Wall Observer BTC/USD - Bitcoin price movement tracking & discussion

[Arriemoller]

Returning home after a period of travel, to find my central heating furnace has died. To summarize a very long (and doubtless boring) story, my furnace is of a very specific type and no local tradesmen are interested in either trying to repair it (which I think is unlikely, since it's 30 years old) or replace it.

So I'm on Day 5 of zero heating and it's 1C outside. Brrrrrr. I made a trip to collect some portable heaters which are currently being rotated around various rooms in the house, which is helping.  But there's no end in sight to this situation. I've fired off several late night emails to various suppliers and contractors in the hope that at least one of them will reply favourably by morning.

I keep checking the Bitcoin price to try to find some positivity in an otherwise cold and cheerless house. In that regard, today is looking a little more optimistic than recent days.

Thought I'd share my tale of woe here in search of some WO brotherly love. I need a (virtual) group hug  

Weird, what's wrong with it? If it's gas and the basso valve has failed they can be plumbed around with a new electronic basso wired in. Had that done on my 50 year old furnace, works fine.

If it's oil, and the line outside is not insulated then insulate it with a nice heater wire next to it and the oil will not freeze up/turn to goo. Dealt with that one with a friend as well.

This stuff ain't rocket science.

It's actually an electric furnace which heats water supplied to wet radiators (with hot water coming from a completely different electric immersion heater) - there is no gas in my rural location. It was installed many years before I bought the house and there seem to be hardly any of them around. I think it probably dates back to the early 1990s. There has been some kind of electrical overloading which has fried at least one, maybe all three, of the internal relays. There's also no guarantee that the element itself hasn't gone too. The manufacturer no longer exists and a search online for known spare part numbers has proved fruitless. So I could spend ages trying to source spare parts; and/or pay 100s for a call-out and repair fee with no guarantee of success; or buy an equivalent modern replacement furnace.

I'm going with the last option, since I've found somewhere that sells a modern version: https://www.heatraesadia.com/products/heating-and-ventilation/electric-flow-boilers/amptec#productgallery4

...but trying to find an engineer to fit it is proving to be the difficulty - plumbers think it's a job for an electrician and electricians think the opposite - all in a rural location!  Everyone else in the area has oil fuelled furnaces, but that would require a complete overhaul of my system.

All a bit of a ball-ache. I appreciate the input from you all though.

Why don't you put in a air/water heat pump, my neighbor had a system like yours and when it broke down he put in a heat pump, he said it saved him a lot of money on the electricity bill.

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[shahzadafzal]

[OutOfMemory]

Why don't you put in a air/water heat pump, my neighbor had a system like yours and when it broke down he put in a heat pump, he said it saved him a lot of money on the electricity bill.

Good idea, all in all. I use a water-heatpump myself for the home, but this is a different story, because i always have about 8-9°C water temperature down in 128 meters below the ground.
In contrast, these air-water pumps perform pretty well in environmental temperatures above -5° Celsius, but if you get below that, their efficiency is degrading.
Another problem: Infrasonic noise. Some people suffer from hum that is produced and resonating in walls and/or ceilings in the right distance (single or multiple wavelength of the hum frequency), i'd recommend some sort of anti-vibration mount, or placing the thing further away from the house, with a solid structure in between, down a hill for example.

My three cents.

[Arriemoller]

Man, I can literally see LFC and Arrie fuming...

Hang in there guys. $100k is not too far away. One more year at most. You HoDLed through a lifetime. What's another year?

HoDL, brothers!

75% of my stash goes nowhere this cycle. I have sold some at $60,000 & at $65,000. I even panic sold some at $57,xxx & $56,xxx recently. I have extracted a large amount of cash already & have some corn on an exchange which will be sold this year too. I’m waiting for hopefully better prices before the bull run ends on them though.

I can guarantee 75% of my stash isn’t touched this cycle. Some I’ve sold already though & that will total 25% before Christmas. I won’t regret it either. I will be retired at 35 with a new home without a mortgage, no debt, a lump sum of fiat to get me through to the next cycle. Probably look to invest in some stonks & maybe a small apartment or two to rent out also.

75% going nowhere though.
25% partially sold & will all be sold by New Year.

