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[MEXICOWANDERER]

My enthusiasm for the "future" peaks at "semi defrosted"

WHERE

Is

The

Vastly

Improved

Insulation

This is yet another half-baked self-serving PR rich yadda. Given a choice between a short-range logistically challenged recreational vehicle OR a modern technology internal combustion engine vehicle with state of the art economy, the Duracell model loses.

Why?

With proper insulation an RV will consume <10% of the energy of a conventional RV. The more deviant the environment the more the savings. Most of the energy east of the Rocky Mountains comes from COAL FIRED plants which in comparison to gasoline or diesel is HIDEOUS as far as emissions are concerned.

In this utterly schizophrenic society, insulation standards are abandoned in favor of buzzwords like "Solar". Look at the energy percentage of solar for your area. Now imagine strict building code and vehicle standards for R values. Try imagining an 80% reduction in hotel energy use.

This is how I know for a fact I am not blowing hot air...

I build convection plywood cabinets for my home refrigerator freezers. And or use a 120 mm 1 watt fan to enhance condenser radiation. A reduction from 65 kWh to 22.5 kWh is not my imagination. I use natural convection enhanced with slight air movement to save SIXTY-SIX percent on just that one item alone. Closed cell foam is good but not the best insulation to use for a home or motor vehicle. Given the impetus of tax credits and location incentives the manufacture of VACUUM PANEL insulation renders a factor of one inch versus eight inches of closed cell foam. A 5,000 BTU air conditioner to equal a 15,000 BTU unit...do not laugh -- open your power bill envelope. And vacuum panels ARE RECOVERABLE for RV's.

I sneer at hypocrisy. While the price of petroleum products has launched into orbit, millions of barrels of USA refined products are headed to the other hemisphere.

As Steve Martin used to bellow
"Well, EXCUUUUUSE ME!" for not becoming hypnotized with the thought of electric motor vehicles.

Electric motor vehicles are a MUST

Right after we solve of the problem of 10x18 British Thermal Units of power being harmfully radiated into our atmosphere. Without purpose. Uselessly. Carelessly. Criminal.

[JaxDad]

It’s not just RV’s, or houses, but just about everything in NA, fast and easy beats inexpensive and quality every time.

Why buy $8 worth of food at the grocery store to feed a couple of people when you can head to the XYZ franchise for their $14.99 per person all you (shouldn’t) eat buffet?

Automobiles are the same thing, I have family in Europe. Over there only the rich people buy Buick’s, because they can afford to them away in 3 years. The ‘working class’ have to buy Mercedes, BMW’s and such that will last them 20 years.

The German slang term for a Benz is ‘butchers car’, it’s a solid middle-class family car that will be owned, usually fairly trouble-free, for decades.

[Harvey51]

I clearly recall reading about vacuum panels back in the 1960s. The idea was to mass produce the panels in something like 4 x 8 foot size and use them to build houses. Perhaps energy was too inexpensive to allow that idea to dominate. Now is the time!

We recently built a sun room addition on one end of our 50 year old house. We used 2x6 framing filled with insulation and triple glaze windows of course. I blew 2 to 3 feet of fibreglass insulation into the attiic. It made a very significant difference even though we don’t need air conditioning north of latitude 55. The 25% larger house used less heating energy than before!

It is common here to add an inch of foam insulation on the outside of houses. It doesn’t help dramatically unless steps are taken to stop convection losses in homes built before we got really careful about vapour barriers in the 1980s.

Sadly I have noticed that many environmental activists don’t do well with numbers. As in using 30 ton trucks to transport a ton or two of recycling materials hundreds of miles and some of it to Asia, never mind the cost in dollar or emission terms.

Talk about ventilation assisting refrigerator cooling systems - in climates with cold winters why aren’t fridges available with air in and out connections so we can cool with outside air already cooler than needed for the freezing compartment? Would you believe we use $20 000 worth of electricity every winter to cool the ice in our 4 sheet curling rink? The southern companies designing these cooling systems never thought of circulating the brine to a cooler outside the building!

How about clothes dryers that pump warm air out of houses, which then suck equal volumes of cold air in through furnace fresh air intakes and leaks in the vapour barrier. Dryers have an outlet pipe; why not an Inlet to connect to cold, dry outside air. When heated it’s humidity drops to zero making very efficient drying.

Thanks for this topic, Mex. Yes, we can keep our way of life while greatly reducing harmful emissions if we just build smarter.

