Residential gas fvir certified water heaters

Hey all. I have a small townhome in the Denver area, and the HVAC and "lowboy" gas water tank are/were in the crawlspace. My 22-year-old water tank finally quit over Memorial Day weekend, but not before spraying water from the hose onto the black plastic tarp I had covering the dirt floor of the crawlspace.
I had a remediation company come out, and luckily, the water damage was minimal and did not require much mitigation. A new tankless water heater was also installed. ( I had already been working with a contractor for this upgrade, knowing it was coming).
I filed an insurance claim, and received a quote to have a professional vapor barrier (white, 12 mil.) installed over the dirt and WALLS of the space by tge remediation co. This would involve removing the pink insulation that was already covering the walls. The restoration team confirmed there was no water damage to the existing installation, but the tankless installation team did have to move it out of the way a little bit on one side to install the new unit. They didn't bother adjusting it back.
The quote from the remediation company said the vapor barrier would also cover the concrete walls in place of the pink insulation and would therefore act as insulation.
I can't find any definitive information on this process, but was wondering if anyone agrees that a vapor barrier can act as insulation in lieu of the pink batts? Are there any other questions I should be asking, or anything else to be mindful of? We're hoping to wrap up this project soon. Appreciate the help.

Hey all. I have a small townhome in the Denver area, and the HVAC and "lowboy" gas water tank are/were in the crawlspace. My 22-year-old water tank finally quit over Memorial Day weekend, but not before spraying water from the hose onto the black plastic tarp I had covering the dirt floor of the crawlspace.
I had a remediation company come out, and luckily, the water damage was minimal and did not require much mitigation. A new tankless water heater was also installed. ( I had already been working with a contractor for this upgrade, knowing it was coming).
I filed an insurance claim, and received a quote to have a professional vapor barrier (white, 12 mil.) installed over the dirt and WALLS of the space by tge remediation co. This would involve removing the pink insulation that was already covering the walls. The restoration team confirmed there was no water damage to the existing installation, but the tankless installation team did have to move it out of the way a little bit on one side to install the new unit. They didn't bother adjusting it back.
The quote from the remediation company said the vapor barrier would also cover the concrete walls in place of the pink insulation and would therefore act as insulation.
I can't find any definitive information on this process, but was wondering if anyone agrees that a vapor barrier can act as insulation in lieu of the pink batts? Are there any other questions I should be asking, or anything else to be mindful of? We're hoping to wrap up this project soon. Appreciate the help.

So looks like gas pipeline to our house has a small leak.
And pge just shut down the line until we get it fixed.
Plumber quoted $6500 to dig and install a new 30 ft gas pipeline.
Does it makes sense to just replace kitchen stove and water heater to an electric one?
Will that be a better option?
If panel requires an upgrade will that be a better choice?
Location: Bay Area.
Thanks,

Just installed a new gas water heater and it appears when it's filling with cold water it starts leaking on the inside. I can hear the water dripping on to the plate below the fire and evaporating. I don't understand why it's not constantly leaking? Faulty and return?

I purchased a property from a local land bank auction in 2021. In order for the original seller, which is the city, to release any interest they have in the property, the property must meet their compliance requirements. Those requirements are for us, at minimum get (wateelectric) utilities turned on, install furnace & water heater along with having a functional bathroom and kitchen.
I paid $1,100 plus $800 closing cost for the property. In order to get the home in a livable/sellable condition the property would need about $7,500 in materials. I operate my own handyman business and I would be performing all the necessary work needed to rehab the property. Due to the fact my credit score is not the greatest I haven't been able to secure any outside funding for the project, not even a Home Depot credit card. So I've been looking into finding private lenders that could cover the cost of materials, so I could complete the work needed to sell the home.
Unfortunately, I haven't had any luck with the private lendehard money route either. Currently I'm trying my luck with a eBay listing hoping that will help me find an investor to cover the material cost of my rehab project. Anybody have any suggestions for me on options I may have to secure funding for this rehab with not so great credit. The goal is to fix and flip this property asap.
Quick info about me. I've been running my handyman business for about 5 years now professionally but I've always been a backyard builder my whole life. I just recently completed the training required for me to be able to take the state of Michigan Residential Builders Exam. I have a total of 20 residential lots throughout the state of Michigan that I plan to use to build homes in the future. Selling my land is a worst case scenario, one that I believe will be counter-productive for my future in this business.
The first project is always the hardest but after that life begins.
I always believed teamwork makes the dream work but I was always told a closed mouth doesn't get fed. Here I am. Point me in the right direction. All feedback and suggestions is greatly appreciated.Thank you reddit family.

https://imgur.com/a/5BaIggM
1960’s house, Eastern US. This is located near the chimney (gas fireplace), hot water heater, laundry (dryer exhaust pictured) but no clue what this is. It’s the part of our house that was added on after the original build long ago, but the bricks were knocked out to make the hole which makes me think the builders didn’t add it. There were rocks and dirt were packed around the pipe to seal it. Before I dug it up, it was halfway above ground, I think tilting toward the outside. Inside the crawlspace, it’s at ground level My only thought is if there was a major water leak, this pipe could allow water to escape and prevent the crawlspace from flooding? That just seems like it’d need to be a lot of water - and the main part of the house is sealed off from this area with brick I want to remove it if it’s useless, and/or properly seal it off from rodents. I’m needing to level the area. I also don’t like the idea of a kid falling/stepping on it

Hi guys, I was hoping to find some help. The tankless water heater in my rental home has stopped "heating". Before I call the rental company and wait 2 days, I thought I'd take a look myself. Here's the issue, I can't find the damn thing. I've googled images, but the closest thing I can find is outside and it's the gas system for the fireplace. Are these usually found in some weird place in, or outside, a house. Thanks in advance.

