121–130 of 184 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In Germany ~70°F (19-20°C) is considered "room temperature". 75°F is too damn warm. My brain pretty much stops working around 77°F.
I recall reading (no ref) that nazi experiments determined the optimal temperature for mental performance was 59F, which coincidentally is the average temperature of the earth.
Unless you have lived in the tropical humid heat, you wont be able to relate to this. Moving to NYC recently and living without an AC or even a fan feels so glorious. I bet 10% of my brain was constantly fighting the heat back when I was in south of India.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most people in the Bay Area don't need AC. Swamp coolers don't work in the tropics, obviously. They are great in the desert though (except during monsoon season). In the tropics, you cool by extracting humidity, not injecting it. And extracting humidity might not work very well in a very dry desert...so... The ice block thing worked perfectly fine in Iran, at least.
> In the tropics, you cool by extracting humidity, not injecting it. And extracting humidity might not work very well in a very dry desert...so... You seem to be saying that an air conditioner requires significant ambient humidity in order to be effective. That doesn't make sense, as anyone from Phoenix, Arizona can testify. A typical air conditioner does not cool the air by extracting humidity. It extracts humidity…
http://web.mit.edu/2.972/www/reports/compression_refrigerati...
> A study in Phoenix, Arizona, found the hot air pumped out of air conditioning units increased the city's night-time temperature by 2C Often I wish places of business and work places wouldn't turn up the AC so much. I have a jacket at work in Phoenix during the summer because they keep it so cold.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> In the tropics, you cool by extracting humidity, not injecting it. And extracting humidity might not work very well in a very dry desert...so... You seem to be saying that an air conditioner requires significant ambient humidity in order to be effective. That doesn't make sense, as anyone from Phoenix, Arizona can testify. A typical air conditioner does not cool the air by extracting humidity. It extracts humidity…
Fellow Zoni here, and a moon-lighting HVAC service tech. To clarify a common misconception, A/C refrigerant does not cool air even though that is the net result. It actually absorbs heat and releases it outside the strucure. Sorry for the pedantry, but if we come here to learn, may as well learn the technicals. http://web.mit.edu/2.972/www/reports/compression_refrigerati...
If you mean that the air conditioner doesn't produce a magical substance called "cool", that's true, but no one claimed that it does. The mechanism transfers heat with the effect of cooling the interior.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We live in Berlin and the insulation and generally high ceilings make most apartments pretty cool even in the hotter summer days (which are rare and rarely much hotter than 30c). There are maybe 2-3 weeks per year when I wish we had air conditioning, at most.
i actually live in Berlin too and while Summer 2016 wasn't that bad, i remember suffering a lot in the 2015 summer heat in an office without AC. And that wasn't just a few days, it was weeks at a time.
I remember I returned from my parents where I had stayed over the weekend and it was okay - to a city that was still glowing from the heat at 11 pm at night. I say that as someone who spent a summer vacation in the Emirates (that place has cooled swimming pools right at the beaches, and for good reason the Gulf water is not warm but unbearably hot!).
In general, if/when global warming picks up we have to make some major changes to all our cities. As they are now they are giant furnaces and heat batteries with all the exposed concrete and asphalt.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Likewise, I just came back from HK and I have no idea how they could get anything done there before the introduction of AC. And I was told it gets even worse in the middle of summer!
In India, we employed a variety of methods that, all combined, did a good enough job of keeping things cool. The first was a stepwell, called Baoli in Hindi. This was basically a giant swimming pool dug out and filled with water. Around the stepwell, terrace-like steps were created where the general public could hang out and stay cool. For example[1]. Another method was to have dual walls with some lattice patterns o…
Let's not forget about health and the breeding ground for pathogens and bacteria that AC's are. I used to get really bad colds and coughs during summer, when the AC's went on. I now carry a spray that puts bacteria in the air that displace other bacteria and no colds and coughs anymore. But that's not mainstream. There's probably a lot of sick people out there, thanks to AC.
> I now carry a spray that puts bacteria in the air that displace other bacteria and no colds and coughs anymore. But that's not mainstream. No, it's not, I've never heard of it! I'm pretty skeptical of new medical claims, though, and I'm curious about this description. From my limited understanding, don't think the bacteria in air are like a bathtub full of objects that take up space, or like an ecosystem that compe…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Fellow Zoni here, and a moon-lighting HVAC service tech. To clarify a common misconception, A/C refrigerant does not cool air even though that is the net result. It actually absorbs heat and releases it outside the strucure. Sorry for the pedantry, but if we come here to learn, may as well learn the technicals. http://web.mit.edu/2.972/www/reports/compression_refrigerati...
This is a distinction without a difference. Removing heat from the interior air is the same thing as cooling the interior air. If you mean that the air conditioner doesn't produce a magical substance called "cool", that's true, but no one claimed that it does. The mechanism transfers heat with the effect of cooling the interior.
Low-tech magazine has an article on how useful ceiling fans are: http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/09/circulating-fans-air-... . They don't pollute nearly as much and work remarkably well. I live in Manhattan, which gets hot and humid in the summer, and basically never turn on my air conditioning even though I pay for my share of the building's central air conditioning. I don't need it and prefer not to cause the p…
Here in the South, ceiling fans will let you keep your AC on 80F and still be comfortable. High ceilings help, too, but they're not as common as they used to be.