I came to know about this foroum recently and saw with interest the discussions held here and also read some posts. What I saw was that that majority of posts are related to hydronic radiant heating. people are either asking about the problems that occured in the hydronic heating system or discussing the complexities envolving the hydronics system so that they can install it without any problem and most of the people it seems have preconcieved notion that hydronic radiant heating is the best.
I dont have knowledge about hydronic system but what I feel from the posts I had read is that Hydronic system is not simple. The main concern area to me are:-
1) There would be maintainance issues with boiler . I dont know how many times the boiler needs sevice during a span of 10 years.and how much each service will cost.
2) there are so many moving parts in the system like valves, manifolds etc . Moving parts means wear and tear and wear and tear means replacement of that part. In a span of 10 year how many parts need to be replaced on an average say per 1000 Sqrft. and what is the cost of replacement.
3) Once a moving part fails the system will halt what will happen to the heat that is stored inside the water in the system. I think that will all be wasted.
4)at the entrance point the temperature will be higer and at the exit the tempearture will be lower hence rooms that are near the entrance point of water will be at higher tempearture and rooms that are near the exit point will be at lower tempearture.
5) there is chance of pipe leaking and damaging the house as are the cases told by many posts in the forum.

From my post so far you would be feeling that I am anti hydronic, but I am not. Any form of radiant infloor heating ( hydronic as well as electric) is good but I dont understand the obsesion for hydronic and anti electric environment.
There are two main defence of the promotors of hydronic:-
1) Choice of fuel
2) lower running cost
I dont agree with both of them.
if ability to have a choice of fuel is so important then why do you use electric stove for cooking you should use oil based cooking stove since that will be cheaper. Why you use electricity to light up your house, you should use some gass based systems .
Electricity is used widely because it is easy to use the electric light is easier to install and operate. The elecric cooking range is much easier to use without any hassels. Hence electricity is part of our lives and we will be using more and more electricity based products, Hence I dont understand why there is so much anti electric environment.
regarding the lower running costs . I see here that people saying that a BTU is a BTU . That is exactly correct. But for comparing efficiencies and costs we have to see that how much heat out of the generated heat has been used to heat the person andhow much is wasted in just heating the air or space.
if the radiant system is designed in such a manner ( be it hydronic or electric) that this eficiency is increased to the maximum then running costs can be low .
What I feel hydronic will be difficult to zone and controll as compared to electric. and in hydronic even if zoning is possible than means installing more complex system and chances of that complex system to malfunction are even greater as it will have even more moving parts in addition to the full system.
Electric is such a simple system . you can put different thermostat for different zones. and with advanced programmable thermostats anow available each zone can be very acurately monitored and controled and temperatures can be very easily set to minimum possible without compromising on comfort .
teh efficiency improvements achieved by this can not be calculated easily theoratically by maths. It is quite possible but is very complex to calculate. but it can be easily experienced by homeowener through the premier comfort he gets and the sense of power he will get since he can minutely control the electric heating system to get the best comfort.

I am sure that the first point anyone to the contrary will point out is the fact that you are a manufacturer of radiant heating elements.
I would agree with them because from the start there is a conflict of interest, however, all of your points are correct and on point.

As was stated in a previous posting, hydronics have been around longer so they have a larger base to market to/from and the installer (the plumber) can't switch jobs and start installing electric elements so to agree with what you're pointing out would mean that they would have to give the project to someone else. Further, this site and the Radiant Panel Assoc. in general are based on hydronics radiant. Sure, they seem to be attempting to make strides to balance it out but even all of the board members are or were hydronics installers. (here's where I would place a cute little picture of a smiley face banging his head against a wall)

I have no issue with people stating their biases (as you have) and then wading into a discussion. I think that's great.

Your points about maintenance costs and are completely valid and very important to consider. I understand electric systems can be damaged and require repair as well, so that conversation can go both ways, but no doubt a hydronic system needs more maintenance than an electric one.. maybe not a lot, but maybe a lot.

the water temperature drop issue is a non-issue though, and makes it obvious that you don't understand hydronics at all. I suggest you remove that from your talking points entirely as it makes it look like you have no idea what you're talking about, and the rest of your points are definitely worth considering, so don't make them look bad "by association" there.

Beyond that, electric radiant is... one more time... great and wonderful in many applications. But the basic fact is, in my neck of the woods until very recently with the sudden spike in oil/propane costs, it would cost someone HUNDREDS more a month to heat their house with electricity.