Hey solar redditors. So many of us worked so hard to get grandfathered in to NEM 2.0. Now I’m trying to decide if I’m paranoid and it’s worth it to lose it in my case.
Current system is 5 years old and was right size for our usage. Tru-up last year we owed about three hundred. Not bad for power the whole year.
But. This tru up we’re going to have added an electric plug in car. And the big thing, we have major damage to rebuild which wasn’t expected before the April 3.0 deadline. That means the roof some of the solar panels are on has to be rebuilt ground up. On top of it we’re probably going to cap off the gas line rather than repair and replace that, the gas heater, and the gas water heater. So that will all be new electric draw.
With rebuilding the roof anyway we can get a tax credit on that part of the work by making it a new solar roof. And we have so much more electric needs coming with replacements.
(I’m assuming a new solar installation added to our existing inverters and panels will kick us into 3.0, because I can’t find anything but the increase rules from 1.0)
Anyone want to weigh in here? Or point us at calculators to decide if something is worth it? TL;Dr We’re balancing tax credit and increased production for drastically higher draw with losing NEM 2.0

So my state has recently banned natural gas connections for new projects for environmental reasons and also recently required all commerial spaces to use heat pumps (above a certain size).
For my particular small restaurant project which would have cost 500k it went up to 800k of which 20k was for the water heater. So 300k because of these new policies. It's gonna be hard for a lot of small businesses to get started here now even before considering increased interest rates. Businesses and locations that are grandfather in have a significant advantage here. That's 300k that could go to countless other things.
In addition, because more electricity is needed a larger system has to be installed which will take 9 months to arrive.
Of course there is always the option of finding a location with those features and renovating it... although often those locations won't quite meet your concepts specs. Also I think if it changes to much then you'd be forced to use electric and the more expensive water heater.
I am not trying to complain. I am generally liberal with a lot of ideas but I did want to point out how these new regulations can seriously hurt the local economy when projects cost 40% more.

Day 1. I guess no one is ever going to read this. I’m not even sure if this is being recorded… somewhere. The Internet has been down since all this started. Is there still a cloud? I found this laptop, but it doesn’t work like any computer I’ve used before. I don’t even know if this is a real notepad app.
What the fuck is “vim”?
Sorry… I’ve never written a diary before. I’m not used to having enough time to keep a diary.
Looks like I spoke too soon. Another explosion…
Day 2. Something weird happened last night. I’m trying not to think about it. There's one other person at the shelter here, Merlin. He smokes a lot of cigarettes, basically all the time.
Day 3. Taking inventory. I managed to get into one of the houses on the outskirts of town last night. Mostly I snuck through, only had to take one down with a pointy stick. It was a kid... I got in through an open window, tied a sheet around my shoulders, and stuffed in everything I could before running back.
I feel a little like a hoarder going over things like this, but these are now my only posessions in the world, so I’d better keep track of them:

• Two permanent markers
• A hammer and screwdriver
• A fresh T-shirt and some socks
• Three small cola bottles and a can of beer
• Some cheese, dried beans, and bread
  At this rate, the plastic water bottles in the shelter will run out in two days.
  

