patrick.net

He didn't confirm hiring mexicans to guard stuff but @maga probably spoke to some other builder.

Oh, I own a few in the area as well and I'm still getting at least 5 text messages a week asking if I'd sell to them. I just block the number and delete. I was probably getting 10/day a year to several months ago. Before that I never got any or they were super rare. Maybe a mailer.

WineHorror1 says

Those photos don't prove shit. Every new subdivision looks like that. They don't magically appear out of nowhere overnight do they?

Exactly. Surveillance at construction area is very normal. In fact the builder has a good reputation nationally to build homes with good value for the selling prices. If I remember correctly one of my friends in near east Dallas, TX bought one from them who is very happy. There could be a minor price correction. I do not know what will happen in the immediate future but for sure the free thin air printed $Ts given to top 1% will popup all over and flood sooner than later that the (massive) inflation will continue in one-way the other. I will never believe gov inflation numbers that NEVER applies to where I am at bay area which is a total junk.
As per @just_passing_through it could be
https://www.meritagehomes.com/state/tx/san-antonio
https://www.meritagehomes.com/state/tx/san-antonio/scenic-crest---classic-series
the starter home classic series $430,000/1831 sft = $235/sft should not be a bad deal for a brand new home with 10year warranty.
The sft rate will go down significantly I guess below $200 if you consider larger homes. Looks like the large ones beyond 2,303sft are either already gone or not released yet.

Patrick says

What area is that?

San Antonio Texas.

just_passing_through says

That area is where I'll be renting in about 2 months.

Hope you work in the area. Traffic is really bad at times.

If they had built homes for middle class people, they could still sell all that they could make.

McMansions will be eating cash poor people alive with electrical heating/cooling costs with natural gas prices. US natural gas prices are at $9mm BTU.

MAGA says

Hope you work in the area. Traffic is really bad at times.

I'll spend money in the area but work remotely in SF. No joke about the traffic. Completely different city vs. when I lived there 25 years ago.

Where I live they should call new developments "Stonehenge" because the houses are so close together that only during the solstice does light penetrate the gaps.

1337irr says

McMansions will be eating cash poor people alive with electrical heating/cooling costs with natural gas prices. US natural gas prices are at $9mm BTU.

My wife's aunt in Colorado said the builders there are no longer allowed to install gas fireplaces. She said it was a "green" initiative.

HeadSet says

My wife's aunt in Colorado said the builders there are no longer allowed to install gas fireplaces. She said it was a "green" initiative.

All new construction in California does away with natural gas. It's insane.

I think propane tanks are going to become a thing here in time.

What? They just did away with wood fireplaces, and now gas fireplaces too?

Patrick says

What? They just did away with wood fireplaces, and now gas fireplaces too?

In certain jurisdictions, the super intelligent planners have forbade new installations of natural gas pipelines to new residential. This is not the case for the entire state.

At least until 2030 when it will be forbade to install a new natural gas furnace or water heater in a residence. These asshats are nuts.

richwicks says

I think propane tanks are going to become a thing here in time.

I used prices from PG&E base rates. The propane cost is dirt cheap lowest, though $3.49 seems average at most other places. Let me know if prices seem way off....
https://www.amsenergy.com/fuel-cost-calculator/



As you can see, a lot depends of heat pump efficiency. The average heat pump has a COP value of about 3.7 at 47°F. That means it has 370% efficiency. For comparison, electric space heaters have a COP value of 1.0 and have 100% efficiency. At temperatures below 0°F, the COP value of heat pumps can be close to 1 or even below 1.
Per https://learnmetrics.com/at-what-temperature-does-a-heat-pump-stop-working/

Doing away with natty gas appliances in new homes for “green” reasons is double retarded. Natural gas is one of the absolute cleanest energy sources. And its replacement electric heat is 1)much less efficient, 2)the power in winter is going to have to come from oil, natural gas, coal, or nuclear, 3) you lose 25% of the power in transmission line resistance.

