19 ms·
Heat people, not spaces (2015)
- Ekaros 5y agoI much prefer having the whole house heated. I have read about Japanese using this concept and it always sounds horrible. I don't think it is even too horrible as long as there is proper insulation in place and technology used makes sense.
- dahfizz 5y agoAgreed. A solar panel and heat pump keeps your whole house comfortable. It seems like a no brainer.
- wolverine876 5y agoHave you tried it? There is no risk to doing it for a day.
- npteljes 5y agoFor a fun anecdote, they even made a song about this: "I don' t wanna get out of futon"[0]. It's about how cold everything is in the house, except for the bedding you've already warmed up, or the place where you turned the space heater on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv6shy_9KVM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yv6shy_9KVM
- noodles_nomore 5y agoIdea: Divert some CPU generated heat to the keyboard and wrist rest of a laptop. Code outside in any season.
- ReactiveJelly 5y agoBut if it always does that, it messes up the heat sink's efficiency when you're indoors and warm.
- Gigachad 5y agoProblem: Modern laptops like the macbook run cold. Maybe future node versions can address this.
- sydbarrett74 5y ago
- asdff 5y agoAre new the macbooks really running cold? I haven't used the arm models but the intel ones would always seem to be warm with that lava hot spot on the bottom no matter the state of the fans.
- Gigachad 5y agoFor normal web browser usage, they are basically completely cold. For full docker nodejs webpack development they are a little warm just above the keyboard but only barely noticeable. For gaming running the system at max for prelonged periods they get “hot” but it’s more like just a bit over warm. They never get lava hot like the intel MacBooks did.
- lovemenot 5y agoYes. I bought a M1 Macbook Air a couple of months ago. Living in a cold climate, I came to realise this is an unexpected drawback in the winter.
- dotnet00 5y agoIIRC many phones are designed to radiate heat from the screen for similar reasons, keeps the device comfortable for the user and improves cooling effectiveness since phones are usually screen up.
- themodelplumber 5y agoIt took me a bit of pondering the duotone design, when it hit me. "Hey it's that solar-powered website!" Really cool to see the article, thank you. The leather hooded chair in particular caught my eye, what a find. Reading one of the follow-on articles I appreciated the idea about opening the windows for hopefully-improved air quality being more of a doable thing with localized heat, since the air is not the primary heat transfer medium anyway.[1] Thanks for posting! 1. https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/03/local-heating.html https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2015/03/local-heating.html
- CamperBob2 5y agoOne approach that's been considered: https://awesci.com/microwave-room-heater/ https://awesci.com/microwave-room-heater/ Then there's the Active Denial System: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System
- codingdave 5y agoWe take the general concept of heating people, not the space, to heart for our outdoor swimming pool. While most other folks heat their pool, we go ahead and swim in the cold water... but we buy everyone in the family a wetsuit. A few hundred dollars on wetsuits each year is far better than many hundreds on propane every month.
- jonahx 5y agoAs a swimming experience, you're getting what you pay for.
- mehphp 5y agoIs that enjoyable?
- codingdave 5y agoTotally - in some ways, it is more enjoyable. Easy to stay warm, and the suit give you some extra floatation, so we can play games in the deep water more easily. It also protects us more from sunburn, which is a nice added bonus.
- bagacrap 5y agoI understand the appeal of a swimming pool on a sweltering summer day but if you have to heat it...
- rootusrootus 5y agoIn many places, even on a warm summer day the pool may be uncomfortably cold. Lots of thermal inertia, and if it's shaded at all it may not get enough solar energy to warm up. Without a heater the swimming season can be very short indeed. Also, it's pretty darn awesome to fire up the pool once a year in the winter, like for Christmas, and host a swimming-in-the-snow party. Wouldn't want to keep it heated, but for a couple days it's not too bad.
- TimedToasts 5y ago
- germinalphrase 5y agoMy main concern is frozen pipes, other cold related damage to my home. Gets quite cold up here in Minneapolis. Lovely design ideas for a cabin though where the infrastructure is inherently more limited.
