# Climate change & condos



## Steve2444 (Sep 28, 2020)

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## polikop (11 mo ago)

Wow, nice to see someone taking climate positive initiatives so seriously. But to be honest, I have only one serious piece of advice in your situation. Change your place of residence... I can't imagine how you have the patience to deal with floods all the time. Once I had a chance to draw water from my flooded basement office. True, this was a one-time event due to heavy rain. But this case was enough for me to understand the need to move. How do you do it, I'm just in shock. Consider that you will have to do this for years. Inspiring?


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## Old Thomas (Nov 28, 2019)

I don’t worry about climate change. After Obama and Kerry sell their multimillion dollar Martha’s Vineyard estates to retreat to higher ground, I will think about it. If I lived in a condo and the condo board was looking at spending massive amounts of my money to fight something that is theoretical, I would hang out the for sale sign. If you are concerned, nothing will be as good as moving to stable high ground.


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## stripedbass (May 2, 2014)

Steve2444 said:


> ................


Steve,

You don't have to be a pro to join the discussion. Any feedback is welcomed.


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## stripedbass (May 2, 2014)

polikop said:


> Wow, nice to see someone taking climate positive initiatives so seriously. But to be honest, I have only one serious piece of advice in your situation. Change your place of residence...


Polikop,

What am I missing? I don't seem to understand your comment about changing my residence.


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## stripedbass (May 2, 2014)

Old Thomas said:


> I don’t worry about climate change. After Obama and Kerry sell their multimillion dollar Martha’s Vineyard estates to retreat to higher ground, I will think about it. If I lived in a condo and the condo board was looking at spending massive amounts of my money to fight something that is theoretical, I would hang out the for sale sign. If you are concerned, nothing will be as good as moving to stable high ground.


Hi OT,

I'm not sure Obama owns a place on the Vineyard, despite his vacations there.


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## Nealtw (Jun 22, 2017)

Old Thomas said:


> I don’t worry about climate change. After Obama and Kerry sell their multimillion dollar Martha’s Vineyard estates to retreat to higher ground, I will think about it. If I lived in a condo and the condo board was looking at spending massive amounts of my money to fight something that is theoretical, I would hang out the for sale sign. If you are concerned, nothing will be as good as moving to stable high ground.


Yeah you are always better on high ground. 
It doesn't matter where you live, so you deal with the disaster you expect could happen, like hurricane ties or seismic retrofit


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## Nealtw (Jun 22, 2017)

stripedbass said:


> Hi OT,
> 
> I'm not sure Obama owns a place on the Vineyard, despite his vacations there.


We had builder here that wanted to do geothermal heat but it was to expensive for one house. He had a system designed to work with 5 houses one heat source. The city said no, one for each property only. 
That never made sense to me, in the city buildings buy steam from down the street. 
But it might be worth looking at for an 8 unit building. 
I don't know but suspect it could be use for AC too like a heat pump does.


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## gasdefred (10 mo ago)

Wow, nice to see someone taking climate positive initiatives so seriously.


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## chandler48 (Jun 5, 2017)

Yep. Climate changes. It's called winter, spring, summer and fall. It's called hot and cold. It's called rain and no rain. IT happens every day and has for eons, and will in the future. We as a society have created our own demise, by building in valleys that are flood prone, building on beach heads that have absolutely no support, allowing developers to cover over potential sink holes, that eventually come to fruition. 

Pogo said it best......We have met the enemy and he is us.


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## Thom Paine (Nov 24, 2021)

I actually thought the OP was a prank, parody, or comical intro....
'til I read the thread heading !

It appears I was incorrect.


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## Chris616 (Dec 31, 2019)

stripedbass said:


> At our 12-unit condo building we're beginning to look into how new climate patterns are going to affect our building. For example, increased flooding may be one such case.


The increase in frequency of heavy precipitation events that have been measured over the last 60+ years (see below) will continue as human caused climate change continues, so you’re being prudent to plan for more heavy rainfall events for your location in Boston. What you can do to mitigate that depends on whether it’s surface runoff or saturated ground that is the issue for you. As an example, our house is built into a hill to an extent that I can step onto the roof, and the unusual extreme precipitation event that happened here last November warned me that I need to do something to protect the house against surface runoff. Possibly unlike you we own the land uphill from us, so we can do diversionary work to ensure that the water flows around the house rather than into it.



stripedbass said:


> Currently, our building only has a 200 amp electric service.


