DIY HVAC

An anonymous reader writes "I found this very interesting project called DIY Zoning. It allows one to add air flow balancing, temperature control, zoning, home automation, and more to an existing or new HVAC system. After getting a $200 electric bill, this sounds like a good solution for those who are getting screwed with outrageously high electric bills due to their HVAC unit especially since organizations like TVA have raised the electric rates."

What about water conservation??

[troutfisher]

Im just waiting for someone to recycle toilet water for showers. When is the madness going to stop.

Bills?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is why I only use solar energy!

Ack, gotta go, a cloud's coming!

History lesson

[Crusty Oldman]

Most history books will tell you that the inventor of air conditioning was Willis Haviland Carrier. This is not true, as I can prove beyond all doubt.

The air conditioner was actually invented by three Jewish gentlemen. Just look at the front of any air conditioner and read their names: Norm, Hi, and Max.

Re:Easier way to lower the electricity bill

[Dark Lord Seth]

Even cheaper, don't get married and don't get kids.

Re:Here's some solutions to help lower the bill:

[dattaway]

Do you really need both of those monitors?

My monitors *are* my zoned heating system. A small quartz heater take up what else the distributed computing doesn't make. I can keep my living area around 80 degrees (I like it hot) with a total monthly utility bill less than $100.

The hotter months, I move my hobbies down to the basement in the furnished bomb shelter. Underground, its much cooler. My LCD displays with the backlight on soft only consumes a few watts, so they are good. Summer utility bills are less than $60 and I get to leave florescent lights on.

Re:What about water conservation??

[FosterKanig]

This is Slashdot. Most of your suggestions involve showers. And bathing.

There is no money to be saved, with those who don't bathe.

heating and cooling costs?

[MakoStorm]

Just do what I do. Gorge and eat as much as you can in the summer, turn the thermostat to 60 in the winter and sleep for 6 months.

Works for bears, works for me.

Re:Easier way to lower the electricity bill

[Daniel Quinlan]

Put the real thermostat somewhere hidden and place a dummy one in the hall for the wife and kids.

Yeah, because divorce is always cheaper than paying higher electrical bills, right?

Re:Easier way to lower the electricity bill

[eriksarcade]

ahhh, the slashdot way!

Re:HVAC Heating, Ventilation, & Air Conditioni

[Totto]

> for non-eXtreme geeks like myself, HVAC stands for Heating, Ventilation, & Air Conditioning.

And for the rest of us, it stands for High Voltage AC. Though that's usually fairly darwinistic as a DIY-project.

Re:Easier way to lower the electricity bill

[/dev/trash]

You're not married with kids are you?

Re:Easier way to lower the electricity bill

[Kent Brewster]

Placebostats worked quite nicely for me a few years back when I was converting a warehouse to an open-plan office building. The poodleheads in sales and marketing froze to death in the offices and the tech support types sweated in the cube farm in the middle. This had resulted in spectacular Thermostat Wars in the old building, and quite a lot of interest from the poodleheaded sales and marketing types in making sure that Everyone Who Mattered was warm enough the next time around. (Remember, the person who is colder always beats the person who is hotter, especially if the person who is colder is a female person and the person who is hotter is not. This seems counterintuitive; the person who is colder can always wear more clothes, while there is a lower limit to the number of clothes the person who is hotter may remove in the workplace ... but I digress.)

We found some very nice dummies that lit up, clicked, and hummed convincingly. Problem solved ... although I must concur with the poster above me who said Don't Try This At Home.

Re:What about water conservation??

[Anonymous Coward]

They have low flow toilets, and a filtration system, and the water is in a clear acryllic case. All the water for the all the systems is mostly recycled.

What's the point of low-flow toilets when you have to flush them 3 or 4 times to get all the shit down? Thankfully I have good old fashioned high flow toilets that only need one flush to totally evacuate the entire bowl full of god-only-knows-what-I-ate-last-night.