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Old 10-06-18, 03:34 PM   #1
Elcam84
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Default Solar water heating and other stuff in Greece

Well we spent almost two weeks in Athens and Naxos and I found allot of things there interesting.

Everywhere we stayed had solar water heaters. They work very well there. We never had to turn the electric heating elements on anywhere. Even our last night as it was getting windy and overcast all day from the impending cyclone that hit just after we left... We both took showers that night and then again the next morning before heading to the airport. There was no shortage of scalding hot water even in the morning. Yes very hot scalding water.
I stopped into every tool store and building supply I could find... The one place with the solar water heaters said they run anywhere from $500 to 1K for most of them. Course here in the US they would be 10X that...

Everywhere had the typical european windows however they also had the roll up shutters on the outside with some of them being electric. Have always liked those windows but they cost a massive fortune here compared to our US spec crap.

Electricity runs around .19/kwh euro cents there which is very pricey for them there. So our place on Naxos had the key holder by the door to turn the power on while in the room. Nice idea but you cant charge your power banks while you are out of the room. We had to take the rfid off the keyring so our batteries could charge while we were at dinner.

Minisplits.... Well after looking at the sizes they use and talking to one installer in athens they do it as you would suspect. Since they turn their AC off when they leave the house they greatly oversize their units so they will get down to temp quickly when you get home. Since its a very dry climate this works well but here it does not.
Also the Ferry we took back was champion Jet 1. It uses a ton of mini split units to cool the ship (located up top to the rear in the middle between the fake center smoke stack). They have mitsubishi ceiling units in the boat. They do not work well. I would hate to be on that ferry when its full of people and in the heat of august. Very fast ferry though and any ferry that's jet powered is cool.


On the subject of water... Their toilets are well horrible. Every place we stayed had new modern toilets two of them had those square bowl things. They are dual flush but both buttons just dump a ton of water in and they barely flush. They use more water than the really old US made ones. Like other countries you cant flush toilet paper and they always say its due to their pipes which is not correct. Their issue is their toilet paper does not break down like ours as theirs is basically heavy paper towels similar to the blue shop rags.


I only found cheap tools at the tool stores and the green bosch tools. Was hoping for some eastern eurpoean stuff but no luck. Bringing back a solar water heater just wouldn't fit in the plane...
Interesting to see how they handle things in person rather than just pictures etc. We are now planning to go back to Naxos next september. (very affordable)

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