- sfe22 5y agoCant you keep the space above freezing? Just not as warm as people would prefer
- lucidguppy 5y agoThe temperature of the house is not uniform - areas are colder than others. But when you heat up to 68F - then the really cold areas of the house stay (usually) above freezing. If you let the house drop to 60-55 F - there's no guarantee that the colder parts of your walls and pipes freeze.
- sigstoat 5y agoquite. a house i occasionally looked after suffered some pipe damage because somebody else thought setting the thermostat to 50F would suffice to keep the pipes from freezing in the depths of winter. they were not right enough.
- wolverine876 5y agoMaybe in your house, but the temperature here drops into the 50s at night (or when we're on vacation) regularly in the winter, and zero issues or signs of anything freezing. When we're not using it, we set the thermostat at 10C / 50F. > If you let the house drop to 60-55 F - there's no guarantee that the colder parts of your walls and pipes freeze. That sounds like pretty high variation? ~25-30 deg F?
- lucidguppy 5y agoIf the people building the house run the cold water pipes through the outside walls then yeah - you have to worry about temperatures there too. You only have to freeze your pipes once...
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- myth2018 5y agoI've been thinking about the inverse problem. I live in a very warm city. Air conditioning (cooling spaces) is the norm, but tons of money are spent with installations, maintenance and the monthly electricity bill. The new houses are designed with zero consideration about ventilation, designers seem to take for granted that you are going to buy an AC system. Oftentimes, a very simple change in the project would be enough to improve ventilation, but apparently they just don't think about it. Some months ago I moved into an apartment with good ventilation and started to do some simple experiments directing the air flow and staying in places where it's more concentrated and the wind is slightly faster, improving the heat remotion. I use, at most, a fan, and didn't feel the need for an air conditioner so far. I wonder how much energy we could be saving. I'd love to find an article as thorough as this one but about air cooling.
- johntash 5y agoJust curious, what part of the world do you live in? I've lived in cities where we experience anything between below zero to 120F throughout the year. I couldn't imagine not having AC/Heating in those areas even with more efficient ventilation/insulation.
- myth2018 5y agoHow, that's a huge temperature gradient. I live in Fortaleza, Brazil. Temperatures here are very stable along the whole year (78F - 90F, it rarely falls out of this interval). I'm not advocating this no-AC model as a general solution though. I'm aware we're a bit lucky here. I used to live in Sao Paulo and temperatures vary more wildly there, sometimes within a single day.
- pc86 5y agoAny temperate area on the planet will easily have 90-100 degree swings throughout the year. I used to live on the US East Coast and a summer high of 90-95 and winter lows of 0-5 were common my entire childhood. I moved to the midwest in the early summer and it hit 100 more than once, and it's been below 0 multiple times this winter already.
- 6581 5y agoNot heating your house will make it uninhabitable within a year because of mold.
- ramraj07 5y agoCare to elaborate? How does cold cause mold?
- matth3 5y agoCold spots in a heated house and a lack of airflow seem to cause mold. The temperature difference causing condensation, excess moisture with nowhere to go and then mold. Interesting whether this would happen in an entirely unheated building.
- Ekaros 5y agoI suppose it depends if there is some types of poorly placed barriers. In structures that can breath readily and in climates where they can dry it is less of an issue. On other hand those also need to in general be protected from water in structures.
- c22 5y agoIt does if it experiences any kind of a diurnal heating cycle from the sun.
- pchwalek 5y agoA lot of that is due to structures not having a proper vapor barrier, therefor allowing vapor exchange from the outside world which decreases in-wall condensation.
- syntheweave 5y agoIn areas with coastal fog it can be the case that the cooler months with lower evaporation rates are more likely to allow spores a foothold. This is often seen in older spaces designed with passively vented kitchen and baths. But good building design following current standards isn't going to be affected by this.
