Attacking My Landlord's Boiler • Hacker News Board

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#191

Post by DamonHD » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 9:08 PM UTC

joncrocks wrote: post #162

DamonHD wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm really confused about (not complaining, just not understanding) the downvotes. These are statements of neutral fact, and the whole process is described in some detail on my site, for each room that we retrofitted. I don't understand if I have caused offense or something: apologies if somehow so!

I'm not sure, but I think that the reason that radiators are placed near windows (at least historically) was to avoid hot/cold spots in rooms. By placing the radiator near the place that is likely the coldest place in the room, you ensure that the room is an even in temperature as possible. Rather than to counteract 'cool draughts'. I think. So perhaps people thought that your initial comment was wrong/misleading. Bu…

Even if the coldest wall is still the exterior one (it should be, thermodynamically), best maintaining comfort in the room need no longer be by pumping heat out through that wall (or window) to reduce thermal gradients in the rest of the room. Those residual gradients (and, eg, cold drafts down those cooler exterior walls) can be small enough to not need fixing any more.

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#192

Post by kebokyo » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 9:09 PM UTC

poopiokaka wrote: post #76

[flagged]

if i had a nickel for every time someone said the word "objectively" to make something seem more true when it's just, their opinion, man... i would be rich enough to lobby for government-mandated fursonas

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#193

Post by DamonHD » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 9:15 PM UTC

anotherhue wrote: post #175

DamonHD wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a whole research topic, my PhD in fact! FWIW I run my heat pump intermittently and with locally-smart TRVs that get to call for heat centrally, and a weather compensation only flow temperature curve, and it WORKSFORME! https://www.earth.org.uk/heat-pump-16WW-control.html

I enjoyed reading this, thank you.

\o/

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#194

Post by johnwalkr » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 9:25 PM UTC

lenerdenator wrote: post #183

> Please do your due diligence and check local laws before attempting anything I do in this post. Transmitting radio signals can become legally problematic very quickly, and the band I specifically transmit on here (868Mhz) is illegal in the United States without a license. I'd rather you didn't have men in suits knocking on your door on my account. You've been warned! Let's be honest here: the FCC is gonna have to s…

An American thermostat would be using around 920MHz which is the equivalent unlicensed band in the US. Funnily enough, the author warns Americans as an example but he is running more foul of the local rules an American would be (assuming an American would use 920MHz and not 868MHz).

In the US you are allowed to tinker around there with home-built RF devices for personal use and prototyping in unlicensed bands, to some extent. Although, using an SDR for this requires a certain interpretation of the rules. In Europe it's basically not allowed, one shall only use pre-certified modules. Or only use the device you've built in an RF anechoic chamber until you've undertaken the certification process (totally impractical for a hobbyist).

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#195

Post by johnwalkr » Tue, Apr 22, 2025, 9:31 PM UTC

0xEF wrote: post #127

crtasm wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or perhaps go for the opposite of subtle - in many places it's quite normal to see people in hi-vis vests taking readings etc.

That's an excellent additional thing to consider and I'm a bit mad that I neglected it since I have accidentally been that guy. My job requires me to wear hi-vis (as well as other PPE) and it is crazy how little security pays attention to me in some of the very-big-name plants I visit, often with a laptop bag full of flash drives and a bunch of other tools that allow me to get into the machines. Early in this part of…

I used to do contracted engineering and maintenance work in railyards, and in each facility would obtain (always with permission from my recollection) a well-worn supervisor vest and hard hat. They are usually color-coded.

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#196

Post by eek2121 » Wed, Apr 23, 2025, 12:55 AM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #50

> I also have it so the heating turns off when I go into town and turns back on when I'm just a few train stops away so my place is nice and toasty for me getting home! If your goal is saving energy/money, you don’t want a system capable of going from cool to toasty in 20 minutes. Instead, you want a system that runs (much) lower water circulation temperatures (giving lower losses in the unconditioned spaces and more…

Unsure if what you posted is true because I don’t know about water based systems, however this has been proven false for heat pumps.

Specifically, setting a fixed temp vs turning things up/down/off when you are leaving and reversing it before you get home. There was little difference either way. The amount of electricity consumed was similar to both.

I wish I had a link, they even tested cases where efficiency was lost heating things up. This includes “emergency heating”.

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#197

Post by Retric » Wed, Apr 23, 2025, 1:59 AM UTC

looofooo0 wrote: post #182

jillyboel wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[citation needed]

Ah this is school knowledge of thermodynamics: the smaller the delta the more efficient the heat pump. For human comfort look at the iso7730. Also the system is self regulatory with such low temps.

Heat pumps and furnaces behave very differently here.

For a furnace you’re talking fractions of a percent difference in efficiency across a wide temperature range so by far the most critical issue is total heat losses to the outside. A heat pump’s efficiency is far more variable making total losses to the outside less important.

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#198

Post by cft » Wed, Apr 23, 2025, 2:03 AM UTC

Very interesting ending of the post:

```There was a comment section here. It's gone now. As of March 16th, 2025 the United Kingdom's Online Safety Act has gone into full effect. The law presents a lot of challenges for hobbyist websites like this one to present any user-to-user content (like y'know, blog comments) and comes with some pretty serious repercussions for non-compliance.

The odds of Ofcom (the regulator whose job is to enforce this) kicking my door down over this blog are low if we are being honest with ourselves. But the odds are at least somewhere above zero and the punishment is a life ruining £18 million fine(!!) so it's just not worth the risk.

A kind lawyer has written up the implications of this law for self-run blogs like this one and the only way to guarantee that I am not in-scope would be to manually review all comments made before being available to the public. Not to be a big baby about it all but I don't really want to do this! I liked my current setup!

So I guess as a little act of protest and to hedge against any risk I've removed the comment section entirely. Sorry about that!```

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#199

Post by sitharus » Wed, Apr 23, 2025, 2:38 AM UTC

aceofspades19 wrote: post #189

mschuster91 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is, if your landlord ever comes around for inspection, or the bloody thing breaks down due to your installation attempt, you can be held liable up to and including getting evicted.

Where can you get evicted for something like that? The worst case is that they would sue your insurance for damages, or you'd have to pay them out of pocket.

Many countries have no contest evictions, so you could even get evicted if the landlord doesn't like your cooking.

Re: Attacking My Landlord's Boiler

#200

Post by sitharus » Wed, Apr 23, 2025, 2:40 AM UTC

Griffinsauce wrote: post #18

glitchcrab wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed where it was explained that the apartment is rented and therefore you cannot modify anything.

Cannot modify irreversibly though right? Something like a Nest or whatever is easy to return to the original state when you leave.

Depends where you are. Where I live it's no modification. If it's hard-wired the tenant can't touch it.

Though in reality many landlords don't mind as long as you know what you're doing and return it to how it was. Just a problem if you get a jerk landlord.