How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America • Hacker News Board

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#31

Post by gjm11 » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 2:47 PM UTC

fhars wrote: post #22

StavrosK wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just Googled 97 degrees, expecting some large temperature, and it's only 36 degrees! For comparison, it's 40 C here today. Stay out of the sun, sweat a little, you'll be fine. Arabs have it much worse.

It is approximately human body temperature. By design it should be slightly less, Farady intended 100 degrees to be the human body temperature but obviously suffered a light fever the day he took the measurment, so these days the human body has 96 degrees. 0 degrees Fahrenheit is defined to be the coldest it could conceivably ever be on the outside in winter, according to Faradays intuition when he decided that this…

> Faraday

Fahrenheit. (It doesn't seem to be true that he intended 100 degrees to be human body temperature. It's possible that he specifically wanted the difference between body temperature and freezing point to be (a power of 2) degrees.)

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#32

Post by chopsueyar » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 2:50 PM UTC

gregpilling wrote: post #4

I live in Tucson, Arizona, and I own a few houses built before A/C became common. I have one house (a rental) made of mud adobe, which is essentially mudbricks made into 14" thick walls. It was built in 1919 and has the interesting feature that it takes a few days to change temperature. There is always a week here that it changes from a nice spring to a hot summer and the house takes a long time to make the transitio…

Its a dry heat. I live in the Tampa, Florida area, and once it gets past 84 degrees, I feel quite miserable.

My current dwelling is a 50s ranchette with concrete block walls. The orginal Jalousie (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jalousie_window) windows have been replaced, but the house has no insulation in the attic.

The house had several window A/Cs, one was from the early 80s. I replaced them with a 3-zone minisplit.

I cannot recommend the minisplit enough. Of course, this house is less than 1,000 sqft of A/C'ed space.

You're lucky, you can just use swampcoolers. We have to use electricity to keep cool.

I've been to Arizona in the summer and prefer that kind of heat.

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#33

Post by chopsueyar » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 2:52 PM UTC

aristus wrote: post #11

gregpilling wrote: post #4

I live in Tucson, Arizona, and I own a few houses built before A/C became common. I have one house (a rental) made of mud adobe, which is essentially mudbricks made into 14" thick walls. It was built in 1919 and has the interesting feature that it takes a few days to change temperature. There is always a week here that it changes from a nice spring to a hot summer and the house takes a long time to make the transitio…

I grew up in a house like that, in El Paso. Old adobe houses are basically caves: dark, quiet, and much cooler than you expect.

You mentioned caves and I found this... http://thecavehouse.com/

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#34

Post by fhars » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 2:53 PM UTC

fhars wrote: post #22

StavrosK wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just Googled 97 degrees, expecting some large temperature, and it's only 36 degrees! For comparison, it's 40 C here today. Stay out of the sun, sweat a little, you'll be fine. Arabs have it much worse.

It is approximately human body temperature. By design it should be slightly less, Farady intended 100 degrees to be the human body temperature but obviously suffered a light fever the day he took the measurment, so these days the human body has 96 degrees. 0 degrees Fahrenheit is defined to be the coldest it could conceivably ever be on the outside in winter, according to Faradays intuition when he decided that this…

D'oh, stupid thinko, sorry for the confusion. (And Faraday and Fahrenheit don't even share the same soundex...).

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#35

Post by chopsueyar » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 2:59 PM UTC

lutorm wrote: post #26

mechanical_fish wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point about humidity has already been made. I was astonished at how comfortable 115 degrees was in Phoenix. I went on a hike, no problem... Except that I carried a huge water bottle and the bottle ran out in an hour, so there's that. In humid places, however, sweating is almost useless and you can suffer in mere 90F heat. The other important point is that somehow folks in Singapore manage to survive, but in Singa…

it takes a few days for the body to reprogram itself for freezing ambient temperatures after spending months in roasting ambient temperatures I noticed this empirically with myself whenever I traveled from California to Sweden in the winter. Coming to Sweden, I'd be cold all the time for the first couple of days, and then back in CA, I'd have hot flashes for a few days there. Nice to know that I wasn't imagining thin…

I always assumed the heat-capacity of my bones took much longer to change temperature than the muscles and flesh of my body, but once it does, it lasts longer too.