No regrets, after buying & HODLING since 2014 this is the first time I’ve extracted significant funds from bitcoin. I think I deserve it, less pressure & panic watching charts. Peace of mind is something important I think.

Well for me I have not sold anything yet, except for what little I have sold by using my Binance card.
I still believe there will be a blow of top in late December or early January. We have been following the pattern from the two previous cycles so far, I see no reason why we wouldn't keep doing it.
Remember, we have not had any type of real top yet, and I mean the type where you make a couple of years worth of salary over night a couple of nights in a row and then suddenly it drops like a stone. Before that occurs we have not reached the top as far as I'm concerned.
Still bloody annoying though.

[Arriemoller]

Why don't you put in a air/water heat pump, my neighbor had a system like yours and when it broke down he put in a heat pump, he said it saved him a lot of money on the electricity bill.

Good idea, all in all. I use a water-heatpump myself for the home, but this is a different story, because i always have about 8-9°C water temperature down in 128 meters below the ground.
In contrast, these air-water pumps perform pretty well in environmental temperatures above -5° Celsius, but if you get below that, their efficiency is degrading.
Another problem: Infrasonic noise. Some people suffer from hum that is produced and resonating in walls and/or ceilings in the right distance (single or multiple wavelength of the hum frequency), i'd recommend some sort of anti-vibration mount, or placing the thing further away from the house, with a solid structure in between, down a hill for example.

My three cents.

True, it's efficiency drops when it gets really cold and might even use 100% electricity with no addition from the air, but the system he has now is 100% electricity all the time.
Never thought about infra sound, should be able to fix that by not mounting the outside part directly to the wall.

[marcus_of_augustus]

It's actually an electric furnace which heats water supplied to wet radiators (with hot water coming from a completely different electric immersion heater) - there is no gas in my rural location. It was installed many years before I bought the house and there seem to be hardly any of them around. I think it probably dates back to the early 1990s. There has been some kind of electrical overloading which has fried at least one, maybe all three, of the internal relays. There's also no guarantee that the element itself hasn't gone too. The manufacturer no longer exists and a search online for known spare part numbers has proved fruitless. So I could spend ages trying to source spare parts; and/or pay 100s for a call-out and repair fee with no guarantee of success; or buy an equivalent modern replacement furnace.

This is the kind of thing where parts continue to be available forever and they are often interchangeable (standard) so it's probably worth to keep investigating a bit more. It just depends which of the bits are broken. When you say relay, do you mean thermostat? Or is it part of the pumping system?

I've now found that the three relays are indeed fried, along with some associated wiring, but I've now taken one of the relays out so I can see exactly what type it is:



And you're absolutely right Richy, they seem to very standard and still available, such as https://uk.rs-online.com/web/p/non-latching-relays/2452087. So, I'm off to get three of them.....

I wish I knew more about electrical stuff. And lots of other things....

... that looks like you've had a quite substantial power surge or some other over-current situation and close to a fire even, it's quite likely fuses will be blown and other electrical bits might be blown/melted also

... you need an electrician to check the wiring if you're not confident doing electrical work, you don't need a plumber

... it's odd that it has been working fine since 1990 to get such a dramatic failure, maybe you had a lightning strike?

... or if these relays are controlling the power to the main heating element then that might be blown or shorted which caused the overcurrent that fried these relays but the fuses should have blown first and protected these

.... if these relays control the circulation pump then that could be blown also which caused the overcurrent but then same as above, fuses should have protected the relays

... unless it was lightning strike or power surge from the grid (how stable is the power in your area?) then something deeper is amiss ...

.... don't listen to these guys saying to replace the wiring which is a big job for an amateur, not a quick fix,  you just need to either to get this running again so you don't freeze or replace the whole system as you said earlier

... my advice at this point is get an electrician asap, doesn't need to be heating specialist even

He could get one.

He also could see a few dozen YouTube videos and swap out the 3-5 wires and the relays.

It is hard to tell what's wrong since these heaters/furnaces are running a long time to get the house warm.

If it ran for 1990 to 2021.  and the gear was 100.0005% overloaded it will take years of run time and the gear will fail.

