djconklin wrote:
...
Well since I was planning moving out to a desert I don't think I'll need a furnace! Now the AC ... I just checked; that uses 810 watts, 7.3 amps.
Look into low cost, low energy desert living.
Most deserts in the U.S. get cold, at least when the sun is down, for part of the year. Even in the Southwest. High deserts, which are most of our desert areas, can get very cold. People build well insulated desrt homes (think about thick mud brick walls) with high thermal inertia, to smooth out daytime heat and nightly cold to a livable daily average.
Outside urban areas, desert living can still mean learning to live without mechanical air conditioning. What you really need outside the city is shade, insulation or thick walls to hold down the daily peak temperatures, and adaptation to living in dry air that is close to body temperature. I've worked outdoors, all day in daytime, in the desert, finding that air conditioning just gets in the way of my adaptation.
A/C lets people live and work in LasVegas or Phoenix as if they were in St Louis, Chicago, or New York, same types of buildings, same high energy lifestyles. But that lifestyle is not necessary to live in the desert, it is possible to slow down and live with the heat (natives have been doing it thousands of years).
What you do have to have is a source of heat when the desert gets cold, something to burn and a stove can be enough, furnace is more tech than what is necessary.
