u/Skjellyfetticat1

Yes, I’ve read many many posts about screen protectors. If I could sort out all the opinions vs the Torras, I wouldn’t need this post. I see people like Spigen, but also those get dust around the edges. (I don’t think I’d like that, as I’ve had other glass that got dust incursion around the edges).

So yeah, I just got my 17P about a week and a half ago. I had a Torras AR ready when the phone arrived, put it on right away before touching the screen. Beautiful! Perfect fit! Feels smooth and looks good. OK, I’m completely spoiled. Nicer than anything in 15+ years of using screen protectors. Now, a week and a half later, I’ve got a crack in the protector and several surface scratches. I’ve treated this phone like any other, in a pocket with no keys. This Torras is just super soft.

I could replace this every two weeks to keep it nice, but I can’t afford that. I’d like something with some strength, good clarity, nice coating, perfect fit. I want something as nice as the Torras but not, as another post said, made of potato chips.

I live in a little town in Vermont with a lot of dirt roads, and a lot of dying ash trees (emerald ash borer). Trees quite near the road I think are technically not the property owner’s, but are subject to town right of way. I don’t know how far that zone extends on these narrow gravel roads.

So right across the narrow road, two large ash trees are leaning a bit toward my house, and will certainly die in the next year or so. Also the overhead utility lines come in right under there— power and fiber internet/phone. The ash are big enough to hit my house for sure, and also probably take down those lines.

Another tree in that spot, an older maple, had a branch on the power line, so I called the power company. While the utility guy was sawing that branch, I asked about the ash trees. Could/would the power company cut them down, take responsibility? He shrugged. He said, “They’ll probably just come down in pieces.” Pretty much a no. But I suppose I could call the power company. There are an awful lot of trees threatening the power lines all through town right now.

Recently the large maple had a branch break, hanging over the road. A guy from the town road crew came to try to pole saw it. I chatted with him and asked him about the ash trees next to it, ominously leaning toward my house. Could/would the town take them down? He just laughed. He said, “We can’t even afford to fix the roads.” Unsaid: there are hundreds or thousands of ash trees along these roads, and no way does the town have the means to deal with them.

We chatted about recent news that a nearby town of much greater means was spending about half a million $$ or something to proactively take down their roadside ash trees. Lucky people of that town. Not our town.

The town road guy also assured me that when the tree fell on my house, insurance would cover it. He was not joking. This was the solution. I was not reassured.

I guess it would cost about $1500 or $2000 to drop those trees if they were “drop and leave” — I could deal with the wood. I would pay, rather than have them fall on my house. But they are definitely not my trees, just threatening me.They are not dead yet. I wonder about approaching the town manager about paying to take down the right of way trees, supposing they are not actually my neighbor’s trees. I also wonder if the neighbor would think I was cutting “his” trees in any case. The removal would be disruptive to traffic, shutting down the road for some hours.

Posting for my son. His house has a ground heat pump in place, about 15 years old. Heat exchanger in air ducts moves the heat through the pretty big house (2500 SQ ft? More?). Ground system had been having some flaky behaviors, maybe bad sensors, maybe air in the loops, had been trying to troubleshoot but it had been working though not perfectly and throwing errors — and then he had a bad lightning strike that took out a substantial bit of stuff in his house — lights, breaker, induction top — along with some of the ground heatpump HVAC system. One circuit board for soft starting the compressor was clearly bad — scorched, burnt diode, etc. But now it seems the compressor is also fried. (Quoted $8k) And who knows what else in the system got fried. Basically any circuit board he would get is custom made and expensive. There are more boards besides the one he already replaced.

So one idea is to replace the whole thing with an air to air heat pump. Warranty, parts available, the current standard. He’s in SW PA. His winters get pretty cold, so obviously a cold weather air system, if that’s the solution. The ground system, it seems, is less repairable. Everything with a long lead time and high expense. He’s in the thick of it now, having thrown some $$ at the old system, wondering whether to keep going with that or jump to modern and interchangeable technology.

Presumably the underground stuff is all fine and already there, so the major expense of a ground system is already in place.

Has a lot of solar, and wants to burn electrons and not fossils.

Opinions? Wisdom?