It's nice to "see" all of you too. :-) Maura, most people around here, including my parents, also leave thier decorations up until New Year's. My MIL sometimes doesn't put hers away until February! So I think you're definately in the majority on that one...I don't think I know anyone else who puts christmas away right after the holiday. :-) I have a "thing" about starting right away on January 1st with the house all clean and tidy and ready for "winter", it's sort of an "out with the old" type of thing for me. I can't feel like the new year has started until the old year has been "put to bed" properly. I actually have the day off on the 26th, so I'll do most of my "undecorating" then, but I'll be working the rest of the week, as will my husband, so I'll spend the evenings gradually getting my cleaning done, and that Saturday finishing up and getting ready to welcome the new year in with friends. I like to wake up on the 1st to my clean, organized house...it just feels like a good way to start the new year for me. I spend time with both my parents and in-laws on New Year's Day, and it just seems "odd" to still have the christmas stuff up and out then. Not to mention I won't have time then to work on *my* house, as we're expected at the other places. I am thankful that I have the day after New Year's off as well...it's nice when these holidays fall over the weekend, as far as work schedules go. For me, I start the christmas season the first week of December, and we're celebrating with friends and family the week *before*, so the week after just doesn't seem necessary for me. That's when I'm putting the old year to bed, and gently waking the new year up. But like I said - I'm the only person I know who does it this way...around here, stores still have thier decorations up that next week, and everyone still turns thier lights on and celebrates, so you're certainly in the majority with your views, and there's nothing wrong with that at all. :-)

A long time ago we had a few pieces of a Lionel train that belonged to my cousin. We finally got rid of them but I don't remember how. Our house is packed with things that I just know will be valuable some day- I'm a pack rat. Good picture.

I don't often go shopping or go to the mall but on a trip to Cincinnati a couple of years ago when my father was in the hospital, it was unseasonably cold, so I went to a mall just across the street from my hotel to buy a sweater or something warm. Two of the three anchor stores were closed and vacant, and about 60% of the rest of the stores were closed as well. It felt like an old west ghost town, and I imagined tumbleweeds blowing across the mall from one empty store to another. Later while driving from the hotel to the hospital I passed a spot where an entirely new mall was being constructed. That gave be the idea that similar to what is done with "wetlands" where if a construction project will destroy a wetland in one location the construction must create a equal sized new wetland elsewhere. If you want to build a new mall somewhere, you must first buy an equal acreage of existing mall, and destroy it and restore it to farmland or forest or whatever you'll need to destroy to build your new mall.

Re: Stax Geothermal likes long, even, stable run times. If you stop them there’s a certain delay till they stabilize & reach peak efficiency again. Kind of like a diesel truck that is just left to run rather than start & stop. A lot of efficiency is lost with setbacks. That heat loss will have to be made up. Variable speed equipment will just drop to a lower run speed and just cruise along. Many geo people I know don’t touch their thermostats but our clients do probably because they can and feel there’s an advantage. The disadvantage is wear & tear. Once these things are running properly, they’ll run almost for ever as long as there’s no loss of refrigerant. Compressor windings are ‘shocked’ with a current jolt every time they’re started. That shortens their life cycle. We’re on vacation now, almost 3-weeks. I did not turn the thermostat down even 1-degree from that of when we’re home. I’d bet that the savings in kW would be very small even if we had. Also I know that the solar gain of our home is phenomenal - especially on the coldest days because it’s so sunny. The geo HP will be ‘OFF’ for hours till the sun sets and our envelope is not tight at all! YMMV Re: Elmer The HP market is rapidly changing due to the demands for efficiency & decarbonization. As you know Liquid-To-Water geothermal heat pumps have been around for a long time. What is moving the residential market at a faster clip now has been the advent of the Cold Climate Air-To-Water heat pump but it’s contributed another function not previously available - liquid air-conditioning! Every year there are more and more manufacturers coming out with air-to-water heat pumps and others with low temperature fan coil units and panel radiators. Once you’ve lowered the temperature of the water required at design conditions and can still comfortably heat, the efficiency of even an air-to-water heat pump competes with geothermal and surpasses natural gas and an electric boilers. Systems are being designed today with water temperatures of about 110F meaning that a HP that can supply 120F water is ‘in the game’. That might be at design temperatures - worst case conditions that is only a very small percentage of the winter, with ‘Outdoor Reset’ water temperatures required are even lower on days that are anything warmer. Some system designers are designing around 95F at ‘design temperatures’. Add to that variable speed heat pumps, let’s say our Air-To-Water HP variety. What does that mean? It means that the HP spools down and efficiency shoots up almost unbelievably as it now only has to deliver water at only maybe 95F. What else does it do for efficiency? As the Air-To-Water is variable speed, it can deliver water at lower temperatures ‘as needed’ meaning no necessary need for a buffer storage tank and plumbing that was needed with single speed HPs to prevent short cycling. What else does it mean? It means that a much smaller size HP can do the job well compared to systems requiring higher water temperatures. Also water is much more efficient than air to move around and is much easier to zone. You asked about the US market, as this is not yet that common residentially. I attend and participate in nearly all the ‘Electrify New York State’ and ‘Electrify Manhatten’ and I can tell you that it is happening on every level, state, federal, municipal, institutional, private development - even utility. This (electric) train is out of the station. I see that the residential market will be driven by developers incorporating liquid HP hydronics into high rise & multi level condo projects with each unit having their own liquid HP and being individual metered & billed. They’re not doing it for altruistic reasons, they’re doing it on bottom line numbers and previous successes. Utilities are also heavily in the game because there are new sub divisions going up where gas is no longer allowed. Gas utilities using their same technologies of HDPE piping, pumps, excavating equipment etc can build out networks similar to gas but delivering water instead. Utilities can own, circulate, meter, deliver energy through water and never have to source gas for these projects. Home owners whether condo or individual homes in new sub divisions never have to invest and pay up front for drilling, ground loops, design etc up front, making geo liquid hydronic much more affordable yet still super energy efficient. Even if you haven’t seen it yet, you might one day see it as a letter from your trusty gas utility informing you that the gas network in you neighbourhood is being phased out and that delivery costs are about to become impossible as you and a few others will be the only ones left on the network. I’ve attended these seminars as well. There’s no question they’re after your gas furnace, gas fireplaces and gas stoves as gas will be phased out. It’s not only because of decarbonization but that new, viable, profitable business models have been created, proven and are being embraced. Even on vacation in Mexico, I have been amazed and had to point out to my wife, how in your face (mine anyway because I know what to look for) how suddenly hydronic fan coils for hydronic air-conditioning and presumably heating now seems to be - and she has been pointing out to me all the LEED Gold Standard projects she’s seeing - and this is MEXICO! Don’t bury your head in the ground - unless it’s to install a ground loop! IMPO SR