air conditioning savings
JoelnCaryn
Know what? This morning it was only 76F in my house at 9 am. :-) :-) Much
cheaper than running the heat pump.
Of course, this is a freak cold spell, and it will warm back up to the 100s
again in the next week. (It's only *reliably* cool at night by Hallowe'en.)
--
Caryn
"True or false: magnets are routinely strip-mined from magnetic fields, because
magnetic hillsides are more difficult and costly to access."
Dennis
wrote:
>Last night, we opened the windows. And the arcadia door.
>
>Know what? This morning it was only 76F in my house at 9 am. :-) :-) Much
>cheaper than running the heat pump.
>
>Of course, this is a freak cold spell, and it will warm back up to the 100s
>again in the next week. (It's only *reliably* cool at night by Hallowe'en.)
Last night when I went to bed, I noticed that it was only 66F in the
living room, with all the windows shut. Then I remembered that I had
turned off the heat option of the heat pump thermostat a couple months
ago, and turned it back on. This morning at 7:00, it was 40F outside,
but 68F inside the house. Fall fell a week late here.
Dennis (evil)
--
"There is a fine line between participation and mockery" - Wally
Nick Pine
It weighs 6 pounds, with power enough to move shoes out of its way.
The directions say "Children and pets should always be supervised
around Roomba for optimum safety and cleaning performance..."
Kaetchen (a 70 pound German shephard) is afraid. Might turn into an
interesting cat toy, esp for 8 pound Kidders, who trees groundhogs and
chases 70 pound dogs. A couple of days ago, Kidders clocked Liza,
a 1600 pound horse. On the nose. Liza was trying to eat some hay
in her stall. Kidders figured the hay belonged to her.
You put it down. It moves in increasing spirals until it hits something.
Then backs off and tries another direction for an hour or so, depending
on room size. This might be improved with a GPS and smarter software.
It might also return to its charger when needed.
Occasionally Roomba may encounter a piece of furniture like this dresser
that's just right for Roomba to be pinched underneath, and stuck. If Roomba
can't get out, it will beep to let you know and shut down to make sure
it doesn't waste battery power. Just pull Roomba out and set it to work
again. To make this area "Roomba friendly," just place the Virtual Wall
Unit to beam in front of the wedge area, and Roomba will steer clear.
If your rug has tassels or fringe on the end, they might get stuck in
Roomba's cleaning rollers. If they do, Roomba will give a whimper beep
and shut safely off...
Do not leave the following items on the floor: clothing, loose papers,
pull cords for blinds or curtains, power cords, or any fragile items.
In addition, because Roomba contacts walls, furniture and other objects
as it cleans, please remove any items that may be pushed and knocked
over by light contact from Roomba...
It just ate a 1"x2" pillow filled with catnip. Kidders will not like this.
Nick
Annie
Annie
JoelnCaryn
>>
>>Know what? This morning it was only 76F in my house at 9 am. :-) :-)
>
"But it's a dry heat, so it's actually hotter elsewhere." Yeah, sure. For how
long? :-) If we printed daily heat indexes in the paper, we would *so* trump
everywhere else, except Mecca and Riyadh...
>What's an 'arcadia' ?
It's a sliding glass door. http://www.arcadiaproducts.com/ is a longtime
manufacturer, so that's often what they're referred to as in the construction
industry and local real estate ads. I'm soon to replace it with a 10 light
(or, as they are fond of spelling it, "lite") French door with proper locking
hardware -- sliding glass doors don't have doorknobs per se. Plus you can just
lift them out of the tracks if you have somewhere to grab... so from a security
standpoint they're not so good. I know a door and trim manufacturer who has a
stock of misordered doors, and will replace it for me at cost + labor but no
markup, i.e. about $200 cheaper.
Caveat
wrote:
>Last night, we opened the windows. And the arcadia door.
>Know what? This morning it was only 76F in my house at 9 am. :-) :-)
Hell, it's going down to the low 60s in the Phoenix area tonight!
Time to fire up the furnace :o(.
Caveat
Nick Pine
>Nick, I'm just curious; Why did you get the Roomba?
A Sharper Image store. $199.95 with a 60 day return policy.
Seems to clog quickly with longish dog hair...
Nick
JoelnCaryn
>
>A Sharper Image store. $199.95 with a 60 day return policy.
No, no: *why*, not where.
I wondered too. I wouldn't spend that much money to play with bad AI. :-)
Nick Pine
>>>Nick, I'm just curious; Why did you get the Roomba?
>>
>>A Sharper Image store. $199.95 with a 60 day return policy.
>
>No, no: *why*, not where.
Oh. I misread that. Just to see what it could do and think about
improvements. I'm planning to return it. Mighta kept it, if it had
been quieter and able to handle dog hair.
>I wouldn't spend that much money to play with bad AI. :-)
It also follows walls. It could probably find its way out of a maze...
Nick
Dennis
wrote:
> French doors are pretty!
