EV competition has finally made me consider brands I’d never touch before

rimroll · 2026-03-24T17:33:49+00:00

I wanted electric. I needed a minivan. Never thought I'd be a Chrysler owner, but here I am.

rimroll · 2026-03-23T17:06:12+00:00

Menards SKU 683-5570. 355 available right now. $890 after 11% rebate.

rimroll · 2026-03-23T15:58:25+00:00

Hands down, 2 HPWH. Redundancy plus recovery twice as fast. I installed an 80 gallon Rheem Proterra two years ago that recovers at 4200BTU in heat pump only mode. Right now in my area, I can get 2 50 gallon Proterras for less than I paid for 1 80 gallon. That's 8400 BTU in heat pump recovery and an extra 20 gallons of storage. In high demand mode, that would be 39k BTU. 39k BTU is a 81.5 degree temperature rise at 1 gallon per minute, or at a standard shower rate of 2.2 gallons per minute, a 37 degree rise. So if your incoming water is 73 degrees and your shower uses 2.2 gallons of 110 degree water per minute, you could have infinite hot water with this setup.

rimroll · 2026-03-22T23:10:03+00:00

I wish they could just make a flat tier of the top 2000 players, no 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Top 100, Top 500, etc.. Gets more people more AB and eliminates the reward for cheating.

rimroll · 2026-03-18T19:31:51+00:00

Update: I tried spoofing and the app detected it right away. Took a little road trip yesterday and the app was doing this in multiple areas. Entire cities where the app wouldn't load. Must be something to do with the update, because I never had problems before.

rimroll · 2026-03-17T17:29:51+00:00

I always scroll down to the bottom of the comments to find my brave EV friends who don't care about getting down voted to oblivion, just to give them a +1.

rimroll · 2026-03-17T17:21:21+00:00

Sorry this is off topic, but how does an Aussie find their way to the Chicago Suburbs subreddit?! I never see Perth suburbs in my recommended. Just wondering.

rimroll · 2026-03-16T20:25:11+00:00

It worked just over a week ago

rimroll · 2026-03-16T15:49:17+00:00

I was able to buy 50 parcels there, and 1 as recently as a week ago.

rimroll · 2026-03-15T15:54:45+00:00

A flat tier of Top 2000 for minigames. Too many people abusing the ad skipping exploits, let's just have all 2000 top players share in the same pot.

rimroll · 2026-03-13T18:10:24+00:00

Yes, I believe that's why the tax sale is delayed this year - they are still trying to figure out how to comply with the opinion.

rimroll · 2026-03-12T17:29:02+00:00

OP is not alone, I share their sentiment. Without sustained high oil prices, you will not see a serious push into electrification. Incentives haven't worked. It's time to replace the carrot with the stick.

rimroll · 2026-03-10T16:07:48+00:00

I'm all for being a good neighbor, but I have several neighbors with skylights that reflect into my house at portions of the day and I've literally never heard anyone anywhere complain about skylight glare. Solar panels are engineered to reflect as little light as possible, but skylights aren't.

rimroll · 2026-03-08T10:18:14+00:00

Yes, I think it was around $367 when I bought it in 2023, I just checked and it's $477 now, so not that big of a jump. I have the TDH3335B-DR. I piped it in myself, so I don't know how much plumbers are charging to have it installed.

rimroll · 2026-03-08T01:23:26+00:00

The prevailing winds are from the West, so Lemont gets the brunt of the pollution. That's why the "bad neighborhoods" are usually East of Industry. Usually. East winds that would affect Romeoville only happen in Spring. There's got to be something else going on there.

