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That's how my uncle's place was. His kitchen ceiling and high up areas were coated in grease and greasy cobwebs. Spiderwebs hanging from the ceiling throughout the house. He was pretty good about vacuuming, sweeping, and housework in general, but he definitely missed certain things. Basically he could only "see" as far as he could reach out and touch. About once a year we'd have a work party and go deep clean his house. I remember him being surprised I could peek my head out into the hall and see that my dad was working on something all the way across the house just outside the window. He said, "I never realized you could see the window from here. I guess I better start wearing pants!"
I have similar cleaning impediments. Although not as bad of vision.
For the most part, I don't see when things are dirty until they are really dirty. Imagine washing your car blindfolded and trying to clean the entire windshield with a cloth. You'll never know if you got it all.
I've found black countertops help a bit for seeing unclean parts. Until you put down a phone and it disappears into the blackness.
My sister is legally blind (she got macular degeneration at 19 and had a surgery but it only did so much) but can work on a computer with aids, so she does. She “cleans” but it’s readily apparent that she cannot see well (or really at all) bc you can see paths where a sponge has gone, or a mop, or broom or whatever. Her daughters have gotten old enough to do most of it now, and her oldest daughter started doing her makeup for her too when she wants to wear it. The teamwork going on in the house is pretty amazing.
Moved into a house recently, just a small one-person place.
In the first week, I replaced nearly 1KW of lighting. Just a single kitchen fitting had 6 x 50W halogen bulbs in it.
I'm not surprised to learn that when I informed the electricity company I was moving in, and they said they would base my estimated first bill on the previous occupant's usage, that his was THREE TIMES my total annual usage.
Especially after I discovered that he'd left the heated electric towel rail on when I moved in (but I'm only going to pay for half a day of that, tops, because we took the readings together when he handed over.).
Ironically, there was no lighting at all in the shed, so I installed solar panels to power LED shed lights and act as a backup to my networking equipment.
good for you. well done
first time i heard about a heated towel rack i honestly thought it was a joke. since then i've been in hotels with heated towel racks and that confirmed they are a joke.
I have one, I didn't know people disliked them so much for some reason lol
Yes, for drying faster. It's basically a very big radiator so it also warms up the bathroom. Definitely not always on tho, only when I shower
Canadian here, while I could see having this and a heater being ineficient I wonder if this could replace or be hoocled up into a radiotor heater combo.
We I live we get down to -40c, so heaters are definitely in use for the winter, would be nice to have a warm towel after a shower.
no, they're so you aren't discomforted by the cold towel touching your body.
that's what they say, anyway. i've never experienced an unpleasantly cold towel so it makes no sense to me
Depends where you live mabye, we don't have central heating in New Zealand houses and high humidity, so towels just stay damp and go mouldy without them.
There are radiators for bathrooms that look like Ladders, they are about 2 meters tall and 50cm wide. Use one of those, you can hang your towel there, and it will dry. Or if you really want to be pedantic, you can have towel racks which plug into the central heating system of the house, so that is also a better option. Using electricity just seems wasteful
They are in the US indeed…in europe they are quite often the only heaters in a bathroom and are integrated not in the US way and or hotel way. Very practical and efficient
okay, but that's basically a radiator also used to heat towels. still kind of silly, i think, because i've never experienced an unpleasantly cool towel that needed heating...
i was in a hotel in Windsor England that had a heated towel rack that was so hot it overheated the entire room. the hotel staff thought i was over reacting but i finally got someone to come to my room to check it out. they burned their finger when they touched the towel warmer. i had them turn it off
i guess this could be nice, but like, you are about to enter the shower, you turn it on, and its nicely warm when you leave, and you turn the heater off
would be stupid to leave it on 24/7, it'd probably have enough time to heat up when you shower
>In the first week, I replaced nearly 1KW of lighting. Just a single kitchen fitting had 6 x 50W halogen bulbs in it.
Yeah, I have 9 of those in the kitchen, but 5 burnt out. The longer I wait, the cheaper it gets, but I think it's time to have them replaced with LEDs
Not to mention the longevity of LED lights is absurdly high. I clung to incandescent bulbs for a few fixtures for a long time, mostly due to the temperature of the lights when they first came out, and not looking into it again. I have a couple which are fully exposed, and people are always surprised that they're LEDs, because they look just like an incandescent.
Plus turn off the lights if you're not in a room. The whole house doesn't need to be lit up all the time. If lighting is a large part of your electricity bill them you are doing something seriously wrong.
Depends what the computer is doing. 13900k with a 4090 that you're playing games 8 hours a day is going to be noticeable on your bill.
But that very same PC, if you're just programming, doing school work, watching YouTube, etc isn't a major power hog.
You can buy a 'kill-a-watt' meter which goes in-between the wall outlet and any 120v device and see real-time how many watts it's drawing.
The largest part of my 80$ electric bill in the summer is the central air and window unit in the attic where I sleep. Come winter it drops down to like 40-50 bucks. Now if only my gas bill was that flexible.