Cement manufacturing produces enormous greenhouse gas emissions. It was in the news yesterday that they can be cut drastically while increasing the cement strength.
https://inhabitat.com/game-changing-graphene-reinforced-concrete-is-stronger-and-better-for-the-plan...

[SaltiDawg]

Jframpey wrote:
... CAD, CAM, and the materials technology available today the sky is the limit. We just need the will.

And the willingness to pay for it.

[Jframpey]

I, acting as my own general contractor built a super efficient home 25 years ago. I’ enjoyed the low energy bills and just 8 years ago added 20 kw of solar... according to my calculations I just reached the payback period for those solar panels.

Until I can build my own RV I don’t expect to be able to find an RV with the workmanship, and energy efficiency that I would consider adequate... I find that a sad commentary of the craftsmanship available today - with CAD, CAM, and the materials technology available today the sky is the limit. We just need the will.

[4x4van]

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:

There is endless discussion about how to use energy (generators) to stay cool -- and a void when it comes to decreasing the need for burning fuel translated to either environmental warming reduction or saving money. If Money Is No Object to they way you RV then it may put you at odds with the other side of the coin.

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:

I had hopes that the thread would provoke discussion about investing technology where it would do the most good.

There is plenty of discussion on decreasing the need for burning fuel...just not on an RV users forum. These forums are populated by users, not manufacturers. There is no realistic way for an RV owner to make anything other than a relatively minor difference in their energy needs. We have to work within the constraints that exist in our current RVs.

LED lighting is about the only way for an average RV owner to decrease energy needs in any significant way, but that only goes so far (and that does indeed get plenty of discussion here). Improving insulation? That's just not a realistic approach for existing RVs. If you want better energy efficiency in the insulation and appliances of RVs, then you need to address the source...the manufacturers...not the users. And while you could make the argument that the manufacturers will address energy efficiency only if/when users demand it, the reality is that RVs are relatively small energy users in the grand scheme of things. Solar panels, 6v batteries, and small inverter generators are all relatively inexpensive, meaning that RVing, while certainly not "cheap", is also NOT a "money is no object" activity. In other words, since our RV energy needs are relatively minor to begin with, most would balk at significantly higher prices to cut those demands even in half; it would make no sense.

[2oldman]

myredracer wrote:
- why do they keep calling it a hot water heater? Shouldn't it be called a cold water heater?

In this case I think "they" is the general public.

[myredracer]

- why do they heat "heated underbellies" with a duct off the furnace that sends heat out to the great outdoors?
- why do they use open cell insulation in RVs that allows moisture to pass through and condense on cold exterior surfaces?
- why is so much of the batt insulation in ceiling cavities full of voids and compressed (reduces R-value)?
- why are there so many large holes through floors?
- why do they keep calling it a hot water heater? Shouldn't it be called a cold water heater?

- and why can't someone fix that ignorant/stupid/ridiculous CAPTCHA problem? Why is the RV.net format still in the dark ages? Seriously!!

Actually, I just wanna know when the nice camping weather arrive... 😞

[MEXICOWANDERER]

[COLOR=]"Okay, I'm done with this thread, I promise."

The thread is about how easy it would be to save energy, save the environment using tangible proven affordable techniques and have a more enjoyable RV experience.

There is endless discussion about how to use energy (generators) to stay cool -- and a void when it comes to decreasing the need for burning fuel translated to either environmental warming reduction or saving money. If Money Is No Object to they way you RV then it may put you at odds with the other side of the coin.

The cladding of a refrigerator with inch-thick RECYCLABLE vacuum panels WILL and not "perhaps or maybe" save more than 60% energy costs, In the case of long distance travel to refuel propane the sixty percent is absurdly low.

RV's are mostly box not round. I went aboard a catamaran whose owner made an ice box of vacuum panels. The box was about two and a half feet by three feet. It was shaded. In tropical heat it held ice for two weeks.

I had hopes that the thread would provoke discussion about investing technology where it would do the most good. Spark interest without billboard grade obvious intention. But I failed to do so. A troll? Damned right it was -- separate the wheat from the chaff. It performed splendidly.

Time for me to go to work and be productive. Adios.

[fj12ryder]

Report it for what? Non-compliance?

Oops.

[SaltiDawg]

Anyone report this thread? Just curious.

[MEXICOWANDERER]

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

Electricity is about 1/50th of my budget. Gasoline is unavoidably at present more than 25% of my budget. But don't mistake my personal discomfort for common sense energy solutions.

Solar panels USED TO COST 100x that they do now. If a technology is underexploited it will stay costly. Electric cars were a fantasy 20 years ago.