That's an awful lot of service calls and replacement parts and design work and installation labor over just a couple years of operation. All your points are correct, and they are often completely overshadowed by this massive differential in operating cost.

That changed! Now electric is quite competitive in many cases (thank you, huge increases in fossil fuel pricing). But, this happened before. It was the late 70's. Electric got put in all over the place then because that was the only thing we'd ever need again...

And the industry spent most of the late 80's and 90's tearing it out for hydronics or forced air.

So there is a gamble. People have been burned once already in this generation. That is why we are "obsessed with hydronics". Because fuel flexibility might actually matter!

You can gamble that it won't, and you might be right this time!!! Seriously. We're all guessing. But that is the gamble, and the more energy you have to use, the more important that question becomes.

just my two cents, but I don't think you're doing yourselves any favors acting like there is some big conspiracy to down electric radiant or an "obsession" with hydronics. There isn't; until recently, in most areas of this country, you'd have to be very wealthy indeed to have happily heated your home with electricity relative to the costs of all other energy sources.

It fits a lot more needs today, than it did two years ago though, that's for sure. And for many, that "risk vs reward" equation will have shifted, definitely. and that's absolutely, 100% cool with me. I personally still prefer to keep options open. In fact, you could say I am obsessed with keeping options open. I'm 100% cool with that too

Rob:

This is really just a thought based on an experience; what do you think of the possibilty that electric radiant is more efficient in it's dispensing of the heat generated so that it doesn't require as much time to heat the same space so it's not on for as long a time as the btu's would call for..??

I'm not sure if I'm wording that correctly so here's the example: We installed an LV radiant heating system in a 2900sf home as primary. The client paid less in Jan and Feb this year than he paid last year in his hydronic home of 2650sf. Both homes were built to similar spec's regarding insulation, last years' winter was not as extreme as this in his area of the Birkshires and he kept the tstats to the same temp settings. And, as an example within and example; their master bedroom and hall (1 zone) heat loss calls for 8800btu's. The system generates 2876 watts(9800 btus)yet the zone has only run a maximum of 2 hours a day on the worst day. The entire house is running like this.

Wouldn't this scenerio tell you that something is different..even when all the engineering tells you otherwise?

You have extensive experience in radiant and your knowledge proffesses it so.. Tell me what to look for that's making it "seem" different and I will stop saying it is different.

comparison between houses is nearly impossible or heating would be an exact science already... and even heating costs is hard given the fluctuations in fuel pricing. really, it needs to be a BTU to BTU comparison.

But it is very possible that heat loads will be different than calculated (calculation is an art as much as a science), houses will vary in construction quality, passive gains, gains from equipment and people in the home, etc... Most heat loads I've seen have CYA numbers at least 30% higher than actual needs.

Also, no doubt at all that some houses might save money using electricity even if the cost per BTU is somewhat higher. Not if it's double, probably, but some differential could be made up in poor system efficiency on a bad hydronic system. Note that assumes that something was botched on the hydronics, which is one point in electric's favor for sure (simplicity and predictability). In the past, you could predictably pay double with electricity now, the predictability might be more helpful.

Site conditions may also have been different (wind, solar exposure, etc), which can have a huge impact on heat loads.

but the electric system is definitely not creating more heat than the wattage would indicate! That breaks the laws of physics. Unless you're running a heat pump with that electricity

Yes, that all makes sense. I wasn't trying to say that the electric system is making more btu's than the numbers proove out. What I think is happening, in laymens terms, is that the heat is being dispersed in the floor so well, so evenly that the heat is being "better utilized" in the space. We expected the system, in the zone exampled, to be on at least 4-5 hours a day. The same calculations were used in the other spaces given the heat loss. This home is not what we would call "air tight". It has a wood burning fireplace... a 6 panel sliding glass door that faces northwest..etc. I ran the heat loss and over compensated by about 10% but certainly not 50%.

The old home is not old. It's less than 5 years old. The homeowner built both homes to similar standards. The old home is on a lake front. The new is in a valley in the berkshires. Both situations called for lots of wind. They even face the same directions. Yes, they are very different homes but again, similar in design construction. This brings up the thought, why did they build two homes so close together?! The old home has some VERY bad memories. That's the only reason for the move. The old home is still in their ownership. Due to current real estate markets and the "history" of the home, they can't sell it. With no one in the home and tstsat's down to 60*, the heating costs were almost the same this year home to home. The new was a little more than the old, but not considerably.

there is no such thing as "better utilized" in the way you are thinking.