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- armchairhacker 5y agoA really good way to heat yourself up fast is to drink tea or soup a hot beverage. Personally I don't really like wearing coats for some reason, they're uncomfortable and they don't heat me up as well. The inverse is true as well: a cold drink will help you cool off in hot weather.
- mediocregopher 5y agoA more recent article from the same magazine, about nearly the same topic: https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2022/01/the-revenge-of-the-hot-water-bottle.html https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2022/01/the-revenge-of-the-h...
- ethhics 5y agoBecause of that article I bought a hot water bottle on Amazon. I’ve had it for about a month now. It’s very pleasing to use to heat a bed in a way that an electric blanket isn’t: it is much faster at warming, gives you heat in exactly the place you want it, and you don’t fear your house burning down using it.
- novok 5y agoAn issue with keeping yourself warm with clothing is some hotspots get too warm, and others too cold. Like the armpits usually get too warm, but your exposed hands too cold. If your slippers have sheep's wool in them, like ugg slippers, then they often sweat a lot or feel a little wet while simultaneously feeling cold at times, or warm enough. Most sweaters are also not designed to keep your armpits a little bit cooler so you stay evenly warm along your body. If you want to wear gloves, then finger and hand mobility is effected, and usually with hands, it's the fingers that are cold anyway, making fingerless gloves not feel that useful. While if the room is all one consistent warm enough temperature, you don't get these cold & hot spot effects.
- joe_the_user 5y agoLast December, Nevada County Ca, where I live, had a massive snow storm that knocked out power and snowed people in for 1-3 weeks. I wound up huddled in my apartment with 45 degree heat for five days or so. With enough sweaters, I was a comfortable temperature. Aside from what you mention, since basically you providing your own heat for yourself, you have to put or take off layers depending on physical activity. And so naturally this process involves too-hot and too-cold periods that are less than pleasant. Still, I survived to tell the tale. I mean, we could all live like the hero of To Build A Fire, at least until we died.
- throwaway984393 5y agoWe have very very very good insulation now. We don't really need to stop heating spaces, we need to prevent heat loss. In addition we could use more modern heating systems which actually heat rooms only when needed.
- bitwize 5y agoEh, depends on where you live. I was surprised, for example, to find out the abysmal state of insulation in New Zealand. Only in the last five decades have Kiwis had decent insulation standards -- for new construction. Homes from before that time often remain without adequate insulation -- and it gets cold throughout much of New Zealand! Many new Japanese homes are uninsulated, with the residents using "heat the person" techniques like a kotatsu to keep warm.
- throwaway984393 5y agoJapan also had a history of homes with permanent passive air circulation; old Japanese buildings are often not much better than sleeping outside. That plus sitting-on-the-floor lends itself to a kotatsu culture. But different cultures work differently, and as a result the same solutions don't fit other places. There are probably a bunch of different solutions that we just need to make it a little easier for local people (& contractors) to try out.
- Ekaros 5y agoAlso what I have heard from media is that the parts of the country that actually get cold with lot of snow for longer periods in winter do have all of the modern insulation and so on.
- JKCalhoun 5y agoMy daughter just told me the other day she wanted to try to make a Kotatsu. I had no idea what that was. I see the article mentions them! Looked them up, priced them on Amazon (for a good looking one? ouch!), and then decided I will build my own version of one this year before next winter comes (I like woodworking). And I will also build one for my daughter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotatsu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kotatsu
- copperfoil 5y agoI've setup a server running 24/7 and I barely have to turn on the heaters even in 30F weather. I think the building is insulated. Also glad my gaming laptop heats my lap. It's terrible in the summer though. I think I'll repurpose some 140mm pwm case fans.
- gameswithgo 5y agoI have a two story home with one central air unit and the distribution of heat is terrible, some rooms get super hot, the whole downstairs is super cold. Are there any affordable steps one can take to improve these kinda of problems?
- nine_k 5y agoAdd a fan that makes the air circulate: it should blow vertically and try to mix the hot air at the top with cold air below. Same thing helps with air cooling units which tend to freeze your feet only: push cold air up with a fan.