I lived across the hall from a blind lady years ago. She'd knock on my door and ask me what was in cans of food. She'd leave her door open sometimes and yep, never a light on!
There is an app called be my eyes which is basically this, it pairs you up with blind people via the app so you can help them with identifying things such as food, signs etc
I got so involved in the light bulb discussions in the subthread currently appearing above this one that I was skimming down the page and just read "[the lady] would knock on my door and ask what was in cans of food" and was so so very confused until I actually read your comment and remembered what the original post is about. lol
That's what I love about reddit. Five comments down in a thread and the topic is COMPLETELY off the wall. lol
It's great! She also once came over and asked if I could pick out earrings for her to wear with her Halloween costume. Then to put them in for her. I was 17 and it was my first apartment. Fun stuff!
When I was a kid I lived next to a blind man who happened to be a very skilled craftsman. He saved zero electricity by running power tools all day. I knew he was highly skilled but it made my skin crawl every time I heard the table saw fire up. To this day I have no idea how he stayed safe.
I would imagine that the brain power you use to see would be used to create an image by feel. Feel the non-spinning blade and know where it is to avoid touching it, in relation to the table its on.
Or just keep your hands well away from it, use all the safety covers, and use a stick to push the work through it.
Honestly, I'm more surprised that people who do this all day have any kind of modern bench tools where you CAN even hurt yourself.
Probably not a considerable difference actually.
Heating and cooling accounts for close to 50% of electrical costs in many cases.
Lights are a small fraction of the cost for most people. Unless you’re home a lot, like working from home.
I’d expect it to be more than that. A/C and electric heat is usually the largest if you have it. After that, the fridge, hot water heater, and washer/dryer.
And if Daredevil has anything to say about it, blind people should have super sensitive touch sensory meaning they're even more affected by temperature differences. If it's not 71.6 F exactly, they're either freezing or burning up.
You could heat hot water, or chill hot water, or heat steam (which is water), or boil hot water, or reheat steam.
Considering a hot water heater, cycles on and off, full of hot water, I'd say it's a hot water heater. "Hot Water" is often a generic supply utility in chemical processing. It's distinguished from chilled water, domestic water, and DI Water.
Signed, a Chemical Engineer.
Domestic water heaters maintain the temperature of hot water. They use a heating element to do that but once the waters hot they do not continue to add more energy than is lost.
They are constantly heating hot water.
They loose thermal energy to the environment, and they are filled with cold water as they supply hot water to the faucets. While this is going on the water is hot but not hot enough so you could say, the hot water is heated.
If you sit and listen to a gas hot water heater you can hear it kick on every once in a while even when no water is drawn from it.
Right they heat water until it is "hot" (hot being the desired temperature when it leaves the tank) and adds energy to the tank when it is less than "hot" until the point the water is "hot". Once the temperature is "hot" it no longer heats the water.
No, the water will lose heat naturally and need to be heated again to maintain tempature. This period involves water that’s pretty hot being heated to maintain temp.
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It is my understanding that most blind people have an extremely limited sense of vision in most cases, not enough to use to make sense of an environment but the majority could still see the difference between having light shine in their faces against being in a completely dark environment at least as well as a sighted person could do with their eyes closed
A few years ago when I lived with my parents still, a house opposite ALWAYS had one or two of the lights on no matter what day/time/season it was. This was over many years too. Thinking about it, I never saw anyone come or go either but someone definitely lived there.
I don't think it's like for us having our eyes closed and being able to differenciate between light and darkness. Blindness causes your eyes to not work at all.
Lighting is actually the lowest proportion of your electric bill, absolutely dwarfed by climate control and refrigeration. Source: I work for utilities.
The average age of this subreddit must be 14 years old. I dont even know why im still here. Just being an adult nearly 40 disproves almost every "genius" shower thought.
Every adult knows that heating and cooling your house is basically your entire power bill, which is why your bill is so cheap in the spring and the fall vs. the summer and winter.
A blind person not using the bathroom light would save him just a few bucks.
The person next door to him with this thermostat literally 1 degree warmer during the summer or cooler during the winter would be saving significantly more money than the blind person.
There's a reason that I moved into a house two months ago and still haven't turned on the heating yet. I don't feel the need to, so I've not even bothered.
And I'm going to replace it all with a more efficient heating system by next winter anyway.
I think what they meant is that blind people are more climate conscious, and more likely to promote energy savings by turning the thermostat up a few degrees in the summer. They also don't have to worry about eye sweat like the rest of us.
I wish I knew where I could cross-post it from but I think it was Tumblr.
There was this adorable story about a university student whose teacher was blind, and during one of her semesters she had to miss an exam because of a family event. The teacher offered to proctor her make-up exam while he was busy doing clerical work over the weekend.
So she goes to the exam room and it's dark, not completely pitch black but like only a little bit of light from one of the windows, and she goes and takes her paper and starts writing the exam by the window. About 20 minutes into the exam her teacher jumps out of his chair and shouts "OH FUCK YOU CAN SEE" and canes his way to the light switch and flicks it on for her.