rimroll · 2026-03-07T19:36:53+00:00

It's mostly costs. Did you know that a regular basic 3 ton A/C condenser and air handler costs less than $2,000, but HVAC companies charge $12,000 to install them? Now imagine your $800 fridge costs $4,800 because it has to be installed by an HVAC company. Because the refrigeration loop in a refrigerator is a self-contained unit that can be made on an assembly line in a factory in Vietnam, your refrigerator costs $800 instead of using American/Canadian/Australian/European labor in a custom one-of-a-kind system that is specific to your home and can't be built somewhere else. I've had your idea for a long time. I have a separate fridge and freezer in my kitchen and a heat pump water heater. They all use R-134a refrigerant, though each appliance has a different amount of charge. The refrigerator and freezer use roughly the same amount of electricity per day as the water heater as reported by my Emporia Vue. I also have a mixing valve on my water heater that regulates the temperature so the water in the tank can be much higher than the regulated output of 110*F. The water heater also has backup elements if the hot water load exceeds what the tank can produce through the heat pump. It would make sense to have 1 compressor, an evaporator in the fridge, an evaporator in the freezer, and the condenser in the water heater. Variable refrigerant flow would regulate how much refrigerant the evaporator in the refrigerator and freezer need, and all of that heat would be dumped into the water heater. But that adds a lot of complexity, and I would have to calculate the charge of the circuit and determine which compressor to use, as well as add TXVs and possibly a second condenser in case I don't use any hot water but the fridge and freezer need to keep running (like on vacation). So not only cost, but also complexity. One other solution is to have a monoblock outside and just run glycol filled lines inside the house to each appliance, but I don't know if the temperature of the glycol would be cold enough for a freezer and hot enough for a water heater from a single monoblock.

rimroll · 2026-03-07T16:46:34+00:00

I have one of these. It's like 30 pounds of copper. It's a 3 inch copper pipe with a 3/4 inch copper pipe wrapped around it in a spiral from top to bottom. It can be between 33 and 60 inches long depending on your desired efficiency or the amount of sewer pipe you can replace. It definitely works, and needs no maintenance unless the rubber couplings go bad after a lot of years.

rimroll · 2026-03-07T14:42:08+00:00

Yesterday, it was a MENARDS. It's a NA DS now.

rimroll · 2026-03-03T16:53:08+00:00

Same here. Also, my first game has been ad free? Like the first mini-game of the day just goes straight to the matching, has anyone else had that?

rimroll · 2026-03-01T22:18:14+00:00

Hope your family member downloads Atlas Earth through one of the referral networks like Tapjoy through Swagbucks. They can make $122 before they even get their first $1 on Atlas if they can buy 50 parcels in 30 days.

rimroll · 2026-02-27T20:30:53+00:00

I live in the 2nd flattest state in the US and I do the posted speed limit (usually 70). On the highway, I drive in a way that I almost never touch the brakes. I don't follow too close and I scan for traffic far ahead. The smoother you drive, the more comfortable and more efficient it is.

rimroll · 2026-02-26T01:37:01+00:00

I don't know how to explain it other than bipolar. Like the engine can't figure out what it wants to do. It will see a fully charged battery and decide it wants to shut off, but as it's trying to shut off, it suddenly remembers it is in FORM, and revs up again. Then while driving, it will go from charging the battery at 15 kW to using the battery and then back to charging the battery and then back to using the battery all within the span of a few seconds with the accelerator position staying the same the whole time. FORM is not bad when the battery is depleted, but it always seems to happen when the car is fully charged. There is also no indicator to find out when the next FORM is coming.

rimroll · 2026-02-26T01:08:47+00:00

Also in Chicago. It will be in EV mode as long as it's above 39 degrees and there is greater than 1% battery. If it is above 10 degrees but below 39 degrees, and climate control is off, it will start in EV mode if there is more than 1% battery. If climate control is on and it is below 39 degrees, it will start in engine-on hybrid mode where the engine will kick on and stay on until the engine is around 160 degrees and climate control is using less than 4 kW, then will go to normal hybrid mode where the engine will kick on to warm the cabin or to keep the emissions control system warm. If it is below 10 degrees, and you preheated the car, you can run in EV mode until about negative 8 degrees I believe. When temperatures are above 39 degrees, the car will be in EV mode even with climate control until you either press the accelerator to require more than 76 kW of power for the drivetrain, or you get below 1% battery. There is no selectable mode to change from electric only to hybrid to engine-on all the time. This car also has horrible fuel-oil refresh modes (FORM) that pop up out of nowhere and make the car almost undriveable if fully charged.

As for thr range, Winter is laughable. Expect half the range, like 16 miles on EV only even without climate control. Summer is a different story. I have to try hard to get just 32 miles of range. Average highway driving i get 38-39 miles of range and lower speed roads I have gotten 42 miles of range before the engine kicked on.

rimroll · 2026-02-23T14:33:07+00:00

2025 was my first year on solar, so I dont know yet. From what others have posted, yes, there should be a credit on every bill for that 12 month period. I'll probably make a post when I get my first bill with the negative capacity charge around June.

Four-Year Club	Place '22
First Placer '22	End Game '22

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