American Airlines status

[Red Arrow]

China can't buy Buicks fast enough.  GM is huge there. 

GM makes Buicks there.  I read somewhere that was one of the reasons Buick stayed and Pontiac died.

[Red Arrow]

Levis and Nike are made in China (plus other places),

The Levis I bought last Saturday at Penny's were made in Mexico.

[Hoss]

The Levis I bought last Saturday at Penny's were made in Mexico.

No wonder my 550s wear out so fast now...wait, maybe it could be my big fat keister...what?

[Red Arrow]

No wonder my 550s wear out so fast now...wait, maybe it could be my big fat keister...what?

Some varieties of Levis are made of thinner material than they used to be.  I've seen the material weights but don't remember them at the moment.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Products like water heaters, washers, power saws etc. are mature industries. There is very little difference in the technology of the product from 30 years ago. Really, up to 50 years ago. They should have costs, resource aquisition, management and demand cycles pretty well under control. Those type products generally do not increase in price quickly unless manipulated to do so. We manipulate the prices because we condensed a lot of industries in the last decade. IOW, we allowed them to buy their competitors and control pricing. Now many products that should have had level prices (mostly influenced by inflation, resource fluctuation, labor costs) have instead risen faster than any of those components. It is administrative pricing rather than supply and demand. Stockholders love it, corporates can't seem to operate without it, and the buyer is simply screwed.

Trendy, style, fashion components aside, foreign products operate under different systems though the outcome may be the same. They may love the Levi's brand, but I would imagine that our products, being outsourced to China and the Philippines are no better quality or better priced than the ones they outsource to China, Mexico and the Philippines.  Prices are now driven by the margins and profits demanded by corporations who slavishly shine on their stockholders, not as many of you insist, by the market place.

Now comes the name-calling. I'm not a socialist, liberal, anti-capitalist, occupier, t-partier, poor, envious, wealth hating %*@$!!  Just the way its going down right now. Well, I am kinda poor.

You are right on with essentially all of that.  Pricing is based on "what the market will bear" rather than what provides a good return.  Harvard MBA stuff, right down the line.  Sam's Club used to have a poster (Sam was still alive) that had 13 principals of business they followed.  Haven't seen those in a while...but one went to the idea that pricing was not based on what the market would bear, but what would be good for both parties.

As for difference in technology, yeah, the basics are essentially the same.  What has changed a lot is the efficiency of most of the 'white goods' type items.  Water heaters have better insulation - the trade off being they can now predict very closely how thick to make the tank walls to rust out soon after the warranty expires.  Pilot lights are on the way out - electronic ignition is coming, actually here now, if you so choose.  I chose pilot light.  No match, though - there is a clicker ignitor.

Washers - progress in efficiency is dramatic.  Motor controls have reduced that energy usage quite a bit.  And much less water in some configurations, so less hot water....

A/C and furnaces - massive increases in efficiency.  My 1970's A/C is probably about 1/3 as efficient as what will replace it someday soon.  SEER 5 versus today's SEER 13 to 24.  Mostly using bigger coils all around.  New gas furnaces at 94% efficiency versus my 55 to 60% furnace.  They are SO good that they use PVC exhaust now.  Will save me a ton of money when change, but it will still take several years to reach break even - probably about 4 to 5.  And what I know about what is possible with HVAC using the proper electronics and some changes to the compressor and coil systems would make you want one REAL bad.

And the ONLY reason we get any of these improvements is because the government has mandated that they happen!  And it always STARTS in California!!  For all the CA haters out there...

And the same thing has happened in airplanes - engines are more powerful, use less fuel, and are noticeably quieter than ever.  All due to that pesky "unwarranted government intrusion" by way of regulation.  At least until Reagan and Bush's started dismantling so much of it.

And here is an interesting little compare/contrast Sam's Club to Costco;

http://www.ou.edu/russell/UGcomp/Cascio.pdf

[heironymouspasparagus]

Here's a thought.  Stew on it for a minute before looking to see who said it.  Pretty well sums up the entire nature of the problems we have today.  Just like the same time 100 years ago, when we were dealing with very similar issues.

"Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital.  Capital is the fruit of labor and could not exist if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of
capital and deserves much the higher consideration"


Gee, I wonder what the RWRE would have to say about that?  (Sorry, Conan, but there just isn't another phrase that is so concise or succinct in describing the people I am referring to on the far right - the 1%ers.)