In summer what is the ratio of A/C kWh to non A/C hotel kWh? Wanna save 70+% on refrigerator LPG or heating LPG? A clad and convection cooled large refrigerator suddenly costs $5.00 to operate in the summer -- not twenty five dollars per month.

We shall certainly see what happens in the next year. I planned as best I could and have energy storage and manufacturing that few off-grid folks can better.

[2oldman]

4x4van wrote:

2oldman wrote:

4x4van wrote:
fears of unbreathable air (I grew up in SoCal and remember multiple smog alerts and chest pain while breathing back in the 60s; no more even though the number of vehicles has increased ten-fold).

I'm pretty sure emission controls were instrumental in that.

Exactly, which was my point. The emission control technology that was responsible for that huge improvement in air quality did not exist back in the 60's.

Ok. For a minute there I thought you were going on an anti-science rant.

[4x4van]

MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
My decreasing ability to pay bills is the fundamental question. It has ZERO to do with comparing Mexico to the USA. Some people can stay even with the gradient of ever increasing ARTIFICIALLY MANIPULATED cost of living. I cannot. Not being 95% disabled.

I have a valid USA passport. I have a valid Mexican passport. The Mexican passport is issued by the Secretary of Relationes Exteriores. That is how I have a valid IFE Mexican voting card. I am a citizen a voting citizen of both countries.

This forum is not the time nor is it the place for discussing politics. However it is the place to discuss technology with regard to waste. Especially when waste is endangering my basic life style.

Intelligent people will take my comments and perhaps examine ways to decrease waste and save money in the process. Then there are others who...

At least I myself me, has taken upon myself to unburden USA society of my imposition. I use less than 150 kWh per month. I repair rather than replace. And I do not live like a bum. I doubt if 99 percent of those that sneer could last a month.

The only waste that is endangering your basic lifestyle is your own. You already have the ability to control your energy costs with the technology that is available to you right now. Add solar, add windmill, add storage (batteries), increase your wall insulation/thickness, and disconnect from the grid. There is always a ton of research continuously ongoing in all areas of energy...production, efficiency, storage, etc. Not sure about the "woe is me" tone of your posts in this thread.:@ I'm sure that there are those, living in remote locations, that survive fine on even less energy than you. It's all about needs and choices. I have no need (currently) to live on less than 150kWh per month. That's not sneering, that's simply what I choose.

You claim to want to examine ways to decrease waste and save money, but you seem to be more interested in putting down those that you somehow deem responsible for a difficulty in paying your bills. Sorry, not gonna play that game.

[4x4van]

2oldman wrote:

4x4van wrote:
fears of unbreathable air (I grew up in SoCal and remember multiple smog alerts and chest pain while breathing back in the 60s; no more even though the number of vehicles has increased ten-fold).

I'm pretty sure emission controls were instrumental in that.

Exactly, which was my point. The emission control technology that was responsible for that huge improvement in air quality did not exist back in the 60's. It does now. It's naive to think that there is no further technological advances waiting to be discovered/created; advances that will in fact address many seemingly unsurmountable hurdles that face society today.

As to the insulation properties of RV's (and even buildings); that is currently dictated by a number of things, including but not limited to cost. It would be easy to increase the insulation value by making thicker walls. But then you lose interior space. Certain types of material are better insulators than others. But there is of course a cost difference to those materials, both in their manufacture as well as their installation. Of course progress has a way of changing those dynamics.

pnichols wrote:
Part/all of David's (the OP) point may be that - "Why install all this solar stuff all over the U.S. (and the world) without FIRST reducing building heat gains and losses through improved insulation all over the U.S. (and the world)."

Really a pretty simple common sense and logical concept!

20 years ago, windows (in houses) had terrible insulation properties. Today, not only are double and triple pane windows pretty much standard, even RVs often use double pane glass. But there are still plenty of houses (and RVs) out there with single pane glass. Newer homes are built with higher R-values in the walls and ceilings, but there are still plenty of older homes that don't have that advantage. And while adding attic insulation is easy, adding R-value to the walls is a completely different proposition.

Since it is certainly not cost effective to raze all existing buildings/RVs and replace them with the newest insulation technology, solar and other renewable energy sources cannot, and should not, be abandoned in place of improving insulation properties/materials FIRST. It's silly to suggest that we should stop work on solar (or other energy source technology) until we can improve our ability to retain the heat/cool that it produces. On the contrary; both need to be advanced.