We have very very very good insulation now. We don't really need to stop heating spaces, we need to prevent heat loss. In addition we could use more modern heating systems which actually heat rooms only when needed.
Heat people, not spaces (2015)
61–70 of 335 posts
Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Care to elaborate? How does cold cause mold?
In areas with coastal fog it can be the case that the cooler months with lower evaporation rates are more likely to allow spores a foothold. This is often seen in older spaces designed with passively vented kitchen and baths. But good building design following current standards isn't going to be affected by this.
Life has had half a billion years to figure out that if you produce offspring at the optimal (min-maxed, really) survival time, you get more offspring.
It's not just that spores work better in certain weather conditions, it's also that there are often more spores in those conditions as well. Mushrooms coming up after a rain, gambling that there will be another one in a couple days, for instance.
Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
Care to elaborate? How does cold cause mold?
Moist air from cooking increases the humidity in the house. The walls of the house are cold, the moisture condenses on the cold walls keeping them damp for the entire winter.
If you're thinking, "but I don't cook soup that much", remember the chemical equation for burning methane with oxygen.
Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
quite.
a house i occasionally looked after suffered some pipe damage because somebody else thought setting the thermostat to 50F would suffice to keep the pipes from freezing in the depths of winter.
they were not right enough.
Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> No noticeable changes along the whole year, I'm sorry.
It does sound kind of unpleasant, but I imagine you get used to it.
Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Also survivor bias.
You need a certain amount of wet for mold and mildew. Push the levers too far and you just end up with termites, or a failed foundation, and the whole thing gets replaced with something new.
The houses that have beaten their nemesis, water, are the ones most of us are willing to walk into more than twice.
Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)
#67I'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…
I had family members who lived in a home in the deep south that was built before air conditioning was common. It had a large fan in the ceiling of a central hallway that vented the air from the inside the house out through the attic. This was an industrial grade fan that moved a huge volume of air.
At bedtime, they could open the bedroom windows and turn on the fan and a stiff wind would blow in through all the bedroom windows in the house.
That fan, along with window awnings and tall ceilings, really made a difference in how often they needed to use air conditioning, even near the Gulf of Mexico.
Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)
#68Not heating your house will make it uninhabitable within a year because of mold.
Mold growth is actually slowed down by cold. Cold by itself would not grow mold, you'd need relatively high humidity and lack of ventilation. The home construction and regional climate determines how prevalent mold is.
Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)
#69Earlier 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.
It does if it experiences any kind of a diurnal heating cycle from the sun.
Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)
#70Earlier 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.
Homes should include a central dehumidifier. I believe they’re more efficient than running the AC since there’s no net temperature change?
This depends on the climate zone you’re in. In drier climates, some HVAC systems are actually humidifiers which blow the outside dry/hot air through a wet membrane (ex., desiccant) and blow out wetter/cold air.