4 ms·

I used to live just south of Death Valley. One summer, it was up around 115F every day for two weeks straight in July. An occasional spike in temps to that lev

I used to live just south of Death Valley. One summer, it was up around 115F every day for two weeks straight in July. An occasional spike in temps to that level was not a big deal. The houses were built to some degree for that environment and had , for example, narrow windows with some kind of architectural detail I've never seen elsewhere that helped shade the windows. But after days and days of such temperatures, the AC blowing cold air felt like a joke. The walls were hot. The floor was hot. The couch was hot. You learn to eat different and live different in an environment like that. You make sure you get enough to drink. You teach the kids to stay hydrated. You teach everyone the importance of electrolytes. I went for walks for exercise after dark when the temp dropped to 99F. There was precious little shade and I sunburned easily which is another serious health threat on top of the risk of heat prostration. Desert cities of old were built to keep things tolerable at street level. City location was chosen for ability to mitigate the heat, typically a plateau a little above the surrounding terrain. Streets were oriented to maximize the cooling effect of prevailing winds. Buildings were designed to reflect heat rather than soak it up, among other things. Humans used to work out in the weather much more consistently than we do these days and tended to primarily get around on foot. Now, we go from home to car to office to car to store to car, etc. We don't have the same relationship to the weather and we seem to have forgotten how to live with weather. At least in the US. Maybe other places are a bit better about such things.

barrkel 5y ago
Houses - and especially high rise developments - are increasingly built according to global fashions or individualistic whims, divorced from regional styles which evolved with the local climate and available materials.
- DoreenMichele 5y ago
  regional styles which evolved with the local climate and available materials. That's often called vernacular architecture and it typically innately includes elements of passive solar design. Such building styles were well-suited to local climate with a minimum of energy-intensive cooling or heating because people simply couldn't afford it. Additionally, we had cultural practices rooted in staying adequately warm or cool without counting on an HVAC system: Tapestries on castle walls blocked drafts and provided insulation. A "three dog night" was a night so cold, the upper classes let three of their large hunting dogs sleep with them to stay warm. Siestas were naps taken during the hottest part of the day in place of working in the heat. Buildings routinely had windows positioned to create a cross breeze if you opened them. Windows routinely were positioned to provide adequate light for essential tasks without having to turn on any lights during the day. Etc. Now we build some awful little cardboard box and slap an HVAC system on it as if tech makes up for bad design. It doesn't.
  - viraptor 5y ago
    > Now we build some awful little cardboard box and slap an HVAC system on it as if tech makes up for bad design. This is really infuriating. I lived in a small town which was full of houses built decades ago for workers building hydro plant close by. They were supposed to be temporary and really deserve to be knocked down these days. But they still function... with multiple split system ACs heating them up. Even if they're money/energy sinks, people don't have enough savings to invest in a more efficient rebuild.
    - DoreenMichele 5y ago
      Even if they're money/energy sinks, people don't have enough savings to invest in a more efficient rebuild. Poverty is always expensive. That's what keeps people trapped in it. If it were cheap to be poor, it wouldn't be poverty. It's the fact that you get bled for your time, money, energy and anything else you've got that makes people poor.
      - exporectomy 5y ago
        Sometimes, yes, but not generally. I know people who can't help themselves from spending whatever money they've got on random short term pleasures. Even when they receive a windfall, it's quickly gone with nothing to show for it. They certainly don't invest in a more energy efficient house or even bulk buy household items or other boring money-saving things when they have the opportunity. There's ways of thinking and behaving that make people get poor and stay poor. That's not even a bad thing. Some of these people seem quite happy. They're not trying to be rich.
        DoreenMichele 5y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19585789 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19585789
        viraptor 5y ago
        What Doreen linked 100%, but also - you need to actually know how to save in a long term. If you didn't get that daily-things-that-improve-your-position continuous education as you grow up, it's not necessarily trivial to continuously apply when you get older. I've seen people do really stupid things because they were not aware of better ways which were obvious to me. (And I bet I did some stupid things which are obviously stupid to you) I'm thinking here of "skills to survive on minimal pay" being very different from "skills of long-term financial management".
- atatatat 5y ago
  Is this why household mold is on an epidemic level rise?
  - scruple 5y ago
    Do you have a source for that?
    - atatatat 5y ago
      Not handy, struggling to find. Saw a somewhat authoritative article about it recently.
      - scruple 5y ago
        Total tangent, but I've been struggling with in-home humidity recently so household mold has been a nagging concern in the back of my mind. I'll try searching around a bit, too. Anecdotally, quite a few people in my friend group are also dealing with high (> 70%) relative humidity in their homes, so it'd be interesting to find out there's a broader trend happening.
- fy20 5y ago
  Well in a way houses are still built for the local climate, but the local climate has abundant cheap energy. Building houses to be better insulated and able to tolerate extreme temperature events with just minor discomfort is possible[0], but it is also more expensive. If you spend $50,000 more to insulate a house to tolerate this, and it reduces the energy costs by $1,200/year, then financially it's not worth it [1]. Of course for the environment that's a big difference, but capitalism :-) [0] I live in Northern Europe, in a house built to our pretty strict building standards, and we don't even turn on the heating until it goes below freezing outside. Yesterday we had highs of 32C (90F) - which is hot for here - and I was out so the AC was off. When I came home in the afternoon, our living room which directly faces south and has no shade other than decorative blinds was... 25C (77F). [1] Average stock market returns over the last century are around 10% per year. Even if you conservatively half that, it still doesn't work out.
  - wcoenen 5y ago
    There have been 10 year periods with negative inflation-adjusted annualized return. E.g. for the S&P500 it was -3.4%/year in the 2000's and -1.4%/year in the 1970's [1]. That makes any investments with a guaranteed long term benefit look better. [1] See table at bottom of http://www.simplestockinvesting.com/SP500-historical-real-total-returns.htm http://www.simplestockinvesting.com/SP500-historical-real-to...
leephillips 5y ago
“in houses that look toward the south, the sun penetrates the portico in winter, while in summer the path of the sun is right over our heads, and above the roof, so that there is shade.” That is Socrates himself, explaining the advantageous way to orient houses. The Greeks paid special attention to this during their energy crisis, when they had burned the available forest and the citizens were eyeing the olive groves.