Day 4. Saw a weird dog today.
Day 5. The blue house on the corner has bugs in the basement. Big, mean bugs. Hulking, skittering roaches that screamed bloody murder…
What is happening?
I managed to get out and shut the door, so I wrote a note on the door just in case some unlucky soul stumbles on it later.
Day 6. Found a motorcycle and managed to get it back to the shelter without dying. That might come in handy.
Day 7. If this is the apocalypse, it's surprisingly routine already. I wile away the daylight reading comic books and survival manuals so I can sneak into the city at night. I break into a house, tie a makeshift sling from some curtains and scoop whatever looks useful or edible into it. I always bring some gallon jugs in my walkabout bag to fill with water to boil from their heaters and toilet basins. I usually have to kill and scrap with at least five of them per night. Sometimes it gets bad and I have to take out my pistol. When I get home, I take an aspirin, disinfect and bandage my wounds, reload my pistol magazines, write in here and go to bed.
Day 12. Ever had a pickle and spam sandwich? Nowhere near as bad as you might expect. Better than starving to death, that’s for sure. Tonight I’m washing it down with some room-temperature beer, celebrating my first week.
Day 13. I woke up to one of them on top of me today. Another fucking corpse for the pit out back. I think they can smell us. One of them got Merlin pretty bad, but he’s just standing outside where it happened smoking. He won’t say anything to me. I ripped up some curtains and dipped them in some bleach I found in the basement to dress the wounds… he’s really bleeding a lot.
Day 15. Saw the dog again. It was blurry, like a nightmare on an old VHS tape.
Day 19. They swarmed me today. I might need to get out of here at some point. I’ve been making an inventory of all the surrounding vehicles. Most are out of gas or otherwise inoperable.
Day 20. It took me an hour of fiddling in the pitch dark, but I managed to hotwire a sports car with all four wheels and some fuel still in the tank. Something came over me as I started driving it back to the shelter, though. I turned on the headlights, and I saw four or five of them, just walking around the street. They all turned to me, and I just gunned it. I blew through them and kept gunning it, and crashed into the side of a house.
It’s totaled.
Back to the drawing board, I guess.
Day 22. Organizing my weapons tonight. I was able to take down a loiterer in the lockroom of the pawn shop on the corner through the bars with my duct-taped knife spear, which I have dubbed "Glamdring". The hacksaw I found in the blue house’s garage made short work of the lockroom bars, and I made it back with an assortment of pistols. I unloaded everything and managed to produce two fully-loaded magazines. 34 bullets and some change… once I use those, that’s it until I scavenge some more. I rifled through the heap of clothing I’ve scavenged and found an ammo pouch to strap to my leg. I’m still not great with the pistol, and the noise is not helpful, but having it makes me feel a lot better.
Day 30. I finally made it to the fucking hardware store, and I still couldn’t find a wood saw. So much for my advanced fortifications and spear repairs. At least I’ve got all the windows boarded up, except one. It’s nice to have a little sunlight to read and sew by during the day.
Day 32. The weird dog bit me. It chased me back to the shelter and Merlin fended it off. I hope he’s okay.
Day 33. Merlin won’t come back to the shelter. He’s just standing out there, bleeding and smoking. Like always.
Day 37. Today I found some binoculars on another little kid. I think I recognized it... her.
It.
On the way back to the shelter, I climbed up on the roof of that three-story house on the outskirts of town and took a look around. I think a plane went down in the forest. I’m going to get that bicycle I saw in front of the pawn shop and investigate. I’m only alive because Merlin saved me… maybe it’s time to pay it forward.
What else is there to do besides practice stabbing and cooking spam?
Day 40. They were all dead. One of them almost electrocuted me. The sparks started a fire and I managed to lead them into it, one by one. There was a flare gun in the cockpit and some more food in the back. But that first one... it's been over a month, and I've never seen anything like that before. I'm pretty sure it threw lightning at me. Like... on purpose. I couldn't move for a few seconds, and it just kept getting closer, I thought I...
That thing that happened... on my first night
Fuck. They’re tearing out the windows again.
What’s the point in fighting?
Day whatever the fuck it is. 59 I think. I’m still trying to process the shit that happened on day one, so does it really matter?
I can’t stop thinking about their faces. When they’re eating, because I saw one eating yesterday, it didn't know I was there and I was just.... hypnotized, I guess. But when they eat, their faces are like... caricatures, cartoons, contorted in throes of passion that could be agony or pleasure. Some of them could almost be human. Others clearly died and rotted long before this all started.
Day 60. It was me.
That first night, I saw ... myself. It was so cold out when I was falling asleep on the bench, winter’s last chill. And as I was falling asleep, I thought to myself, “This is how inexperienced idiots like you die, you know. If one of them doesn’t crawl in through the broken windows, the cold will do you instead.” But after the things I saw that day, I wasn’t sure I wanted to wake up. So I just... let myself fall asleep.
I was so, so cold. I could barely feel anything, except, then ... my heart started racing, because I realized how close I came. And I fell flailing off the bench, bruised my forehead.
I finally came to my senses and stood up, and realized there had been someone next to me on the bench.
Me.
I was there, physically, in front of myself, except dead and naked, all my clothes on the floor in front of the corpse.
No, not all of them, actually. Everything, from my jeans to my wristwatch… except the face wrap and mittens that I scrounged together from rags.
That’s right. When I woke up, I couldn’t feel my face or my hands, and before I even stood and turned back to the bench, I went and ripped up some curtains to wrap around them. So it was everything I was wearing when…
I stuffed it all in a locker and dragged the corpse outside to put it in the pile. I was panicking because I was sure Merlin would notice, but he just stood there smoking his cigarette.
Everyone is dead. The laptop, the binoculars… I took them all off the corpses of people I killed. Or, killed again, I guess. I can’t imagine it makes a difference. The kid almost killed me. I guess I killed me, too.
Day 61. Sorry. That plane crash really fucked me up. I don’t know why I thought there’d be anyone alive.
I don’t know why I’m alive. Is it just dumb luck? I’m here. I’ve adapted. For better or worse.
Day 62. They broke in through the last intact window. I just finished boarding it up. Now there’ll be no sunlight in here again unless I leave the door wide open.
I need to fucking get out of here.
Day 63. hey... tHere's another app on this computer
Day 64. It was an emergency message. It's not just me. There are other people out there. Survivors. I'm leaving tonight. I couldn't convince Merlin to come with me. How does he still have cigarettes?! Whatever... this rancid shelter will be in my past forever soon.
Some kind of huge abomination chased me out of town this afternoon. I thought I had cleared this area out. It was ... giant, like a fleshy skeleton with horrible bug eyes... I'm getting out of here. I hope it doesn't get Merlin.
The survivor hub is a month's walk away, and that's if I can't find a car on the way. Too bad my bike exploded...
I've hoarded enough gear that I can camp out to sleep through the day, and creep through the cities for supplies at night. I hope there's someone there to greet me when I arrive...