Basically you’re taking a known quantity and making less efficient, less earth friendly, and more expensive. Only a democrat could ruin something so thoroughly and still believe they’re making it better.

Shaman says

3) you lose 25% of the power in transmission line resistance.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that annual electricity transmission and distribution (T&D) losses averaged about 5% of the electricity transmitted and distributed in the United States in 2017 through 2021.

$0.25/kWh is not happening in CA PG&E territory, try a minimum of $0.33/kWh and soon to go up a shit ton.

Booger says

Where I live they should call new developments "Stonehenge" because the houses are so close together that only during the solstice does light penetrate the gaps.

Not to mention getting clues to the location of the Ark of the Covenant and getting gratuitously vaporized.

HeadSet says

My wife's aunt in Colorado said the builders there are no longer allowed to install gas fireplaces. She said it was a "green" initiative.

Marin County mandates all-electric new residential and commercial construction.

Beginning next year (2023), all new residential and commercial construction in Marin must be all electric.

Marin County supervisors voted unanimously on Tuesday to approve an ordinance mandating the change effective Jan. 1. The supervisors voiced support for the move in October.

https://www.mercurynews.com/2022/11/16/marin-county-mandates-all-electric-new-construction/

All in the name of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the ignorant fools….

ForcedTQ says

All in the name of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the ignorant fools….

Okay, I'll bite. Why do you think this is a bad thing?
You can burn the natural gas for heat (at 85%) efficiency.
Or you can use it to run a gas turbine with CHP at 45% efficiency to generate electricity.
Use it in an electric resistance heater and you're producing almost twice as much CO2. Oh no!
But wait, you use it to run a heat pump in your home to get 3 times energy that you put into it.
So for the same amount of CO2 you get either
.85 heating units (gas furnace) or
1.35 heating units (heat pump). And yes, you can subtract out 5% for transmission line losses.
Now add renewable/nuclear to the electric generation mix and CO2 emissions continue to go down. YMMV.

BTW, thanks for the head up about the PG&E rate increases. Yikes! (that said, makes my solar pay off sooner...)

EBGuy says

you use it to run a heat pump in your home to get 3 times energy that you put into it.

How does that work?

EBGuy says

Use it in an electric resistance heater and you're producing almost twice as much CO2.

Heat pumps rely on electrical resistance heat when it gets too cold. That may not be an issue in CA, but it is in CO where they also banned natural gas heating.

HeadSet says

How does that work?

Like and air conditioner, in reverse. In fact I have this Frigidaire unit from home depot that I'm using for heating right now.

Patrick says

What? They just did away with wood fireplaces, and now gas fireplaces too?

I hope the Feds don't ban electric radiators or radiant heaters. They are very efficient. We use a couple in our house in the Florida panhandle as we are under frost warning.

We don't need to rely on putting our air condition system in its heat pump cycle or mode.

Y’all need to move out of your moronic states. IL is dumb as fuck but they ain’t taking any gas appliances or restricting them.

Also to the OP. New builds are still happening here in rural IL. With out migration out the state you would think it would be bad. I’m guessing most here live in urban areas with 20k+ populations. People are building in rural areas here.

There’s no need to live in a city anymore. So if you live in a bigger suburb/city your anecdotal evidence might look bad. Prices are lower rural so it’s not going to move the national home price much.

In Costa Mujeres right now and they’re building like crazy. Obviously resorts/businesses but I don’t think the economy is being portrayed well in coastal areas of the states. Things are booming in states and even other countries. I’m at at RIU. I’m on the roof currently. Not room. Looking at probably a 700 room resort being built.

I think any housing decline is going to be a tale of 2 “cities” so to speak. That $800k home is looking bad with interest rates. The $250k home with work from home looks like the best thing going. Interest rates don’t matter if your income didn’t change. You also get away from the homeless, trash, needles, etc.

EBGuy says

Okay, I'll bite. Why do you think this is a bad thing?

There is still nothing better than a gas stove top for cooking.