barrkel 5y ago

Houses - and especially high rise developments - are increasingly built according to global fashions or individualistic whims, divorced from regional styles which evolved with the local climate and available materials.

DoreenMichele 5y ago
regional styles which evolved with the local climate and available materials. That's often called vernacular architecture and it typically innately includes elements of passive solar design. Such building styles were well-suited to local climate with a minimum of energy-intensive cooling or heating because people simply couldn't afford it. Additionally, we had cultural practices rooted in staying adequately warm or cool without counting on an HVAC system: Tapestries on castle walls blocked drafts and provided insulation. A "three dog night" was a night so cold, the upper classes let three of their large hunting dogs sleep with them to stay warm. Siestas were naps taken during the hottest part of the day in place of working in the heat. Buildings routinely had windows positioned to create a cross breeze if you opened them. Windows routinely were positioned to provide adequate light for essential tasks without having to turn on any lights during the day. Etc. Now we build some awful little cardboard box and slap an HVAC system on it as if tech makes up for bad design. It doesn't.
- viraptor 5y ago
  > Now we build some awful little cardboard box and slap an HVAC system on it as if tech makes up for bad design. This is really infuriating. I lived in a small town which was full of houses built decades ago for workers building hydro plant close by. They were supposed to be temporary and really deserve to be knocked down these days. But they still function... with multiple split system ACs heating them up. Even if they're money/energy sinks, people don't have enough savings to invest in a more efficient rebuild.
  - DoreenMichele 5y ago
    Even if they're money/energy sinks, people don't have enough savings to invest in a more efficient rebuild. Poverty is always expensive. That's what keeps people trapped in it. If it were cheap to be poor, it wouldn't be poverty. It's the fact that you get bled for your time, money, energy and anything else you've got that makes people poor.
    - exporectomy 5y ago
      Sometimes, yes, but not generally. I know people who can't help themselves from spending whatever money they've got on random short term pleasures. Even when they receive a windfall, it's quickly gone with nothing to show for it. They certainly don't invest in a more energy efficient house or even bulk buy household items or other boring money-saving things when they have the opportunity. There's ways of thinking and behaving that make people get poor and stay poor. That's not even a bad thing. Some of these people seem quite happy. They're not trying to be rich.
      - DoreenMichele 5y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19585789 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19585789
      - viraptor 5y ago
        What Doreen linked 100%, but also - you need to actually know how to save in a long term. If you didn't get that daily-things-that-improve-your-position continuous education as you grow up, it's not necessarily trivial to continuously apply when you get older. I've seen people do really stupid things because they were not aware of better ways which were obvious to me. (And I bet I did some stupid things which are obviously stupid to you) I'm thinking here of "skills to survive on minimal pay" being very different from "skills of long-term financial management".
atatatat 5y ago
Is this why household mold is on an epidemic level rise?
- scruple 5y ago
  Do you have a source for that?
  - atatatat 5y ago
    Not handy, struggling to find. Saw a somewhat authoritative article about it recently.
    - scruple 5y ago
      Total tangent, but I've been struggling with in-home humidity recently so household mold has been a nagging concern in the back of my mind. I'll try searching around a bit, too. Anecdotally, quite a few people in my friend group are also dealing with high (> 70%) relative humidity in their homes, so it'd be interesting to find out there's a broader trend happening.
fy20 5y ago
Well in a way houses are still built for the local climate, but the local climate has abundant cheap energy. Building houses to be better insulated and able to tolerate extreme temperature events with just minor discomfort is possible[0], but it is also more expensive. If you spend $50,000 more to insulate a house to tolerate this, and it reduces the energy costs by $1,200/year, then financially it's not worth it [1]. Of course for the environment that's a big difference, but capitalism :-) [0] I live in Northern Europe, in a house built to our pretty strict building standards, and we don't even turn on the heating until it goes below freezing outside. Yesterday we had highs of 32C (90F) - which is hot for here - and I was out so the AC was off. When I came home in the afternoon, our living room which directly faces south and has no shade other than decorative blinds was... 25C (77F). [1] Average stock market returns over the last century are around 10% per year. Even if you conservatively half that, it still doesn't work out.
- wcoenen 5y ago
  There have been 10 year periods with negative inflation-adjusted annualized return. E.g. for the S&P500 it was -3.4%/year in the 2000's and -1.4%/year in the 1970's [1]. That makes any investments with a guaranteed long term benefit look better. [1] See table at bottom of http://www.simplestockinvesting.com/SP500-historical-real-total-returns.htm http://www.simplestockinvesting.com/SP500-historical-real-to...

leephillips 5y ago

“in houses that look toward the south, the sun penetrates the portico in winter, while in summer the path of the sun is right over our heads, and above the roof, so that there is shade.” That is Socrates himself, explaining the advantageous way to orient houses. The Greeks paid special attention to this during their energy crisis, when they had burned the available forest and the citizens were eyeing the olive groves.