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The far-reaching effects of air conditioning

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Re: The far-reaching effects of air conditioning

#171

Post by Declanomous »

antisthenes wrote: post #169
Declanomous wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That article was far more sensible and pertinent than I was expecting. Especially relevant, given the fact that a couple weeks ago one of my coworkers was wearing a jacket while I was sweating though my clothes. Our handbook is pretty terrible to both sexes though. There's two full pages on how women should do their makeup. It can basically be summed up as "You need to wear makeup, but don't look like a whore." So, a…

> I'm comfortable to above 90 degrees Consider yourself lucky. I am not comfortable in temperatures above 80 in any clothing bar undergarments, especially not if you want me to be productive cognitively in any way. And if you add humidity on top of that, it essentially reduces me to a vegetable, unable to do anything but take short naps and cold showers every few hours.

I definitely feel that way if I'm in the sun with no breeze. I'm pretty tall and lanky though, and I sweat a lot, so I think the two of those things together combine to keep me fairly cool.

Being hot is definitely tiring though. I'm pretty sure I use a ton of energy just sitting around sweating, and if I have to walk anywhere in that weather I'll just want to take a nap when I get there.

Re: The far-reaching effects of air conditioning

#172

Post by SAI_Peregrinus »

VLM wrote: post #114
yxhuvud wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder why central cooling hasn't taken off like central heating has. It seems to me that the economy of scale would work really well with cold just as it does with heat.

Compressed liquid refrigerant is very expensive compared to cheap water for heating. Long pipes full of liquid would be very expensive to initially fill not to mention after leaks. And there would be leaks... Historically most refrigerants have had "issues" when leaked either environmental or being toxic or otherwise it minimizes danger to keep as little as possible. Even if we could afford to use 1000x as much refri…

Why would you use long pipes of refrigerant? Move the air, not the refrigerant. Plenty of existing central heating systems do that (no radiators, just vents in each room). Systems like this already exist and work rather well.

Re: The far-reaching effects of air conditioning

#173

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

yxhuvud wrote: post #95
adrianmonk wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being from Texas, that is such a strange perspective to me. Around here, air conditioning is the main reason why you need insulation. Heating isn't a major concern. Many houses have electric heat because it just isn't worth the cost to put in something more efficient. But air conditioning is needed a large part of the year. And in the summer it gets quite hot, so electric bills can be very expensive. So in any newer…

I guess it is a progression where people learn from the problems they had before. Step 1: It is too hot/cold here Step 2: Lets put in heating/AC Step 3: Damn, the electric costs are getting too high. Lets put in insulation and double-pane windows (well, actually three-pane is standard here in Sweden) to keep down the costs. The further you live to extreme heat or cold the faster a society progress down the ladder. Wh…

Central cooling/heating probably isn't very popular in the US because of generally lower population densities. A

Re: The far-reaching effects of air conditioning

#174

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

dreadpirate15 wrote: post #134
VLM wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"houses are now built with very little regard to insulation" I find that hard to believe. Where I live the local muni delegates to a state wide "uniform dwelling building code" I googled it for laughs and the minimum ceiling insulation as of the '09 revision was R-49 which is about 14 inches of fiberglass. My concrete block basement walls met code 50 years ago at about R-2 insulation value, as of '09 the mandatory mi…

Central house fan my friend. Not too difficult to install if you're comfortable cutting sheetrock and doing a minimal amount of wiring. Run it for 15 minutes and you'll have your house cooled down considerably. I do agree that having the house designed for good airflow in the first place would be ideal.

I have one of those. Sucks in cooler air in the basement. Takes hours for the temperature to drop a single degree.

Re: The far-reaching effects of air conditioning

#175

Post by callmeed »

fuckemem wrote: post #16
callmeed wrote: post #7

If you like this story, I recommend reading How We Got to Now: Six Innovations That Made the Modern World . Its a quick read and very interesting. And, yes, "cold" is one of the six. https://www.amazon.com/How-We-Got-Now-Innovations/dp/1594633...

"cold" is quite broad though. That would cover refrigeration/ freezing which would be a much bigger impact than air con.

