAS, not by ELECTRICITY. Cooking is by natural gas or electricity. Airco is uncommon. Electricy use depends mostly on use of light and various appliances. We tend to build using brick and (prefab) concrete. We do a lot with double glazing and thermal insulation.

Use of natural gas is primarily dependent on type of dwelling/house (flat, rowhouse-inbetween, rowhouse-corner, two-under-one-roof, free standing) , not so much number of people per household.

About 1/3 of water use is for bathing/showering, and the remainder for clothes washing, toilet flushing and cooking. Dependent on how many persons per household.

Data on Belgium here: http://www.vreg.be/nl/gemiddeld-energieverbruik-van-een-gezin

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Waaaah! I'm going bankrupt....


... TOO MUCH!

Netherlands

Listed are

• Number of people in houshold
• Ave. Annual use
• Cost per mont in Euro's

1 / 1,870 kWh / €22
2 / 2,990 kWh / €41
3 / 3,660 kWh / €52
4 / 4,110 kWh / €59
5 / 4,610 kWh / €67
6 / 4,930 kWh / €73

Average per household (all households) 2.970 kWh > €40/mo

Source https://www.nibud.nl/consumenten/energie-en-water/
(also lists water and natural gas usage)

NOTE: Heating and hot water in NL is usually by NATURAL GAS, not by ELECTRICITY. Cooking is by natural gas or electricity. Airco is uncommon. Electricy use depends mostly on use of light and various appliances. We tend to build using brick and (prefab) concrete. We do a lot with double glazing and thermal insulation.

Use of natural gas is primarily dependent on type of dwelling/house (flat, rowhouse-inbetween, rowhouse-corner, two-under-one-roof, free standing) , not so much number of people per household.

About 1/3 of water use is for bathing/showering, and the remainder for clothes washing, toilet flushing and cooking. Dependent on how many persons per household.

Data on Belgium here: http://www.vreg.be/nl/gemiddeld-energieverbruik-van-een-gezin

Too much? Well that's our lifestyle.

Air conditioning is the biggest power consumer. ( https://defence.pk/threads/team-usa.306182/page-101#post-8341625 ) As I recall until recently most europeans shunned air conditioning as unnatural and possibly unhealthy. Opening windows was seen as a healthier choice. Plus we all use clothes dryers (79% ) and dishwashers ( 59% ) too which I believe is also shunned in Europe. Plus around 23% of US homes have more than 1 refrigerator ( http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/27/news/economy/23-percent-of-american-homes-have-2-fridges/ ) ...and they are often large ( 0.5 cu meters http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...why-are-american-refrigerators-so-big/280275/ I personally have 2 refrigerators plus 2 dedicated freezers)

Natural gas is used in about 61% of homes ( but declining in newer home construction http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=7690 ) and can be used for house heating/stoves/water heaters/clothes dryers. It certainly cuts down on the electrical usage.

 

[Penguin]

John Glenn, a true American hero, died today:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Glenn

Truely a man who can say 'been there, done that' ;-)

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...why-are-american-refrigerators-so-big/280275/

The Huge Chill: Why Are American Refrigerators So Big?

(I'm editing this article for brevity since it is very very long)

When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in 2005, the loss of electricity throughout the city ruined refrigerators even in neighborhoods barely affected by the storm as maggots infested the rotting food left behind in them by fleeing residents. When evacuees returned, they pushed those refrigerators out to the street in the hope that they would eventually be carried away. Many who returned also wrote long, angry messages about the inadequacy of the government’s response to the disaster on the front of these appliances. American refrigerators are just about the only refrigerators in the world large enough to serve as impromptu billboards. They are also inexpensive enough that citizens of all classes either own or have access to one.

Americans have the biggest refrigerators in the world — 17.5 cubic feet [ 0.50 cu meters] of volume on average. The size of our refrigerators is followed closely by Canadians while the rest of the world lags far behind. Since our refrigerators run day and night, they use more energy than any other household appliance, which means their size has ramifications for the planet’s rate of global warming. However, the enormous popularity of refrigerators in the United States is an indicator of the value of refrigeration both for preserving the food we buy and for the convenience that comes when such huge machines are stocked. The fact that we put perishable food in the refrigerator (even sometimes when it doesn’t belong there) suggests that we still remember refrigeration’s most basic advantage: to prevent food from spoiling before we consume it.