Hi everybody! I'm looking for a roommate for the master bedroom (with private bathroom) in my house in Noe Valley starting ASAP (flexible on date) for $1,950/month plus utilities (only gas and electric;water and trash are already included in rent).
The apartment: Photos here: https://imgur.com/a/PImgbOKIt is a 2.5B2BA and you would be living with one other person (me, 27F) and my super sweet dog, Mishka (no other pets please, sorry!). The extra "half" bedroom is used as an office/storage space/guest room. The room available for rent is the master bedroom with its own private ensuite bathroom and a large closet with sliding mirror doors. There is a washedryer and dishwasher in unit, and each room has it's own private heateradiator so you can set the temperature to whatever you like in your room. The living room and kitchen are fully furnished (65" TV!), so you only need to bring things for your own room! There's tons of natural light all throughout the unit and it is recently renovated with recessed lighting, hardwood floors, new appliances. It is a 2 unit duplex and my unit is on the first floor. The upstairs neighbor is a super sweet older gentleman who doesn't make any noise. A great part about it is that it's a back unit duplex so the front door to my unit does not go out onto the street, which means it's safer and gets no street noise. There is a main door (shared with the other unit) which leads to a common backyard space (where I have chairs and a table set up for hanging out) and then a second door leading to our actual unit.
The location: 5 second walk to the J-Church muni metro line which takes you straight downtown/FiDi and to BART, 5 second walk to Sanchez slow street (best slow street in the city), steps away from a park/tennis and basketball courts/recreational area, next door to a produce market, tons of fantastic restaurants and cafes, EXTREMELY safe and quiet neighborhood, easy access to the freeway (280 entrance is only a few blocks away, 101 only a couple blocks further), good parking, sunniest and warmest neighborhood in the city, close to the Mission and Dolores Park (20 min walk, or the metro line takes you straight there).
About me: I work in biotech, grew up in Sunnyvale, and have lived in Israel and Denmark as well. I love traveling and visiting new national parks and backpacking. During the week I spend my evenings walking Mishka, at hot yoga, getting dinner with friends, painting, reading or just being lazy on the couch. I prefer to keep the place pretty mellow on the weekdays. On the weekends I love to go out hiking or to the beach or the park, get brunch, go out for drinks, live shows, go visit family, cook meals and cocktails and host dinner parties, etc! It is really important for me to keep my home tidy and clean, especially in common areas. I'm super friendly and social and love to be around my friends/family and am usually out of the house the entire weekend and hope to find a roommate to spend time with as well! PS. Mishka is a super mellow, quiet and sweet 8 year old boy who lounges in one of his beds most of the day. I get him professionally groomed monthly so he barely sheds at all and smells like mangoes. He is very well-behaved and doesn't bother anyone, and just loves to just hang out!
About you: I'm looking for someone similar in age, who is a full-time working professional, responsible, likes dogs, likes to keep common spaces clean and organized, and wants to be friends! Females only please 🙂
Please DM me if you're interested!

My question is what panel/voltage should I go with for a 850 sqft ADU unit in LA.
I am building an ADU unit at the back of my property in LA. The unit will have the usual appliances from HVAC system, stove water heater (gas) etc. When speaking with an electrician and my contractor they were throwing numbers around 150, 110 & 220 which was confusing me since it all seems arbitrary way of coming up with the voltage & what size panel that should be installed. With no true knowledge on this subject my immediate reaction is to go with higher vs. lower in case there is more voltage that might be needed in the future for the unit.
Can you help me learn more on this subject and recommend what should I go with for this new construction & possible pitfalls of choosing one over the other. List of few questions that I came up with below,

1. Why/how can you just randomly choose any voltage one would like as people were throwing out 110, 150, 240?
2. Is there an intelligent way of choosing various levels of voltage for the back unit?
3. Given CA is pushing for all vehicles sales to be electrical by 2025 (I think) does it make sense to go with 220 in case the tenants who rent the house out have an electrical car that needs charging at home? Could this be done at lower voltage as well?

Please help me learn a bit more so I can be smart in making a decision and backing it up with facts that make sense. If there are any additional things that I should consider but I didnt ask please feel free to share you knowledge as I dont know what I dont know.
Thank you for everyone's input!

For the past couple of years, I have worked as an aide in a private elementary school-my oldest graduated from there, and my youngest is in middle school. The job is PT and I get a tuition break which was why I stayed.
I have my MA in secondary ed and was certified 7-12 in my state for social studies. Due to a teacher quitting in August last year, they asked me to teach a section of middle school social studies-just one class a day in addition to my aide job. Let me tell you, I loved it. It reminded me why I loved teaching to begin with.
Sadly, they have hired a new FT teacher who will be taking 4 ELA classes and my social studies class next year. I still have my aide job, but I decided to test the waters and apply for some FT social studies jobs in other private schools, just to see what was out there.
Long story short, I was offered a FT job today. 3 classes a day (one for each middle school grade), the usual lunch/recess/parking lot duties, a homeroom, all that jazz. Decent pay (more than twice what I make now) and good bennies. Close to the HS my oldest goes to. Problem is I’d lose my tuition discount for my youngest, and I’d have to pay for extended care at least two days a week. It’s also wear and tear and gas on my car (20 minute commute as opposed to 5 minutes).
My youngest is livid. She doesn’t want me to take it even though it would eliminate a lot of worries for us financially. I’m also worried that it would take away the time I do have with my kids.
So, give me advice. Please!