Heat loss is heat loss. You can't do better than 100% with resistance heating. You might, however, pick up significant heat gain from other sources that would explain the discrepancy. So.. with all due respect.. your load calc is most definitely off by whatever amount the wattage indicates, though that doesn't mean you calculated wrong! the calculations just very well might not be sophisticated enough. If you used practically any canned program, you probably started at 30% overestimated and added 10% to that

Frankly, load calcs are an art, as the standard "steady state" calculation can be fudged around by a whole lot of stuff. they are a guideline but not the final word for sure. and we're not really modelling heat flow through a structure either, it's a fairly primitive method we're using.

Whatever the issue, if the two loads are truly "equal" including gain from other sources like lights and electronics, it would be a shortcoming of the hydronic system causing the differential, not something unexplained in the electric causing "overperformance".

and again, that simplicity and predictability of electrical performance is, in an area where energy costs are somewhat in the same ballpark so as not to be overshadowed by operating cost, a true and valid and perhaps even compelling selling point of electric mat systems... 100% no argument on that. Not that I can't argue for flexibility instead, but there is a world of room in there for reasonable people to disagree.

Yup. Once again, makes sense. I guess the LV system in the new home was just better designed than the Hydro was in the old home. (does that make me a optimist?)

The possitive to this is that even if an electric LV system is "oversold", it won't hurt the running costs or cause premature material breakdown in the final calculation.

Dear Warm,
Yes you are quite right that most of the RPA people are the ones envolved in Hydronic system and hence they always try to defend there stand about hydronic. Hydronic has been around for quite some time hence and you are right that there are more installers of hydronic systems and hence they are reluctant to accept the benifits of electic and discarding electric which is not correct.
Dear Rob,
I dont have bias about anything. I dont have much knowledge about hydronic ( as I stated earlier)and as I read the posts here filled with discussions about hydronic I got curious about the system but as I read more of it It looked that it is a very complicatd system and the there there were many doubs about the system that came to my mind and I wrote them out ( including the temperature difference one). that doubt is still there and I will not edit it until it is clear to me.If it shows that I dont have knowledge of hydronics then I have no problem with that I hav joined this forum to learn. I will make every efort to learn more about how the Hydronic system works so that I can be more clear bout my understanding of radiant heating systems. If you could give me some links where I can find obout it then it would be great.
You seem to be reluctantly agreen to most of my concerns but your bias of hydronic system is there ( and there is no problem in that) its just like you feel that I have bias towards electricity.
The diffence you have taken is the same one which I pointed out ability to change fuel types and lower running costs.
If ability to use cheaper fuel tyes is so importatnt factor then why are people not using oil lamps to light there houses or oil stoves for cooking. If you will try them out at your home there will be a little mess but you will definatly save a lot on you fuel costs.
You have reluctantly admited the simplicity of the electric heating systems and with better thermostats there beter performance but again you say that same thing happened in the 70s and people abandoned the system. What were the systems in the 70s at that time there were manual thermostats only no good quality insulation boards. mostly storage type heating was used in which large amount of heat was required to heat the high mass of concrete . the response time was very slow if person is feeling cold it will take hours for temperaure of the system to increase and since tempearture controls were not good most of the time the temperature overshooted and the person has to again bring down the temperature which again takes lot of ime and in many cases the person opens the window to brin down the temperature faster. Hence you cannot use the 70s situation to discard present electric systems.
for good comparison we have to discus the present heating systems and compare them and then see which is best.
Also I feel that there is a misconception about efficiency of a system. at many place it has been writen that a BTU will generate a BTU of heat it cannot generate more than a BTU.
But My point is that is our purpose to generate heat only? If that is the purpose than all systems mostly run on 100% efficiency.
but I feel that our purpose is to generate heat and then use that heat efficiently to heat the person in the room and bring him to required tempearture so that he feels comfortable.
Now We can generate heat @ 100% efficiency but we cannot use the generated heat at 100% efficiency to only heat that person ( not atleast with the existing systems I Know of). Why is this?. Because if 100BTU of heat is generated then some of that heat will be absorbed by the walls of that room , some of the heat will be absorbed by the table of that room , some of the heat will be absorbed by other objects in the room. some het will be lost outside the room. and remaining heat will be used to heat the person in the room. hence out of the 100BTUs only very little heat will actually be utilised by the person . If I say 30BTU is utilesed by the persons then actual efficiency is 30% ( we gerrate heat at 100% efficiency but utilized it at 30% efficiency)and if we can increase this actual efficiency somehow then our system will be more efficient.
( we cannot achieve 100% actual efficiency).
What I personally feel is that they electric heating systems available today have better now access to better thermostats and they can be so minutely adjusted with quick response times that this actual efficiency can be better achieved than a present available hydronic systems( this is my knowlegde based on litle I have learened about hydronic reading the posts here correct me if I am wrong).
every one will agree that electric infloor radiant heating systems have:-
1) Lower installation costs.
2) Simple and predictable construction.
3) Simple installation.
4) Present undertile systems have faster response times.
5) Ease in operation.
6) Ease in controll. can be minutely controled as desired with use of programmable thermostats.
7) ease in zoning which improves the ACTUAL efficiency drastically.( the heat generation efficiency remains 100%).

