I don't know why you're being downvoted (it shows as slightly greyed out). This is true. I had a roommate who is a HVAC salesman. Very smooth talked. The 'HVAC' company offers free HVAC maintenance. They techs go in, do some stuff and they point out some problems. Sales guy goes in, smooth talks his way to 5K - 70K bill to most people. Of course, when something goes out and people don't have a choice (like in peak summer or winter), they make out like bandits.
Most of the local firms (Dick's local $town hvac/plumbing/electrical) are owned by massive PE firms (Saudi + other billionaires) which pretty much own the entire businesses all over US. They keep the local name to make people believe they are giving business to a local guy.
Another roommate of mine was a plumber.
The guys who do the actual work get paid close to nothing ($20 - $22/hour) and live on day to day basis.
Plumbing company quoted me $3000 to replace a broken water heater in the middle of peak winter. I paid my guy $300 for labor (heaters are $500 - $1000 from lowes depending on how long of warranty you want) and he was super happy for making a lot of money.
The good local contractors have all the work they can handle on commercial accounts. Residential is an annoyance. That leaves the very small fish (if you can find them) and the PE-owned scam companies.
The equipment is actually a lot cheaper if you’re a pro - the DIY pre-charged line-set adds about $500 over an equivalent unit. Pulling a vacuum and adding coolant is not hard, just requires specialized tools that still aren’t that expensive.
I mentioned warranty and insurance.
You don’t need to “schedule workers” if you are owner operating. Maybe you want a (non-skilled) helper to speed up the install, but you absolutely could install solo. That said, you will need a licensed electrician to run the circuit.
In my metro, hvac contractors can get ten-packs of permits for mini-split installs, and at most one out of ten is inspected. It’s a rubber stamp if you’re a pro, and the individual permit is maybe $50.
And that $5k I mentioned is the low bid, which you’ll only see if you know how to find contractors who aren’t private equity fronts. These guys are not advertising, but they stay busy by having the best price. There are shops that will happily charge you double for the same work.
I never said it’s a get rich quick scheme. It is just highly compensated for owners without requiring the level of expertise of something like a plumber or electrician. I’m curious what is happening in the market to support these margins.
Devils advocate here, it cost me ~$1500 in equipment to buy the vacuum pump, vacuum gauge, nitrogen air tank to flush the lines and pressure test, pressure manifold set and gauge, air lines, good flaring tool, copper bending tool, schrader valve pulling tools, various air tools, and a book on mini split installations.
Then it took me 2 days between pouring concrete pad for the heat pump, installing the heat pump and bolting it in, running the copper lines, drilling the exit hole, running the drain piping, learning how to use all the tools, running the electric and control cables and installing a new breaker and 220 subpanel, pressure testing, vacuum testing, flaring, releasing vacuum and all the stuff you have to do. I also had to spend several nights watching youtube and get a EPA 608 certification for handling refrigant which took another day.
Wouldn't have been worth it for a single unit, but was worth it for installing 3, and now I can do additional units for basically $0 overhead and of course no one would even have to know if I installed it and now I can order unlimited amount of refrigerants to my doorstep.
Having plumbed my entire house, and done my entire house electrical system, I would say the level of expertise to install a mini split is higher than either alone. You have to do electrical, plumbing, refrigerant handling, pressurized equipment handling, be liable for massive federal/EPA fines if you do something wrong, and on top of that I had to do masonry work.
There is a 0.00000% chance of getting into EPA trouble installing one minisplit. You got crews dumping 5 a day into a bucket of water all over and no one will answer a report
The reality is that this is all solving a problem that people don’t have.
Forced air is a terrible way to heat a building yet thats how most homes are heated, and it is good enough for most people.
If you perfectly size a furnace for the coldest days of the year, it is now oversized for the other 90% of days.
The cheapest way is to install a multi stage heating/cooling system that works on first stage most of the time, and second when it needs to, like having 2 small furnaces. This passes the ‘good enough’ test for the vast majority of homeowners.
Watched a couple minutes of this but the narrator's caustic takes are a bit long winded and distracting.
The interstate system was and is one of the greatest civil engineering feats of all time. Prior to the US highway system it could take as long as 2 months to travel across the country by car. And prior to interstate system it would take at least two weeks.