[heironymouspasparagus]

From above note;

Although it is heresy to today's Wall Street analysts, Abraham Lincoln said that in his First Annual Message to Congress, December 3, 1861,

[Conan71]

Water heaters have better insulation - the trade off being they can now predict very closely how thick to make the tank walls to rust out soon after the warranty expires.  

A water heater is a pressure vessel.  There's strict guidelines they have to adhere to in design safety criteria or it could literally blow up and kill someone.  That's why they are equipped with pressure relief valves.  The shell thickness hasn't changed.  They may go with cheaper corrosion-resistant lining or no lining, but there's not been a new technology in metals in the last 60 years which would allow for them to use thinner wall material.

[heironymouspasparagus]

A water heater is a pressure vessel.  There's strict guidelines they have to adhere to in design safety criteria or it could literally blow up and kill someone.  That's why they are equipped with pressure relief valves.  The shell thickness hasn't changed.  They may go with cheaper corrosion-resistant lining or no lining, but there's not been a new technology in metals in the last 60 years which would allow for them to use thinner wall material.

There is a lining made of some kind of epoxy type material.

There have been tremendous changes in metal in the last 60 years!  But if your talking just a plain jane A56 as kind of the standard of a nice workable general purpose good all around carbon steel, yeah, it is about the same...around 55,000 psi tensile.

As far as water heaters - the steel has gotten thinner over the years.  One I changed in 1969 had walls that were probably close to 1/8" - maybe a little thicker.  The most recent was noticeably thinner.  The wall thickness has previously been based on strength to hold itself up - the steel has never been the limiting factor in domestic hot water heater - the walls could be much thinner to hold just the pressure (0.05" would do, close to 18 ga. - good for 275 psi, which might be a little lite for domestic water design.) - don't think they could hold themselves up that thin. 

Red, you ever designed a hot water tank??  Would you go any thinner than about 0.1" for the weight and pressure?



   

[Red Arrow]

Red, you ever designed a hot water tank??  Would you go any thinner than about 0.1" for the weight and pressure?

Nope.  I never did heat exchangers or pressure vessels.  My brother did for a while.  He said you followed ASME code which was conservative, sometimes way conservative.

[Conan71]

Nope.  I never did heat exchangers or pressure vessels.  My brother did for a while.  He said you followed ASME code which was conservative, sometimes way conservative.

As we like to say around my office ASME stands for "Always, Sometimes, Maybe, Except"

Heir, when you are working with a vessel at atmospheric pressure, you are correct, your primary concerns are structural integrity (i.e. the unit doesn't collapse under it's own weight) and durability.  Home water heaters are pressurized.  Different set of rules, but go right ahead and build your own water heater from 18 gauge material.  Oh and use flat heads while you are at it too.

[Red Arrow]

Heir, when you are working with a vessel at atmospheric pressure, you are correct, your primary concerns are structural integrity (i.e. the unit doesn't collapse under it's own weight) and durability.  Home water heaters are pressurized.  Different set of rules, but go right ahead and build your own water heater from 18 gauge material.  Oh and use flat heads while you are at it too.

I thought there were additional rules when the vessel was heated/fired too.

[godboko71]

Tank-less is the way to go for water hears if its about energy efficiency, for the most part they just work better too.Wish I could afford to make the upgrade.

[Red Arrow]

Tank-less is the way to go for water hears if its about energy efficiency, for the most part they just work better too.Wish I could afford to make the upgrade.

I've heard they frequently don't get the water warm enough.  That may be a function of being undersized for the demand though.  The floor plan of our house makes it inconvenient to run either gas or 220V to the bathroom locations and the utility room.  It would work OK for the kitchen.

[Conan71]

I've heard they frequently don't get the water warm enough.  That may be a function of being undersized for the demand though.  The floor plan of our house makes it inconvenient to run either gas or 220V to the bathroom locations and the utility room.  It would work OK for the kitchen.

In a sense, you are correct on them being under-sized.  Most are only designed for a 20 to 40 degree rise per pass (at least on the commercial scale I work with not as up on the home units), so, unless you reduce the flow rate, increase your firing rate (BTU's) or recirculate through a small storage tank, you can wind up with a luke warm shower in the middle of winter when you need a delta T of 60 or 70 degrees.

And yes, temperature is part of the calcs for certifying and hydrostatically testing pressure vessels.