Also, when snowmadegon happened in Texas a few years ago and the electric went down state wide for DAYS the natural gas lines still worked. Those with back up generators didn't freeze their nutz off.

EBGuy says

HeadSet says

How does that work?

Like and air conditioner, in reverse. In fact I have this Frigidaire unit from home depot that I'm using for heating right now.

I know the mechanics. What I want to know is how you "get 3 times energy that you put into it."

EBGuy says

Shaman says

3) you lose 25% of the power in transmission line resistance.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) estimates that annual electricity transmission and distribution (T&D) losses averaged about 5% of the electricity transmitted and distributed in the United States in 2017 through 2021.

Just an FYI - this is total bullshit. There's lies, damned lies, statistics, government lies, then government statistics. They're always fucking lying.

Transmission losses are closer to 50% than 25%. And 5%? Ludicrous.

HeadSet says

EBGuy says

HeadSet says

How does that work?

Like and air conditioner, in reverse. In fact I have this Frigidaire unit from home depot that I'm using for heating right now.

I know the mechanics. What I want to know is how you "get 3 times energy that you put into it."

Without talking about the exact numbers, this is a heat pump. It's basically refrigerating the atmosphere to heat your home.

Electrical heating, heating a coil that is, is 100% efficient. Every single bit of energy is turned into heat. Your television does this, your light bulbs do this. All electrical devices, over time, produce heat in the end. Actually light bulbs maybe not, their energy can escape your home going through a window in the form of light.

But when you are pulling energy out of the atmosphere, you can increase it beyond 100% efficiency.

As a CHILD, I used to wonder why furnaces weren't used to generate electricity, reasoning that because it produced heat in the end, it was better than just burning diesel, wood, or natural gas. As an adult, I realized that the complexity of such a system requires energy to produce it, and you very well not regain the energy cost of manufacture over time.

Going into engineering has destroyed almost all my youthful ideas.

richwicks says

Going into engineering has destroyed almost all my youthful ideas.

Me too. Fucking gravity.

richwicks says

But when you are pulling energy out of the atmosphere, you can increase it beyond 100% efficiency.

There is no such thing as a negative work heat pump. Basic thermodynamics. A heat pump does not pull "energy out of the atmosphere," it requires energy in order to move heat from a cold outside to a warmer inside. If all one has is electricity, then a heat pump is more efficient than conventional electric that uses joule (resistance) heating. Even then, a household heat pump switches to heating strips when it gets too cold for the heat pump method to work. Around here, the only reason a house has a heat pump is that they cannot get service for natural gas.

richwicks says

As a CHILD, I used to wonder why furnaces weren't used to generate electricity, reasoning that because it produced heat in the end, it was better than just burning diesel, wood, or natural gas. As an adult, I realized that the complexity of such a system requires energy to produce it, and you very well not regain the energy cost of manufacture over time.

And yet it wasn't a bad intuition. Note that there are fuel cells that also use their waste heat for heating water. Also, the 45% efficiency gas turbine that I noted above is a CHP (combined heat and power) model.

I'll certainly give the devil his due and, quite frankly, I wouldn't want to live in Colorado relying only on a heat pump. That said, looking to the future, ground source models will only continue to grow in prominence as costs come down as they don't have to operate at such low temperatures as they use the earth as a heat source. The best investment I ever made in yea olden times (post 2008 bubble) was LXU as they had a ground source heat pump business. Of course they ended up selling it, and the stock collapsed... sigh...

EBGuy says

That said, looking to the future, ground source models will only continue to grow in prominence as costs come down as they don't have to operate at such low temperatures as they use the earth as a heat source.

"Heat pump" and geothermal are not the same thing.

HeadSet says

"Heat pump" and geothermal are not the same thing.

Headset, what is up man. You are very skeptical these days.
Geothermal heat pumps (GHPs), sometimes referred to as GeoExchange, earth-coupled, ground-source, or water-source heat pumps, have been in use since the late 1940s. They use the relatively constant temperature of the earth as the exchange medium instead of the outside air temperature.
https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/geothermal-heat-pumps
I believe NYCBB is in this business.