The chapter covers both. And they impact everything from food to politics.

Re: The far-reaching effects of air conditioning

#176

Post by quantum_magpie »

zb wrote: post #101
eBombzor wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decreasing the AC doesn't mean people will start sweating themselves. 75 - 78 F is perfect but most buildings for some reason turn their ACs all the way down to the 60s. For athletic centers, of course it makes sense. But in big open libraries, lecture halls, places with little activity in general, it's awful. It's especially bad for your health if you live in a hot region like southern California since your body has…

Yep, in the southeastern US it's routinely so cold inside that were it to get that cold in the winter, they would turn up the heat. Except that instead of wearing three layers of clothing you're in shorts and a T-shirt because it's 95F/35C+ and 100% humidity outside. I don't think I'll ever get used to this. I don't see how it's possible even in principle to acclimate to such large swings in temperature over such a s…

As a person from northeastern Europe living in Tokyo, I really hate the Japanese doing something similar -- in the summer they set their ACs to 20-22, when it's 35 outside, while in the winter everywhere inside is at 25+, quite often even as high as 28. Plus, their ACs are the 'blow freezing wind in the face' type, so it's extremely terrible for the health. I have taken to wearing a quilt+buff for the neck during the summer just to avoid getting sick all the time.

At least I sit next to a window, so I can let some warmer/cooler and fresher air to compensate, but it is such a waste of electricity, it drives me nuts.. It's also imposible to concentrate when the air gets too dry from the AC.

ends rant

Re: The far-reaching effects of air conditioning

#177

Post by kijin »

pavlov wrote: post #56
_0nac wrote: post #11

Lee Kuan Yew, founder of modern Singapore: "Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of civilization by making development possible in the tropics. Without air conditioning you can work only in the cool early-morning hours or at dusk. The first thing I did upon becoming prime minister was to install air conditioners in buildings whe…

Japan is further ahead, as they have optimized this with a decade-old policy called "Cool Biz". To save energy and money by reducing AC, office workers are allowed to wear more casual clothing in the summer: https://qz.com/465327/ditch-the-tie-and-reduce-the-ac-japans...

South Korea started following the same policy a few years ago. The thermostat is set at 28C in most offices, and people care less than they did before about men wearing short sleeves and no ties.

One problem is that Seoul is further north than Tokyo, so the temperature tends to stay around 28C anyway, especially during the monsoon between mid-June and mid-July. Thermostats only detect temperature, not humidity. So the A/C sits idle and everything gets damp :(

Re: The far-reaching effects of air conditioning

#178

Post by ReinholdNiebuhr »

pluma wrote: post #50
eBombzor wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Decreasing the AC doesn't mean people will start sweating themselves. 75 - 78 F is perfect but most buildings for some reason turn their ACs all the way down to the 60s. For athletic centers, of course it makes sense. But in big open libraries, lecture halls, places with little activity in general, it's awful. It's especially bad for your health if you live in a hot region like southern California since your body has…

In Germany ~70°F (19-20°C) is considered "room temperature". 75°F is too damn warm. My brain pretty much stops working around 77°F.

I grew up in a pretty cool climate (Maine). Above 65 I begin sweating. Especially if the humidity is above 60%. 58 is ideal working weather as long as the humidity is low. 35-45 is ideal sleeping weather, with window cracked open so to allow a breeze to counter at the heat from the stove.

Re: The far-reaching effects of air conditioning

#179

Post by msh »

projectorlochsa wrote: post #23
pitaj wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better have it too cold and people where extra clothing than have people sweating themselves. You can always put more clothes on, you can't take off your skin.

24-25 Celsius on lowest fan settings should be cold enough for practically everyone.

Well, government guidelines where I live says office temperature should be around 22 degrees Celsius.

25 would only be accepted if there was a heatwave.

Re: The far-reaching effects of air conditioning

#180

Post by PhasmaFelis »

barrkel wrote: post #72
nsxwolf wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to get warm; hard to get cold.

It's not so easy to protect e.g. your wrists from the cold desk.

How not? I can't imagine long sleeves or a jacket not being enough, but if so, just put down a folded towel or something.
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