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An Elizabethan mansion's secrets for staying warm

bbc.com

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Re: An Elizabethan mansion's secrets for staying warm

#181

Post by rrr_oh_man »

maccard wrote: post #163
bluGill wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Modern insulation with hvac is better yet. You need hvac to bring air in as a modern house should be air tight. Not much heat or ac should be needed.

I’m inclined to agree, even in cold places. AC is remarkably efficient, especially when you reverse it (and get a heat pump).

…but when electricity dies down, you’re basically fucked.

Re: An Elizabethan mansion's secrets for staying warm

#182

Post by klondike_klive »

ynac wrote: post #10

When we lost power for 10 days a few winters back we attempted to use the fire place for heat. It was a fail. Post and beam house (large wide open floor plan) with a large transfer from 1st to 2nd floor, and apprently my lack of skill for optimizing heat over beauty in the fireplace, left us without much of a thermal bump. To this day I swear we were pulling heat out of the chimney faster than we were heating the hou…

Did you use a fire grate with a big space underneath and keep it swept clean? Or did you build up a big bed of ash under the grate? On the advice of a chimney sweep I put a perimeter of bricks under the grate to form walls and we're currently filling it with more and more ash (it really takes a while). It's starting to make a difference in how much heat comes back into the room. Without that void underneath, the fire doesn't burn so hot and cold air doesn't get pulled through so quickly.

(It feels like it's getting warmer - may all be wishful thinking though, I haven't taken any measurements!)

Re: An Elizabethan mansion's secrets for staying warm

#183

Post by president_zippy »

The big about textiles (curtains and bed fabric) functioning as insulation gave me flashbacks to my dad repeatedly complaining over the past decade about a couple small boxes of my stuff taking up space he "needs" in his 700 sqft attic.

I told him, "What's the big deal? It's free insulation during brutal north Texas summers. It's as good as vermiculite insulation minus the asbestos contamination!"

I only put about as much rigor into this as reddit PC builders making untested "gut calls" about thermodynamics, and I was mostly just being a smartass, but it's nice to see I had the same idea as English nobility who comfortably survived winters before the invention of HVAC as we know it.

Nice to see some proof I'm not completely full of crap.

Re: An Elizabethan mansion's secrets for staying warm

#184

Post by maccard »

rrr_oh_man wrote: post #181
maccard wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m inclined to agree, even in cold places. AC is remarkably efficient, especially when you reverse it (and get a heat pump).

…but when electricity dies down, you’re basically fucked.

My main source of heating is a gas boiler, but it requires two pumps to actually push the water around. If our power is out we have no heating.

Re: An Elizabethan mansion's secrets for staying warm

#185

Post by cwillu »

asplake wrote: post #82
cwillu wrote: post #13

Brits will do anything except properly insulate their damn homes.

Hasn’t been true in like 50 years, at least in new builds, even conversions. We have building standards too you know

> at least in new builds

It appears that something like 50% of homes are still over 50 years old, which seems to be more than enough for “some subset of brits large enough to be notable complain about the cold weather because they don't have a properly insulated place to warm up in” to have explanatory power.

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