Hurry Up and Slow Down

Hurry Up and Slow Down

While I watch what seems like the painfully slow process of my deck going up joist by joist, I keep waiting for the work to turn this magical corner and start racing towards completion. I sort of thought that would happen today, but as the old joke goes, “not so fast, Abernathy”. My new digital, app-based irrigation system was installed in a day and now works great, giving me the ability to turn on any zone I choose for a little extra water whenever I want to do it. For instance, I planted some roses below my guest room terrace and after staking them, I ran that watering zone for 30 minutes just to give them a transplant edge. It’s much more liberating than you can imagine and I haven’t even tested out one of the best features. That is the linkage my irrigation system now has to the national weather service forecast, allowing it to manage my watering needs based on what is likely to happen or has happened meteorologically. If this works half as well as it brags it can, this is a great boon to my gardening and will be very liberating for me. Unfortunately, I sort of like my watering chores, so I’m not so sure it will liberate me from any drudgery, but I’m guessing my plants will fare better this way, especially when I’m away….not that we have any plans to go anywhere soon. I should note that I am hoping that my water bill will benefit from this system and since that runs about $250/month, it is not insignificant if I can reduce water usage by, say, 20%. We’ll see.

The other thing I am having done (actually it started and finished all today) is to replace my ten-year-old spa heater and filtering system. I agreed to the bid on Friday and they came Monday and did the job start-to-finish and I paid them. It was all 1-2-3 and very unlike my deck project. I used the spa for a nice warm soak in the evening to celebrate a few weeks of off-again-on-again workings of the spa heater. Life is good when things can get fixed that quickly and that thoroughly. I am known by my family and friends as being at the extreme edge of impatient. I tend towards the expedient in favor of getting things done rather than fidabadabbing my way through life. As a manager I always believed that action greatly outweighed the virtues of caution. In fact, I posit that the people being led almost always prefer decisiveness over ponderous decision-making. I understand that nobody likes knee-jerk reactivity, but there is a clear difference between being foolhardy and being thoughtfully decisive. The difference is the ability to be a quick study and triage as many aspects and variables in a decision with alacrity as possible.

Let’s use the spa heater as a case in point. The spa wasn’t working and during the upcoming holiday period, I expect that using the spa will be an important source of relaxation and comfort during a normally stressful time of year and an especially stressful time this year in the era of quarantine. I have often said that my spa is one of the things I like the most about living in this home. When the spa heater first shut down several weeks ago I considered the alternatives carefully, exploring ideas like solar heating and a hybrid heater (using as much electricity as possible rather than propane – which is far more economical given my solar energy system). What I learned at that time was that a hybrid system is twice the capital cost (call it $4,000 more) and required 50 amp service to the pool equipment spot on the North side of my property (I had only 40 amps delivered to that spot at this time). Luckily, when the spa was installed they ran a 1.25 inch conduit to the equipment, which means that the conduit could easily accommodate the added line needed to be pulled through for the added electrical service. Nevertheless, the energy complex of this sprawling house with retrofitted HVAC at both ends, retrofitted solar and batteries for sustainable and backup power and all sort and manner of distributed breaker paneling, is a beast which I am hesitant to awaken with a new service demand like a new 50 amp line to the pool equipment.

There are online calculators that attempt to show me how much I can save in propane by using an electric heat pump, but those calculators have a number of variables that have to be inputted and are somewhat suspect due to the difficulty in their calculation. What I know is that at this time of year it takes about 30 degrees of heating on my 2,000 gallons and that translates to about $15/day to have the spa scheduled in advance to heat up and be ready should I want to go in. Given that the monthly propane nut is therefore $450, I think I will cut that down by having the heater automatically turn on three days a week (I am inclined to Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday for some reason). That will bring the monthly baseline down to under $200 and does not stop me from using the spa more, I just have to remember in advance to turn it on to get the heat up. I can live with a little less spontaneity I suppose.

So, between water and propane I will be spending $500/month more or less. That compares to about $75 in electricity. I don’t think my solar/battery system can help me that much with my water bill, but I am wondering if I can use more electricity and less propane and reduce my monthly nut accordingly. I am hoping to get the new AmeriGas remote propane usage app soon. When that gets put on I will be much more able to manage my propane. It makes no sense to swap out my propane appliances like the spa heater, the water heaters, and the dryer (the only appliance I think of as optional to be converted…for instance, the stove is off-limits and will be gas for reasons of preference), until I can observe and manage usage patterns. Right now I am assuming the spa heater uses half of the propane I burn, but who knows. I have rough estimates per appliance but I think seeing it in action would be much easier to believe. I’m sure the gas company would be happy to keep me in the dark, but I’m sure they are increasingly under pressure by both clients and regulators to disclose information on usage.

Is it me or is retirement and slowing down harder than I thought it would be? I suppose I could just not let myself be concerned about what some people might consider trivial utility expenses, but that seems wasteful. I also like knowing that I am getting good value for my money and since I don’t need to do extensive financial analysis for my work any more, I guess I have excess analytical capacity that wants to get exercised and thus turns to what is available like my utility usage. And I am impatient to get to a solid ongoing program. I have that with electricity and battery storage and barely ever look at my Tesla power app (except when we get an outage and then I kick back into high gear).

So, I guess it is a personal trait that I need to hurry up to slow down. I wish I knew if that is a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe I should analyze that?