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Heat people, not spaces (2015)

solar.lowtechmagazine.com

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Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)

#121

Post by hedora »

pchwalek wrote: post #55
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…

I would disagree with new houses not considering ventilation. There are set building standards (ASHRAE 62.1, 62.2, and ISO standards) that have been around for a while that specify how ventilated spaces should be for given use cases. There’s a more recent trend to evolve these standards to take into consideration non-hazardous levels of particulate matter and gases that still show cognitive impairment—-I’m currently…

Modern building codes do carefully consider ventilation, but I think a lot of knowledge and tradecraft have been lost.

If you're lucky and live in an older house of the correct design from just before A/C, (most of the oldest two-story single family homes in Berkeley, FWIW) you might notice that some of the internal walls stay well below room temperature during the summer.

The buildings typically have pier and beam foundations, and the cooling walls have passive draft ways that pull cool air over the ground under the house and up against those walls. This is great in the summer, but not so much in the winter. I don't know how they use convection to pull cold air up, or how they prevent moldy foundation dirt air from permeating the house. I've heard there are some pretty clever designs, but (of course) they're hidden behind walls.

Anyway, our modern house is one story, and has an intentionally-uninsulated concrete slab on grade foundation, so we get a similar effect. (Passive solar heat keeps it toasty in the winter.)

We usually have our windows open, but we also over-insulated the walls (for noise and efficiency), and have a tight building envelope, so the heating/cooling bill is tiny.

(Edit: I bet they vented the walls into the attic and under the floor. That'd create a strong updraft in the summer (out the attic vents), but (if the attic is well insulated against the rest of the house) not in the winter.

Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)

#122

Post by tapland »

nicoburns wrote: post #32
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…

IMO the real solution is building materials with high heat mass (e.g. stone), and architectural designs which allow for passive cooling. This exists already, but can be expensive to build.

Lived in a stone house when I was younger. It was amazing at keeping us cool or warm for long periods when the temperature shifted.

In current apartment heating doesn't work properly until days after its gotten cold, and it's instantly too warm when it gets warm.

AC is very uncommon in Scandinavia, and we have 85-95% humidity in my area year around.

Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)

#123

Post by culi »

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…

In Europe still today AC usage is at less than 5% of all households. Sure the US likely has more cities in really hot places, but ACs are still generally an American thing

Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)

#124

Post by gruez »

jerojero wrote: post #115
novok wrote: post #60

An issue with keeping yourself warm with clothing is some hotspots get too warm, and others too cold. Like the armpits usually get too warm, but your exposed hands too cold. If your slippers have sheep's wool in them, like ugg slippers, then they often sweat a lot or feel a little wet while simultaneously feeling cold at times, or warm enough. Most sweaters are also not designed to keep your armpits a little bit cool…

Yeah, but is that sort of discomfort worth the energy usage of heating the entire room? An alternative is also, as it is mentioned in the article, to warm certain spots in a room instead of the whole of it.

> Yeah, but is that sort of discomfort worth the energy usage of heating the entire room?

For the average HN reader in north america? Probably not. For the median person in europe right now? Maybe not (thanks to what's happening in ukraine affecting gas prices).

Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)

#125

Post by Kluny »

dundarious wrote: post #97

I definitely lean towards this approach, and warm my apartment to standard levels for my area only when company is coming over. But I think I developed mild but extremely irritating chilblains on my fingers from keeping my living space at 13-18°C. Now I diligently wear gloves (just the cheap, light kind) in such temperatures, even indoors. Just an anecdote but I can't really recommend the approach.

Do you prefer living in the cold?

Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)

#126

Post by mc32 »

joe_the_user wrote: post #74
novok wrote: post #60

An issue with keeping yourself warm with clothing is some hotspots get too warm, and others too cold. Like the armpits usually get too warm, but your exposed hands too cold. If your slippers have sheep's wool in them, like ugg slippers, then they often sweat a lot or feel a little wet while simultaneously feeling cold at times, or warm enough. Most sweaters are also not designed to keep your armpits a little bit cool…

Last December, Nevada County Ca, where I live, had a massive snow storm that knocked out power and snowed people in for 1-3 weeks. I wound up huddled in my apartment with 45 degree heat for five days or so. With enough sweaters, I was a comfortable temperature. Aside from what you mention, since basically you providing your own heat for yourself, you have to put or take off layers depending on physical activity. And…

One place you still need heat is the shower. Maybe some people are okay with taking a shower in 45F ambient temps, but I would resist it.

Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)

#127

Post by oxplot »

Heat properly insulated spaces. I don’t want to walk around with piles of movement limiting and suffocating clothing inside my own living room. The problem is not what you heat up, it’s how well you insulate it from losing its heat. In Australia where I live, insulation is non-existent in the average home/apartment. Even simple things like tinted windows (for hot days), double pane windows and floating floor is missing. On the top of that, you have archaic HVAC systems that cool and heat from one vent and have useless thermostat feedback loops. A $30 hand rolled thermostats I put together for my fairly expensive apartment unit is infinitely superior to what came with the unit.

Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)

#128

Post by alfor »

Our body NEED infrared light. (real doctor research with scientific evidence)

An interesting recent discovery is that our body need infrared radiation to function properly, not just UV light/vitamin D.

I think that people living in the northern climate discovered/felt that it was better to be exposed to the radian heat of the fire in the winter. We recently (50-100) years have been getting rid of fireplaces and replaced with forced air and baseboard heater that probably generated a lot of health problem.

A month ago I discovered this information, bought an small infrared heated and healed in 10 days the winter eczema I have been fighting for 25 years.

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YV_iKnzDRg

I hope this help somebody

Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)

#129

Post by blahedo »

opensores wrote: post #112

In the US wood construction is the norm for residential buildings. These cannot go below a certain temperature, not much below 60F, otherwise dry rot will slowly but permanently damage these buildings in most places (depends on humidity). I suppose if you drop the humidity below a certain point you might get by with pretty low temperatures.

I think this is an overstatement of the situation; it's true that you're supposed to keep the house from getting too cold, but it's within living memory in many places that in the colder parts of the winter, standing water jugs would have a thin layer of ice in the morning. They wouldn't stay below freezing, but they'd cycle through temperatures much below 60F (15C) on a daily basis for several months of the year. Even now I think it's more common to set the thermostat down around 50 or 55 when you'll be out of town, and I know people who don't set it much above 60 in the winter even when they're awake and at home, quite a bit lower when they're asleep or out.

Re: Heat people, not spaces (2015)

#130

Post by joe-collins »

GeekyBear wrote: post #67
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…

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 bedro…

My childhood home, in a mid-century California suburb, used the same fan arrangement. Incredibly effective... if also very noisy.
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