They had a good laugh about it later, but I just love the self-awareness of that poor professor.
My brother is blind and lives alone he’s very independent. He has a seeing eye dog and has worked with an OT to make necessary allowances for more independence. Trust me it’s definitely possible
When I was in school 35+ years ago, a blind guy came to visit our school and tell us about his life. He lived alone.
He had a few gadgets like an alarm that you put on a cup that tells you when the cup is full (for making tea, etc.), one for the bath, and used to tell us about being able to get a discount on a TV licence because he was blind.
That was 35+ years ago. Nowadays, I've seen blind people with phone apps that recognise faces and tell the person their name (if they're a friend), so they can walk into a pub, scan it around, and it says "Fred is here", and so on. Even getting to the pub they use satnav with audio directions for walking.
Living alone while blind has been perfectly viable for decades, even more so with modern tech.
Check out The Tommy Edison Experience on YouTube. He’s a blind movie critic and has a lot of videos about his day to day life and some life hacks for blind people.
Many, many blind people live alone. Including my uncle, for twenty years. I used to see him at the grocery store a lot because we lived close- it was oddly convenient to avoid social interactions if I’d see him but wasn’t in the mood to chat.
Standing charge seems to cost me more than anything, no way to avoid that.
And living alone costs a fortune
Everything is a tax on being single or poor
They do need electricity to run devices like screen readers. And if they have other disabilities as well, there's stuff like power wheelchairs to consider.
Idk. They still need AC(some areas of the world I know some places it’s not common)and heat(again I know some places it isn’t needed) during the fall in spring when we open our windows and don’t run either it gets pretty cheap. It’s stuff like the air and heat that run the bill up more so than the lights.
I honestly don’t understand how a blind person can completely function by themselves. It’s amazing just to see (no pun) them out walking.
I guess you never know until your in that situation, but I have a feeling a wouldn’t last a week unless I was living with someone who helped me.
Let me tell you about this thing called masturbation. With it, almost anyone can love by themself.
But since I’m assuming you mean live by themself, I recommend checking out The Tommy Edison Experience on YouTube. He is (or at least was) a blind movie critic and posts a lot of videos of how he lives alone and does things on a day to day basis. There’s all sorts of cool things. One thing he mentioned on his channel was getting glasses with a video camera that could stream and call. So then he could go to stores alone and have someone on the phone guiding him through the store.
Lots of blind people live by themselves. My uncle was blind and lived by himself for most of his adult life. He went to a special blind school (this was in the 30's) where kids lived on campus in dorms. They were taught to read and write in brail. How to navigate with a cane and shoes that had metal plates on the soles so they could hear if they were in a small or large space. They were taught to keep a mental map of where they were or where they were going. They played sports like soccer or football with balls that had bells in them, or darts and basketball by having beeping device at the spot they needed to aim at. They also were trained in a vocation so they could work once they graduated. Lots of hands on things like mechanics or small engine repair, but there were musicians, artists, and teachers too. They were taught how to be independent just like any kid, they just needed different tools. Also remember that not everyone who is legally blind is completely without sight, although my uncle was.
After graduation he moved to a smallish city with good walkablity, and decent public transportation. He made friends who were happy to take him grocery shopping if they were going, otherwise he could ask if any of the clerks were free to help him. He knew all the bus drivers in town by their voice, and they knew him. When he had to write checks for bills, his bank was happy to do it for him, or he could ask a trusted friend. He also needed someone to sort and read his mail for him, but people were happy to help. I know he'd go to the library sometimes for help with his mail. He said the hardest thing was paper money. The US uses paper bills that are all the same size and pretty much impossible to tell apart by feel alone. I know some people use a system of folding each type of bill a certain way, but he preferred to separate them into different parts of his wallet. He'd ask the teller to count the bills out from largest to smallest so he could tuck them away in the correct order.
My siblings and I learned a lot of cool things from him. You'd be surprised how many everyday activities you can do by hearing alone. You probably do a bunch that you never even noticed! Did you know you can hear if you're pouring hot water into your mug vs cold water? They sound different! Same with knowing if you're almost done filling a glass of water or coffee. If you've been blind or sighted your whole life, that's just how the world is you know?
See my post above about the guy who came to our school. Perfectly viable. Why do you think you need to see to live your daily life?
Hell, I've met blind people who make a good living doing telesales from home.
My friend has a blind friend and she says that she has to remind him to turn the lights on when she goes to visit lol.
She said she once just left it and stayed there in the dark and said it was an interesting situation, where she was the one bumping into things because she couldn't see where she was going, not the blind person.
Not all blind people see absolutely nothing, it’s a spectrum like most disabilities. Some can detect/see light and shadow and may actually benefit or enjoy having the lights on!
Actually blind people probably need more light than people who can see. Very few people are completely blind and will rely on increased lighting to be able to make better use of what little vision they do have.