The only DISadvantage is the inability to us other type of fuels. But If I am using Electricity to light up my house to cook my food ( and not using other cheaper fuels) just because of the ease of the system then why am I not using the same electricity to heat that same house even when simple electric radiant heating systems with so many advantages are available . Why I am tinking about creating a coice of using other energy source. coice of energy source is so important han that should apply to all the appliances in my house.
We use electricity because it is so simple to use . Every other thing is uncertain but one thing is certail that electricity will be there in our lives in the comming future and is a part of our lives. I dont think anyone is here who lives without using electricity.

they are not worried about gas or oil to run lights because the downsides of point of use combustion in a living space (i.e., having to have fire in your living room.. you see everything you have to do for a wood stove, right? chimneys? makeup air?) does not outweigh the amount of energy costs using electricity brings to bear on those much lower energy demand situations.

Heating requires a lot of energy for most homes, and if you can heat it with one combustion appliance that is not in your living space, then that particular cost/benefit ratio changes very quickly.

For instance, I spend $80/mo on my lights, computer, and all my electronics at home. Burning whale fat in my living room wouldn't save me enough to make it worth my while to make that switch, deal with particulates and combustion residue and smell, and all that stuff.

I spend several hundred a month in winter to heat my home, and I would have spent several hundred more if I did it with electricity. Seriously, are you arguing that in a world (just a couple of years ago here in maine) that 0.13/kwh electricity and $1.50/gallon oil that it really would have made any sense whatsoever to run electricity?

If so, you have no objectivity whatsoever and this is why your arguments are not heard by those "obsessed" with hydronics. MOST people are concerned about their heating bills. NO ONE with any sense would have heated with electricity in maine in the last two decades, unless they had very, very low heat loads indeed. And indeed, most people who had those systems tore them out because of their extremely high operating costs. That's fact. Are you claiming all those people were crazy because they literally could not afford the expense of their electric systems?

THESE days, the scenario is different. That's fine. it's totally a question of whether you think it will stay this way or not, and how much you're willing to value the benefits of electric vs the lock-in gamble, as far as that one piece of the pie goes. Electricity has significant simplicity benefits and, if I knew electricity were always going to be cheap, I would use it myself, with appropriate EMF shielding.

I agree with all of your points one through seven. no arguement. how much lower the costs are, how much to value all those points, all if it can be discussed and will be different for each job, each home, each climate zone so we can have years of reasonable, informed, and fun debates about that. Tthose points are definitely correct, and you make a FAR better arguement for your products when you stick to facts instead of branching out into irrelevant points like oil lamps and water temperature drops which are, literally, only salesman-speak.

Your points on Utilization efficiency are just made up as well. If I deliver 96% of the energy generated by combustion to the living space and emit it effectively, that system is 96% efficient.

Whether it's comfortable, is another point. But how much energy is used and delivered is ABSOLUTE. comfort is SUBJECTIVE. they are not the same thing. please stop trying to blend them into one muddy conversation!


(the water's temp drop is irrelevant, by the way, because good hydronic systems don't go room to room, they home run rooms, OR they accommodate the temperature drop so all rooms are heated appropriately).

In the absence of government interference, the market dictates what we do.