It was Danvers who finally pushed him in. We’d been feeding the fire with hardwood since the afternoon and it had gotten big as the wind picked up by nightfall, flickering cross our faces and warming our cheeks better than a gas heater. He didn’t even scream when he fell. The flames just swallowed him up—sparks shooting out like hot vomit. He knew what he’d done. He knew it was wrong. When he lifted himself up and came out of the fire he stood dead still, staring at us, smiling like we’d done him a favour. Maybe he thought he deserved to turn into ash. Maybe he did deserve it. I know I kept my fingers tight round the handle of the axe just the same till he keeled over and Cauley had touched the corpse with his foot and we knew he was dead. The three of us, we kept silent for a long while after that. There was just the sound of wood burning and it was better that way. None of us touched the body but none of us looked away, either: you could still make out his face, unmistakable, when the rest of him was dark and formless. He was a face on a pile. Then the wind started taking bits and pieces and carrying them away. Like I told the police, he didn’t touch me, but I knew some of the kids he’d done it to. He’d done it to Danvers. I remember once when all the other kids were gone, I’d stayed after class, Mr Gregor bent himself close to my ear and told me the real story. “You’re a wicked one,” he said when he was done, “just like Don Whitman.”
They used to scare us with Don Whitman, the adults: the other teachers, our parents, the priest. But no one ever explained it. They’d just say, “You better do what we want or else Don Whitman will come back and get you.” Mr Gregor was the only one ever to tell it to me with details. He told it different, too. He said he remembered because he was the same age as Don Whitman and they went to the same school. He said that what the others say they remember is like Cain and Abel or Little Red Riding Hood. Even the landscape tells the fairy tale. After it happened, Don Whitman’s school got torn down, then his house. And the bells in the Church got changed: the ones they rang after Elizabeth Cartwell had come back hysterical with the news.
You can’t tear down or change a man’s memory, Mr Gregor told me.
Once you see, it’s forever.
Elizabeth Cartwell’s parents moved away as soon as the police investigation finished. A lot of people moved away. But Mr Gregor showed me a newspaper from Hill City, North Dakota from some years later. The paper was yellow but you could read the black print fine. The story was about a girl who’d killed herself. The photo was of Elizabeth Cartwell. As he held it out for me to see, his hand shook and I felt his breath grow warmer against the skin around my neck. Nothing made him shake as much as what happened to Elizabeth Cartwell, not even the details.
Don Whitman was seventeen when he did it. He was handsome, with wide shoulders and played football. All the girls liked him. He was going to go to college. Maybe that’s why they thought he was ready: they thought he was a man. They thought he’d be with them. It was a school night when they woke him and drove out to the old pumping station, so that he could see everything for himself. They wanted to make him a part of it just like they were. If he saw, he would want it just like they did. I was always told that he drove out there by himself, but Mr Gregor told me that’s part of the lie. He said Don Whitman’s father was in the car with the mayor and the chief of police. He said, “How would he have found the place by himself—why would he have gone looking?”
The place is in a wood not far from the border. Of course, the whole underground is filled with cement now, but you can still see where the opening used to be: a fat tube sticking out of the ground, just big enough for a man to crawl down into. There was a hatch on it then, and thick locks. The hatch was sound-proof. If you stood right beside it, you couldn’t hear a thing, but as soon as you opened the hatch you could smell the insides and hear the moans start to drift upwards into the world. A steel ladder led down. Mr Gregor says they all knew about it, everyone: all the adults. They’d all been down that ladder. All of them had seen it.
Don Whitman went down the ladder, too. He must have smelled the insides grow stronger and heard the moaning echo louder with every rung but he kept going. On the ground above, his father spoke to the mayor and they both felt proud. Don Whitman must have been more scared of coming up and disappointing them than of not going down to the limit. But when he reached the bottom, the very bottom, and put his feet to the hard concrete and saw it before his own eyes, something inside of him must have broken—
“They sugarcoat it and they make a child’s game of it because they’re too scared to remember the truth,” Mr Gregor told me. “They can’t forget it, but it’s a stain to them, so they cover it up and pretend that everything’s clean.”
Don Whitman saw the vastness of the interlocking chambers and, within them, the writhing, ecstatic, swollen no-people of the underground, human-like but non-human, cross-bred mammals draped in plaster-white skin pinned to numb faces, men, women and children, male and female, naked, scared, dirty, with humans—humans Don Whitman knew and recognized—among them, on them and under them, hitting them, squeezing them, making them hurt, making monstrous sounds with them, all under slowly rotating heat lamps, all open and together, one before another, and then someone, someone Don Whitman knew, must have put a hand on Don Whitman’s shoulder and Don Whitman would have asked, “But what now, what am I supposed to do?” and then, from somewhere deep within the chambers, from a place not even Don Whitman would ever see, a voice answered:
“Anything.”
Mr Gregor pulled away from me and I felt my body turn cold. Icy sweat crawled under my collar and below my thighs.
I’d been told Don Whitman had found the old pumping station and lured the police to it, that they’d called others—including Don Whitman’s father—to talk him out of any violence, but that he’d snapped and murdered them all without firing a single shot, with his bare hands, and dumped the bodies into the metal pipe sticking out of the ground, the one just wide enough for a man to fit through. Then he’d disappeared. It wasn’t until days later that Elizabeth Cartwell found the bodies and there was never any sign of Don Whitman after that. The manhunt failed. So the church bells rang, the school was torn down, the pipe was filled in and, ever since, the adults scare their children with the story of the high school boy who’d done a terrible, sinful thing and vanished into thin air.