It is a shame that many planners didn't anticipate that cities with interstates running through them would grow so densely around exit points and disrupt the grid or chop up the city in various "urban islands" but to call the system anything but a success is just wrong. If anything it's a victim of too much success.
I think more cities are aware of this now and you see more efforts to build insterstates at a lower level than the urban core to allow grids to more easily connect and to stop pushing so much local traffic onto the interstates themselves (as in Dallas, Boston and others).
Having just come back from Switzerland, I'm aware that street cars can be highly functional, but they work well there because the cities are quite dense, even when the population is like 50k or 200k, which in U.S. a similar city would be far more spread out.
> Having just come back from Switzerland, I'm aware that street cars can be highly functional, but they work well there because the cities are quite dense, even when the population is like 50k or 200k, which in U.S. a similar city would be far more spread out.
It's worth noting that US cities, even ones in the Western US states, were not always as spread out as they currently are: urban sprawl in the US was caused by the development of highways (and then interstates). Our cities used to have dense urban cores; we intentionally bulldozed and de-densified them to build highways.
As random examples: Denver[1], Topeka[2], Sacramento[3] (page 10). I picked these entirely randomly; Google just about any small-to-medium-sized US city and you'll find that it most likely had a streetcar network until the 1930s or 40s.
He has a bunch of videos pushing a term I think he made up called "stroads". Streets are fine (small slow local), roads are fine (big fast and not near people). Only "stroads" are bad, big and fast and yet directly touching driveways, and big cement parking lot deserts with a furniture store in the middle and you can't do anything but drive to or from.
I have no problem with his judgement of the shittiness of those things in either case, even if I'm not about to give up my garage and basement and workshop full of toys and tools and parts and materials to go live in some tiny appartment in a building with 20 other apartments and have to hire an uber every time my fart-powered electric bike isn't good enough.
I love my car(s) but this pattern of suburban development in north america is just objectively bad. It's like a sort of pathology where some legitimate initial need or pressure produced a response which has by now developed into some wildly disfigured monstrosity.
According to wikipedia, stroad was coined by a civil engineer.[1]
Also, while I can't currently find it via google, I am pretty sure that stroad had entered traffic engineers' lexicon somewhere in an engineering handbook.
Interstates to get from city to city are fine and good.
Interstates into the city that displaced black communities and created an artificial barrier to moving across the downtown area are not fine and good.
Sure, but since many cities are actively tearing down (or planning to) those interstates and replacing them with open space, housing, etc, I think it actually is true. So... :shrug:
Why not a national interstate rail system? Roads can still be used for flexible local transportation while railroads are used for mainline logistics and transportation of passengers.
Assuming you're talking about the USA: it's very big. No other country (except China) uses trains for US-size-wide passenger transport. Aircraft are more appropriate.
One driving factor in the creation of the interstate system was military - we wanted the ability to easily move troops/supplies across the US without airlift or rail. Not sure that's still a valid need (as in, I don't know - would need to ask a general).
Also, the US is huge. We do need some sort of road system to get across it. Building rail to everywhere is prohibitively expensive.
That said, we should/could have good high speed rail in the densest areas. Like expand the Acela corridor
tl;dr - DC-NYC tops the list (and include Philly and Balt). LA to SF is near the top. Chicago-DET-Toronto is up there. And on down the list.
Basically, there's no good reason (other than momentum/history) to not build out solid rail networks over parts of the US. I don't think anybody reasonably expects an LA-NYC link any time soon because flying is a better option for now.
"An empty water bottle/adult diaper can become a luxury in the middle of the night to avoid putting on your clothes/shoes and exiting the van in the coldness"
For anyone who's spent any time sleeping in a van or car in public parking, this feels like gently worded subtext that fits in with this from the 'safety' section:
> While sleeping in normal parking I think it is important to keep discrete so people will not bother you and you will not annoy anyone.
In much of the world, going outside to pee in the bushes in a populated area carries a nonzero risk of attention from law enforcement and a progression to sleeping outside minus the now impounded van.
Public exposure convictions/registration from people who are innocently peeing somewhere they shouldn't is vanishingly rare. As in, I've never seen a report of a conviction that I found credible, but if I did, I'd bet lots of money that you couldn't find a second one. What I HAVE found is lots of people on the registry for indecent exposure who tell their friends "I was just peeing in alley, I swear", but I do not count those as credible.
