More half-baked social planning ideas

Tim May tcmay at got.net
Mon Dec 25 11:07:45 PST 2000


At 10:41 AM -0800 12/25/00, Tim May wrote:
>At 9:25 AM -0800 12/25/00, Ray Dillinger wrote:
>>
>>Another general cause is that most of the current houses are built
>>stupid.  In the 1940's and 1950's houses were built that were quite
>>habitable without constant airconditioning.  They had basement
>>windows where air could be drawn in and air was cooled in the
>>basement with  scads of thermal contact with the cool earth.
>
>California houses have almost _never_ had basements. Check it out. 
>Check the history of houses built throughout the state, going back a 
>century or more.
>
>The main "reason" for basements is to put a foundation below the 
>frost line. Mainly for
>(I lived for 5 years in San Diego--no A/C. Lived for 4 years in 
>Santa Barbara--no A/C. Lived for 12 years in Santa Clara--A/C in one 
>of my apartments, which I only used half a dozen times. Lived in 
>Santa Cruz for 14 years--no A/C.)

And I should have pointed out that many of these places I lived in 
during the 50s, 60s, and 70s, HAD BEEN BUILT IN EARLIER DECADES, 
precisely the decades during which Ray assures us basements were the 
norm.

Nope, no basements. No basement in the house I lived in in San Diego 
in the 1950s. Built on a slab. No air conditioning, either. No need.

And the buildings I lived in during the 1970s had neither basements 
nor air conditioning. No need for either.

Further, more and more Californians live in multi-story apartment 
buildings and condos. No basements, though underground parking 
garages are common. (No "natural cooling" effects, natch.)

Where Ray gets the idea that houses in California used to commonly 
have basements--and "thick adobe walls"--is beyond me. They didn't, 
not counting certain old historical Spanish-era buildings which had 
thick walls (but almost never basements!).

Office buildings typically have air conditioning, but this has to do 
with having hundreds or even thousands of people working in a sealed 
enviroment. Basements have nothing to do with this.


The "solution" to "shortages" is, as with all things, market pricing.


--Tim May
-- 
Timothy C. May         tcmay at got.net        Corralitos, California
Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon
Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go
Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns





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