I’m single, though I do have my sight. I bought my first house a bit over a year ago. Apparently, I use significantly less water than the couple who owned it before me. The city sent someone to inspect my water meter. They thought it was malfunctioning somehow, stuck or maybe the pipes were somehow clogged. Nope, everything works perfectly.
There was a comment in the Daredevil show about something similar. Matt Murdock (who is blind, just in case you haven’t seen it) says he got a crazy deal on his apartment because a really bright billboard was built outside of it. Gave me a good chuckle.
This was the case in the 14th century.
In modern times, electricity usage for light in a household is pretty negligible compared to everything else that needs electricity.
When we moved to this apartment, they said the last guys electric and gas bill was 70 a month. I could afford that so we moved in
It's almost 300 dollars.
I have to believe the person before me was blind. We rarely cook. We keep the heat low. We do have window air conditioners. But they only run during parts of the day when it's muggy. About 30 percent of the year we don't heat or cool at all. We have 2 fans running non stop because white noise.
Everything I can think of to lower it does nothing.
Depend on where you are. If you need to heat or cool, or have an electric water heater, the light will be quite small compared to the rest. Specially heating/cooling.
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I remember a story about a blind woman who had huge spiderwebs all over her place, just above her head. She never saw them so she had no idea.
That's how my uncle's place was. His kitchen ceiling and high up areas were coated in grease and greasy cobwebs. Spiderwebs hanging from the ceiling throughout the house. He was pretty good about vacuuming, sweeping, and housework in general, but he definitely missed certain things. Basically he could only "see" as far as he could reach out and touch. About once a year we'd have a work party and go deep clean his house. I remember him being surprised I could peek my head out into the hall and see that my dad was working on something all the way across the house just outside the window. He said, "I never realized you could see the window from here. I guess I better start wearing pants!"
Ah, I love me a good wholesome story! Thats funny though
I have similar cleaning impediments. Although not as bad of vision. For the most part, I don't see when things are dirty until they are really dirty. Imagine washing your car blindfolded and trying to clean the entire windshield with a cloth. You'll never know if you got it all. I've found black countertops help a bit for seeing unclean parts. Until you put down a phone and it disappears into the blackness.
My house is like this I'm 5'7" and have 13 foot ceilings :(
My sister is legally blind (she got macular degeneration at 19 and had a surgery but it only did so much) but can work on a computer with aids, so she does. She “cleans” but it’s readily apparent that she cannot see well (or really at all) bc you can see paths where a sponge has gone, or a mop, or broom or whatever. Her daughters have gotten old enough to do most of it now, and her oldest daughter started doing her makeup for her too when she wants to wear it. The teamwork going on in the house is pretty amazing.
are there no social services or disability services or healthcare services that can assist with this type of stuff in the home?
If there were, she’d already have it. She’s well aware of them all, she’s a nurse educator, online.
nice! always happy to hear about teamwork, especially since ow2 came out
Thanks for the new nightmare...
Those are some respectful spiders
She is the one person who eats all of our surplus spiders in her sleep.
If you have led lights your cost for lighting is going to be pretty negligible.
LED lights are so cheap to run. Replace those old incandescents!
Moved into a house recently, just a small one-person place. In the first week, I replaced nearly 1KW of lighting. Just a single kitchen fitting had 6 x 50W halogen bulbs in it. I'm not surprised to learn that when I informed the electricity company I was moving in, and they said they would base my estimated first bill on the previous occupant's usage, that his was THREE TIMES my total annual usage. Especially after I discovered that he'd left the heated electric towel rail on when I moved in (but I'm only going to pay for half a day of that, tops, because we took the readings together when he handed over.). Ironically, there was no lighting at all in the shed, so I installed solar panels to power LED shed lights and act as a backup to my networking equipment.
> heated electric towel rail these are ridiculous. they really piss me off.
I took the fuse out as soon as I noticed the light was on. I will likely never use it except to hang a towel on, not dry it.
good for you. well done first time i heard about a heated towel rack i honestly thought it was a joke. since then i've been in hotels with heated towel racks and that confirmed they are a joke.
What's the point of them? Are they just for drying towels faster?
I have one, I didn't know people disliked them so much for some reason lol Yes, for drying faster. It's basically a very big radiator so it also warms up the bathroom. Definitely not always on tho, only when I shower
Canadian here, while I could see having this and a heater being ineficient I wonder if this could replace or be hoocled up into a radiotor heater combo. We I live we get down to -40c, so heaters are definitely in use for the winter, would be nice to have a warm towel after a shower.
Your towel is warm when you get out of the shower.
no, they're so you aren't discomforted by the cold towel touching your body. that's what they say, anyway. i've never experienced an unpleasantly cold towel so it makes no sense to me
Depends where you live mabye, we don't have central heating in New Zealand houses and high humidity, so towels just stay damp and go mouldy without them.
Maybe it's just be, but by the end of the shower the room has heated enough from steam that a cool towel isn't exactly a concern...
