Mistakes were made. It happens, OK? I’m quite certain Bing won’t let THAT happen again…/////

For my, VERY limited needs for the tiny bit I have dabbled in programing or even just help with some Linux issues, I’ve been using Phind. It seems to work a whole lot better than any of the other search engines. But my needs can’t really twist the tail like real programmers.

I’m not an architect, but I have stayed at a Holiday Inn.

The easiest way to think about an element being “structural” or not is is to consider what can happen if you remove that element - will the roof/wall collapse on top of you or not. If the answer is no, the roof/wall will not fall down, it’s not “Structural” or “Load Bearing” If the roof/wall can fall down on if you remove it, it is “structural” or “load bearing”.

So, using your example, if you were to remove the drywall and furring strips from that cement block wall, will the wall and ceiling be in danger of collapse? If it is, then it was structural. If not, then it wasn’t structural.

The Architects and Civil Engineers that I have known, do not consider drywall or furring strips to “structural” when designing a building. I’m going with their consensus on this matter.

You simply change the expected specs…

For a machinist yep. For home gamers, a waste of money. They don’t have the knowledge of where and when to use them nor the skills to get accurate repeatable measurements. So for OP’s use whatever CCC, (Cheap, Cheerful, Chinese), caliper he’s got is good enough.

It’s the definition of “nominal size is what ever we say it is” that pisses me off. Buying wood/lumber is the worst offender of Nominal sizing, but even metals are getting worse. I used to buy a round bar of say, ASA1018 and it would be +0"/-.002". It’s now +0/-.006", (that’s +0/-.05mm and +0/-.15mm for those living in Boca Raton). At the end of my career as a toolmaker I was often forced to purchase oversized stock and waste time turning said stock into the actual sizes required.

Can’t you see those are safety sandals. And just like safety squints, are approved PPE across the whole 3rd world industrial sphere. OP will be perfectly safe.

I’m fine with it too. Cold and snow isn’t much of an issue for me. But I have had a mild heat stroke before so I’d rather be cold than hot.

Having just checked the forecast, I see we are now looking at 10 to 25 inches of snow and high winds starting on Sunday and lasting through Monday. I could do without that…So I suppose I should pick up the tractor tire from the shop and get that mounted and check to make sure the emergency genset is working properly.

Another Minnesotan here, as of 5am it’s currently 5F, (that’s -15C for those living in Rio Linda or Boca Raton). We might hit 15F/-9C for a high today. But I also live north of Frostbite Falls too. So enjoy your warm cozy day!

Unless you were using a certified scale and checking it with certified check weights every time you used it, you were just guessing and hoping your dealer wasn’t randomly or purposely off. And density of the material weighed matters also. Weed is far less dense than pasta so a discrepancy can be more noticeable since it takes a larger volume of weed to reach a particular weight than pasta does.

Understand that a digital kitchen scale is made with the cheapest load sensors a manufacturer is willing to pay for. Nor do they come with any kind of traceable certification as to accuracy class. In fact you get no guarantee that your shiny new kitchen scale is fit for even that purpose - just that it turns on, lights up, and displays something when you place a load upon it.

Accuracy is a cruel and VERY expensive mistress to chase. And most people don’t understand it anyway.

Now, I agree with you that if you believe a home kitchen scale is telling the truth, you are a fool. But as an old toolmaker who dabbled in accuracy for a living, displayed digits does not equal accuracy nor even repeatability. And there can be a fair amount of interpretation involved in analog beam scales.

I think it’s just another PPS, (piss poor scale), scale that is neither accurate nor repeatable. And the packaging material weights are rarely included in listed weights. Since packaging can change at any time due to costs.

But it very often catches many who simply take it as an irrefutable truth.

As I gave as an example, my one Daughter who is recognized by her peers as an expert in this field, and is all about improved efficiency and renewable energy, did the math and found that it doesn’t work for her. And it’s not because she lives in a terrible climate - it’s warmer and varies less than where I live by a noticeable amount. It’s because when you compare total costs, over the life span of a heat pump, she would end up paying extra to have one verses a simple natural gas furnace. It would be even sillier for my neighbor who is a logger. He uses 100% wood heat. Because he can literally harvest, process, and store enough firewood for several years in one afternoon. Anything else is far more expensive. But the math says it works for me.

You can’t make general statements about 90% of all people until everyone does the math. This is just one of the field studies my Daughter is doing. Trying to collect enough real time data on real homes and families and doing the math to help pinpoint locations where it makes sense and where it does not make sense at this time. It does not always workout like you and I might think it would.

My issue with these arguments is the blanket statements that get made. Both arguments on this particular subject can both be true at the same time. And until you do the math for your specific situation, you can’t tell if it pays until you know the answer

Now, I believe it works out for you just as it does for me. But I had to the math to figure it out to know for sure. Most people who argue over this subject have never done the math.

It’s not even a no brainer even then. You absolutely need to actually do the math for your particular situation to make that determination. For me it works out. For my neighbor down the road who is a logger, it does not. He can harvest, process, and store 2 years worth of firewood in a mere handful of hours. Any other heat source makes little sense for him.

You really, really, really need to do the math!

The biggest issue is if you don’t have the money to buy it, it matters very little about the efficiency and how long it lasts. You still need to pay for it. He could justify the expense because we are a very rural area and land is cheap and tagging it to a new build brings down the interest costs. This is often makes geo-thermal a non-starter for most - as you point out. He even admits he wouldn’t have done it under any other circumstance.

Back up generators if the expected outage is to last more than one day - and sometimes it can.

Have you actually priced such systems and the payback time vs heat pumps vs petroleum sourced heat?

I know one person who chose a mix of ground heat pump, LP, and wood heat. He told me that it only had a reasonable payback was because he was building a new home and the extra cost could be tagged to the total build cost. Making it cheaper than a retro fit. He said it added another $25,000 to the cost of his new home. But in fairness, he does enjoy it.

I live in a very cold part of the world where the temps can easily exceed your -20C for night times for several weeks at a time. And even as the daily high for a week stretch or two over a winter. And while I could have purchased a heat pump that would work to that low of a temperature, it would have cost over twice the price. Going from $5000US installed to over $10,000US for just the heat pump. And that included the rebate incentives.

My heat pump is set to set to cut out and switch to LP heat at -10C because it becomes cheaper to run an LP furnace at that point - cost of electricity = 6.5 cents per kilowatt hour vs $1.75US gallon LP. The loss of efficiency matters to my pocket book. And I chose my particular heat pump with my advice of my Daughter who has a PhD in ME and works as a research engineer for a non-profit studying HVAC systems and the efficiencies of the technology used in them. And she won’t install a heat pump in her house because for where she lives, they literally do not make financial sense. There is zero savings to be had with switching from natural gas heat to electric.

So installing a heat pump is not a universal no brainer. You still need to to the math to see if it pays.