Diaper is gross, but peeing in a bottle while sleeping in the car can be nice. Just roll over, pee, roll back over and fall asleep again. Much less intrusive than getting up and walking to the bathroom, dealing with bright lights, etc.
There’s a device called a she-wee and many female vanlifers report success with Folgers tins or large fountain drink cups, which then get poured into a bottle.
While my personal urinating experience so far in life has involved a male urethra, I met on trail women who've been using Shewee for peeing in the outdoors. I imagine that if it works the way it's supposed to work, maybe it could work with a bottle.
Author here:
Just to clarify: We don't wear diaper everyday... But it happened and was a good option during snow for the lady..
The luxury was an expression (I'm not English native speaker).
I wouldn't. I'd go outside in the snow. My wife claims the same. Don't take this as negative commentary directed at the author of the article. If this works for them, great! I'm just saying that it isn't a solution that would work for me and my wife.
It’s hard to imagine putting up with stuff like this when for the same amount of money it takes to do “van life” in Japan you could live quite well elsewhere.
I lived in rural Japan for two years as a single guy and it was very, very cheap. I was making ~30k USD and saved half of it without really trying. I didn't have a car, but you don't need one even in the countryside if you can bike. These days you could Uber etc too which didn't exist yet when I was there.
I have a hard time imagining it to be cheaper to live in this truck than most things. And the kid… I can’t imagine this is good for the kid.
Obviously the point of the van is that you can move around a lot!
Aside: vagrancy is illegal in Japan, so if you’re sticking to the law you probably need to rent somewhere (or use your parents) and have a registered address.
This is absolutely fine for a young kid. Kids are way less conventional than adults at that age. If a kid gets food, warmth and attention they're basically golden.
It solidly depends on the age/stage of development of the child. When you say young, that really means like <3 years. Anything above that, and they really need stability, routine, and regular/stable interaction with individuals outside of the immediate family group to avoid long-term developmental and psychological issues.
Yeah I think one could quibble on the exact age...I think even up to 4 it would be OK. After that I think a more stable setup is definitely positive. I would say though that a stable environment where they get little attention from parents is not superior.
There are homeless people in Japan. You'll see them sitting in alcoves by train stations or sleeping under a stack of umbrellas in parks sometimes. The places I've seen them most are in remote locations by rivers, where they'll set up tents or tie tarps to trees to live under. They aren't as ubiquitous as they are in the US though, and I've only seen a homeless person panhandling once in all my years in Japan.
There are lots of homeless in Japan, and people do see them.
Anyone living near Tokyo who has money, clothes, shoes, gas cans, batteries, shelter material, work opportunities etc they wish to pass on - please reply here or email i.am.grozzle at gmail, please. Or ask staff at Lavanderia cafe in Shinjuku ni-chome.
According to a very untrustworthy source (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homelessness_in_Japan) the numbers of homeless people are somewhat low-ish, if those numbers are anywhere near accurate it may account for the low visibility of the problem.
> Is that why you don't see any homeless in Japan? They just arrest them for vagrancy and house them in jail?
Each time I've been to Japan I've noticed plenty of homeless people. They are really tidy about it, but you'll find encampments in Osaka and Tokyo if you just check out some of the parks.
There are limited public places to "sit" in Tokyo/and other cities too, for example, this is increasingly common part of civic design, to encourage either "moving on", or "taking refuge" in shops/cafes > ie. spending.
They could have bought a house in rural Japan for peanuts. Probably less than they spent modifying the van let alone buying it. They did it to travel. Not what I’d choose, but interesting.
These vans do seem reasonably priced compared to American living vans. I don't think you'd get much living for around $60k. Plus you could rent vs. buy.
The author links to a van rental service. Looks like a van comparable to the author's van rents for ¥24,800/night. Ouch! You could get a very nice hotel room in rural Japan for that.
Funnels that are specifically shaped for that purpose very much are, yes. I don't understand how that's even a question.
Adult diapers' main purpose isn't peeing while on a van trip; I would imagine elderly people around the world need them day to day. A funnel specifically made for women to pee is an incredibly niche product with little to no day-to-day use.
Nobody said that a diaper is superior to a funnel. The grandparent comment makes it seem like it's easy for half the population to pee in a bottle and I called them out on it. I didn't even mention the ubiquity of adult diapers, I compared finding a specialized funnel to a water bottle on purpose.
