Comments psychokiwi has made

  • Do the bath - reheating moist air

    Presumably one should also factor in the extra energy required to heat the now moist air once it has cooled. It requires much more energy to heat moist air than dry air. So I'm guessing that any benefit is probably cancelled out.

    However, I have heard of a heat recovery system that takes the warm water drained from the bath and uses it to heat the hot water tank (no the water sources don't mix). Now that seems like a good idea!
    On Umbra on heating with bathwater posted 4 years ago 3 Responses

  • Reel mowers and lawns

    When we lived in the USA, we mowed our patch with a reel mower.  When we were mowing the front lawn, cars would slow down so the occupants could gawp. We called it a "pizza-powered" lawnmower which confused many people and required much explanation. We were such a novelty! It took only about 15 minutes more to mow the lawn (i.e., 1.5 hours rather than 1.25 hours) than using the gas-powered mower supplied by the landlord. And we didn't choke with fumes and particulate matter, or get deafened either. It drove me nuts to see people out on their ride-on mowers, then using their leaf blowers, then jumping into their SUV to go to the gym... Sigh...

    Back home in New Zealand, we have only a tiny patch of lawn, amid a large garden, and we cut it with hedge clippers - takes about 20 minutes. I'll eventually put it into chamomile or thyme.

    A hint with reel mowers is to use them regularly - once the grass and weeds are over about 4 inches it can be harder to cut. And keep the blades sharp. We noticed that the reel mowers actually made a nicer job of cutting the grass, rather than ripping the tops.

    Another alternative is to resow your lawn with grass that doesn't need cutting so often or at all. Available here is a a grass called "Mercury Bay Ornamental Grass" or Dichondra repens, which is good for shady areas, and reportedly never needs cutting. I think I've seen equivalent advertized in USA gardening magazines.

    Cheers,

    JudiOn Umbra on lawn mowers posted 4 years, 4 months ago 12 Responses