5 ms·

Why did no one mention the Romans yet? They came up with the frigidarium where you could literally cool down with your friends and some private houses even had

by TomK32 9y ago

Why did no one mention the Romans yet? They came up with the frigidarium where you could literally cool down with your friends and some private houses even had water running inside their walls to cool it down (or hot air in the colder months). Temperature control in buildings is 100% architecture and technical add-ons like AC are a poor choice. Look at termites how they use architecture to cool their hives.

_pmf_ 9y ago
> Temperature control in buildings is 100% architecture and technical add-ons like AC are a poor choice. Look at termites how they use architecture to cool their hives. Clay for the win. Even using a very thin clay based upper layer does incredible things to the room climate.
- bryanrasmussen 9y ago
  is Clay also for the win in hot, humid climates?
  - nf05papsjfVbc 9y ago
    Yes, it works fairly well. You need to have a high ceiling for it to be effective though. I don't know why that is so, however.
Xylakant 9y ago
> Temperature control in buildings is 100% architecture and technical add-ons like AC are a poor choice. AC is not only temperature control. Running water through the walls or evaporation cooling only work in moderately dry climates but will not help much in humid climates. Cooling the walls will just lead to condensation and wet walls. There's certainly a lot that can be done without AC, but humidity control is required in some regions of the world.
ComputerGuru 9y ago
The article does mention the Romans, though: > The eccentric Roman emperor Elagabulus sent slaves to bring snow down from the mountains and pile it in his garden, where breezes would carry the cooler air inside.
yxhuvud 9y ago
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.
- blackguardx 9y ago
  In the US, centralized AC is the norm in the numerous suburban houses. Newer apartment buildings in cities have centralized AC and window units are usually only used in older buildings.
  - yxhuvud 9y ago
    You are speaking centralized as in having one central unit for the building, are you not? I am speaking about having a big company, usually city-run, making the cool in a huge plant and then pump it out (in insulated pipes) to the rest of the city/town. The heat version of it is very common here in Sweden (for towns bigger than, say, 10k people) and it is a lot more efficient (and therefore, cheaper) than having heating units in the different buildings. We even have bigger data centers selling their spare heat from their cooling back to the heating systems.
    - nerdshoe 9y ago
      Deep lake cooling is used in Toronto, Canada, though not widespread, and is offered by a private company. http://enwavetoronto.com/district_cooling_system.html http://enwavetoronto.com/district_cooling_system.html
    - closeparen 9y ago
      Universities often have one or more chiller plants that cool multiple buildings on campus (also boiler plants). Very large building-sized boiler and chiller plants served each half of my campus (probably less than a square mile in total). I'm not sure it would work at city scale.
      - pinot 9y ago

by TomK32 9y ago

_pmf_ 9y ago

> Temperature control in buildings is 100% architecture and technical add-ons like AC are a poor choice. Look at termites how they use architecture to cool their hives. Clay for the win. Even using a very thin clay based upper layer does incredible things to the room climate.

bryanrasmussen 9y ago
is Clay also for the win in hot, humid climates?
- nf05papsjfVbc 9y ago
  Yes, it works fairly well. You need to have a high ceiling for it to be effective though. I don't know why that is so, however.

Xylakant 9y ago

> Temperature control in buildings is 100% architecture and technical add-ons like AC are a poor choice. AC is not only temperature control. Running water through the walls or evaporation cooling only work in moderately dry climates but will not help much in humid climates. Cooling the walls will just lead to condensation and wet walls. There's certainly a lot that can be done without AC, but humidity control is required in some regions of the world.

ComputerGuru 9y ago

The article does mention the Romans, though: > The eccentric Roman emperor Elagabulus sent slaves to bring snow down from the mountains and pile it in his garden, where breezes would carry the cooler air inside.

yxhuvud 9y ago

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.

blackguardx 9y ago
In the US, centralized AC is the norm in the numerous suburban houses. Newer apartment buildings in cities have centralized AC and window units are usually only used in older buildings.
- yxhuvud 9y ago
  You are speaking centralized as in having one central unit for the building, are you not? I am speaking about having a big company, usually city-run, making the cool in a huge plant and then pump it out (in insulated pipes) to the rest of the city/town. The heat version of it is very common here in Sweden (for towns bigger than, say, 10k people) and it is a lot more efficient (and therefore, cheaper) than having heating units in the different buildings. We even have bigger data centers selling their spare heat from their cooling back to the heating systems.
  - nerdshoe 9y ago
    Deep lake cooling is used in Toronto, Canada, though not widespread, and is offered by a private company. http://enwavetoronto.com/district_cooling_system.html http://enwavetoronto.com/district_cooling_system.html
  - closeparen 9y ago
    Universities often have one or more chiller plants that cool multiple buildings on campus (also boiler plants). Very large building-sized boiler and chiller plants served each half of my campus (probably less than a square mile in total). I'm not sure it would work at city scale.
    - pinot 9y ago