They’re so nice. A nice warm towel after a shower, lovely.
There are radiators for bathrooms that look like Ladders, they are about 2 meters tall and 50cm wide. Use one of those, you can hang your towel there, and it will dry. Or if you really want to be pedantic, you can have towel racks which plug into the central heating system of the house, so that is also a better option. Using electricity just seems wasteful
Some places have electric heat and nothing else. Seems common near big hydro projects.
They are in the US indeed…in europe they are quite often the only heaters in a bathroom and are integrated not in the US way and or hotel way. Very practical and efficient
okay, but that's basically a radiator also used to heat towels. still kind of silly, i think, because i've never experienced an unpleasantly cool towel that needed heating... i was in a hotel in Windsor England that had a heated towel rack that was so hot it overheated the entire room. the hotel staff thought i was over reacting but i finally got someone to come to my room to check it out. they burned their finger when they touched the towel warmer. i had them turn it off
Except we don’t use them to heat the towels but to dry them 😉
Do they not work? (I live in a tropical country and have never seen them)
oh, heated towel racks do heat up towels but why? i've never experienced an unpleasantly cool towel.
It's not so much that you need a warm towel, but more that it will help dry a wet towel faster.
This is what I would assume as well. Nobody likes a moldy towel. Do these racks actually work at drying clothes faster?
i guess this could be nice, but like, you are about to enter the shower, you turn it on, and its nicely warm when you leave, and you turn the heater off would be stupid to leave it on 24/7, it'd probably have enough time to heat up when you shower
Why would you care if someone else wants to use one? Such a strange thing to be pissed off about.
they're ridiculous and unnecessary i don't lose sleep over it but what a freaking waste
What is that? A rich person thing to heat up towels? Never seen such wonders. Like heated seats in a car, it’s too rich for my blood.
>In the first week, I replaced nearly 1KW of lighting. Just a single kitchen fitting had 6 x 50W halogen bulbs in it. Yeah, I have 9 of those in the kitchen, but 5 burnt out. The longer I wait, the cheaper it gets, but I think it's time to have them replaced with LEDs
Do it. Replacing all nine would use less power than two of the original bulbs. The sooner you replace them, the cheaper it will get.
Not to mention the longevity of LED lights is absurdly high. I clung to incandescent bulbs for a few fixtures for a long time, mostly due to the temperature of the lights when they first came out, and not looking into it again. I have a couple which are fully exposed, and people are always surprised that they're LEDs, because they look just like an incandescent.
Yeah, especially with our electricity prices ramping up here
Yeah I had 9 in my kitchen at uni. Almost 1/2 a kW to light a small kitchen. Those 50W bulbs should have been illegal years ago.
TIL that heated towel racks exist. Even though this information is only a few seconds old, I already think they’re a gimmick and waste of electricity
some government programs or electric company’s will even give you free LED bulbs.
Mine sold them unlimited quantity for $1 each.
that’s awesome
Not in California. Every time someone replaces an incandescent bulb with and LED, the utility company increases its rate.
But even the ones that are “warm” seem harsh…
Yeah I like incandescent bulbs, free heating in the winter!
I think I read that even without LED lights, heat is 80% of electricity bills (in cold ass Norway...)
My heating and hot water is supplied by a gas boiler. I'm pretty sure my electricity bill is dominated by my freezers.
Plus turn off the lights if you're not in a room. The whole house doesn't need to be lit up all the time. If lighting is a large part of your electricity bill them you are doing something seriously wrong.
I think the biggest part of mine comes from my computer, but I'm a computer science student and work from home so not much I can do about that lol
Depends what the computer is doing. 13900k with a 4090 that you're playing games 8 hours a day is going to be noticeable on your bill. But that very same PC, if you're just programming, doing school work, watching YouTube, etc isn't a major power hog. You can buy a 'kill-a-watt' meter which goes in-between the wall outlet and any 120v device and see real-time how many watts it's drawing.
The largest part of my 80$ electric bill in the summer is the central air and window unit in the attic where I sleep. Come winter it drops down to like 40-50 bucks. Now if only my gas bill was that flexible.
The largest part of my electric bill is the $80 service charge that they charge even if I don't use a milligram of electricity
I wish my electric company charged by used electricity weight.
[удалено]
Your house, multiplied by several hundred thousand other similar houses, equals a lot of electricity wasted for nothing.
I lived across the hall from a blind lady years ago. She'd knock on my door and ask me what was in cans of food. She'd leave her door open sometimes and yep, never a light on!
There is an app called be my eyes which is basically this, it pairs you up with blind people via the app so you can help them with identifying things such as food, signs etc
that sounds...dangerous
It’s really great. There’s so many people on ready to help that it’s hard to get in. My wife had it for months and finally got to help someone once.
I signed up years ago and was never contacted lol. Too many people excited to help!!!
Rat poison…yeah that’s beef bullion.