I’m astounded that 12 households can share a single 200A service, but I see in another thread of yours that the building was constructed ~100 years ago. Are you able to run air conditioning with that amount of power? That would be my concern if I lived in your building, with the number of heat waves increasing yearly in Boston. Living on the cooler west coast I never thought that our house would need air conditioning, but last June’s heat wave convinced me otherwise when the indoor temperature hit 32.5C/90F. That is likely to become more common, so a heat pump capable of heating or cooling the house is being installed in the next few weeks. Unlike your situation, our house has a 200A service for one household (and our nearby detached garage has its own 200A service).


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## Old Thomas (Nov 28, 2019)

stripedbass said:


> Hi OT,
> 
> I'm not sure Obama owns a place on the Vineyard, despite his vacations there.


It is on 29 acres and it cost $11.75 million.


https://www.homesandgardens.com/news/president-obama-new-house-marthas-vineyard


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## firehawkmph (Dec 12, 2009)

Home owning rule number 1- buy on the top half of the hill, not the bottom half.
Mike Hawkins


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## chandler48 (Jun 5, 2017)

We have people come in and snap up land on the top of mountains to build their houses. They are struck with reality when they are informed no roofline may exceed the top of the mountain (local ordinance). They want to build right on top for some reason, rip all the ground holding trees off, and then try to find water, which they have to go down the mountain, drill 300-500 feet or more, then boost pump it up to their houses.

One group of land lots near us goes straight up a really steep road. So steep that one of my gravel hauling buddies, told them at the top, this was my first load and last load. Never again. They kept a D9 on hand to go pull trucks up so they could dump gravel. Oh, and your house is on one side of the road and your septic is on the other side. That's how steep it is on either side of the roadway.

They advertised "7 scenic lots for sale" and that was 12 years ago. Still have 7 lots for sale.


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## Old Thomas (Nov 28, 2019)

I get it, Chandler. My in-laws lived in a country house outside of Blairsville, GA that had such a steep driveway that my car struggled to back in. Then when I opened my door I had to be careful that I didn’t fall into a ravine. In slippery weather the road closed, so they were stuck in town. Not me, I like flat land. And they shared a crappy well with neighbors. They sold the house and moved into town. I remember seeing Booger Hollow, interesting name.


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## chandler48 (Jun 5, 2017)

Yeah, Booger Hollow is about 4 miles from the house. We often build decks on house where you walk in the house on grade and have a 20' drop out back to build your deck. Totally continuous footings and no sonotubes for them.


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## Old Thomas (Nov 28, 2019)

Sounds like the history of a guy I worked with who was from Pittsburgh. Houses there are one story high on the front and 3 stories high on the back. My experience is mostly on flat western NY flat land. It is an hour west to Niagara Falls and the land from here to there is flat as a pancake.


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## Nealtw (Jun 22, 2017)

Old Thomas said:


> Sounds like the history of a guy I worked with who was from Pittsburgh. Houses there are one story high on the front and 3 stories high on the back. My experience is mostly on flat western NY flat land. It is an hour west to Niagara Falls and the land from here to there is flat as a pancake.


Friends had a house with a 20 ft high foundation in the front with a with walk out from the lower floor with 11 ft ceilings 
with a crawlspace below that. 12 ft from the house in the back a 16 ft retaining wall above the road behind them.


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## Carpet (Jan 1, 2018)

stripedbass said:


> We're at the bottom of a hill and have 4 basements. The basement that is at highest point of the slope often gets flooded the most when we have a heavy snow or rain storm. We do have a sump pump and a French Drain built along the edge of the basement floor. It's at the bottom of the inside wall that faces the hill. But we may need to look at other ways we can prepare against a flood.
> 
> Another challenge is posed by the new move away from fossil fuels. Some unit owners have converted from gas powered heaters to electrical ones. One person has an electric heating and cooling system. The challenge will come if suddenly more unit owners decide to get electrical systems.
> 
> The reason for this is that the trustees have done two surveys with unit owners and consulted some experts and have determined that so far there has not been any safety risk signs such as brownouts, sparks at outlets, and devices or appliances being warmer than usual to the touch when plugged in.


So your building is already used to basements flooding, but it thinks more will occur? Get another sump pump and maybe one of those new temporary sandbag dams that are popping up in hurricane states such as FL. This is something that engineers have tried to solve to combat flooding, I don't think a condo building is going to have any ground breaking ideas.

Why can't the units invest in those solar panel roof shingles from Musk, better yet just put them in as the entire roof? This can be wired into each units heater systems.

Did unit owners really lets consultants into aim a thermal gun at their appliances/devices, and check every outlet? Pop in AFCI/GFCI breakers at the circuit panel and call it a day, that'd be the most effective prevention. It's irrelevant to do all these safety checks and claim there's no risk when home owners across the world do stupid things with electrical outlets every day, and power supplies can burn out prematurely.


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