- coryrc 5y ago"HVAC balancing" would be a good search term for you.
- hedora 5y agoThis is not particularly affordable, but most things that cost more will be a waste of money. If HVAC balancing fails: Replace the furnace with a heat pump with a variable rate fan and compressor. The unit will run constantly at low speed. It will also be super energy efficient, so there might be tax incentives. You can get a hybrid gas or resistive heat model, which will fall back on conventional methods of heating as appropriate. As upgrades, you could add a central (de)humidifier, air exchanger, and forest fire smoke air filter, depending on what other problems your area has. You could also try getting a two zone system (separate temperature control and blowers for upstairs and downstairs), but that probably means tearing into walls or something. The always on slow + quiet fan is a much better solution.
- JKCalhoun 5y agoIdentify the really hot rooms, see if the windows are modern. If not, replace with double-pane, low-e windows. Sorry, all I can think of that's maybe affordable. As other's say though, closing off vents and such you might be able to manually re-balance the house. My last home had two "zones" and therefore two thermostats. But it required also some complicated baffles in the ventilation system to open and/or close the two zones independently. I didn't install it, it might have been pricey to do so.
- dools 5y agoHuman Heater anyone?
- frfl 5y agoI would've thought more people would've mentioned this in this thread.
- wolverine876 5y agoCare to elaborate?
- AussieWog93 5y agoI would bet my entire life savings that he's talking about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di3fPj0pUbQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di3fPj0pUbQ
- dools 5y ago"Thank you"
- liquid_bluing 5y agoInstead of having a convection heater for my whole room, I taped a mylar blanket around my desk, under which I have a radiant heater which I can easily adjust.
- dundarious 5y agoI definitely lean towards this approach, and warm my apartment to standard levels for my area only when company is coming over. But I think I developed mild but extremely irritating chilblains on my fingers from keeping my living space at 13-18°C. Now I diligently wear gloves (just the cheap, light kind) in such temperatures, even indoors. Just an anecdote but I can't really recommend the approach.
- Kluny 5y agoDo you prefer living in the cold?
- dundarious 5y agoI was genuinely quite comfortable until that issue arose. I always spend an hour or two outside no matter the weather anyway, but it's also only seasonally cold here. It'll be too hot again before I know it!
- andosteinmetz 5y agoA design detail I appreciate about this website is that it's server is solar powered and displays a two-tone overlay representing the server's battery life. It's nice that they extend their scrutiny of resource usage and sustainability to their own infrastructure. Side note: usually when I've visited the site, the battery is up around 80% or higher. The "hacker-news effect", while not causing a 502 or other server error in this case, at least at for the time being, does have the battery down around 35%.
- sydbarrett74 5y ago
- opensores 5y agoIn the US wood construction is the norm for residential buildings. These cannot go below a certain temperature, not much below 60F, otherwise dry rot will slowly but permanently damage these buildings in most places (depends on humidity). I suppose if you drop the humidity below a certain point you might get by with pretty low temperatures.
- kuhewa 5y agoI lived in an Australian house on the shady side of a narrow stream valley, temperate climate. If you didn't heat in winter, dew would form on the walls inside at night as temp fell and mold would grow everywhere
- blahedo 5y agoI think this is an overstatement of the situation; it's true that you're supposed to keep the house from getting too cold, but it's within living memory in many places that in the colder parts of the winter, standing water jugs would have a thin layer of ice in the morning. They wouldn't stay below freezing, but they'd cycle through temperatures much below 60F (15C) on a daily basis for several months of the year. Even now I think it's more common to set the thermostat down around 50 or 55 when you'll be out of town, and I know people who don't set it much above 60 in the winter even when they're awake and at home, quite a bit lower when they're asleep or out.
- wolverine876 5y ago> These cannot go below a certain temperature, not much below 60F, otherwise dry rot will slowly but permanently damage these buildings Wouldn't the most exterior pieces drop below 60 deg in the winter? Plenty of homes have wood that is actually on the outside of the house all winter.