Small bathroom floors notwithstanding; if the cost per therm is significantly higher for one fuel than the other, economics dictates the fuel source. If you use electric cables instead of hydronic tubing you can't change your mind later (hardly a sound business decision given the current state of our irrational energy policy).

Those who honestly suppose that people are misinformed as to the wisdom of all electric heating systems and only need to be "educated" to see the light, take the rest of us for fools.

Every week I am inundated by desperate homeowners from around the country who can't afford to turn their electric boilers on! These people are no longer ignorant!

The reason hydronic heating enjoys the lion's share of all radiant heating is simple. In most cold climates where natural gas (90% of which comes for the good old U.S of A.) is available, it costs less per therm. This is even more the case in areas where the cost of space heating is over 50% of the total energy bill.

Here in Minnesota the cost to operate an electric system is usually double that of a natural gas-fired boiler.

As to maintenance and reliability, I service many boilers at or near the century mark and find circulators over 50! Traditional low-efficiency boilers are nearly idiot-proof and often suffer decades of neglect without incident. High-efficiency boilers may require more maintenance but easily pay for this extra cost through added fuel savings.

Lights, cook stoves etc. are such a small part of the total energy bill; they are rightly discounted when considering a fuel source in cold climates.

While this nation continues to produce a refined fuel like electricity by burning mostly fossil fuels (which create twice the CO2 that burning natural gas does) any long term cost savings in the vast majority of cold climate applications will be an abberation.

MA

Comparing the electric heating systems installed in the 70's to the systems available today is the abberation. You can't compare them. Doing so only shows ignorance to what's out there and an unwillingness to appreciate it because it's not your proffession to install it.

Yes, boilers can be and are "96% efficient" but the hydronics system is not. There's too much wasted energy that can't be recouped in a hydronics system to say they're more efficient then electric infloor radiant. It's part of the design.

You can hope that crude will drop below a dollar again but then they found out we'de pay it, so why would it? Unless all the spilled oil in Jersey will puddle up at bedrock and Bruno will hit a gusher while shootin' at Antny! (Remember Jed?)

(Keep European fuel prices in mind because that's where we're headed)

show me how electricity got more efficient. we've talked about convection vs radiation already; I'm very aware of the differences there. If you can demonstrate a major functionality different between electric baseboard and electric radiant OTHER THAN convection vs radiant energy transfer, I"m all ears. I really am!!!

Otherwise though, I'll give you, maybe, 10% in most homes in real energy use expense differences, and that's probably generous if nothing else is changed. Because having done many, many baseboard to radiant conversions, I can tell you that radiant isn't magic. convection is less efficient than radiation at delivering its heat, but in the real world, absent cathedral ceilings, the effect is not huge by itself. In hydronics, there are other factors (water temperatures) at work that combine to give, maybe, 15 to 20% differential, in some homes, between convection and radiation. Maybe. But not all the time. And if you're switching from a poor system to a good system, something not even really to be discussed in your field, we can see even bigger differences.

You are completely making stuff up about hydronics. If the heat plant is 96%, where is this additional wasted heat you talk about? specifically. Granted, it's POSSIBLE to lose a lot of heat in distribution, and we've all seen pipes in cold space with no insulation. But you don't HAVE to do that, that's poor installation practice...

...again, playing to your simplicity and predictability argument, absolutely, but you can't just make that statement for all hydronic systems.

I'm at a loss as to why you keep bringing in baseboard. I haven't mentioned it in any of my entries as a system that can be compared to infloor of either design, in our applicable installation.

With hydronics, OK, lets say that ALL hydronics installers are "class A" installers and do no wrong, no pipes in cold walls, no loose fittings or poor crimps (which, by the way would make this forum obsolete) show me where I'm wrong;
The water is heated up to 180 and then mixed down to 140* (maximum)(Loss)
The water goes back to the boiler at say 110* (being generous)..unused heat. Ok. it gets reheated and redistributed but is still unused.(Loss)
The fittings, pumps, valves, circulators all heat up and disperse heat in the utility room. Yes, still in the envelope but unused by the people in the home.(Loss)
The boiler is tested at the factory, at sea level to be "96%" efficient under prime conditions so the mfr can say "96%". The day it's fired up onsite it starts to wear down and loose efficiency let alone what happens to that 96% at levels higher than sea and the fuels feeding it are not premium.(Loss)

Add them up, does this spell an efficient design to you? (I'm not comparing to baseboard or FA, just in floor radiant) Lets stick to apples..

