On Tue, 19 Jan 2010 05:38:49 -0800 (PST), robobass
wrote:


How does Europe always manage to figure out the stupidest possible
way to rig things? (It's a gift, has to be...)

Our electricity is less than ideal, I'll grant. I think that since
we've always had 230v, we've had a lesser need, and therefore have
been less proactive about dealing with increased household energy
needs, than North Americans, whose 120v is simply a joke.

We have 240V available - the 120V legs are connected to the
center-tap neutral. The idea being when something goes wrong (and it
always will...) the arcs and sparks aren't as big.

Something to consider is that the typical European kitchen doesn't
consume energy the way an American one does. My German mother-in-law
serves bread and butter, cold cuts, and cheese for most meals. I don't
think they even own a toaster. Also, Europeans (Germans at least),
tend toward small, simple kitchens. If they want to spend money, they
will put it into a big, luxury bathroom, and the kitchen comes last.

Yes, there is that. You dont have a 27-cubic-foot (what, 3 cubic
meters?) refrigerator/freezer, just those dinky 0.5 meter ones with
just enough freezer space for a few ice cube trays.

You don't have plethora of electric countertop appliances to make
meal prep fast and easy, even in large batches - and even if you made
a triple-batch, you don't have the refrigerator or freezer space to
store it for next week.

There are times to hand make things, and then there are times you
just want to get dinner prepped and on the table fast and go do
something else.

Then again, Europeans tend to shop almost daily in small quantities,
and shop frequently at other specialty vendors for almost everything.
Spending a LOT more on food than if you buy a week or two's worth of
provisions in one bulk buy, and prepare it yourself at home. Or you
go to restaurants a lot more.

It's all in the eye of the beholder. Nothing wrong with it, just
done very differently. You probably think I'm daft for buying eggs
5-dozen at a time, milk two gallons (8L) at a time, and sticking them
in a second refrigerator used for bulk storage. But the costs go way
down when you buy smarter even when you figure in the power to run the
refrigerator.

As far as heating goes, the instant heat water coil - whether run on
electricity or gas - is the norm for hot water and heating. Also, I
think that gas is a lot more expensive here than in the states, so the
decision to go "all electric" is easy when the costs of bringing in
piped gas will not be recovered for decades.

If it is available in that town, the costs for piped in natural gas
(mostly methane) has a very fast payback time compared to electric
resistance heat - can be under 10 years even if you have to extend the
distribution mains under the streets a few hundred meters. That's for
the raw energy in the US - the taxing structure in EU could ruin that.

Actually, I think the bottled gas systems I've seen were only for hot
water and cooking. They have electric heaters in the rooms, but we're
talking (where I've seen them) Mediteranean climate, so they don't
need to heat very much. I imagine that proper houses have bigger
tanks, but I'm talking about apartments in old cities, where space is
scarce, and digging up streets to lay gas lines and wire is very
problematic. Even in Cologne, where I live, every time they try to dig
up a patch of street to lay some new sewer line, they invariably
happen upon some Roman relics, and need to give the archaeologists a
half a year to get things in order before the workers can proceed.

Yanno,there are actually times where having civilization and history
that only goes back 500 years or so is a distinct advantage. ;-)
And in Los Angeles it's even worse, here a 100 year old house is
"ancient" and anything much older than that gets back to the Adobe
mission buildings.

You think you have it bad, there's always Jerusalem...

Electric heat works fine if you are getting your power from
hydroelectric dams or other renewable sources where the rates are
naturally low - no fuel costs, just have to build and maintain the dam
and the turbine powerhouse.

But when the powerplant is burning coal or oil to make the
electricity, the rates tend to be prohibitive versus burning the fuel
in your own heating appliances on site.

And the 5L water heaters are meant for hand washing sinks, not for
washing dishes. They do make small instant electric heaters, but they
take a 40A to 60A @ 240V circuit for one sink or shower at a time, and
even then they are barely adequate - and at the premium price of
electricity for heat over oil or gas, it is insane to boot.... You
want true instant hot water, you have to go gas.

Yes, true. Many Germans (like us) choose not to have a dishwasher,
although it seems to be expected that you have one. I looked at a 230v
electric water heater, but decided it wouldn't be adequate. Those of
us who live in older buildings just don't expect the level of comfort
in the kitchen that Americans take for granted. My neighbors actually
bring hot water from the bathroom to the kitchen in buckets to do
their dishes!

Check out the Bosch or Fisher & Paykel "Dish Drawer" style
dishwashers. They have a single-drawer model just the right size for
one or two meals worth of dishes, and they don't use that much power.
And they have a small built in electric heating element to boost the
water up to sanitizing temperatures if your little instant heater
feeding it isn't enough.

240/415V Wye 3-phase power would be the smart way to go on
everything, yet you say they aren't in any rush to upgrade....

No, we aren't. At the last owners meeting, they voted to install fibre
optic so they could get more TV channels or HD or something, but when
I mentioned bringing up "Starkstrom" (high voltage) at the same time,
they all sighed (crazy foreigner...).

Yeah, I get that too. I'm the electrician for the building and tell
them they have to do something expensive like dig up all the outside
landscape and pathway lighting and redo it BEFORE it totally fails.
(We've been patching it for years, and it's only a matter of time.)
They just laugh and say to patch it up again - they'll rebuild the
whole system when it fails for good, and of course when it does it'll
be an emergency rush job...

Can heat pumps be mated with hot water heating? Don't forget that
forced air is unknown in traditional construction here. Retrofitting
older buildings with ductwork would be a huge undertaking, and hugely
unpopular, since our hot water radiators provide much more comfortable
heating than your forced air furnaces, not to mention that they're
already there.

Yes, you can rig up a heat pump with a water heat exchanger and make
hot water for a heating loop. But it's far easier to use a heat pump
with a "Mini-Split" refrigerant based system.

Ground Source Heat Pump is very efficient - but they don't sell
enough of them to get the equipment costs down. You would have to buy
a regular mini-split and modify it custom to work with the
refrigerant-to-water heat exchanger.

Some new houses do use forced air heating and AC with a
geothermal heat pump, involving a deep bore into the ground. It is
extremely low cost to run, but very expensive to install, even with
new construction. Also, forced air is noisy. My wife doesn't sleep at
all when we visit her sister in Stuttgart, or my mother in Ohio.
Germans like their peace and quiet. Many appliances, even computers,
include a db rating in the advertized specs.

Mini-Splits have one outside condensing unit and compressor, and up
to three air handlers (fan and coil) in the main rooms - wall, ceiling
or remote air-handler that can be hidden and uses small ducts to two
or three rooms. And they are very quiet, just a low speed fan and the
refrigerant gurgling a bit.

You have to drill a 2" - 3" hole in the wall for the refrigerant
lines and power/ thermostat wiring, and run the exposed lines in a
plastic cover channel. But a lot easier that the large holes for
regular forced air ducts, especially for masonry or concrete
construction.


In the end, I wouldn't call the way Europeans construct their
household energy systems "stupid" at all. "Strange" to the eye of an
American for sure, but not stupid, just practical, considering the
available options.

Stupid is a little powerful without a smiley, I'll grant you. But
it goes beyond strange and verges on "What were they thinking? ;-)

Go through and explain the logic behind the design decisions they
made, and it would help.

I realize that the VAT system has a lot to do with it, some things
get taxed so heavily (and distributed through multiple layers and
taxed each time) that it throws the economy calculations totally out
the window.