The ones I had, with external grids rather than the kind that is
embedded between the panes, were tedious to clean and a major chore to
paint.
Dennis (evil)
--
The honest man is the one who realizes that he cannot
consume more, in his lifetime, than he produces.
JoelnCaryn
>
>The ones I had, with external grids rather than the kind that is
>embedded between the panes, were tedious to clean and a major chore to
>paint.
I'm not painting these; they'll be stained. Then they'll be under a
north-facing overhang.
You can get single-light (single-lite -- I *hate* that) French doors, if you
want the glass but not the muntin bars. I'm getting true divided lite because
I don't want to have to replace the entire glass if it breaks, and from a
security standpoint, it's better anyway.
The Guy
Pat Meadows <p...@meadows.pair.com> wrote:
>
> We've not had a killing frost here yet. One warning,
> though. Our expected first frost date is the first week in
> October.
>
> Pat
Here in S. Cal we might get a light frost in February.
Frost in the first week of October <shudder> ;-)
Do you live in North Dakota?
--
Steve O
The best defense is an effective offense.
Sun Tzu ca 525 BC
mj
The Guy wrote:
It was 85F here in RI today. Hopefully summer's got to break some day.
Gary Heston
Dennis <dg...@hotmail.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 02 Oct 2002 12:38:33 GMT, Pat Meadows <p...@meadows.pair.com>
>wrote:
>> French doors are pretty!
>The ones I had, with external grids rather than the kind that is
>embedded between the panes, were tedious to clean and a major chore to
>paint.
That's what French maids and French painters are for.
Gary
--
Gary Heston ghe...@hiwaay.net
"You can't put the tube back in the toothpaste." Rep. Steve LaTourette,
defending Rep. James Traficant at his explusion vote.
SoCalMike
"Pat Meadows" <p...@meadows.pair.com> wrote in message
news:r4qlpuc2sis9qpuur...@4ax.com...
> On 01 Oct 2002 22:52:15 GMT, joeln...@aol.comfortable
> (JoelnCaryn) wrote:
>
> >
> >It's a sliding glass door. http://www.arcadiaproducts.com/ is a longtime
> >manufacturer, so that's often what they're referred to as in the
construction
> >industry and local real estate ads. I'm soon to replace it with a 10
light
> >(or, as they are fond of spelling it, "lite") French door with proper
locking
> >hardware -- sliding glass doors don't have doorknobs per se.
true. i installed a locking latch that has a small grab ahndle. not as
secure as a deadbolt, but good enough for me
>> Plus you can just
> >lift them out of the tracks if you have somewhere to grab... so from a
security
with the door slid open all the way, drive a few thick headed metal screws
into the top frame where the door slides so they *just* clear the door when
its closed. that way, with the door closed it cant be lifted off the tracks,
since the screws will block any lifting.
Gene Wirchenko
Just the thing for cubicle offices.
Sincerely,
Gene Wirchenko
Computerese Irregular Verb Conjugation:
I have preferences.
You have biases.
He/She has prejudices.
Nick Pine
>>It also follows walls. It could probably find its way out of a maze...
>
> Just the thing for cubicle offices.
The directions say "Do not sit or stand on this device."
Nick
tracker
returned it the next day.
Problem: it doesn't suck.
Now, before you young'uns misinterpret, that is a BAD thing, not some
ironic understatement. It is NOT any kind of a vacuum. It is barely
any kind of a sweeper. It doesn't pick up everything, and sometimes
puts back down things it has picked up before. Like sock lint on a
carpet -- it doesn't get about 50% of it. Grains of sand it sometimes
doesn't get. Even "sweeper things" like plant detritus (imagine wheat
chaff, 1/16"x1/2") it almost always picks up, but sometimes lays back
down again elsewhere, when it turns or something. When I cleaned the
unit up to return it, I found a little grit in the dust box, plenty of
hairs on the rollers, and a relatively small amount of lint, that had
effectively clogged the fill tube to the dust box!
Problem: it doesn't traverse even moderately complicated rooms well.
Whatever you may think of AI, or so-called AI, or bugs-eye views, or
whatever, what matters is how it cleans. I'm pretty sure it isn't
making any kind of map, so you have to rely on the small/medium/large
setting to take care of continuing its traversal algorithm until it
has covered 100% of the room at least once. I have a 10x15 foot
bedroom with a platform bed (6 legs), two lamps under the bed for
underlighting, their cords to the wall, an entryway at 4x4, and a
couple rows of books along 2 walls. The "Large" setting doesn't
finish 100% of the room. It missed: all of the entry way, two room
corners, not 100% around all the legs on the bed. Pretty haphazard.
Haphazard is OK if you allow enough retries to get lucky. I did it a
second time with a different starting point and it seemed to get most
of the room finally.
Problem: it doesn't clean edges well.