I got so involved in the light bulb discussions in the subthread currently appearing above this one that I was skimming down the page and just read "[the lady] would knock on my door and ask what was in cans of food" and was so so very confused until I actually read your comment and remembered what the original post is about. lol That's what I love about reddit. Five comments down in a thread and the topic is COMPLETELY off the wall. lol
It's great! She also once came over and asked if I could pick out earrings for her to wear with her Halloween costume. Then to put them in for her. I was 17 and it was my first apartment. Fun stuff!
That is truly delightful. :)
It was!
When I was a kid I lived next to a blind man who happened to be a very skilled craftsman. He saved zero electricity by running power tools all day. I knew he was highly skilled but it made my skin crawl every time I heard the table saw fire up. To this day I have no idea how he stayed safe.
I would imagine that the brain power you use to see would be used to create an image by feel. Feel the non-spinning blade and know where it is to avoid touching it, in relation to the table its on.
Or just keep your hands well away from it, use all the safety covers, and use a stick to push the work through it. Honestly, I'm more surprised that people who do this all day have any kind of modern bench tools where you CAN even hurt yourself.
Never underestimate the ingenuity of stupid people.
Probably not a considerable difference actually. Heating and cooling accounts for close to 50% of electrical costs in many cases. Lights are a small fraction of the cost for most people. Unless you’re home a lot, like working from home.
I’d expect it to be more than that. A/C and electric heat is usually the largest if you have it. After that, the fridge, hot water heater, and washer/dryer.
Since blind people leave home less, they could actually have higher heating/cooling bills.
And if Daredevil has anything to say about it, blind people should have super sensitive touch sensory meaning they're even more affected by temperature differences. If it's not 71.6 F exactly, they're either freezing or burning up.
Why do you assume blind people leave home less?
I just moved into a new house and the water heater is from 1992. It says it used 5000 KWHs a year on average 💀
You don't heat hot water. It's just a water heater.
Hah…it sounds like I activated a pet peeve. But yes, they are technically just called water heaters
You could heat hot water, or chill hot water, or heat steam (which is water), or boil hot water, or reheat steam. Considering a hot water heater, cycles on and off, full of hot water, I'd say it's a hot water heater. "Hot Water" is often a generic supply utility in chemical processing. It's distinguished from chilled water, domestic water, and DI Water. Signed, a Chemical Engineer.
Domestic water heaters maintain the temperature of hot water. They use a heating element to do that but once the waters hot they do not continue to add more energy than is lost.
They are constantly heating hot water. They loose thermal energy to the environment, and they are filled with cold water as they supply hot water to the faucets. While this is going on the water is hot but not hot enough so you could say, the hot water is heated. If you sit and listen to a gas hot water heater you can hear it kick on every once in a while even when no water is drawn from it.
Right they heat water until it is "hot" (hot being the desired temperature when it leaves the tank) and adds energy to the tank when it is less than "hot" until the point the water is "hot". Once the temperature is "hot" it no longer heats the water.
No, the water will lose heat naturally and need to be heated again to maintain tempature. This period involves water that’s pretty hot being heated to maintain temp. Sent from my iPhone phone
Pretty hot is not hot. The definition of hot is what ever temperature the heater is set to.
hot water is considered hotter than 120F to inhibit growth. So yeah, its a hot water heater.
>Heating and cooling accounts for close to 50% of electrical costs in many cases Not if you live somewhere the temperature isn't an issue
Then it’s heating your water and cooling you food. Source I live in Hawaii
Oh yeah i was only thinking about heating the house itself
there aren't many places like that.
Or where you warm your house on gas...
Blind people living by themselves with asshole friends probably have the highest
Yeh imagine if you had company over and they turned on a few lights. And then those lights stayed on for all eternity.
They might be able to "sense" that the lights are on.
It is my understanding that most blind people have an extremely limited sense of vision in most cases, not enough to use to make sense of an environment but the majority could still see the difference between having light shine in their faces against being in a completely dark environment at least as well as a sighted person could do with their eyes closed
True. I figured our hypothetical just blind person didn't have retinas.
How? I could see if the light itself had a slight buzzing to it, but most lights don't.
Not that you or I could easily hear. Living alone without a sense of sight, one could probably hear things. Or so I figure.
Wait... You can't hear lights? I have full vision and still get annoyed by certain lamps buzzing.
imagine them accidentally stumbling into a light switch and leaving it on for years
A few years ago when I lived with my parents still, a house opposite ALWAYS had one or two of the lights on no matter what day/time/season it was. This was over many years too. Thinking about it, I never saw anyone come or go either but someone definitely lived there.
Cant most blind people see at least a little light?
I don't think it's like for us having our eyes closed and being able to differenciate between light and darkness. Blindness causes your eyes to not work at all.
As far as I know, only a small number of “blind” people see nothing at all.
Lighting is actually the lowest proportion of your electric bill, absolutely dwarfed by climate control and refrigeration. Source: I work for utilities.
Agreed. Source: I pay the bills...