- kuhewa 5y agoIn high latitude Australia I reckon this is seems to be the norm. A lot of prison colony age houses still and not great insulation so attempting to maintain a warm temp in the entire house would be expensive, plus it typically doesn't get that much below freezing even if that. If you don't have a wood burner stove it is common to have a couple panel heaters in strategic rooms, use hot water bottles in bed, etc.
- oxplot 5y agoHeat properly insulated spaces. I don’t want to walk around with piles of movement limiting and suffocating clothing inside my own living room. The problem is not what you heat up, it’s how well you insulate it from losing its heat. In Australia where I live, insulation is non-existent in the average home/apartment. Even simple things like tinted windows (for hot days), double pane windows and floating floor is missing. On the top of that, you have archaic HVAC systems that cool and heat from one vent and have useless thermostat feedback loops. A $30 hand rolled thermostats I put together for my fairly expensive apartment unit is infinitely superior to what came with the unit.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y agoThis times 1000. The reason that central heating systems are so popular is because they are a million times better (from the human's perspective, not necessarily the environment's) than old "point heating" systems. Last year when the electrical grid in Texas failed, we could heat ourselves by our gas fireplace, but our central heating was out. It was fucking miserable. Similar to what the article pointed out, basically any part of my body was either too hot or too cold, so I was constantly turning like a spit roaster trying to keep a "nice even bake" on all sides. The solution to poor energy efficiency of heating is not for us to all invest in hooded chairs, it's to ensure homes are appropriately insulated.
- ulrikrasmussen 5y agoI also think that drastically lowering the temperature in unmodified buildings will create other problems like mold because you move the dew point so the moisture generated by residents will condensate in problematic places, e.g. inside insulation.
- ip26 5y agoWindows. Even nice double pane windows ice heavily in your bedroom overnight if it's 58F in the house & you've drawn the curtains. Later, the ice slowly melts. Drip, drip.
- 5y ago
- alfor 5y agoOur body NEED infrared light. (real doctor research with scientific evidence) An interesting recent discovery is that our body need infrared radiation to function properly, not just UV light/vitamin D. I think that people living in the northern climate discovered/felt that it was better to be exposed to the radian heat of the fire in the winter. We recently (50-100) years have been getting rid of fireplaces and replaced with forced air and baseboard heater that probably generated a lot of health problem. A month ago I discovered this information, bought an small infrared heated and healed in 10 days the winter eczema I have been fighting for 25 years. source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YV_iKnzDRg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YV_iKnzDRg I hope this help somebody
- seanw444 5y agoVery interesting and good to know. Thank you for sharing.
- rambambram 5y agoIndeed, thanks for sharing.
- fulafel 5y agoIR light aka IR radiation is radiated heat. Our bodies generate it.
- alfor 5y agoThey talked about far infrared, I didn’t get the special lamp with the proper spectrum knowing that with a red hot coils I would get a continuous spectrum. There is a bit of visible red light too, I didn’t study the detail closely, it was a cheap/fast test and it worked for me. I would guess that the best thing is the sun light, we don’t know what we don’t know.
- fastball 5y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di3fPj0pUbQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di3fPj0pUbQ
- basicplus2 5y agoBefore tractors had cabins, you could buy electric pants and shirts to connect to the battery
- don-code 5y agoI have a "neat trick" of putting a blanket over myself such that my hands and laptop keyboard are both underneath, but the screen is sticking out. Then I run a cryptominer to generate some heat. Inside of five minutes, I'm pretty warm!
- ysamjo 5y agoInteresting thought. I wouldn't buy a car without seat and steering wheel heating anymore. Much more efficient than heating the air (even it the "room" is relatively tiny in a car). I guess the same principle (concentrate energy on a small target to get better results) is at play with Beefers and AirFyers.
- triactual 5y agoIf it’s an IC engine, the convection heating is waste heat from the engine. So the electric heaters in the wheel and seats are massively less efficient.
- annoyingnoob 5y agoMillimeter-wave skin heating?