I mine a lot hundreds of units. Varied mixed gear. The gear can work fine and is loaded to %70 which should never fail due to over load.

But the voltage supplied from the street could drop to 204 or 200 volts rather than 230/240 this will stress all components and over load wires.

If he is  a 120 volt system he could have a voltage drop to 100 or 105 volts.

This will stress all parts wires relays etc.

And you get meltdown.

So if he replaces relays and alters wires from 18 gauge to 16 gauge. This would end over heating.

Of course could be some other unknown issue. So an electrical guy could be needed.

... yeah if he was confident working on electrical things, replace a few wires maybe with fatter ones, use a meter to check line voltages, etc, that's what I'd do myself

... if he isn't and doesn't isolate the system properly or it has bodge wiring upstream where he can't know which lines are live, it's a deadly dangerous job

...  maybe if we got some photos of the state of the board that the relay was mounted on and wiring connected to it or other fuses and switches we could make a better assessment of damage and state of the system too

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[Arriemoller]

Why don't you put in a air/water heat pump, my neighbor had a system like yours and when it broke down he put in a heat pump, he said it saved him a lot of money on the electricity bill.

Good idea, all in all. I use a water-heatpump myself for the home, but this is a different story, because i always have about 8-9°C water temperature down in 128 meters below the ground.
In contrast, these air-water pumps perform pretty well in environmental temperatures above -5° Celsius, but if you get below that, their efficiency is degrading.
Another problem: Infrasonic noise. Some people suffer from hum that is produced and resonating in walls and/or ceilings in the right distance (single or multiple wavelength of the hum frequency), i'd recommend some sort of anti-vibration mount, or placing the thing further away from the house, with a solid structure in between, down a hill for example.

My three cents.

Reminds me of a guy I used to work with back in the 80s.
I was working at a CD factory and it had some big fans and a big duct system in the attic, one morning we found the guy sleeping in the attic next to the fans, he claimed that the ultra sounds from the fans calmed him down and helped him sleep.
I don't know, but he was overusing amphetamine, tall and scrawny with that weird way of walking these guys get and a bit of a weirdo. I suspect he was just homeless for a period.

[El duderino_]

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[serveria.com]

I still believe there will be a blow of top in late December or early January. We have been following the pattern from the two previous cycles so far, I see no reason why we wouldn't keep doing it.

This 

[Richy_T]

Bah, smartass.    (Seriously, good find)

I have an advantage. I'm the one replace the coils on my wife's kiln. I like to tear them apart to see what made them die. Usually it's arcing on the contacts. Could probably clean them up and reuse them but it's not worth the money saved.

[savetherainforest]

Oh no, bitcoin crashed to levels not seen since 2 days ago.

I don't want to start some sh!t again.... But it might go to $52K in the next week or so... maybe in 2-3 tops.      

Yes.  In that same time frame of one week to 3 weeks, it might go down to $52k, and it might not.

It also might go down to $60k and it might not.

Also, it might go up to $80k and it might not.

It might go to $100k and it might not.

Finally, it might continue to range between $60k and $69k, and it might not.


Quite a few things that bitcoin could do (or not) in the next 1-3 weeks.  So thanks for your contribution towards greater clarity about current bitcoin price dynamics, or not, Save the RF.

What about 48K < > 52K ??                              

      .... <maximum /eyeroll>      

[Richy_T]

As a side note I would just like to say that if I had a purely electrical heating system I would absolutely have a backup.

Even if you don't. Ours is gas/electric and when the power goes out, there's no electric to do the electricy things. Fortunately, we have a gas range so there's at least something available.

[OutOfMemory]

Why don't you put in a air/water heat pump, my neighbor had a system like yours and when it broke down he put in a heat pump, he said it saved him a lot of money on the electricity bill.

Good idea, all in all. I use a water-heatpump myself for the home, but this is a different story, because i always have about 8-9°C water temperature down in 128 meters below the ground.
In contrast, these air-water pumps perform pretty well in environmental temperatures above -5° Celsius, but if you get below that, their efficiency is degrading.
Another problem: Infrasonic noise. Some people suffer from hum that is produced and resonating in walls and/or ceilings in the right distance (single or multiple wavelength of the hum frequency), i'd recommend some sort of anti-vibration mount, or placing the thing further away from the house, with a solid structure in between, down a hill for example.

