Christopher replies:
>>your thoughtful and interesting post does carry some
implication that "we were so much more holy in the old days," does it
not? <<
While I AM a traditionalist at heart, this FastCheapGood triangle
discussion has nothing to do with "the old days" and everything to do
with today and our future.
>>Would Myles Standish really, if given the
choice, opted for paint-intensive clapboard siding instead of vinyl?<<
I don't know what Miles would have done back then. I do know what I will
do right now. I choose painted wood, rather than vinyl siding because I
believe that vinyl makes more people sick and dead than wood and paint
siding does.
One of the main strategies of of the corporateers is to "externalize
costs." When they make vinyl and when we buy it we do not pay for most
of the damage it causes to this earth and the people who live here,
largely because this damage is done elsewhere, out of sight, out of
mind. The damage is someone else's problem, now or in the future. This
is why vinyl is so "cheap" (low cost), it does not include all the
expenses.
Sure, people are hurt in the production of the wood clapboards I buy,
but all that happens much closer to home. I buy clapboards at a mill
that I have visited and I have met and worked along side the people
there. I know that the mill owner takes good care of his workers. He
pays for their health insurance, and when that is not enough he helps
them out in other ways. These are expenses to his business, they are
"internalized" and when I buy wood clapboards from him these expenses
are included in my price.
Is this absolute? No, it's a balancing act. The wood claboards are
hauled from the mill to my place using diesel fuel, a product of the
corporateers with externalized costs. In fact, until this year the
clapboard mill used diesel too, but now it has converted over to
electricity, and the mill owner buys his power from the wind farm right
here in Maine. So, the balance of my decision tips more towards wood
than vinyl.
There is nothing "more holy" or "high and mighty" or "old fashioned"
about this. It's just little practical actions today that, in my own
view, helps people more than any other action. Repair a clapboard
instead of replacing it, if not repairable replace it with wood, and
definitely not replace it with a whole wall of vinyl.
>> they could have saved a lot of energy by insulating
their walls - very un-green, was it not?<<
Well, here in Maine they did fill their walls with insulation, seaweed
and sawdust. Where I grew up in Nebraska they filled their walls with
ground up corn cobs, or simply built the walls out of highly insulating
sod or straw bales.
>>They also dumped tannery chemicals
into the rivers. Etc. <<
Yes they did, but in this case the "they" were the corporateers
externalizing their costs.
>>OK, cheap. Gotcha. I know cheap, and cheap is almost invariably
ugly. <<
Well, there's two sides to "cheap", quality and cost. "Cheap" along the
FastThingsCheap line are often ugly and low quality. "Cheap" along the
CheapRelationshipsGood line are also low cost, but more often higher
quality, especially as you slide along the line towards Good.
So one might wonder why the window restorer working in the
CheapRelationshipsGood realm charges more,say $500/window, than the
vinyl prirate working in the FastThingsCheap land, who charges
$300/windows. How is $500 cheaper than $299? Remember, in the
CheapRelationshipsGood realm everything slows down. Consider the $1500
cost over the slower long-term of say 50 years and it might cost
$10/year. Since the $300 replacement window is low quality goods that
will last only 25 years, another replacement will be needed and the cost
per year over 50 years is $12/year. So, $10/year for a restored wood
window is cheaper than $12/year for a vinyl window. (Yes, a simplistic
analysis, but include ALL the variables including the future value of
money and restored is still cheaper than vinyl.)
>>But, ya know, every time I help my Vineyard painter with his
children's fancy private school tuition, and pay him $7500.00 to paint
our two (2) porches (which are just vertical and horizontal members
with screening!), well, I start thinking about other solutions.
Solutions which are ... cheaper.<<
While I don't know the situation with you and your painter, It sounds
like it is down along the FastThingsCheap line, and your other solution
might be found over in the CheapRelationshipsGood realm.
>>And I have been fixing up my old windows (in the Vineyard, and in New
York), conscientiously*. But I am doing it because I like it, and
because I have the money to do it. Not because it is cheaper. Very,
very few others have such options. <<
They do not have the options because the corporateers have taken (I
would say "stolen") their options. For example, over the past 40 years
the building renovation industry has systematically eliminated the
tradespeople who know how to repair windows and stopped making window
repair products, and replaced them with costly whole-window replacement
products.
When you fix up your old windows you are working on the
CheapRelationshipGood side of the triangle. Good for you, good for those
around you.
>>A decade ago, while I was distracted, someone snuck in some Anderson
windows into the two dormers. Funny thing, I haven't ever had a problem
with them!<<
Well sure, they're only 10 years old.
>>But the 18th century ones drive me nuts.<<
See? It's all about relationships over on that side of the triangle.
John (triangle head) Leeke
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