“And why would she decide to go out there?” Mr Gregor asked—meaning Elizabeth Cartwell—his eyes dead-set through a window at the raining world outside. “It’s as transparent as a sheet of the Bible, every word of it. They all pretend to believe because they’ve all made it up together. But the police reports, the testimony, the news stories, the court records, the verdict: a sham, a falsification made truth because a thousand people and a judge repeat it, word-for-word, every night before bed.”
I tried to stand but couldn’t. My heart was pounding me back into the chair. I was thinking about my mother and father. I had only enough courage for one question, so I asked, “What happened to the no-people?”
Mr Gregor turned suddenly and laughed so fierce the rain lashed the windows even harder. He came toward me. He put a delicate hand on each of my shoulders. He bent forward until his lips were almost touching mine and, his eyes staring at me like one stares at the Devil, said:
“Buried in the concrete. Buried alive, buried dead—”
I pushed him away.
He stumbled backward without losing his balance.
I forced myself off the chair, praying that my legs would keep. My knees shook but held. In front of me, Mr Gregor rasped for air. A few long strands of his thin hair had fallen across his forehead. He was sweating.
“He was a coward, that little boy, Don Whitman. Without him, we wouldn’t need to live under the whip of elaborate lies designed by weaker people turned away and shamed by the power of the natural order of things. They trusted him, and he betrayed us all. The fools! The weakling! Imagine,” Mr Gregor hissed, “just imagine what we could have had, what we could have experienced down there, at the very bottom, in the chambers...”
His eyes spun and his chest heaved as he grew excited, but soon he lost his venom and his voice returned to normal.
Finally, he said without any nastiness, “You’re a wicked one, just like Don Whitman.”
And I ran out.
Danvers prodded me awake. I must have fallen asleep during the night because when I opened my eyes it was morning already. The sun was up and the flames gone, but the fire was still warm. Mr Gregor’s dead face still rested atop a pile of ashes. Cauley was asleep on the dirt across from us. I could tell Danvers hadn’t slept at all. He said he’d been to a farmhouse and called the police. We woke up Cauley and talked over what we’d say when they got here. We decided on something close to the truth: Mr Gregor had taken the three of us camping and, when he tried to do a bad thing, we put up a fight and knocked him into the flames. Cauley said it might be suspicious because of how easily Mr Gregor had burned, but Danvers said that some people were like that—they burned quick and whole—so we needn’t say a word about the gasoline. When the police came, they were professional and treated us fair, but when they took me aside to talk to me about the accident, every time I tried to tell them about the bad things Mr Gregor had done, they wouldn’t hear it, they just said it was a shame there’d been an accident and someone had died.
At home, I asked my parents whether Mr Gregor was a bad person for what he’d done to Danvers and others. My mother didn’t say anything. My father looked at me like he was looking at the Devil himself and said morality was not so simple and that people had differing points of view and that, in the end, much depended not on what you did, but who you did it to—like during the war, for example. There were some who deserved to be done-to and others whose privilege it was to do. Then he picked up his magazine and told me it was best not to think about such things at all.
I did keep thinking about them, and about Don Whitman, too. When I got to high school, I was too old to scare with monsters, but once in a while I’d hear one of the adults tell a kid he better do as he’d been told or Don Whitman would come back and get him. I wondered if maybe people scare others with monsters they’re most scared of themselves. I even thought about investigating: taking a pick-axe to the pumping station and cracking through concrete or investigating records of how much of it had been poured in there. But I figured the records could have been fixed and one person with a pick-axe wouldn’t get far before the police came and I didn’t trust them anymore. I also had homework to worry about and I started seeing a girl.
I’d almost forgotten about Don Whitman by the time my mother sent me out one evening with my dad’s rifle to hunt down a coyote she said had been attacking her hens. I took a bike, because it was quiet, and was roaming just beyond town when I saw something kick up dust in a field. I shot at it, missed and it scurried off. I pedaled after it until it seemingly disappeared into nowhere. I kept my eye firm on the spot I saw it last and when I got close enough, I saw there was a small hole in the ground there. I stuck the rifle in and the hole felt bigger on the inside, so I stomped all around till the hole caved and where there’d been a mouse-sized hole now there was an opening a grown man could fit through. It seemed deep, which made me curious, because there aren’t many caves around here, so I stuck my feet in but still couldn’t feel the bottom. I slid in a little further, and further still, and soon the opening was above my head and I was inside with my whole body.
It was dark but I could feel the ground sloping. When my eyes accustomed to the gloom, I saw enough to tell there was a tunnel leading into the depths and that it was big enough for me to crawl through. I didn’t have a light but I knew it was important to try the hole. Maybe there were no-people at the bottom. Mostly, though, I didn’t think—I expected: that every time I poked ahead with the rifle, I’d hit earth and the tunnel would be done.
That never happened. I descended for hours. The tunnel grew narrower and the slope sharpened. Fear tightened around my chest. I lost track of time. There wasn’t enough space to turn my body around and I’d been descending for so long it was foolish to backtrack. Surely, the tunnel led somewhere. It was not a natural tunnel, I told myself, it must lead somewhere. I should continue until I reached the end, turn around and return to the surface. The trick was to keep calm and keep moving forward.
And I was right. Several hours later the tunnel ended and I crawled out through a hollow in the wall of a huge grotto.