"The grandparent comment makes it seem like it's easy for half the population to pee in a bottle and I called them out on it."
Funnels of various sizes readily available in every hardware and auto parts store. Also these specific funnels are readily available in outdoors and sporting stores. It is easy to find funnels. No need to defend "half the population" by "calling them out on it."
"Just use a" implies that it's easy as picking it up and using it.
The fact that a funnel has to be bought and brought into the equation means it's not as easy as just [using] a water bottle.
Please, next time your wife needs to go to the bathroom, give her a water bottle and tell her to just use it. It's ok, someone said it's just that easy.
The comment you "called out": "Just use a water bottle like the rest of us! I lived out of an Explorer for 3 months, not once did an adult diaper cross my mind."
I love how you're pedantically rationalizing "calling them out" on this one word "just" and ignoring the subject is people living in their vehicles (for 3 months in the case of the comment you "called out" and indefinitely in the case of the original blog post).
First of all, just can be used to mean several things aside from simply [1]. When used in an imperative cause as it is the comment that triggered you, it is more correct to interpret it as being used for emphasis. Consider this exchange: "I pee in diapers.", "Just don't do that."
So you were really just (Just meaning ‘only’ [1]) triggered by your poor understanding of the use of this word.
But there's more. Even if the comment used just meaning simply, you are still wrong.
Everyone is talking about habitual practices including and especially the comment you "called out."
Instead of habitually using adult diapers, habitually just (meaning simply) using a bottle is easy. Acquiring a suitably sized funnel from an auto, hardware or outdoor store for people who live in their cars who clearly have transportation, have a lot of time on their hands and frequent these stores anyway is an insignificant consideration.
There is no bottle related sex inequity to fight here.
And why do you, as a former LGBTQI+ director, keep referring to funnel-using-persons as women or wives? Tisk tisk. Thankfully what you say is representative of your own viewpoints and beliefs and not those of your employer! Maybe someone should call you out!
You seem to have an awful lot of anger and resentment over a random person on the internet calling out that funnels make it a lot more than “just using a water bottle”.
And for your own curiosity, I used wife because he literally called her that. I know reading is hard; you’ve already shown it earlier by hyperfixating on something that wasn’t being discussed.
I guarantee you there are many women van/car lifers who don't use adult diapers (I know quite a few!). As has been said many times in this thread, there are inexpensive tools for this.
I said that just peeing in a bottle really only works for half the population. That's all. Your choice to somehow read into those words so deeply as to make up a completely new sentence that was never written is yours alone.
Gross. Anyone who has camped knows that feeling of sadness when it’s cold outside but you have to go to the bathroom at 3am. But some of the best moments I’ve had outside are during that time. The air is cleaner, you can see the stars if it’s clear, you might hear coyotes or other animals yipping not too far off...well worth the momentary annoyance.
Camping in a remote environment is way different than parked in a parking lot on some highway exit - and now that Walmart isn't 24 hrs in the US you can't even just park there and walk in.
Temperature also changes things - if it's above zero outside it's not so bad for a quick jaunt, but if it is -40º it's a whole different ballgame.
True, but at the same time I'd wager its rather difficult to appreciate the grand mystery of nature while you're sloshing around in a pee soaked diaper.
I don't buy it. What do buses and RVs with toilets do in japan? If it is that difficult to dump trash, then what do these guys do with their soiled diapers? Certainly there has to be better options than wearing diapers.
I don't know, but I drove an RV for a month through Europe and we've never used the onboard toilet because we didn't want to have to deal with it. (We were also students on budget and wanted to avoid camps as much as possible.)
Of course I would prefer the RV toilet to a diaper though.
Buses with toilets probably have dedicated disposal facilities operated by the companies. Long-distance buses here are mostly run by big conglomerates.
A family is getting a tour around a museum. The tour guide points to a T-rex fossil and said "That dinosaur is 75 million and 4 years old". The guest says "Wow, so precise!", and the guide says "Yes, it was 75 million years old when I started, and I've been here for 4 years".
Come to your house to quote, and only land 1/4 quotes maybe.
Schedule the workers
Order the equipment.
Get an electrical permit.
Pay for the truck and all the tools.
Insurance for the company and trucks.
Advertising costs
Warranty and callbacks
I can assure you that this is not the get rich quick scheme you may think it is.