While the usefulness of refrigerators explains their prevalence, it does not explain their size. Most people would agree that fresh food tastes better than anything that's been kept in a refrigerator for even a short amount of time. So why then would anyone want a weeks' worth of perishable food stored in their kitchen at one time? Are Americans slaves to convenience? While our large refrigerators do limit the number of shopping trips we have to take, they also make it possible for us to consume a much greater variety of foods than we ever did without them in our kitchens.

Americans had an early collective desire for cold things. Starting in the early nineteenth century, entrepreneurs cut ice from lakes and streams in New England and elsewhere; then transported it to warmer climes to sell for a profit. While it took the development of mechanical refrigeration later in the century to coin the term, this was the start of the American “natural ice” industry. In order to make such an industry possible, ice merchants had to develop a market, and they succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. Over the course of the nineteenth century, ice went from a luxury to a necessity for the vast majority of Americans and has remained so ever since. In the early twentieth century, the market for ice developed into a market for large refrigerators to keep all the foodstuffs that ice once preserved. Indeed, a refrigerator is called an icebox because before the development of household refrigeration machines during the 1920s the ice delivery man would drop a block in your “refrigerator” and you would have to try to keep the door closed to prevent it from melting too quickly.

In the course of developing an ice industry, Americans also developed the world’s most efficient cold chains, which now make the stocking of our enormous refrigerators possible. A cold chain is a supply chain that transports and stores temperature sensitive perishable goods. The most visible manifestation of the cold chain is the electric household refrigerator, but that is just its end point. Cold storage warehouses, refrigerated trucks – even the displays in grocery stores – are all part of this poorly understood infrastructure. Perishable goods travel from nearly every point on the globe to nearly every other point, refrigerated at every step of the way.

As cold chains became longer and more complex, having a big refrigerator became increasingly important for taking advantage of the opportunity that this new infrastructure brought. “Proper refrigeration is today an ever increasing necessity,” wrote the Frigidaire refrigerator company in a cookbook it distributed to housewives in 1929:

The rapid growth of population in cities and urban areas has brought dependence upon distant centers of food supply. Meat, for example, travels a great distance before it finally reaches the home. Fresh fruits, vegetables, poultry, milk, butter, eggs and other food products in very few cases enter the home directly from the farm. It is therefore vitally important, with this complex distribution of food, that every home provides proper refrigeration.

The size of our refrigerators, like the food we keep inside them, tells us something about our culture, our lifestyle and our values. If we better appreciate the importance of refrigerators in both the past and the present, then we can place their few adverse effects in their proper context. While refrigerators require energy, so does producing food in the first place or just driving to the supermarket. If food already travels a great distance to reach our homes, then we are lucky to have lots of space in which to preserve it.

http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/27/news/economy/23-percent-of-american-homes-have-2-fridges/

23% of American homes have 2 (or more) fridges

Almost 100% of homes have a refrigerator, according to government data. It's the most popular home appliance.

But here's an even more telling stat about the American love affair with this appliance: nearly 1 in 4 U.S. homes have two (or more) fridges.

If you're wondering what people do with so much fridge space, look no further than social media app Instagram. There are over 340,000 Instagram photos right now with the hashtag "fridge." People (mostly Americans) can't wait to show the world how they decorate their fridge with magnets and art or how they fill their fridge with beer or vegetables.

Some people even photograph themselves just standing by the fridge, similar to the way you might take a selfie with a trophy or hot car.

Why Americans need 2 fridges

Retailers have figured out this fridge obsession. HHGregg (HGG)has an entire webpage devoted to "why buy a second fridge (or freezer)." According to HHGregg, fridge number 2 comes in handy if you entertain often, you cook meals ahead of time, you buy groceries in bulk or you have a garden (you need some place to store those herbs and veggies, right?)

