beat the heat, on the cheap

Our house sits high on a ridge, facing West towards Puget Sound, and the setting sun. From mid-day through sunset, our kitchen, dining room, and living room are bathed in sunshine, rising as much as 20°. All the windows have wooden blinds, but they are dark colored. Instead of reflecting the heat, they absorb it and radiate it into the room. They are effective at controlling light, but not heat.

Because high temps are rare in Seattle, houses here don’t have A/C. After the first day of last week’s heat wave, I took action. I did some research on cooling methods, including whole house fans, rigging up a cool air intake to my furnace’s intact duct, window films, etc. Because we rent, I can’t just start cutting holes in the house and moving ducts. So I settled on a less invasive (and costly) solution: box fans and window film.

I purchased two box fans ($15 ea) to place in windows. (Why do box fans not come in sizes larger than 20″?) The fans draw air in the shaded East side of the house, creating a cool breeze that pushes warmer air out the West side. Turning them on at 7PM is sufficient to cool the house down to 70° by bedtime. What a relief!

Window films have come a long ways since I last used them. Good film is now reasonably priced, uses water to ‘set’ the adhesive, and doesn’t require a ‘pro’ to get good results. Lowes had Gila Platinum Heat Control Window Film in stock so I picked up 4 rolls, enough to tint most of my 15,000 sq/in of West facing glass. I stripped the blinds off the windows and went to work. It took me about an hour per pane to apply the film, with half that spent cleaning the glass, scraping the crusties off, and cleaning it again.

The results are outstanding. Amazing. Phenomenal.

4:02 PM Jen: Wow the kitchen is much cooler!  Great idea and thanks.

We should not be surprised at how effective the film is, yet we are. The product fulfills the claims made by the manufacturer, and exceeded our expectations. And just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, window film qualifies for a 2009 Tax Credit.

medicine: less is more

Annals of Medicine: The Cost Conundrum

…patients in higher-spending regions received sixty per cent more care than elsewhere. They got more frequent tests and procedures, more visits with specialists, and more frequent admission to hospitals. Yet they did no better than other patients, whether this was measured in terms of survival, their ability to function, or satisfaction with the care they received. If anything, they seemed to do worse.

It appears that even in medicine, the old adage, “less is more” rings true.

Most Americans would be delighted to have the quality of care found in places like Rochester, Minnesota, or Seattle, Washington, or Durham, North Carolina—all of which have world-class hospitals and costs that fall below the national average. If we brought the cost curve in the expensive places down to their level, Medicare’s problems (indeed, almost all the federal government’s budget problems for the next fifty years) would be solved. — (same article)

Seriously?

If this is true, it certainly explains the  current administrations incentive to tackle our nations health care system.

Zune HD, as good as last years iPod

Microsoft’s Zune  sales for 2008 show a 54% year over year decline. In other words, after a dismal start, Zune sales fell off a cliff. The decline in revenue is partially explained by heavily discounted Zunes. I’m talking about the, “Hey buddy, here’s $20 if you take this Zune” kind of discounts. 

Today Microsoft officially announced the Zune HD, due out this fall. Microsoft is famous for entering markets with terrible products, and then improving on them until they end up with something good enough to compete in the marketplace. The Zune HD will be Microsoft’s third attempt in the MP3/portable music player market.

I hereby predict that the  Zune HD will not be “good enough.” I further predict it will achieve results in the market quite similar to Plays 4 Sure devices and the existing Zune: dismal.

When used in public, the Zune is a device that gets you sympathetic looks, “aw, you asked for an iPod and got that.” The Zune has one ‘advantage’ over the iPod, its subscription model. It’s too bad that the vast majority of consumers have pulled out their wallets and voted for the $0.99 per song model. The market share Microsoft “gained” with the Zune came at the expense of their Plays 4 Sure partners, who offered that same subscription model.

