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QUESTION:When I visit S.F. friends, I am amazed at how poorly buildings are built, no
>insulation, single pane glass windows. This must change. The heating and
>cooling of these buildings must burn lots of electrical and N.G. energy. So
>I think the energy shortage is good. California will improve it's
>consumption. And I hope this happens every where else there is no severe
>freeze cycle.
ANSWER: It's all over Northern California. We have 100 year-old Victorian
houses, sans insulation, in Eureka, where I live. Sometimes these
Vickys get converted into apartments, but seldom are the exterior
walls fixed with blown-in insulation, due to the high labor cost.
These buildings really need to be torn down, because they're biilt on
post-and-pier foundations, and wired with knob-and-tube. But, NO!
The "engineers" spend big bucks half-assed retrofitting these
inefficient, siesmiclly unsafe structures, in the name of
preservation. It's stupid.
The real hypocrisy is this: Most new structures are not fashioned
after the original Vicky design, inless they are office bulildings
located in a zone which requires it, or they are new bed-and-breakfast
Inns.
Worse still: whne they DO demolish these old structures, they
usually just mow them down with an excavator or bulldozer, rather
than trying to salvage the old-growth redwood lumber, which, in my
opinion, would pay it's own extra salvage costs when resold or
reused. Dumb contractors!
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