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An Elizabethan mansion's secrets for staying warm
- mmaunder 9mo agoRelated to the Maunder Minimum, named after my namesakes: Astronomer Walter Maunder and his wife Annie Maunder. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum And here's more info on The Little Ice Age: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age Debatable as to whether solar activity was a contributor to The Little Ice Age.
- pipes 9mo agoWhat did you think about the point in the article suggesting millions of people dying on South America caused the earth to cool down due to reforestation absorbing more green house gas. I find this hard to believe.
- lm28469 9mo agoYep cheap energy and modern building techniques made us lose a lot of the common sense of yesterday. Good thing initiatives like the passive house institute are bringing back some of these principles, you can easily cut a modern home heating/cooling needs by 70%+ by following simples rules
- vosper 9mo agoPassive house thinking comes from an era of peak oil concerns, no solar, and no heat pumps. None of those conditions holds anymore. Further, passive houses are notorious for overheating and because they’re so airtight they require expensive mechanical ventilation and make-up air systems unless you want indoor air pollution problems. People building houses today are much better served by spending their money on solar + battery + heat pumps than going passive.
- vl 9mo agoBut any modern house is too airtight and essentially requires ERV. Which brings us to next interesting problem - you would think that ERV should be built-in into modern cooling/heating systems, but it’s no the case.
- lm28469 9mo agoYes, it's one of the cheapest way to reduce your energy needs and have clean air, plus it's fairly low tech system
- defineERV 9mo agoERV = Energy Recovery Ventilator
- megaman821 9mo agoAlso, they usually hook up the interior air intakes to bathrooms so smells and extra humidity have a constant flow out of your house.
- lm28469 9mo ago
- xnx 9mo ago> Fireplaces were strategically arranged so minimal heat would be lost to the outer walls I'm always a little confused by radiators placed underneath windows in modern buildings. I'm sure it evens out cold spots, but it sends a lot of heat right outside.
- thatguy0900 9mo agoI think a lot of those old central heat systems you couldn't actually control the heat, being able to lose a lot of heat to the window if you wanted was probably a feature. I was watching a video on old soviet blocks in cold areas and it sounded like it really sucked to live too close to the central heater and have to deal with super hot houses
- toast0 9mo agoI lived on the top floor of a 12 story dorm with radiators. Everyone on our floor would have the windows open all the time. When it was warm out, we needed any fresh air. When it was cold out, the radiators would be so hot, the fresh air balanced it. Down about 6th floor was nice though. But, to answer the OP, putting conditioning on the perimiter of the building keeps the interior temperature gradient minimal. If you deliver conditioning to the center of the building, the perimeter approaches outside temperatures (depending) and you have a big gradient and much less comfort. There's also better heat transfer when you deliver conditioning at bigger delta T, which pushes towards the perimeter as well... But it means more ducting/piping. And if you're using fireplaces for heat, it's complex because classically fireplaces pull in air from the conditioned space, and make up air comes from outside, you really want that fire to warm up surfaces to get radiative heat; burying it in the center of the building will be better than having it off in the corner; but it you use outside air for combustion, you can put it on the perimeter.
- dragonwriter 9mo agoIt stops drafts from the window before they reach occupants. Yes, it is less efficient in terms of total heat inside the structure, but its more effective at avoiding uncomfortably cold spots, which is (in most places at most times of year) more important, plus, the utility lost to the occupied under-window space is less than the utility that would be lost for the same space elsewhere; the window already limiting alternate uses.
- ynac 9mo agoWhen we lost power for 10 days a few winters back we attempted to use the fire place for heat. It was a fail. Post and beam house (large wide open floor plan) with a large transfer from 1st to 2nd floor, and apprently my lack of skill for optimizing heat over beauty in the fireplace, left us without much of a thermal bump. To this day I swear we were pulling heat out of the chimney faster than we were heating the house; I cooled the house with fire.
- mlhpdx 9mo agoThat’s not uncommon, but having grown up in a house heated by wood fires I knew that when building our current house. The main fireplace is on a central wall and has enormous thermal mass. Beauty and utility can be combined.
