Insulation: First the body, then the home (2011) • Hacker News Board

Re: Insulation: First the body, then the home (2011)

#101

Post by lostlogin » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 5:27 PM UTC

fnbr wrote: post #54

peteretep wrote: post #11

From the comments: > Sorry, I am not buying it. Not because you haven't done good work on the article: you have. Also not because N.American homes are overheated, and the residents under-dressed: they are. I do not buy it because the Japanese live the way you suggest in the winter, and it is miserable I have a mother in Scotland and I have a mother-in-law in Canada. Worst it ever gets near my mother seems to be -5C,…

Yeah, I find that people spend the least amount of money on insulation/heat that they can. I’m from Edmonton, and the coldest I’ve ever been was the winter when I lived in London, UK, as their insulation sucks and their heating sucks. In Edmonton, that’s not possible, because you have a few days of -40C weather annually, so your pipes will freeze without proper insulation (and you’ll die). Now, it’s not comfortable l…

I find it cooler indoors in New Zealand during the winter than I did in the UK for this reason. NZ pretends it’s always warm and has little home insulation, or none in my house, except the ceiling which I did. New Zealand has very poor housing.

Re: Insulation: First the body, then the home (2011)

#102

Post by wolverine876 » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

I expect people on HN to have already figured out the obvious:

It takes much less energy to heat the area under your clothes, using existing heat, than to heat a room or building with artificially generated heat. Your body is 37 deg C. Wearing low-insulation clothing and letting that heat float away, and then heating the entire room or building to warm you up again, is absurd if you understand basic physics and think for a moment.

Wear a sweater, wear shoes (that's where the cold air is). Keep the thermostat at the lowest comfortable temperature - experiment a bit and test what you become accustomed to, and you'll know for the rest of your life. Do that and you lose nothing. Maybe go a step further and wear long underwear and maybe even a hat; why not?

Another way to look at it: Only use the energy that you need. Heating a building when you aren't there is silly. [0] Heating rooms you aren't in is a similar waste - if and when you can, get a heating system that segregates areas. Heating the entire room when you are in one place, and already generating heat, is also a waste. Just put on some insulation and trap the heat that's already there.

All heating is local. (Edit, because people are omitting the obvious implications: The consequences, climate change, are global.)

[0] You'll be fine waiting for it to heat when you need it, or just use a thermostat with a timer or remote control.

Re: Insulation: First the body, then the home (2011)

#103

Post by mannykannot » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 5:32 PM UTC

gwd wrote: post #53

> Because vasoconstriction only occurs when the core body temperature falls, it won't happen if you're dressed warmly enough. While insulating your neck and feet will greatly improve your thermal comfort, there is no need to wear gloves or caps indoors. In fact, it doesn't matter very much which parts of your body you choose to insulate - the important thing is to limit total heat loss so that the body core temperatu…

I have the same issue, and I sometimes wonder if cooling the face and/or ears is sufficient to cause vasoconstriction. Even with well-insulated clothing, I can feel cold to the core immediately on stepping outside on a cold day.

Re: Insulation: First the body, then the home (2011)

#104

Post by munificent » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

wolverine876 wrote: post #102

I expect people on HN to have already figured out the obvious: It takes much less energy to heat the area under your clothes, using existing heat, than to heat a room or building with artificially generated heat. Your body is 37 deg C. Wearing low-insulation clothing and letting that heat float away, and then heating the entire room or building to warm you up again, is absurd if you understand basic physics and think…

> experiment a bit and test what you become accustomed to, and you'll know for the rest of your life.

Probably worth pointing out that people's metabolisms and body shapes do change throughout their life, so expect that you will have to tweak this periodically.