And these are prime installations...

If you install an electric system, line or low, and even if you space it incorrectly, all the energy used to generate heat is dispersed into the space it is installed in. No loss, no decreased value over time, no moving parts, no maintenance....in today's world, in today's construction standards, not the 70's...

I brought it up because you were referencing 70's tech vs today, and I'm at a loss as to what else is different about electric heating; if there are other differences, please mention them. I know you are looking for "traps" and stuff, but really, if there is more to that, please educate all of us. All I am aware of is that in the 70's, it was baseboards, and now it's radiant. You are saying we can't compare them. Why? I already have. I compare them in hydronics all the time. What, specifically, am I missing there??

Beyond that though, let me try one more time:

TODAY, the comparison is more favorable to electric than in the past. We can agree on that, right? That the field has leveled out a lot in the last couple of years?

But even if not. Let's go the other way. Electricity in my neck of the woods, at 0.13/kwh, is something like 26kBTUs to the dollar.

Propane (more expensive than oil) was about $2.50/gallon this last winter, and is about 92kBTUs/gallon, so that's almost 37kBTUs to the dollar... call it 36.

That means the hydronic system has to run at less than 72% efficiency to make it more expensive to operate than electric.

Ok? That's a number that hack systems can sink to, especially with last generation boiler technology which started at 83%, it wouldn't have even been hard to lose another 10% to inefficiencies of distribution.

Newer mod/cons starting at 92% and possibly rising to the high 90's at the heat source on a nice, low temp radiant job, it would be harder; but still possible on a real hack job. Any competent installer could keep overall thermal efficiency above that number by a very significant number, but not all installers are competant, and electric does not have that issue, I agree completely.

Of course, then you need to compare installation costs (probably in electric's favor?); guess about future energy costs; bring up all the excellent points you have to make about electric predictibility. Absolutely. It's an arguement you can make with integrity even, absolutely. Kudos. I'm with you. I

That's today. That's assuming you are willing to gamble on the lock in, which reasonable people can disagree on, and I would never call you wrong for having a feeling on that. Only that history has one example of other people who were wrong doing it the last time. Right? Reasonable, fair minded stance?

This assessment of why we have all be obsessed up until today, however, in a world where propane cost HALF what it does now as little as 2 or 3 years ago, has been completely unfair. Hydronics RIGHTFULLY overshadowed electric for all of those years. Absolutely, 100%, should be no arguement. Because even just a few years ago, we were still paying quite a bit for electricity, but propane was half the cost it is now.

A 36% efficient hack job borders on the ludicruous... they have happened, but they are definitely the wild eyed exception to the rule. And those are the conditions that created the "hydronics obsession" and the tear out of all that electric heat. Because even a poor hydronic system would have been half the cost to operate.

Does that make it a little clearer? So even with some parasitic losses; even with mixing (which is NOT a loss of any kind; energy is conserved); even with high temp mixing, bad hydronic installs, poor technology, all the bad stuff; hydronics was still a better choice. Far and away; clearly, there should be no argument on this point. Can we further agree on that, and that the entire market has not sufferred a mass delusion for the last 30 years?


to address your understanding further:

heat lost in a conditioned envelope is not ideal, but it is conserved and is not loss. Only heat lost outside of a conditioned envelope is loss. You can't make up physics.

high temperature system are less efficient. Modern systems do not have to mix; even with mixing, energy is conserved. the act of running at high temperatures reduces heat plant efficiency; it drives parasitic loss in an unconditioned space. And, energy is still conserved in the conditioned envelope, so any loss should be figured into the appliance efficiency number and not "tacked on" as a "distribution" loss.

I have complained about AFUE for my whole career thus far; those ratings are not great. But they are in the ballpark. And modern boilers EXCEED their ratings on low temperature systems, because the ratings are at higher temps than we use the boilers at these days.

realistically, good hydronics systems can actually operate solidly in the 90's for overall thermal efficiency these days, and relatively poor systems are still in the 80's. hack jobs might fall to the 60's and 70's and old tech makes hack jobs harder to make happen, but closer to those lower numbers in the first place.

But... people can still botch them. electric has that advantage for sure, one more time. am I not getting any brownie points whatsoever for making points FOR you???