WE CUT OUR HEATING OIL BILL 40 %
THAT'S $100 A WEEK IN DEAD OF WINTER!
Don't depend on getting burner service from your oil supplier. We asked several times whether a new furnace would be more efficient and the answer was that our burner was very efficient. The oil supplier even did an efficiency test to prove it, and scoffed at quoting a new system. Then we talked to Mohawk Heating
in Rotterdam. We asked about the efficiency of a new system and the salesman was here the next day. They gave us a $5,000 price and installed it two weeks later. In March 2008, we burned an average of 4.4 gallons of oil a day. The last two years we averaged 8 gallons a day in March. That's darned near
$100 a week at today's prices.
Don't Let the Oil Delivery Guy Tell You the Old Furnace Is Efficient.
WE'RE CUTTING OUR ELECTRICITY BILL 40 % to 60 %
The photo-voltaic solar electricity generating system we installed in late summer has exceeded fall generation levels. In September, we generated 14 KWH on two days. On March 30 we hit 18 KWH. It's well worth it and we expect to get about half our annual electricity need from it.
From the day we turned it, Aug. 31, 2007, to March 31, 2008 — the winter season when there is much less generation and more use of electricity — we generated 39.7 percent of the electricity we used. Last September and October we generated 65.9 percent of what we used. Now, there are only two of us so we don't use a lot, but we are certainly cutting our energy bill. See the Sun Tattler for more.
Dear Mr. Poole:
I understand that you recently took me to task for criticizing the Dam Concerned Citizens in your newspaper. Friends tell me I was severely criticized for speaking in the newspaper rather than at the organization’s meeting. This unlogic is so twisted that I have declined to read it. I also decline to respond in your publication. I would like to point out a few items that you conveniently neglected to consider.
1. Your reporter telephoned me at my home the day following the meeting and solicited my comments. I emailed him several paragraphs.
2. There is no law, or rule of etiquette, that says it is improper to criticize an organization's misdirection in a publication without first speaking at a meeting.
3. You could have just declined to publish my comments. Newspapers often decline to publish remarks they feel are inappropriate. It's called integrity.
4. I spoke about the inspection issue at the 2007 DCC annual meeting, a year before the 2008 annual meeting where you allegedly purport I should have spoken. In 2008, the DCC officers did not invite comments from members, so I made none excepting on the bylaws amendment motion when it was before the membership.
5. After soliciting and receiving my comments, your newspaper contacted DCC and offered it the opportunity to respond to my comments. DCC responded and the response was published in the same article as my comments. You did not contact me, either before or after publishing your personal attack, and you have not offered me an opportunity to respond.
In short, your newspaper created a report where none existed. Your reporter telephoned me, I accommodated him, he called the other folks to stir the pot a little more, and then you invented a rule of courtesy with which to whip me. In the process, you ignored the rule you had created and committed the foul for which you chastised me.
I am not surprised that you did not address the underlying issue. Avoiding the real issue and throwing red herrings is a tactic from the editorial bag. In both its written and verbal presentation in 2008, DCC failed to address on-going independent dam inspection. Its inspection comments only addressed inspection during reconstruction. DCC officers are trying to be friends with New York City and therefore decline to seek a requirement that owners
of high-hazard dams pay for independent inspections. DCC would rely on government inspectors who report internally and whose past reports have not led to timely action. Government in not the solution, as DCC apparently believes.
Lester Hendrix
13 May 2008
|