It *says* it has edge-cleaning capabilities. OK, it does. Imagine if
you took two "stylus brushes" (remember those?) and attached them to a
spinning motor from an HO racing car (remember those?). Now make the
stylus brushes have rubber toothpick-sized handles rather than the
plastic ones, so they don't nick the baseboard. There you have it:
edge cleaning. At the speeds of the motor, and the size and
compliance of the brushes and handles, it basically doesn't do
jackdoodle.
Problem: it beaches itself on Siesta chairs.
OK, so I'm dating myself: yes, I have Scandinavian designs from the
1970's in my living room. But the Westnofa (now Ekkornes) Siesta was
a great design. And besides, the WSJ reporter who reviewed the Roomba
had 'em, too... So there. But anyway, 4 chairs plus 2 ottomans = 12
legs = 24 "little ramps" for the Roomba to run itself up onto. And I
have can lighting on the floor, and cords dragging to the walls, and
stacks of magazines, and, and, and. I sweep around those things. It
can't. So it just can't be used in my LR. On this point, YMMV; if
you're willing to pick up your stacks of junk, anchor your lightweight
fixtures, and you don't have any "tricky" furniture, maybe you'll win.
Summary: great toy, lousy sweeper, no vacuum at all.
It needs bigger batteries, a bigger motor, a bigger fill tube, a
bigger dust box, and a bigger filter on said box before it will
actually be any use in a real household. Maybe if you only use it to
sweep the kitchen before you mop, that might be OK. Or maybe
extra-low pile commercial carpets allow better air flow. But, like
all of us, I think my house is "pretty normal", and it won't work for
me.
Kara
We have an open layout design to our house, with lots of stairs,
balconies, cats, cat toys, litter on the floor, lots of
tile/carpet/tile transitions, and lots of "hidden" corners under
furniture.
Every day we set one loose on each level of the house with all
doorways unblocked and no virtual walls. It picks up the kitty litter
well, it cleans under things, including the pool/dining room table
with 8 chairs or 32 chair legs!
It has beached itself once on the fire place tools, we simply turned
them around and now it's not a problem. It's strong enough to push
the food bowl around and clean up all the spilled kibble, and gentle
enough to not splash water out of their water bowls. It's quiet
enough that the cats have gotten used to the Broombas.
Does it get 100% of the floor space every day? No. Does it get 100%
over two days, I'd say yes. But like many pet owners, we run it every
day. So far, no problems. Upstairs we start it off in the hallway
and it gets all four bedrooms and the three bathrooms. Downstairs we
start it off in the kitchen and it gets the entire great room, the den
and the kitchen.
The side brush DOES work, if you set the brushes correctly. Watch it
at first, and make adjustments so it goes all the way to the wall.
Set it once, and forget it. The brushes are designed to sweep dirt
and debris into it's larger brush and vacuum.
Don't watch it in action. Wait till it's done to see the results. As
we watched it around the litter boxes the first time, I was
unimpressed at how well it picked up the litter. But it makes
multiple passes around the rooms and by the time it was done it had
missed all of one grain of litter around 5 litter boxes.
Of our three cats, two will move to napping on furniture while it's
running. The third one will just lay in his sun beam and let it
bounce off of him. Sometimes, he'll turn his head to give it a nasty
look. Mostly, he ignores it. He did swat it once when it tried to
run over his tail.
Richard
places--those hard-to-reach places--that you never vacuum like under
the bed and under the dresser. The first time you use it, you have to
empty it 2 or 3 times for a small room because of those never-vacuumed
places. After that, you just empty it after it shuts off having
vacuumed the room. It works great. No wonder they have trouble keeping
them in stock.
It's like hiring a maid who comes in once a week and even moves your
bed out of the way so the vacuuming can get everywhere. I couldn't be
happier with it.
Richard
ni...@acadia.ee.vill.edu (Nick Pine) wrote in message news:<ancrmn$k...@acadia.ee.vill.edu>...
Chloe
news:d569ebca.02102...@posting.google.com...
> I've had a Roomba for two weeks and it's fantastic. It goes
> places--those hard-to-reach places--that you never vacuum like under
> the bed and under the dresser. The first time you use it, you have to
> empty it 2 or 3 times for a small room because of those never-vacuumed
> places. After that, you just empty it after it shuts off having
> vacuumed the room. It works great. No wonder they have trouble keeping
> them in stock.
>
> It's like hiring a maid who comes in once a week and even moves your
> bed out of the way so the vacuuming can get everywhere. I couldn't be
> happier with it.
>
> Richard
I can't believe I'm even asking about one of these gadgets, but I *do* have
a problem with dust building up under the furniture and naturally with new
carpet in the house I'm suddenly interested in keeping it clean. What's the
vertical clearance for the Roomba?
2batgirl
use one of those!
"Richard" <richa...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:d569ebca.02102...@posting.google.com...
2batgirl
314.00$ Canadian dollars for a dustbuster on wheels. Maybe when they drop in
price I can pick one up. Everything is more when it first comes out.
Everything seems to go down eventually.
"2batgirl" <tothe...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:5MUs9.36383$mxk1....@news04.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...