I stood, stretched my limbs and squinted through the dimness. I couldn’t see the other end of the grotto but the wall curved so I thought that maybe if I went along I might get to the other end. My plan of an immediate return to the surface was on hold. I had to see what lived here. Images of no-people raced through my head. I readied my rifle and proceeded, slowly at first. Where the tunnel had been packed dirt and clay, the walls and floor of the grotto were solid rock. There was moisture, too. It flowed down the walls and gathered in depressions on the floor.
Although at first the wall felt smooth, soon I began to feel a texture to it—like a washboard. The ceiling faded into view. The grotto was getting smaller. And the texture was becoming rougher, more violent. I was thinking about the texture and Mr Gregor’s burnt body when a sound sent me sprawling. My elbow banged against the rock and I nearly cried out. My heart was beating like it had beaten me into my chair in the classroom. The sound was real: faint but clear and echoing. It was the sound of continuous and rhythmic scratching.
I crawled forward, holding the rifle in front. The scratching grew louder. I thought about calling out, but suddenly felt foolish to believe in no-people or anything of that kind. It seemed more sensible to believe in large rodents or coyotes with sharp teeth. I could have turned back, but the only thing more frightening than a monster in front is a monster behind, so I pulled myself on.
In fact, I was crawling up a small hill and, when I had reached the top, I looked down and there it was:
His was a human body. Though hunched, he stood on human legs and scratched with human hands. His movements were also clearly a man’s movements. There was nothing feminine about them. His half-translucent skin was grey, almost white, and taut; and if he had any hair, I didn’t see it. His naked body was completely smooth. I looked at him for a long time with dread and disgust. His arms didn’t stop moving. Whatever they were scratching, they kept scratching. Even when he turned and his head looked at me, even as I—stunned—frozen in terror, recoiled against the wall, still his arms kept moving and his hands clawing.
For a few seconds, I thought he’d seen me, that I was done for.
I gripped the rifle tight.
But as I focused on his face, I realized he hadn’t seen me at all. He couldn’t see me. His face, so much like a colourless swollen skull, was punctuated by two black and empty eye sockets.
He turned back to face the wall he was scratching. I turned my face, too. The texture on the wall was his. The deeper the grooves, the newer the work. I put down the rifle and put my hand on the wall, letting my fingers trace the contours of the texture. It wasn’t simple lines. The scratching wasn’t meaningless. These were two words repeated over and over, sometimes on top of each other, sometimes backwards, sometimes small, sometimes each letter as big as a person, and they were all around this vast underground lair, everywhere you looked—
Two words: Don Whitman.
He’d made this grotto. I felt feverish. The sheer greatness, the determination needed to scratch out such a place with one’s bare hands. Or perhaps the insanity—the punishment. If I hadn’t been sitting, a wave of empathy would have knocked me to the wet, rocky floor. I picked up the rifle. I could put Don Whitman out of his misery. I lifted the rifle and pointed it at the distant figure writing his name pointlessly into the wall. With one pull of the trigger, I could show him infinite mercy. I steadied myself. I said a prayer.
Don Whitman stopped scratching and wailed.
I bit down on my teeth.
I hadn’t fired yet.
He grabbed his head and fell to his knees. The high-pitched sound coming from his throat was unbearable. I felt like my mind was being ripped apart. I dropped the rifle and covered my ears. Again, Don Whitman turned. This time with his entire body. He crawled a few steps toward me—still wailing—before stopping and falling silent. He raised his head. Where before had been just eye sockets now there were eyes. White, with irises. Somehow, they’d grown.
He got to his feet and I was sure that he could see me now. He was staring at me. I called his name:
“Don Whitman!”
He didn’t react. Thoughts raced through my mind: what should I do once he comes toward me? Should I defend myself or should I embrace him?
But he didn’t step forward.
He took one step back and lifted his long fingers to his face. His nails, I now saw, were thick and curved as a bird’s talons. He moved them softly from his forehead, down his cheeks and up to his eyes, into which, without warning, he pressed them so painfully that I felt my own eyes burn. When he brought his fingers back out, in each hand he held a mashed and bleeding eyeball. These he put almost greedily into his mouth, one after the other, then chewed, and swallowed.
Having nourished his body, he returned to the wall and began scratching again.
As I watched the movements of his arms, able to follow the pattern of the letters they were carving, I no longer felt like killing him. If he wanted to die, he could die: he could forego water, he could refuse to eat. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to keep scratching his name into the walls of this grotto: Don Whitman, Don Whitman, Don Whitman…
I watched him for a long time before I realized that I would have to get to the surface soon. People would begin to worry. They might start looking for me. And as much as I needed to know the logic behind Don Whitman’s grotto, I also needed food. I couldn’t live down here. I couldn’t eat my own eyes and expect them to grow back. Eventually, I would either have to return to the world above or die.
I put my hand on the grotto wall and began to mentally retrace my steps. A return would not be difficult. All I would need to do was follow—
That’s when I knew.
The geography of it hit me.
The hole I’d entered was on the outskirts of town. The tunnel sloped toward the town. That meant this grotto was below the town. The town hall, the bank, the police station, the school—all of it was lying unknowingly on top of a giant expanding cavity. One day, this cavity would be too large, the town would be too heavy, and everything would collapse into a deep and permanent handmade abyss. Don Whitman would bury the town just as the town had buried the no-people. Everything would be destroyed. Everyone would die. That was Don Whitman’s genius. That was his life’s work.
I picked up the rifle and faced Don Whitman for the final time.
He must have known that I was there. He’d heard me and had probably seen me before he pulled out his eyes, yet he just continued to scratch. Faced with death, he kept working.
As I stood there, I had no doubt that, left in peace, Don Whitman would finish his project. His will was too powerful. The result would be catastrophic. It was under these assumptions that I made the most moral and important decision of my life:
I walked away.