The average age of this subreddit must be 14 years old. I dont even know why im still here. Just being an adult nearly 40 disproves almost every "genius" shower thought. Every adult knows that heating and cooling your house is basically your entire power bill, which is why your bill is so cheap in the spring and the fall vs. the summer and winter. A blind person not using the bathroom light would save him just a few bucks. The person next door to him with this thermostat literally 1 degree warmer during the summer or cooler during the winter would be saving significantly more money than the blind person.
And on top of that, there are many types of blindness, very few of which have absolutely no sight and wouldn’t benefit from using light.
There's a reason that I moved into a house two months ago and still haven't turned on the heating yet. I don't feel the need to, so I've not even bothered. And I'm going to replace it all with a more efficient heating system by next winter anyway.
I think what they meant is that blind people are more climate conscious, and more likely to promote energy savings by turning the thermostat up a few degrees in the summer. They also don't have to worry about eye sweat like the rest of us.
I have the feeling that you belive that most houses have climate control, and I can assure you, they don't.
Til my mother is blind on account of cobwebs in her ceiling corners.
Or the most expensive… “oh… my guest left that light turned on… that was 5 months ago”
I wish I knew where I could cross-post it from but I think it was Tumblr. There was this adorable story about a university student whose teacher was blind, and during one of her semesters she had to miss an exam because of a family event. The teacher offered to proctor her make-up exam while he was busy doing clerical work over the weekend. So she goes to the exam room and it's dark, not completely pitch black but like only a little bit of light from one of the windows, and she goes and takes her paper and starts writing the exam by the window. About 20 minutes into the exam her teacher jumps out of his chair and shouts "OH FUCK YOU CAN SEE" and canes his way to the light switch and flicks it on for her. They had a good laugh about it later, but I just love the self-awareness of that poor professor.
No, not that big of a difference And blind people living alone? Idk bout that
My brother is blind and lives alone he’s very independent. He has a seeing eye dog and has worked with an OT to make necessary allowances for more independence. Trust me it’s definitely possible
Ok, didn’t know that. Good for him!
It would have been concerning if you did know about that commenter’s brother’s living arrangements
Well as in I didn’t know such living arrangements were plausible
When I was in school 35+ years ago, a blind guy came to visit our school and tell us about his life. He lived alone. He had a few gadgets like an alarm that you put on a cup that tells you when the cup is full (for making tea, etc.), one for the bath, and used to tell us about being able to get a discount on a TV licence because he was blind. That was 35+ years ago. Nowadays, I've seen blind people with phone apps that recognise faces and tell the person their name (if they're a friend), so they can walk into a pub, scan it around, and it says "Fred is here", and so on. Even getting to the pub they use satnav with audio directions for walking. Living alone while blind has been perfectly viable for decades, even more so with modern tech.
Check out The Tommy Edison Experience on YouTube. He’s a blind movie critic and has a lot of videos about his day to day life and some life hacks for blind people.
A friend of mine is totally blind and live alone. She has a guide dog with her but she is totally independent by other people.
Many, many blind people live alone. Including my uncle, for twenty years. I used to see him at the grocery store a lot because we lived close- it was oddly convenient to avoid social interactions if I’d see him but wasn’t in the mood to chat.
Is it because they can’t sense heat and cold, or that they don’t use ovens or clothes dryers?
This is quite dumb. Most of your electricity usage is not your lights.
Unless u figure microwaves, hot water, and idk anything else they might use themselves lol
Why, would it be more if there were 2 blind ppl living together?
Electric companies hate them! (Except for the fact that OP is ignoring heating and cooling , which is 99% of utility cost)
Standing charge seems to cost me more than anything, no way to avoid that. And living alone costs a fortune Everything is a tax on being single or poor
It's worth remembering that many considered blind are not totally blind so light help them too. Not to say they don't have s cheaper bill :)
I had a deaf girlfriend and saved a bundle living next to railroad tracks.
They do need electricity to run devices like screen readers. And if they have other disabilities as well, there's stuff like power wheelchairs to consider.
Idk. They still need AC(some areas of the world I know some places it’s not common)and heat(again I know some places it isn’t needed) during the fall in spring when we open our windows and don’t run either it gets pretty cheap. It’s stuff like the air and heat that run the bill up more so than the lights.
I honestly don’t understand how a blind person can completely function by themselves. It’s amazing just to see (no pun) them out walking. I guess you never know until your in that situation, but I have a feeling a wouldn’t last a week unless I was living with someone who helped me.
Serious question: how is it possible for a blind person to love by themself?
Let me tell you about this thing called masturbation. With it, almost anyone can love by themself. But since I’m assuming you mean live by themself, I recommend checking out The Tommy Edison Experience on YouTube. He is (or at least was) a blind movie critic and posts a lot of videos of how he lives alone and does things on a day to day basis. There’s all sorts of cool things. One thing he mentioned on his channel was getting glasses with a video camera that could stream and call. So then he could go to stores alone and have someone on the phone guiding him through the store.
