151–160 of 314 posts
But no I'm not ever going to start wearing shoes or thermal undergarments indoors so I can lower the indoor temp by 1-2 degrees.
Most of the heating energy loss in my home is probably hot water.
After 5 winters of Berlin, I have decided to treat myself proper heat tech clothing. The difference in comfort is such that I barely feel any kind of fatigue or depression that the cold temperatures used to put on me. It has changed my perception of winter and I couldn't have spent my money any better. This is a costly investment though, be warned. For the curious, the keyword that started it all: "layered clothing"…
It can be costly but it doesn't have to. You pay extra for comfort, looks, low weight and obviously the branding. Warmth itself is cheap if you accept clothes that are a bit heavier and maybe not ultra-breathable. Adding a pair of cotton long johns and a cotton long sleeve turtleneck underneath whatever you are wearing can easily keep you warm, it's just not super comfortable and not super fashionable.
However, the post is suggesting people in comfortable status quos change their behavior - the OP is explaining that yes, it's totally achievable to be comfortably warm in all activities indoors and out, but it costs money.
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…
> Maybe go a step further and wear long underwear and maybe even a hat; why not? Some reasons why not: you may live with other people who have different basal temperatures from yours, aren't comfortable at 16 degrees or whatever you settle on, and didn't consent to participating in your wacky experiment; other people may come over to visit your house without realizing in advance that they need to wear long underwear;…
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Had to laugh at your comment about Scotland because people in Maine do the same thing. Heat is either blasting or turned off. Very poor insulation.
We had a problem with this in older Chicago apartments, usually 2 flats and quads. These buildings usually had radiator heat fired by a common boiler in the basement and city mandated turn-on dates and minimum daily/nightly temperatures. In theory each radiator has a regulator valve that allows you to moderate the amount of steam flowing through it. In reality these valves are all painted over/corroded/never worked i…
The first winter I didn't have proper clothing and it was really hard. But now I have all the right gear and it feels very comfortable and natural. It's interesting. Also when Spring arrive I really get to enjoy it, the connection to the nature around is strong.
The only issue is finding the right gloves for typing on the computer, I haven't found any good ones yet.
Oh and in the morning I have to remember to quickly warm up my macbook pro otherwise the cold make it shut down. If it wasn't the work laptop I would use something else, the metal case is not pleasant when it's really cold.
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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.
I found a week-long business trip to South Island in the winter terribly cold. Going from 30°C weather to 12°C isn't a great start, but then the otherwise-decent hotel had single glazed windows, which the maid would open every morning. The only heater in the room was an electric resistance one attached to the wall. In offices, most of the foreigners on the trip were wearing coats and other extra layers. Young people…
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…
> 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. Did you know that the Romans had under-floor heating.
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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.
> An interesting aspect of a "Green New Deal" would be to subsidize electrifying the HVAC & insulating our older buildings. This is the great part of the Green New Deal that was shouted down when much of the political establishment mocked it - it would put scores of people to work in jobs in the trades.
The reason for this is that buildings not designed for insulation and air sealing can suffer from dramatically worse durability (mold etc) when just adding insulation. It is not necessarily wise to just add fiberglass batts to wall cavities.
The addition of insulation to our homes is a modern thing, and there have been significant issues even currently (the mold crisis).
The issue is that to build a building properly, it is necessary to address heat flow, vapor flow, air flow, condensation, drying, and water barriers. This means you often have to address the entire envelope of the building, which is very expensive, difficult, and means replacing a lot of material. Basically remove all cladding and sheathing and upgrade it.
Realistically most of these concepts are not well understood in the construction industry, and the expense is high so most corners would be cut leading to huge issues with mold and wood destroying pests down the road.
It was ok, but kind of uncomfortable.
Then we had kids and that all went out the window. Kids in many layers of clothing is hard for diaper changing, is a pain to clean when they spill, and once they start to walk, keeping them in one place is impossible.
So now we keep the thermostat at 70F(21C). The energy usage is a lot higher of course, but at least it's all green energy!
It's catching on slowly though, for example things like double glazed windows. Also, building regulations have improved and insulation is now a mandatory for normal residential houses.
I'm in the process of changing all the windows in my house to double glazed, and installing better insulation above the ceiling. It makes a massive difference, and at least in my area (Cape Town) you don't need an air conditioner in summer, except perhaps a few extreme days in February :)