The U.S. Energy Information Administration has been tracking refrigerator use by Americans because older fridges need a lot of energy to run.

"Open your refrigerator door and you summon forth more light than the total amount enjoyed by most households in the 18th century," wrote best selling author Bill Bryson in his book "At Home," which chronicles the changes in domestic life.

Fridges use a lot of energy

American fridges are big, especially compared to what's used in Europe, Japan and elsewhere in the world. Nearly all U.S. fridges have at least two doors. Less than 5% are considered "small" (under 14 cubic feet).

Sales of refrigerators plummeted in the Great Recession, but there's been some rebound and retailers are hopeful for more of a bump now that home sales and construction are hot again.

Here's a look at how many American homes have other popular appliances, according to the EIA:

96% have a microwave

90% have a stove [????? Must be higher than this]

82% have a clothes washer

79% have a clothes dryer

60% have a coffee maker

59% have a dishwasher

 

[Penguin]

Too much? Well that's our lifestyle.

Air conditioning is the biggest power consumer. ( https://defence.pk/threads/team-usa.306182/page-101#post-8341625 ) As I recall until recently most europeans shunned air conditioning as unnatural and possibly unhealthy. Opening windows was seen as a healthier choice. Plus we all use clothes dryers (79% ) and dishwashers ( 59% ) too which I believe is also shunned in Europe. Plus around 23% of US homes have more than 1 refrigerator ( http://money.cnn.com/2016/05/27/news/economy/23-percent-of-american-homes-have-2-fridges/ ) ...and they are often large ( 0.5 cu meters http://www.theatlantic.com/technolo...why-are-american-refrigerators-so-big/280275/ I personally have 2 refrigerators plus 2 dedicated freezers)

Natural gas is used in about 61% of homes ( but declining in newer home construction http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=7690 ) and can be used for house heating/stoves/water heaters/clothes dryers. It certainly cuts down on the electrical usage.

Well, for example, I got a small dishwasher, a washer and a dryer, 2 small fridges, and 1 small freezer, a microwave and an electric oven. It's not like we don't have applicances. But if you go buy appliances here, they are all rated and color coded for energy use. And we do put clothes on the line (indoors or outdoors) whenever we can, so we minimize the apppliance use. We also use energy-efficient lamps, minimize lamp use to where we need it, close curtains early etc. Also, you don't need to heat the house to 21 degrees Celsius, 18-19 does fine and when out during work days thermostat puts is down to 15 automatically.

I don't want to judge on number of appliances for it makes a big difference in how you stock and store whether your foodstore is walking distance or a 60mi drive away.

Lots of Dutch energy use statistics here http://www.pbl.nl/onderwerpen/energie-en-energievoorziening/feiten-en-cijfers
Drop into google translate.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Well, for example, I got a small dishwasher, a washer and a dryer, 2 small fridges, and 1 small freezer, a microwave and an electric oven. It's not like we don't have applicances. But if you go buy appliances here, they are all rated and color coded for energy use. And we do put clothes on the line (indoors or outdoors) whenever we can, so we minimize the apppliance use. We also use energy-efficient lamps, minimize lamp use to where we need it, close curtains early etc. Also, you don't need to heat the house to 21 degrees Celsius, 18-19 does fine and when out during work days thermostat puts is down to 15 automatically.

I don't want to judge on number of appliances for it makes a big difference in how you stock and store whether your foodstore is walking distance or a 60mi drive away.

Lots of Dutch energy use statistics here http://www.pbl.nl/onderwerpen/energie-en-energievoorziening/feiten-en-cijfers
Drop into google translate.

The basic problem is electricity is relatively not THAT expensive as to actually cause people to look for the most energy efficient devices. While it is great to have a blue Energy Star label on an appliance

(and all large appliances have yearly average electricity cost yellow stickers on them);

people are going to overlook it and go straight for the features because energy expense is not a big deal in many parts of the country.

Typical refrigerator, stoves, dishwashers, clothes washers, and dryers in US homes are also on the large size.