My three cents.

Reminds me of a guy I used to work with back in the 80s.
I was working at a CD factory and it had some big fans and a big duct system in the attic, one morning we found the guy sleeping in the attic next to the fans, he claimed that the ultra sounds from the fans calmed him down and helped him sleep.
I don't know, but he was overusing amphetamine, tall and scrawny with that weird way of walking these guys get and a bit of a weirdo. I suspect he was just homeless for a period.

LOL 

I dug quite into that topic of infrasound and it seems to be amplified by some independent factors. In the end it's sound, so wavelength (modes) and distance, as well as mounting seems to worsen the issue. There were studies about configurations like 4 houses, arranged in a square manner, and one was fitted with the air pump, while the house in front of it had the most suffering residents. They monitored the frequency, calculated the distances and it seemed that the wall surfaces of the houses in between, 45° to the sound source, projected at a multiple of the wavelength onto the outer wall of the house in front. So the dominant vibration frequency of the compressor produced a wave at an even multiple of the length (or at wavelength) between the two houses and the pump, and they reflected and added up. Of course, the two reflecting houses didn't show as severe infrasound problems, because their walls directed to the center of the square the houses were arranged at were at a certain point of the wave cycle, while the "victim" house's wall was hit with the mirror image of the wave amplitude as originating at the pump.

Better arrange houses following Helmholtz' Law of frequency modes then...

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[philipma1957]

Man, I can literally see LFC and Arrie fuming...

Hang in there guys. $100k is not too far away. One more year at most. You HoDLed through a lifetime. What's another year?

HoDL, brothers!

One more year?  Holy moley!

You are really rolling your own models, no?

Yeah, bearish, I know... But a realist too.

There's no point in sticking to some target ($100k+ in 2021), when said target becomes increasingly unreachable. PlanB's model is all nice & cute, and it could work under certain circumstances, but here we're talking about far too many uncertain parameters. Of course, this entire price dippening / suppressening / sidewaysening could just end up being a big outlier, and the price could spring back up at any time, reasserting PlanB's model. It's just that I don't currently see the dynamics of such a large UPpity action ($40k+) being able to fit inside the space on 1 month.

Early 2022? Likely.
Within 2022? A certainty (for me).

Yes.... but I was hung up on your assertion of "a year at most."  When i see such a specific statement in regards to time, I read it literally as having a start date at the time of the post and an end date one year later, which would be November 23, 2022... so getting to $100k at the end of that timeline surely seems to  either be some kind of new model, some BIG variation of existing models or just sloppy in terms of did you really mean "a year at most?"

Another thing is getting to supra $100k or the alternative prediction of figuring out what is going to be the top for this cycle.   I doubt also that you would be proclaiming that $100k would be the top - even if it were to come as late as November 2022  (is that even possible?).

Personally I doubt that any kind of delay into 2022 in respect to getting to supra $100k is anything bold enough to write home about, so my quibble is your getting into the second quarter or beyond for something as mediocre as $100k - without explaining MOAR better how you may have gotten there.

Another thing you seem to be treating some of the price prediction models a wee bit loosey goosey... so surely when we talk about some kind of small deviation from calendar year 2021 but then drag way out past the end of 2021 into the end of 2022, that just seems a step way too far for me in terms of attempting to either be rigorous in thinking or to really treat our currently valid and credible models with some kind of deference for the underlying data that support them ..and that does not mean that you have to kiss any PlanB rings or lick any guru deemed butt holes (yeah I went there.... not good for opsec for any purported guru or guru wanna be to be exposing such bodily parts to us mere plebs... hahahahahaha).

why are you knocking the licking of butt holes?

@nohomo

[ChartBuddy]

Explanation

[Hueristic]

As a side note I would just like to say that if I had a purely electrical heating system I would absolutely have a backup.

Even if you don't. Ours is gas/electric and when the power goes out, there's no electric to do the electricy things. Fortunately, we have a gas range so there's at least something available.

True and you can always run a furnace off a generator, trying to run straight electric methods off a generator is not viable.