- shaneofalltrad 5y agoWhat about your lungs? There is a reason tropical animals die with respiratory diseases when using heat pads in their inclosure over warming the air.
- chaostheory 5y agoSince the last time this was posted, it also doesn’t account for potential mold build up due to the increase of moisture without the dryness you get from heating. I know this first hand because I’ve tried doing this before the article was written. It’s been posted several times on HN already
- borepop 5y agoI too thought this was an important issue that seemed to be missing from the article. That and the risk of burns.
- refurb 5y agoYour nasal passages and airways do any amazing job or co diction if air before it gets deep into the lungs. Tropical animals don’t since they don’t need it
- cameronh90 5y agoThere are also tropical people living in somewhat less than tropical climates too. They have shorter nostrils. My girlfriend is one of them and has especially short nostrils. Whenever the air gets cold she gets terrible nosebleeds, headaches and more. Outside, she has to put a scarf over her nose. My long narrow nose is great at conditioning the air, but conversely I can't breathe through my nose when I exercise...
- refurb 5y agoYour nostril length is irrelevant. Most of the “conditioning” happens between the skull (where turbinates start) and the trachea.
- chewz 5y agoI spend couple of days/nights each week in my cabin. It is poorly isulated so when the stove goes cold the temperature drops quickly. It could be 15C (59F) after few hours and 4C-6C (39F-43F) in the morning. On the other hand it is small cabin and with a stove I can get to 30C (86F) in 15-30 minutes. I have read the article couple of years ago and I do not burn stove all the time, just put a sweater on or turn on electric blanket. Frankly I have got used to 'cold' and it just doesn't bother me anymore. I sleep much better when it is cold inside the cabin but warm in my bed with electric blanket (20W). As long as the temperature doesn't drop below 12C (54F) working on a laptop or reading with a sweater on is comfortable. I do not enjoy excesively heated living rooms in the city. The other article on lowtech magazine mentions that the average temperatures in our houses have been raised over last couple of years significantly (due to better insulation, heating etc). I do remember that when I was teenager no one had been sitting in a living room with a t-shirt on but rather in a sweater as in winter the normal temepratures in a living room used to be 18-20C and in the sleeping room 16C. Nowadays it is more like 24-26C for most people I know.
- murbard2 5y agoOne concept I've toyed with for a while is a laser blanket. A ceiling mounted infrared camera measures the temperature across your body, and an infrared laser automatically goes and "paints" any part that is insufficiently warm. No idea if it would be comfortable at all, but fun project.
- bilegeek 5y agoSince you're using lasers, how would you keep from damaging the subject's eyes if they accidentally get their face in the path of the beam?
- murbard2 5y agoI suppose you could defocus it a bit so that it hits a biggish spot.
- fmakunbound 5y agoI’m pretty sure that was pitched in an episode of Silicon Valley, except microwaves
- murbard2 5y agoIndeed https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di3fPj0pUbQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Di3fPj0pUbQ Microwave frequencies used in ovens would be dangerous because they can penetrate deep in the body and heat internal tissues, but in the EHF range microwave heating could be safe. See for instance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System With all that said, what I had in mind is in the far less scary and far more prosaic near-infrared range.
- screamingpots 5y agoI'm in UK (south east). I work in tech, working from home. I very rarely put the heating on. The best part of not putting the heating on is that I've had my garden doors open almost every day through the winter. I mostly work at my laptop, just inside sitting on a comfy sofa, right next to the outdoors. In December I was mostly opening the doors about midday just for the afternoon, but since mid to late January I'm back to opening the doors mostly from about 9 in the morning again, right through to the end of the working day. To do this and remain comfortable I have to put on extra layers. When I go out the extra layers come off. Weirdly, this is the first winter in a long time I've not really felt cold at all. I think it's because previous winters I've been working in an office heated to 20C+, and this year I've acclimatised slowly from the summer. When I have put the heating on, I get hot real quick unless I start taking layers off, and actually it's easier to turn the heating off.