By the time the Zune HD arrives, Apple will have released updated models of the iPhone and iPod Touch. The killer feature of the iPhone/iPod Touch will have added another 10,000 apps to its portfolio. The Zune HD won’t be eating dust in November. The iPod Touch is so far ahead that the dust has settled before the Zune HD arrived on the track.

Why Spending Cuts Aren’t The Answer

…

Although it is extremely hard to cut existing programs, it is easier to avoid launching new ones. But much of the new spending proposed by the president is for public investments with high rates of return. Failure to make these investments will actually make us poorer. For instance, if the government borrowed a trillion dollars at 4 percent and invested the money in projects with an annual return of 7 percent, we’d actually be richer each year by $30 billion than if we hadn’t made those investments. And because investment in the public sphere has been neglected for decades, there are thousands of shovel-ready projects with extremely high rates of return. — Robert Frank

Thank you Robert, for helping me see the silver lining in that $700b stimulus package.

car cost per mile

cost per mileWhile car shopping, I  built a spreadsheet of vehicle costs. Here is a graphic presentation of that data. Costs are based on Consumer Reports data and 12,000 miles per year.

The cost per mile is nearly identical between the family sedans. That is largely because the largest cost (40%) of car ownership is depreciation. 

My 09 Fusion V6 with everything except AWD costs are lower because I paid cash (no interest) and paid $10k less than retail. I could have gotten the same low cost per mile on a Jetta TDI, but it would have been a 2006.

Nobody was offering deals on the Prius in December ’08/Jan ’09. In most cases, dealers were charging above retail. Now I’m hearing of people getting $5k discounts on them right now. A recent news article was titled, Hybrid sales go from 60 to 0 at breakneck speed. With the tax benefits, available discounts, and low cost of ownership, the Prius might be worth considering right now.

ski trip

On Tuesday, reports of a foot of fresh snow were heard in Seattle. Good news, to be sure, but not compelling. By Wednesday, another foot had fallen and snow was predicted through the night on Wednesday. Jen rented us skis. The snow and was still falling heavily on Thursday morning.

Even before we started  climbing up the pass, the snow was falling like nothing I’ve ever seen. I grew up in Northern Michigan, in the heart of the snowbelt, where words like lake-effect and whiteout are common. Michigan has 4 of the top 15 snowiest cities in the lower 48.*  I’ve seen a lot of snow but I can’t ever recall seeing snowflakes 3″ wide. They accumulate so fast they had been closing the pass daily for avalanche control.  

This is also the fist time I’ve been skiing in bounds, on the runs, in snow above my knees, and occasionally up to my waist. On the runs! Snow so deep it begged the little boy in me to get a good run and cannonball into it. Snow so deep that when Jen fell in, all I could see was her hat. Snow so deep that the momentum lost by carving a single turn stopped me dead in my tracks. 

What a day. 

Continue reading “ski trip”

thrill issues

Dude. Dude. Focus Dude. Dude. Oh, he lives! Hey Dude!

…what happened?

Aw, saw the whole thing Dude. First you were like whoa (excited), then you were like woah (surprised), and then you were like woah (going limp).

…what are you talking about?

You! Mini-man, takin on the jellies, you got serious thrill issues Dude. Awesome.

AT&T account secret

I have a mobile phone number based in Michigan. I live in Seattle. I have a Seattle mobile as well. I wanted to merge them both onto a single AT&T Family Plan account. Quite a few AT&T reps told me it couldn’t be done without changing my numbers to both be in the same “business area.” 

I wanted to keep both existing numbers. So I persisted. The magic incantation is “NBI account.”  Tell the first AT&T rep you speak with you want to transfer a line to an account. Or activate a new line, or whatever you need to do for your 2nd line. When you get to someone that is supposed to be able to help, ask if they are authorized to do NBI accounts. If not, ask for someone who is. If they don’t know what that is, hang up and try again. 

I didn’t get anyone helpful through AT&T phone support. But at my local AT&T store, the manager exclusively has NBI account access. He set me up with a NBI account, dropped both lines into it, and put them on the family plan. I have an AT&T Family Plan with two lines, one in Michigan and one in Washington.