4 ms·
There's about 5 significant things that go into perceived temperature and comfort: Ambient air temperature, radiant heat, conductive heat, humidity, and air cir
by csours 6y ago
There's about 5 significant things that go into perceived temperature and comfort: Ambient air temperature, radiant heat, conductive heat, humidity, and air circulation.
So for instance, in an un-insulated shed, you could bring up the ambient air temperature with a space heater, but still feel cold because the walls are cold and not radiating heat back at you. (It would be convenient, but incorrect to say that they are radiating cold at you).
If you insulated the walls and ceiling, but not the floor, you could have a warm space, but cold feet due to conductive heating (of the floor, from your feet).
Humidity and air movement is more important in cooling, because the human body cools itself with sweat; but humidity in a structure has to be controlled, even if you want more humidity in the wintertime, it will condense and cause rot.
So basically I'm saying you want the insulation just for comfort even if it didn't make economic sense.
- maxerickson 6y agoThat's not what economic sense means. If you value comfort above the cost of insulation, it makes economic sense to purchase insulation. You are talking about some lower bar, if it didn't pay for itself in short order. This misunderstanding is a big piece of why economics is called the dismal science. Meanwhile economists model human actors as rational.
- stkdump 6y agoI think what GP is saying, you will save money with insulation because you can heat to a lower temp.
- maxerickson 6y agoYes, that's why I responded, 'making economic sense' is much broader than saving money, because economics is focused on value rather than money. People believe it is focused on money rather than value of course.
- jonsno56 6y agoWell then I think GP is actually agreeing with you but you are correcting their definition of economic sense. Which is great, but not sure why you had to snark them with the “meanwhile, economists think humans are rational” joke
- bananabiscuit 6y agoPretty sure OP is in agreement with you on the big picture, he/she was just using the article’s narrower definition of “economic sense”.
- fred_is_fred 6y agoNoting how humidity affects perceived temperature is something that people don't think about in the cold. Everyone gets "dry heat" but dry cold is a thing too. 25 in Colorado and 25 in Boston are wildly different - if it's 25 here and the sun is out you can unzip your light jacket. The downside is that I have pretty bad eczema all winter, but I don't freeze to death.
- justnotworthit 6y agowhich one is "here"? You're saying Colorado 25 has low humidity and is more comfortable?
- fred_is_fred 6y agoOh yeah sorry, Colorado is extremely low humidity especially in the winter. It's high desert.