- jaynetics 5y agoI stopped heating out of necessity when I was a poor student and made the same discovery. It's funny how when you go outdoors with other people they are freezing and you feel super comfy. I seriously think that about 3/4 of Europeans could get by without any heating for about 3/4 of winter time. Well, as long as the gulf stream holds up anyways.
- chewz 5y ago> I seriously think that about 3/4 of Europeans could get by without any heating for about 3/4 of winter time. The temperatures in UK are stable during the day due to sea climate. In Central Europe we get +/- 10 degrees during the day. This is completely different story from temperature comfort/security perspective. That's why we overinsulate and overheat our houses and why we tend to have higher temperatures inside then Brits. My Italian friend laughed that he immediately recognized Poles in Italy because in August they had blanklets and sweaters at hand. We just always expect temperatures to drop suddenly by 10 degrees. Even on British Airways planes temperatures are lower then on other airlines...
- onion2k 5y agoThe temperature in the UK this winter was the warmest ever recorded. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/03/why-has-uk-weather-been-so-mild-and-is-it-linked-to-climate-crisis https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2022/jan/03/why-has-uk-w...
- nwallin 5y agoI was recently diagnosed with sleep apnea and got a CPAP machine. It has the option to control temperature and humidity in the air that's pumped through it. A few weeks ago my heater went out. Nothing serious, but it took a week to get it fixed. I'm in Southern California, so it's not like life or death or anything. It turns out if you just turn the heat up in your CPAP machine it works fantastically well as a personal heater. It would be 45°F in my house, 80°F coming out of my CPAP machine, and I'd be lying in bed under a sheet with no pajamas and sweating. I actually had to turn the temperature down to 76°F get a good night's sleep.
- rambambram 5y agoOn the same train of thought, I keep myself warm in winter by regularly exercising. Nothing fancy, just some squats and knee raises. Heat from the inside out works wonders.
- wolverine876 5y agoAt night, the heat is off. Just a warm comforter is plenty in almost any weather, and the cool air feels great. In fact, I always try to position the head of my bed near a window and even in cold weather, at least crack open the window - breathing fresh air all night feels great. For anyone who has gone camping, they know that a warm enough sleeping bag is fine, no problem at all, and again, the fresh air is a wonderful part of the experience.
- Normal_gaussian 5y agoAs a counterpoint - camping is famously hated by a significant portion of the population.
- wolverine876 5y ago> camping is famously hated by a significant portion of the population Not very famously, because I haven't heard that. Some people don't like it, I have no doubt. No matter what is suggested, nay-sayers can point to some people not liking it; what does it mean? And the people who don't like camping likely object to other aspects of it - just random chance among many aspects, and many much more burdensome such as carrying all your stuff, the food, less personal sanitation, no TV, no sushi or pizza delivery, etc. etc. I don't recall hearing anyone in my life object to fresh air, but I'm sure someone does!
- at_a_remove 5y agoA lot of times this just does not work for me. Even if the air is a temperature I would like, a room with cold walls, well ... you can literally feel it. It's a blackbody radiation thing ... you are emitting heat but the walls aren't emitting as much as you are, and it feels like heat falling off of my body. Which is fine sometimes but if I need to get work done, I go into torpor. I may be unusually sensitive to infrared: one of my backrub tricks is apparently "kknowing" what hurts without being told. Aside from posture, if you just wave your hands over someone's back, you can feel the heat come off more in any inflamed or tense area.
- cameronh90 5y agoI believe infrared comfort of your room is far more important than people give it credit. Indeed in terms of warmth, direct infrared heating is far faster and more efficient than convection (albeit directional), so why wouldn't the same be true of cooling? Personally, I can feel whether I'm facing the outdoor wall or not with my eyes shut, no matter how hot the room is. Predictably, that side gets cold even if my back is sweating. I suspect most people are the same and don't necessarily realise it (e.g. why do many people prefer cooler air temps in the summer and warmer air temps in winter, even controlled for humidity?) because there's just no common way of measuring or altering your rooms radiation values besides insulation.