This is different from geothermal energy which is heat that is generated within the Earth. It is a renewable resource that can be harvested for human use.

Just to be clear, it looks like the Klamath projects use "hots wells" which brings heat from thermal features deep underground to the surface. This is traditionally the domain of "geothermal" solutions, though "geothermal" seems to be catch all for everything ground source these days.

The Whisper Valley project relies on the constant temperature of the earth and uses heat pumps to extract/dump thermal energy from/to the ground loop. Thanks for bringing this to our attention cT. I had not heard of this project.
The geogrid at Whisper Valley was designed and built by EcoSmart Solution, which has several other neighborhood-scale geothermal energy grids in development across the U.S. The system is made up of wells bored below ground that tap the constant temperature found deep below the Earth’s surface. Using closed loops buried dozens or hundreds of feet below, these systems circulate liquid down and then back up into the home to create a baseline level of warmth, about 60 degrees. Electric heat pumps are then used to heat a home in winter or cool it in summer. Geothermal systems are notably efficient, requiring 70% less energy than a conventional heating system and 50% less than a typical air conditioner.

I was a bit puzzled why geothermal loops in the Whisper Valley project in Austin were interconnected. Looks like they are augmented for peak loads on extremely hot days. My guess is the centralized cooling tower is more efficient than upsizing the systems at the individual homes.
Homes and buildings are located next to access roads and on top of the integrated geothermal district loop that will significantly reduce energy costs for homeowners. Those lots are sold to homebuilders with specifications for sustainable construction including hooking up to the loop. The end result will be highly energy efficient Net-Zero Ready homes with very low energy costs.

To use the earth’s relatively constant temperature (45 to 75°F in this location) for heating and cooling, the design incorporates boreholes up to 335 feet (102 m) deep drilled on each lot, into which the REHAU pipe loops were inserted. Boreholes were grouted after pipe insertion. As with all geothermal systems, fluid circulates through the pipes, exchanging heat to and from the earth for cooling or heating operation, respectively.

Each PEX vertical pipe loop connects to a system of horizontal pipes. This larger integrated ‘geo loop’ is augmented by two 250-ton cooling towers for meeting peak cooling loads during periods of high ambient temperatures.

EBGuy says

Headset, what is up man. You are very skeptical these days.

Fellows, you were talking about residential heat pumps, which as Rickwicks said, are like reverse air conditioners. The common heat pump has the ability to move heat from a colder environment to a warmer one. Otherwise, it would not be a "pump," and it takes energy to do so. I have also toured homes that have "geothermal" for heating and cooling, where buried pipes circulating fluid take advantage of underground constant temperature to heat/cool that fluid before it goes through coils in a forced air blower. Nobody calls that geothermal system a "heat pump," as no heat is pumped. The only pump in a geothermal system is the pump that circulates the fluid. In fact, I had planned to have geothermal installed in the house I bought in 2014 but was denied by covenants.

HeadSet says

I have also toured homes that have "geothermal" for heating and cooling, where buried pipes circulating fluid take advantage of underground constant temperature to heat/cool that fluid before it goes through coils in a forced air blower.

You may be able to get away with that for cooling (average earth temp is 57 degrees), but you most definitely need a heat pump for the heating function (unless you're going for the living underground feel...)

EBGuy says

You may be able to get away with that for cooling (average earth temp is 57 degrees), but you most definitely need a heat pump for the heating function (unless you're going for the living underground feel...)

Good point. I am going to look again and see how the heat part works.

I don't have a heat pump, but one thing I have always done in South Florida when the weather gets frigid.
In bedrooms with a window unit, or a mini split, I put the AC on about 72 and crank it on high fan speed. The next morning, the room will be comfortable enough that I it's not too cold to get out of bed. Between 67 to 70, even if it is in the low 30's outside the bedroom door. I think it's due to the negative pressure that AC units like that creates, and air is an excellent insulator.
I haven't tried it with the central Air conditioner unit, as they always have a heat setting on them.