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#36

Post by chopsueyar » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 3:02 PM UTC

dhughes wrote: post #9

blantonl wrote: post #3

Our family lives in San Antonio, TX where we are obviously dependent on air conditioning during at least 9 months of the year, but we typically keep our temps at about 76-78 degrees. I cannot even imagine keep our place at 72 degrees since the kiddos would complain it is cold and I would receive a $700 electric bill. Yes, electricity is very expensive in Texas. However, we have a second home in Montana where we spend…

Why not use that sunshine to generate power?

Solar panels are expensive and not very efficient and require a decent amount of square footage. Plus, batteries are expensive too and can take up a decent amount of space.

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#37

Post by chopsueyar » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 3:07 PM UTC

maw wrote: post #28

techiferous wrote: post #5

I've heard that air conditioning had an effect on culture, too. Before A/C, you'd sit out on your porch to cool off and as a consequence get to know your neighbors. After A/C, you'd retreat indoors and live a socially isolated life.

I live in a relatively wealthy part of Mexico City. I don't know my neighbors, and, for the most part, I don't think that they know each other either. Nobody here has air conditioning or proper heating. The climate is very benign, rarely getting hot or cold. There's little need for interior climate control, and even less insulation: windows are paper thin and don't shut very tight, among other things. (However, a lot…

What type of internet connectivity is available in your area? How much is housing/cost-of-living expenses?

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#38

Post by chopsueyar » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 3:13 PM UTC

lutorm wrote: post #27

jamesbkel wrote: post #16

I definitely agree with author's point about how A/C has shaped American life - not necessarily for the better and perhaps with significant downsides, most notably at a social level. However, I feel like this section (which I consider beneficial without question) was glossed over. And hubs of business and technology in hot regions of the globe, such as Dubai, may never have taken off... Computers throw off a lot of h…

We're using the window procedure to keep our house near Boston cool, and it definitely works. Most of the time it's sufficient (except when I turn on the 3x24" monitors...), but when there's a heat spell and nighttime temps don't drop below 22C or so, it heats up to a very uncomfortable level over a few days and we have to use the AC at least to keep the bedroom at a reasonable temperature.

It would be cool if you could automate a system like that with window sensors, multiple temperature sensors around the house, and the ability to automatically enable/disable the A/C and the attic fan.

It could text/email/call you to open the windows, and not stop bothering you until it detects the windows are open.

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#39

Post by cstross » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 4:05 PM UTC

As a point of note, domestic air conditioning is close to universal in Japan ... but in the UK, less than 3% of dwellings have a/c. Even in parts of southern Europe that get pretty hot, such as Italy and Greece, domestic a/c is relatively uncommon (with penetration in the 20-40% level despite regular 32-42 celsius temperatures on summer).

The nature of the housing stock is partly responsible, of course. The average British dwelling is 75 years old; retrofitting central aircon to a cramped dwelling with stone or brick walls that wasn't designed for it is a lot hairier than installing pipes for hot water radiator driven central heating.

Re: How the Air Conditioner Made Modern America

#40

Post by wwkeyboard » Sun, Jul 17, 2011, 4:10 PM UTC

mechanical_fish wrote: post #25

StavrosK wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just Googled 97 degrees, expecting some large temperature, and it's only 36 degrees! For comparison, it's 40 C here today. Stay out of the sun, sweat a little, you'll be fine. Arabs have it much worse.

The point about humidity has already been made. I was astonished at how comfortable 115 degrees was in Phoenix. I went on a hike, no problem... Except that I carried a huge water bottle and the bottle ran out in an hour, so there's that. In humid places, however, sweating is almost useless and you can suffer in mere 90F heat. The other important point is that somehow folks in Singapore manage to survive, but in Singa…

The problem for most of us in the US is that we can't control how much they refrigerate moste public places. We keep our home ~80F(it makes going outside in south Texas much more comfortable), but that makes my office very uncomfortable at 74F.