- genewitch 5y agohey this is the article/magazine i got the ideas to use bitcoin-type miners for heating my greenhouse and home, as well as incandescent lighting for heat. Technology Connections had an aside on the heat pump video about how in the northern US doing away with incandescent lighting has probably meant more CO2 in the air overall, since every "wasteful" bulb also puts heat in a room, reducing overall heating load while providing something useful, visible light. LEDs are 20-33 times more efficient than incandescent, but now your heating system has to make up that lost wattage. Sure, in the south, i literally only use inefficient bulbs to heat. I prefer LED for everything except slow motion video, in all other areas i find it superior lighting. I do find that large CFLs last 8 years outdoors, so i have two of those for my porches. I haven't found any comparable LED. On the cold days (like this past day has been), I wish i had more floor standing lights with incandescents in them!
- hbarka 5y agoModern saunas that use infrared bulbs (radiation transfer) to sweat you claim to be better than traditional saunas which use use steam (conduction transfer then convection transfer). I’m still not sure which one gives the most benefit/least harm.
- hypertele-Xii 5y agoThe easiest and simplest technique to heat oneself is to drink hot water. You don't need to put tea or coffee in it, just boil some water and drink it while hot.
- rossmohax 5y ago> every object on earth radiates infared energy as long as it has mass and a temperature above absolute zero. This energy can be absorbed by other objects with a lower temperature. What happens to infrared energy when it hits objects with higher temperature than radiating object?
- danielfoster 5y agoI actually looked into using directed infrared heating to heat myself as a more efficient solution. Given the high electricity costs in Germany I realized it would still be cheaper just to heat the entire apartment the old fashioned way.
- taoufix 5y agoOne thing that always bothered me about energy waste are fridges in the cold winter. Outside the house is cold, so we heat the house. Outside the fridge (house) is hot, so we cool inside fridge. Is there no option for fridges/freezers to get cold air from outside the house? Or is the overcomplication not worth it?
- LaurensBER 5y agoI imagine that the challenge is maintaining a constant temperature. If you want to use cool air from outside to cool the food you either need a way to stop doing that when it gets too cold or include a heating element. Both options will probably get expensive quite fast. If you want to save energy buying a coolbox and storing some stuff outside during the winter is probably far easier and cheaper ;)
- oxplot 5y agoFridges with top doors tend to lose lot less cool air when opened than the regular front door ones.
- DocTomoe 5y agoI know freezers with a top door, but no fridges - and frankly, I imagine a top-loaded fridge to be impractical in kitchen use unless there is some way to reach the bottom more easily. Do you have a link to a fridge like that so I can imagine the concept better?
- oxplot 5y ago> Do you have a link to a fridge like that so I can imagine the concept better? Large camping fridges are as close as I have seen, but I'm sure someone's thought of one for domestic use. As for practicality in the kitchen, I can imagine a design where you have multiple medium sized fridge drawers. Once pulled out, you can open their top lid and access the content. This way, you don't have one deep container, but rather, multiple shallower containers. For efficiency, a single compressor can feed all of them. EDIT: actually I've seen freezer drawers - you just need to dial the cooling down a bit. Another idea: Vertically long rectangular compartments that can be pulled out individually. Essentially a whole bunch of vertical drawers of different sizes, with meshed walls to allow air to pass through them. Another silly idea: a horizontally mounted ferris wheel
- elorant 5y agoI had this thought when I got an electric blanket. What's the point of heating the whole room when with a mere 60 watt you can have a warm and cozy bed. Electric clothes would be ideal, if we could find a solution for small and practical batteries.
- dotancohen 5y agoThere have been many articles about heating recently, most likely due to expected European gas shortages. But the bigger issue is how to cool off. Every summer has been hotter than the previous, and things are getting worse. Are there any effective ways to cool a dwelling, other than the traditional electrically-powered air conditioning? I've seen evaporative coolers, but what can people do who live in humid environments? Or have water restrictions?
- scep12 5y agoI prefer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house