My wife and two kids and I live in a sunny part of the San Francisco Bay Area (Foster City, adjacent to San Mateo). Our PG&E bill is pretty high, running over $600 much of the year for a four bedroom 1,800 sq ft house. We use average 741 kw of electricity per month or 8,895 kw per year.
We have two gas appliances that account for a lot of money, primarily in the winter (which leads me to believe our heater is the bulk of gas usage). I asked him about calculating the costs if we replace our gas furnace with a heat pump and our gas water heater with an electric heat pump water heater... the idea was that we'd finance the whole thing, and use the rebate to purchase and install those things and then run everything on electric power. Their estimates showed however that the heat pump and water heater would bring our electricity usage from 8,895 to 21,483 kWh per year... well over doubling our total electricity usage. This sounds like a lot, given that we have extremely mild weather here; temps usually stay inside a 50º - 80º range for the most part. We do have some summers where temps go up high enough that I would like cooling, which is one reason a heat pump is so attractive.
My goal is to replace our current electricity usage 100% or more with solar+battery, and if possible cover most or all of the heat pump and water heater if possible. I got four quotes from Sunpower:
Finance 1: 18x400 watt panels, 19.5kwh battery, 10,630 annual kWh: $75k, $284/month if we plow the tax rebate back into the loan (something like $350 if we do not) at 3.9% over 25 years. This is supposed to cover our current usage plus a little extra.
Finance 2: 26x400 watt panels, 26 kWh battery, 14,975 annual kWh: $101k, $384/month (also assuming we put the rebate back into the loan), also 3.9% over 25 years. This is supposed to cover 70% of our usage with the heat pump and water heater.
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There are two lease options as well, which seem attractive because they do not increase yearly like other companies we've talked to (like SunRun which added 3% per year, every year for 25 years if you lease which ends up with like a $800/month payment).
Lease 1: 28x365 watt panels, 13 kWh battery, 14,899 kWh per year (which is supposed to cover 69% of the 21,483 kWh we'd use with the heat pump and water heater). This is $274/month for 25 years.
Lease 2: 17x365 watt panels, 13 kWh battery, 9,369 kWh per year (which will more than cover our current 8,912 kWh per year but won't address heating or water heating).
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I think these options are reflective of the sales rep turning dials in his portal to try different options at prices he sensed I could stomach. Not really sure which is the best option here - but leaning toward finance 1, as it gives us more than enough power to cover our current usage if we stay with gas heater and water heater (maybe we replace those with more efficient units) or we end up paying PG&E on top of the monthly bill, but still less than $600/month.
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I guess the question I have for folks here is whether the amounts quoted seem reasonable, and if the assumptions they're making about power consumption from a heat pump and water heater are correct. Also, the lease option does seem pretty attractive given that it doesn't increase over time - are there any downsides or pitfalls to watch out for there?

Hey everyone,
I currently have a 40 gallon electric hot water heater (No gas available) and with a family of 4 we run out of hot water too quickly. I'm researching getting a hybrid water heater and was going to upgrade to a 50 gallon hybrid. Do you guys think that's enough to alleviate some of the issue or should I spend the $600 extra for 65 gallon?
Thanks in advance.

Hi All,
I have a newer home, yes I'm on a well, that has a softener and triple filter, but I still get a Sulphur smell in the morning and just for a few seconds when the cold water ONLY is turned on.
It's not my softener, and it's not my water heater as I've tested all the water sources up to it and after. I even have water spigots outside that are directly from the softener that sits for months and they smell fine. The issue is only certain fixtures have this smell, as if the sulphugas builds up over night. For example the shower is fine, but the sink next to it smells.
I guess my question is, should I bleach the house lines and how? Or should I replace the lines in that area of the house? Could it be the fixtures or the hoses? There are no odd kinks in the supply lines etc. Lucky for me my water lines are clear plastic so I will go under the house today and see if I can find anything that looks odd.
Thank you