I think my microwave is in the ~1400watt range. All 4 of my refrigerator/freezers are > 17.5 cubic feet [0.5 cu meters] (although I believe some had the Energy Star stickers). My washer/dryer are super capacity plus. With stuff like that and well over 100 LED lightbulbs in my house my electricity bill was $108 this month (and that's with all my outdoor Christmas lights, outdoor house lights, and landscape lighting on > 12 hours day) and two large 275W warm mist humidifiers in my kids' rooms running all night (yes, I should do the whole house humidifier thing)

I have a dual zone programmable thermostat that we leave at ~70 degrees (which is ~21C). When we aren't home it shuts off.

$108 bucks...meh I'm not too worried. Plus this shows why solar is not being adopted quickly in some areas. The price of solar panels and the limited amount of electricity they generate would take decades to recover their cost compared to the grid.

 

[Penguin]

I think the US problem is more with how they build homes and the degree to which these are insulated i.e. with heating/cooling.

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

I think the US problem is more with how they build homes and the degree to which these are insulated i.e. with heating/cooling.

Well the homes here range from those built today to those built 200 years ago, So you are really going to have a wide spread on tech. My home is relatively new and has double pane windows and fiberglass insulation in all the walls plus was completely wrapped in the Tyvex plastic air-block stuff. My exterior walls are certainly not cold to the touch. I definitely have too many large windows in my home (5 just in my bedroom) and since a live in the frigid NorthEast that isn't an optimal setup. At least it's on the south side of the house so I get the sun.

 

[Penguin]

Well the homes here range from those built today to those built 200 years ago, So you are really going to have a wide spread on tech. My home is relatively new and has double pane windows and fiberglass insulation in all the walls plus was completely wrapped in the Tyvex plastic air-block stuff. My exterior walls are definitely not cold to the touch. I definitely have too many large windows in my home (5 just in my bedroom) and since a live in the frigid NorthEast that isn't an optimal setup. At least it's on the south side of the house so I get the sun.

Homes here can go back more than 200 years, mind you.

http://eyeonhousing.org/2014/02/the-age-of-the-housing-stock-by-state/

According to the latest 2013 American Housing Survey (AHS), published by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the median age of owner-occupied homes is 37 years old, compared to only 27 years old in 1993.

60% of owner occupied housing is younger than 35 years old.
http://eyeonhousing.org/2015/08/the-aging-housing-stock-2/



All buildings in the Netherlands, shaded by year of construction
http://code.waag.org/buildings/
All 9,866,539 buildings in the Netherlands, shaded according to year of construction. Data from BAG (January 2015), via CitySDK LD API. Dark blue is youngest, dark red is oldest.

See also http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Housing_statistics

 

[Hamartia Antidote]

Homes here can go back more than 200 years, mind you.

http://eyeonhousing.org/2014/02/the-age-of-the-housing-stock-by-state/

According to the latest 2013 American Housing Survey (AHS), published by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the median age of owner-occupied homes is 37 years old, compared to only 27 years old in 1993.

60% of owner occupied housing is younger than 35 years old.
http://eyeonhousing.org/2015/08/the-aging-housing-stock-2/



All buildings in the Netherlands, shaded by year of construction
http://code.waag.org/buildings/
All 9,866,539 buildings in the Netherlands, shaded according to year of construction. Data from BAG (January 2015), via CitySDK LD API. Dark blue is youngest, dark red is oldest.

See also http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Housing_statistics

Hey no doubt you have older buildings since you guys have been around longer than us. Our cities are full of old buildings that are too expensive to tear down (which I'm sure is the case with you guys). Plus we didn't have any nasty wars to wreck them. My parent's house was built in 1880 but is assessed at $2M. Untouchable. Your only option is to fix them up and that can be just as pricey as a new home.

They tore down a house in the suburbs built in the 1950's to build mine. It wasn't cheap by any means but not $2M.

 

[VCheng]

Another great American says goodbye:

http://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/celebrity/mary-tyler-moore-television-legend-dead-80-n712146

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Tyler_Moore

 

[VCheng]

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