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

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

#221

Post by Kluny »

quickthrowman wrote: post #168
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…

> Heating a building when you aren't there is silly. [0] If I don’t heat my home when I’m not there in the winter, the water supply lines will freeze and burst causing thousands or tens of thousands in damage. I think I’ll heat my home when I’m not there, thanks.

Also, there's this concept of thermal mass - once you heat up you walls, floors, furniture, etc, they retain it. If you keep on letting your house cool down and then heating it up again, you basically lose that stored heat and need to pay for it again. It's cheaper to just maintain the same temperature all the time.

And, as a PNW resident I really need to emphasize this: MOLD. It's a thing.

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

#222

Post by amingilani »

1996 wrote: post #167
amingilani wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I concur. My account is just as anecdotal and also limited to a specific region. That said, I recently moved to North America and have lived in Pakistan my entire life. A combination of poorly insulated building materials, old houses, an energy crisis, and a low GDP per capita leads most individuals to people conserving body-heat in the winter. It isn't fun, and you're never warm enough. It was bizarre for me to loun…

> That said, I recently moved to North America and have lived in Pakistan most of my life. Welcome here! I hope you'll like it! Is it your first winter? It's a special experience! My favorite thing in the winter is a hot Tim Hortons drink - I rotate them, because they are all quite good! > And yet, winter feels infinitely colder in Pakistan than it does in Canada. Until you go outside and try to walk in the street :)

Hello, and thank you! It is :) I've been trying out Tim Hortons as well, it's quite nice.

> Until you go outside and try to walk in the street :)

I feel like I lucked out and bought the right winter coat early on. Or maybe just stepping from one heated building to another doesn't feel that bad. Maybe it's a combination of the two. Either way, I haven't felt cold on the street yet. And It's already colder than my coldest winter experience in Pakistan.

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

#223

Post by amingilani »

coldtea wrote: post #216
1996 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That said, I recently moved to North America and have lived in Pakistan most of my life. Welcome here! I hope you'll like it! Is it your first winter? It's a special experience! My favorite thing in the winter is a hot Tim Hortons drink - I rotate them, because they are all quite good! > And yet, winter feels infinitely colder in Pakistan than it does in Canada. Until you go outside and try to walk in the street :)

> Is it your first winter? It's a special experience! Why would it be? Pakistan has winters, and cold ones at that...

Depends on the region you're from. Most of the Pakistan isn't that cold. This should give you a better idea of the climate: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_Pakistan#/media/Fil...

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

#224

Post by isbn »

cedex12 wrote: post #190

Related question: What's the best way to ventilate an old european house during winter? I've taken up the habit of letting my bedroom windows (slightly) open at nighttime to have fresh air while sleeping. I'm unsure this is really wise ecologically since outside air == cold air, but at the same time, there is no other way to get fresh air… Any tip, or, better, professional opinion?

https://www.lunos.de/products-from-lunos/e%C2%B260

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuTV_6-igC0

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

#225

Post by UnFleshedOne »

widforss wrote: post #173
grecy wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you ever experienced Humid -40C air? It doesn't happen. I've had very humid -25C air in Alaska, and wearing literally everything I own (which is perfect at -48C), I was freezing cold for the entire day, even when running, snowboarding, jumping up and down and beating my chest.

Thing is, it's almost always close to 100 % humidity when it's cold, since the air can hold so little vapor.

I don't think it is, unless temperature stays constant or there is incoming source of water vapor. It reaches 100% when it is coldest in the night and all water deposits down as frost (to provide exercise to people parking outside), then it warms up and the air is dryer. Bigger the temp swings drier the air outside.

Applies to continental climate though, when you are near sea you probably have air constantly replaced with humid air.

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

#226

Post by oblio »

cycomanic wrote: post #209
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…

I think you forget how people make choices. One of the big issues is that if people are given the choice between an extra 3rd or 4th bathroom (that they use twice a year) and good insulation, most people will choose the 4th bathroom. That is because the bathrooms are considered status symbols while insulation is not. Now the rational thing to do when building a house, is to choose the most energy efficient solution o…

> One of the big issues is that if people are given the choice between an extra 3rd or 4th bathroom (that they use twice a year) and good insulation, most people will choose the 4th bathroom.

US luxuries. I don't think any person I know in Europe lives in a house/apartment with more than 4 bathrooms. I imagine 90% live in one with at most 2 bathrooms.

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

#227

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#228

Post by oblio »

triceratops wrote: post #213
Kluny wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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;…

> other people may come over to visit your house without realizing in advance that they need to wear long underwear; Not a problem in Covid times. But it's possible to turn the heat up when you have guests, no? Or run a space heater in the living room when they're around? > and low indoor temperatures promote mold growth. I'm mystified by this. I thought moisture promoted mold growth. The solution to that is good ven…

> Not a problem in Covid times.

Covid times are just† ~2 years, not the lifetime of a person or a house.

†Knock on wood.

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

#229

Post by oblio »

bluedino wrote: post #153
Kluny wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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;…

You wear long underwear, the 'hot' person can wear a t-shirt

I think his argument was that the person that controls the temperature is the "hot" person. In that case... you just let the others freeze? :-p

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

#230

Post by Green_man »

war1025 wrote: post #165
lm28469 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course if you _have to_ heat then do it, as I said when I was going through -20c degrees winter you can't really escape it. I'd argue most people can live perfectly fine without heating. (not living up north / at high altitude / in cold micro climate). People don't heat their flats/offices to 25c in Berlin or London to avoid frozen pipes. Unless you live in a 1800s house there is no way your pipe would freeze here

I just looked up the yearly average high / lows for Berlin and London. I never realized they were both so temperate. They are both 10 degrees of latitude further North than me here in Iowa, yet they both look to rarely dip much below freezing. I knew London's temperature was buffered by being so close to the ocean, but I always thought Berlin was far enough inland to not have that benefit. And then on top of that the…

I read somewhere that the *gulf stream (orig jet stream, thanks!) makes similar latitudes more temperate in Britain/Europe than Canada/America. whether it's attributable to the jet stream or other effects, it seems to be true for many locations. Much of the UK lines up with Hudson bay in Canada, or Scandinavia vs northern Canada/mid Alaska. It's telling that most European colonizers moved south as they crossed the Atlantic.
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