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Restoring the Old Way of Warming: Heating People, Not Places

lowtechmagazine.com

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Re: Restoring the Old Way of Warming: Heating People, Not Places

#21

Post by KevinMS »

I just recently got a heating pad just for this purpose.

Its freezing here up in the NE. To save money (apartment has terrible insulation) I got a heating pad with a 'stay on' feature.

Actually I had to get another one because my cat got the idea first and now its hers.

http://www.amazon.com/Sunbeam-2013-912-XpressHeat-Heating-Ex...

Turned the apartment heat down to about 55 (it stays around 60 for some reason), and I move the heating pad back and forth with from my office chair to my lazy boy multiple times a day.

Feels great, and I'm very very comfortable. It must cost almost nothing to run it all day, at least a lot less than heating a 3 bedroom apartment another 10 degrees.

Re: Restoring the Old Way of Warming: Heating People, Not Places

#22

Post by Mister_Snuggles »

jdietrich wrote: post #11

Motorcyclists provide an interesting example of this principle. The extreme windchill experienced by motorcyclists makes it very difficult to keep warm - a rider travelling at 70mph at 0°C experiences a windchill of -18°C. Many riders in northern climates use electrically heated underclothing, which, in conjunction with an insulated outer layer, can keep a rider warm with just a few watts. Better battery technology c…

Milwaukee Tool came out with a line of heated jackets, powered by the same batteries that power their drills and other tools. I believe the red ones were the first ones out, then they saw a market in the hunting crowd and came out with the camouflage version.

http://www.milwaukeetool.ca/heated-gear

Re: Restoring the Old Way of Warming: Heating People, Not Places

#23

Post by Mandatum »

jdietrich wrote: post #11

Motorcyclists provide an interesting example of this principle. The extreme windchill experienced by motorcyclists makes it very difficult to keep warm - a rider travelling at 70mph at 0°C experiences a windchill of -18°C. Many riders in northern climates use electrically heated underclothing, which, in conjunction with an insulated outer layer, can keep a rider warm with just a few watts. Better battery technology c…

In Rarotonga in the winter months you can buy puffer jackets with copper wiring sewn to the inside with a 9V battery.

Re: Restoring the Old Way of Warming: Heating People, Not Places

#24

Post by darkmighty »

jjoonathan wrote: post #14
alricb wrote: post #5

It better be cheap; it's possible to build an affordable house that is well-insulated enough that the plug loads will be higher than the heating loads. In a very cold climate, you also need to keep your house fairly warm to avoid problems like frozen pipes. Ironically, the wasted heat caused by poor building practices can help make buildings more durable by facilitating the drying of the external walls (less of a con…

Agreed. They seemed oddly insistent on pushing their implicit premise that heating large volumes of air is wasteful. http://krisdedecker.typepad.com/.a/6a00e0099229e8883301bb07e... However, the volume of air is not inextricably linked to energy expenditure, which only happens when heat flows down a gradient, not while it sits in a room. We can model it like a simple resistive circuit; the equations are analogous. V =…

Nobody is advocating a bad insulation. You said it yourself, P ~ ∆T: I think the rationale here is to lower ∆T and provide heat to your "spot" as needed. It's probably not going "mainstream" quickly either, but it can save you some energy: it's not so wild to imagine lowering your thermostat a few degrees and get a localized heat source if you seat in that one spot most time.

Re: Restoring the Old Way of Warming: Heating People, Not Places

#25

Post by 6t6t6 »

mikekchar wrote: post #12

I find it interesting that they continually use the past tense in the article. While it is true that the west has largely abandoned these ideas, they are still very strong in the more temperate climates of Asia. I live in Shizuoka prefecture in Japan. It does not get very cold here compared to my home town of Winnipeg, Canada. On the very coldest days it might just dip below freezing at night. While some people heat…

For the カビ in the bathroom, just dilute some bleach at 20% and put it in a spray pot. Apply once a week. Problem solved.

Same for the mold washing machine. Do one cycle with about 200cc of bleach. You can also wash dirty white clothes.

Re: Restoring the Old Way of Warming: Heating People, Not Places

#26

Post by falcolas »

mikekchar wrote: post #12

I find it interesting that they continually use the past tense in the article. While it is true that the west has largely abandoned these ideas, they are still very strong in the more temperate climates of Asia. I live in Shizuoka prefecture in Japan. It does not get very cold here compared to my home town of Winnipeg, Canada. On the very coldest days it might just dip below freezing at night. While some people heat…

According to my sister-in-law, central heating is more-or-less nonexistent in Croatia. Then again, so is the building insulation where she lived, so the two were likely related.

Re: Restoring the Old Way of Warming: Heating People, Not Places

#28

Post by Scoundreller »

3 Points:

1. Cars are moving into this with heated seats, and even heated steering wheels. Electric cars in cooler climates that don't have the excess heat production of an IC engine will depend on it to keep occupants warm.

2. There was an article a while back on HN about a fellow that had a computer desk with a heated keyboard, heated mouse, heated floor mat (designed for animal cages) and a warm incandescent light pointing at them.

3. The IoT can't happen fast enough. I want my electric blanket to talk to my HVAC system to know when to turn each other on or off. And my HVAC to interact with my flight schedule or my phone's GPS to turn up/down the temperature and know when to turn on so it's still toasty when I get home.

Re: Restoring the Old Way of Warming: Heating People, Not Places

#29

Post by Buge »

_delirium wrote: post #13
ashark wrote: post #4

cmd+f "pipe" 0 results found Try setting your heat to, say, 50 degrees F and you may discover you've got some cold spots in your house when the pipes there freeze and burst. Let alone if you try going for lower temperatures, or entirely without whole-house heating. So set it to the low 60s and wear layers? Welcome to what anyone who's ever been even close to poor already knows. [edit] Maybe this is more useful in pla…

It's pretty common around here (Copenhagen) for people to set their radiators to around 5-8 C (40-45 F) in rooms that they aren't using, or the whole house/apartment to that temperature if they're gone for more than a day or so, to save money on heating. Most radiators have a specific "frost protection" setting, indicated by a little snowflake icon, which is set by the manufacturer or building to whatever temperature…

I had pipes freeze when our heater was set to 68 F. It's not a brick house and the people who built it were not professional builders so I don't think they got the insulation completely right.

Re: Restoring the Old Way of Warming: Heating People, Not Places

#30

Post by yourneighbors »

KevinMS wrote: post #21

I just recently got a heating pad just for this purpose. Its freezing here up in the NE. To save money (apartment has terrible insulation) I got a heating pad with a 'stay on' feature. Actually I had to get another one because my cat got the idea first and now its hers. http://www.amazon.com/Sunbeam-2013-912-XpressHeat-Heating-Ex... Turned the apartment heat down to about 55 (it stays around 60 for some reason), and…

"(it stays around 60 for some reason)"

You're leeching heat from your neighbors.

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