Re: Insulation: First the body, then the home (2011)

#105

Post by loblollyboy » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

peteretep wrote: post #11

From the comments: > Sorry, I am not buying it. Not because you haven't done good work on the article: you have. Also not because N.American homes are overheated, and the residents under-dressed: they are. I do not buy it because the Japanese live the way you suggest in the winter, and it is miserable I have a mother in Scotland and I have a mother-in-law in Canada. Worst it ever gets near my mother seems to be -5C,…

And (thanks to climate change) my flat also get hot enough to kill me

Re: Insulation: First the body, then the home (2011)

#106

Post by RobinL » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

Aachen wrote: post #49

tikej wrote: post #8

This is all cool ideas but sadly keeping home cool is not that easy due to problems with humidity and consequently mold. Old houses were much less airtight than modern ones. So sadly I think it’s a trade off: either modern energy efficient house with mechanical ventilation or older, rather windy and cold house. Modernising older Homes to be energy effective appears to be a lost cause. If you make them airtight there…

It doesn't need to be at the dew point inside, if it's a few degrees lower we already win a ton. The 21°C is really just comfort, buildings will be fine at 15°C just as well. We recently got a dehumidifier for a room that we aren't using most of the time. Better put some greenwashed kWh into taking moisture out of there than burning gas with the conventional heating system to keep the room hot (and it would still be…

We've done exactly the same. I find the air 'feels cleaner' as well.

Re: Insulation: First the body, then the home (2011)

#107

Post by andys627 » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

danans wrote: post #97

Being able to be comfortable in our homes while being minimally clothed in the winter is one of those "luxuries" of the fossil fuel age that we take for granted. The constellation of technologies needed to achieve this efficiently (with far less fossil fuels) and healthily (with healthy internal air quality) exists: heat pumps, heat-recovery-ventilators, airtight but vapor permeable house sealing materials - the stan…

New homes are much better insulated. An interesting aspect of a "Green New Deal" would be to subsidize electrifying the HVAC & insulating our older buildings. It puts people to work, saves them money for the occupants, and reduces emissions.

Re: Insulation: First the body, then the home (2011)

#108

Post by kwhitefoot » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

> The clo is more commonly used than the tog,

Really? Everyone I know has a duvet and they all know its tog rating. Never heard of clo.

Perhaps he or she really meant to say "more commonly used in the US" or "more commonly used by people I know".

Re: Insulation: First the body, then the home (2011)

#109

Post by 0xbadcafebee » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

A huge factor in your body temperature is metabolism. You need to constantly eat and hydrate at colder temperatures because your body is working harder to regulate your temperature. My thermostat is set to 61F, and I'm comfortable most of the time, but sometimes I'll randomly feel really cold even though the temperature and my clothes haven't changed. I eat a small snack, and suddenly I'm comfortable again. When I don't do this, I end up sweating as my body tries to raise my core temperature, and then I'm cold because I'm wet. And If I do 20 minutes of intense exercise, I often sit around in shorts and a t-shirt for an hour or more and not notice the cold.

Also, the material and fit do make an impact on thermal insulation, but not in universal ways. Tight-fitting clothes that aren't good insulators - like jeans with elastic - actually end up making you colder because they're not good insulators and they increase conduction heat transfer. A loose-fitting pair of non-stretch pants actually insulates better because the material itself is a better insulator, and the air between your leg and the pants is also an insulator [less heat transfer than with the stretchy jeans].

Wool and fleece are going to make you feel more comfortably warm than most other garments, the fleece because of all the trapped warm air. But wool specifically generates heat when it's moist, even though it sheds water when wet. Wool is fucking fantastic, though I think mostly as a base or mid layer, as wind tends to cut through a lot of wool-knit fabrics. https://weatherwool.com/pages/the-science-of-wool/

Re: Insulation: First the body, then the home (2011)

#110

Post by marttt » Mon, Dec 14, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

gwd wrote: post #53

> Because vasoconstriction only occurs when the core body temperature falls, it won't happen if you're dressed warmly enough. While insulating your neck and feet will greatly improve your thermal comfort, there is no need to wear gloves or caps indoors. In fact, it doesn't matter very much which parts of your body you choose to insulate - the important thing is to limit total heat loss so that the body core temperatu…

Maybe this is too extreme, but starting barefoot running and/or taking cold showers will greatly increase one's cold tolerance.