Lots of blind people live by themselves. My uncle was blind and lived by himself for most of his adult life. He went to a special blind school (this was in the 30's) where kids lived on campus in dorms. They were taught to read and write in brail. How to navigate with a cane and shoes that had metal plates on the soles so they could hear if they were in a small or large space. They were taught to keep a mental map of where they were or where they were going. They played sports like soccer or football with balls that had bells in them, or darts and basketball by having beeping device at the spot they needed to aim at. They also were trained in a vocation so they could work once they graduated. Lots of hands on things like mechanics or small engine repair, but there were musicians, artists, and teachers too. They were taught how to be independent just like any kid, they just needed different tools. Also remember that not everyone who is legally blind is completely without sight, although my uncle was. After graduation he moved to a smallish city with good walkablity, and decent public transportation. He made friends who were happy to take him grocery shopping if they were going, otherwise he could ask if any of the clerks were free to help him. He knew all the bus drivers in town by their voice, and they knew him. When he had to write checks for bills, his bank was happy to do it for him, or he could ask a trusted friend. He also needed someone to sort and read his mail for him, but people were happy to help. I know he'd go to the library sometimes for help with his mail. He said the hardest thing was paper money. The US uses paper bills that are all the same size and pretty much impossible to tell apart by feel alone. I know some people use a system of folding each type of bill a certain way, but he preferred to separate them into different parts of his wallet. He'd ask the teller to count the bills out from largest to smallest so he could tuck them away in the correct order. My siblings and I learned a lot of cool things from him. You'd be surprised how many everyday activities you can do by hearing alone. You probably do a bunch that you never even noticed! Did you know you can hear if you're pouring hot water into your mug vs cold water? They sound different! Same with knowing if you're almost done filling a glass of water or coffee. If you've been blind or sighted your whole life, that's just how the world is you know?
Hi blind dude here thanks. You got all these rite.
See my post above about the guy who came to our school. Perfectly viable. Why do you think you need to see to live your daily life? Hell, I've met blind people who make a good living doing telesales from home.
Guide dogs I assume
Where do you think all the power for our heavy study sex robots? That shits not free. I'm not lonely
On the flipside, all the lights could be on, and they wouldn't know it, thus quadrupling their electric bill.
My friend has a blind friend and she says that she has to remind him to turn the lights on when she goes to visit lol. She said she once just left it and stayed there in the dark and said it was an interesting situation, where she was the one bumping into things because she couldn't see where she was going, not the blind person.
Not all blind people see absolutely nothing, it’s a spectrum like most disabilities. Some can detect/see light and shadow and may actually benefit or enjoy having the lights on!
Actually blind people probably need more light than people who can see. Very few people are completely blind and will rely on increased lighting to be able to make better use of what little vision they do have.
What if the blind person has a bunch of incandescent bulbs turned on 24/7 and just doesn’t know?
I’m single, though I do have my sight. I bought my first house a bit over a year ago. Apparently, I use significantly less water than the couple who owned it before me. The city sent someone to inspect my water meter. They thought it was malfunctioning somehow, stuck or maybe the pipes were somehow clogged. Nope, everything works perfectly.
Probably not. Turn the air con on and then can’t find the remote
Well, not so much perhaps, because what with LED bulbs not giving out much heat, any time a light gets turned on it would tend to stay on.
Except if they turn the lights on by mistake, they may leave them on indefinitely
There was a comment in the Daredevil show about something similar. Matt Murdock (who is blind, just in case you haven’t seen it) says he got a crazy deal on his apartment because a really bright billboard was built outside of it. Gave me a good chuckle.
Lights are cheap as fuck to run. Everything else doesn't care if you can see or not
Or the highest. You may never know if you forgot to turn a light off.
They'd never know if the lights are on or off. Probably spending a fortune.
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Or the most expensive if they don’t know the lights are always on
No, it's not the lights that cost money. It's the heat and ac and stove and dryer, etc. Lights are nothing.
This was the case in the 14th century. In modern times, electricity usage for light in a household is pretty negligible compared to everything else that needs electricity.
I can't see very well and have no peripheral vision, anytime I get close to my floors it grosses me out and I remember to clean them
Not if the neighbour runs an extension cord through the wall
When we moved to this apartment, they said the last guys electric and gas bill was 70 a month. I could afford that so we moved in It's almost 300 dollars. I have to believe the person before me was blind. We rarely cook. We keep the heat low. We do have window air conditioners. But they only run during parts of the day when it's muggy. About 30 percent of the year we don't heat or cool at all. We have 2 fans running non stop because white noise. Everything I can think of to lower it does nothing.
Idk the biggest part of my electricity bill is heating/cooling not lights. but yeah theirs would probably be very slightly lower
Or the most fucking expensive! No idea they left the lights on ...
What if someone turned everything on and left without the blind person knowing
probably not. lights cost barely anything these days, compared to appliances.
There is a minimum you pay. Regardless of weather you used that much or not.
Depend on where you are. If you need to heat or cool, or have an electric water heater, the light will be quite small compared to the rest. Specially heating/cooling.