Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Heat people, not spaces (2015)

solar.lowtechmagazine.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 335 posts

Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)

#41

Post by TylerE »

myth2018 wrote: post #16
maxerickson wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ventilation doesn't help much with humidity, which frequently overlaps with the heat. I get by without AC in the northern Midwest, but I'd be inclined to get a window unit if there was more than a few uncomfortable nights a year.

Uhm.. for me it helps, and A LOT. Surely there are more factors involved, which I'm not aware of. I'm talking from Fortaleza, Brazil. Maybe the sea is bringing cooler air. I really don't know, I only have these pieces of empirical knowledge and my experience is very narrow, basically limited to this city.

A large body of water near by certainly has a moderating effect on temperature.

I looked up the climate data for Fortaleza, and compared it to my town (random US city, about 35 degrees northern latitude, so not super far south or anything.)

Our average daily highs in summer are only about 1 degree (C) lower than your RECORD highs... your averages are about 9C lower than ours.

Without AC here it would be...supremely unpleasant, and well other the threshold of danger for anyone with any sort of medical issues.

Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)

#42

Post by lucidguppy »

sfe22 wrote: post #11
germinalphrase wrote: post #7

My main concern is frozen pipes, other cold related damage to my home. Gets quite cold up here in Minneapolis. Lovely design ideas for a cabin though where the infrastructure is inherently more limited.

Cant you keep the space above freezing? Just not as warm as people would prefer

The temperature of the house is not uniform - areas are colder than others. But when you heat up to 68F - then the really cold areas of the house stay (usually) above freezing. If you let the house drop to 60-55 F - there's no guarantee that the colder parts of your walls and pipes freeze.

Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)

#43

Post by Ekaros »

matth3 wrote: post #36
ramraj07 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate? How does cold cause mold?

Cold spots in a heated house and a lack of airflow seem to cause mold. The temperature difference causing condensation, excess moisture with nowhere to go and then mold. Interesting whether this would happen in an entirely unheated building.

I suppose it depends if there is some types of poorly placed barriers. In structures that can breath readily and in climates where they can dry it is less of an issue. On other hand those also need to in general be protected from water in structures.

Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)

#44

Post by myth2018 »

pc86 wrote: post #33
myth2018 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How, that's a huge temperature gradient. I live in Fortaleza, Brazil. Temperatures here are very stable along the whole year (78F - 90F, it rarely falls out of this interval). I'm not advocating this no-AC model as a general solution though. I'm aware we're a bit lucky here. I used to live in Sao Paulo and temperatures vary more wildly there, sometimes within a single day.

Any temperate area on the planet will easily have 90-100 degree swings throughout the year. I used to live on the US East Coast and a summer high of 90-95 and winter lows of 0-5 were common my entire childhood. I moved to the midwest in the early summer and it hit 100 more than once, and it's been below 0 multiple times this winter already.

We are near to the equator here. Seasons don't work the same. Here they call the 3 rainy months "winter", and the rest of the year is summer.

And the temperature gradient I've mentioned is correct. No noticeable changes along the whole year, I'm sorry.

Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)

#45

Post by BenjiWiebe »

woodruffw wrote: post #31
6581 wrote: post #27

Not heating your house will make it uninhabitable within a year because of mold.

I've spent a lot of time in very old houses with limited to no modern heating, and I've never experienced this. The biggest indicator for mold is moisture trapped between walls (including animals getting stuck in walls and dying). But that's a water and humidity thing, not an ambient temperature thing.

I think some very old houses don't have mold issues because they aren't tight enough. You get so much airflow through the walls, they don't really get damp.

Source: lived in a ~100 year old house in the Midwest for 15 years or so. The only place we got mold that I remember was inside the air conditioning unit.

Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)

#46

Post by twic »

6581 wrote: post #27

Not heating your house will make it uninhabitable within a year because of mold.

Depends on the construction. I bet Victorian brick and timber houses would be fine, since they're well ventilated throughout the structure, and were not intended to be intensively heated.

Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)

#47

Post by armchairhacker »

A really good way to heat yourself up fast is to drink tea or soup a hot beverage. Personally I don't really like wearing coats for some reason, they're uncomfortable and they don't heat me up as well. The inverse is true as well: a cold drink will help you cool off in hot weather.

Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)

#48

Post by kccqzy »

throw0101a wrote: post #38
myth2018 wrote: post #12

I've been thinking about the inverse problem. I live in a very warm city. Air conditioning (cooling spaces) is the norm, but tons of money are spent with installations, maintenance and the monthly electricity bill. The new houses are designed with zero consideration about ventilation, designers seem to take for granted that you are going to buy an AC system. Oftentimes, a very simple change in the project would be en…

> The new houses are designed with zero consideration about ventilation, designers seem to take for granted that you are going to buy an AC system. These are two separate problems. In the ideal situation, you generally want the house to be fairly air tight and condition the air for (a) temperature and (b) humidity. Each of (a) and (b) are taken care of by different mechanical units: one is monitored by a thermometer…

This is exactly the problem with newer design and construction philosophy. Its premise is that we will use mechanical systems, and then try to make these mechanical systems more efficient such as improving insulation, using multi-stage condensers for the AC, etc. This is epitomized in the passive house concept.

In contrast the older philosophy is that natural ventilation is good enough, so we design houses to improve that, such as strategic placement of windows to allow cross ventilation, use high ceilings to allow heat to rise, etc.

The original article is squarely in the second camp.

Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)

#49

Post by myth2018 »

throw0101a wrote: post #38
myth2018 wrote: post #12

I've been thinking about the inverse problem. I live in a very warm city. Air conditioning (cooling spaces) is the norm, but tons of money are spent with installations, maintenance and the monthly electricity bill. The new houses are designed with zero consideration about ventilation, designers seem to take for granted that you are going to buy an AC system. Oftentimes, a very simple change in the project would be en…

> The new houses are designed with zero consideration about ventilation, designers seem to take for granted that you are going to buy an AC system. These are two separate problems. In the ideal situation, you generally want the house to be fairly air tight and condition the air for (a) temperature and (b) humidity. Each of (a) and (b) are taken care of by different mechanical units: one is monitored by a thermometer…

> These are two separate problems

I've learned a lot about US climates and their notion of ventilation, here at the comments I got.

I hope you guys also have found interesting that, in some other parts of the globe, ventilation and air cooling are two very interconnected concepts. And also that, in climates like ours, relying solely on AC while not taking advantage of the cooling properties of moving air masses means waste of energy.

Post reply on HN