- shagie 9mo agoMy grandparents' house was this way - the chimney was in the center of the house (built sometime in the late 1800s and rebuilt in the 1950s). The fireplace had a stone chimney - and the kitchen was built in an 'L' shape around the first floor of the fireplace. The (master) bedroom (an additional bedroom was built in the 1950s), the stone of the chimney was a good quarter of one of the walls. I do, however, think that the rough hewn stone and mortar of the chimney with the insets around it had a certain rustic beauty... aside from the "that got warm" in the winter and could keep the kitchen, living room, and bedroom warm.
- mikestew 9mo agoYeah, if you actually want to heat the house with fire you’ll want an insert or a wood stove. Otherwise most fireplaces in most houses are decorative, and one pays for that decoration with heat loss.
- harperlee 9mo agoAnd even those will require draft from outside the insert / stove, so either you build them with an inlet from outside, you pull cold air from badly sealed doors / windows, or the chimney draft will be insufficient.
- cwillu 9mo agoBrits will do anything except properly insulate their damn homes.
- Glawen 9mo agoAnd make a bathroom practical and enjoyable. Sink with hot and cold tap, electric water heater in shower, come on...
- secondcoming 9mo agoI don't think I've ever been in a UK home that didn't have these, except perhaps the electric shower; older homes may still use immersion heating for hot water. Were you in prison when you experienced the above?
- Glawen 9mo agoMy last year Airbnb experiences in Scotland. I could not believe my eyes it still existed (I used to go often in the UK in the past).
- rapsey 9mo agoBrits, Dutch, Belgium, Northern Germany. They all have this incredibly outdated building style that they refuse to change. Bricks with no insulation. I live 1000km to the south of them and it is pretty standard for us to have tripple pane windows and thick insulation on our houses. But they for some reason prefer to live in cold houses during the winter and overheated houses during the summer. I have had multiple conversations with people who lived a while in that area. Rich, educated countries, modern economies, but they live like they are poor farmers in the 19th century.
- gehsty 9mo agoBritish building regs literally require insulation? It is not a law that old builds have to be brought up to code, but there were government schemes where you got free loft and cavity wall insulation in old houses.
- crazygringo 9mo agoIt's an interesting article on this one particular mansion, but the idea that "the same tricks for more efficient heating can be used in modern designs" seems pretty silly. We don't use fireplaces anymore (a major "trick" being to put them in the middle of the house rather than in the exterior walls), and while using large windows to capture sunlight and heat works great in the winter, it also leads to overheating in the summer and thus more energy for air conditioning. > These are modest changes, imperceptible to most, and they won't enable us to forgo active heating and cooling entirely. But they do echo a way of thinking which, today, is oft ignored. Hardwick Hall was designed with Sun, season and temperature in mind. Everyone I know who has built a house has thought very much about sun, season and temperature. This is very much a factor in determining the sizes and quantity of windows on south-facing vs. north-facing walls, for example. Again, it's a very interesting article on this one particular castle, but the idea that it has something to teach modern architects and builders is pure fantasy. We're already well aware of all these factors and how they interact with materials and design.
- IncreasePosts 9mo ago> while using large windows to capture sunlight and heat works great in the winter That's what awnings (or solar overhangs, or light shelves) are for. You block the high/hot summer sun but let in the low/cool winter sun. > the idea that it has something to teach modern architects and builders is pure fantasy Isn't the idea of mcmansions that they co opt smart classic design ideas, but use them in a manner which doesn't let them fulfill their function purpose(skeuomorphism)? So someone certainly has some things to learn
- crazygringo 9mo ago> That's what awnings (or solar overhangs, or light shelves) are for. Right, this is my point. We already think about these things. > Isn't the idea of mcmansions I don't think McMansions, or whatever your favorite example of bad architecture is, shows that we've somehow lost knowledge. Architects and builders are aware of all of these things, but that doesn't mean there aren't still clients who want less energy-efficient designs for all sorts of reasons, like aesthetics. We know how to build energy-efficient buildings that are appropriate for the location and seasons. We also know how to build buildings for other purposes, and are aware of the tradeoffs in how they use more energy. Energy conservation isn't the only goal in home design.
- solidsnack9000 9mo agoThe central spine of the building, 1.4m of stone or brick, could probably help cool a house, as well.
- RickJWagner 9mo agoEnergy efficiency can seem counter intuitive. A great example is the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock, Arkansas. At first glance, the building seems to be a giant rectangular box made of glass. Hardly ideal in the long, hot Arkansas summers. It’s not the truth, though. In reality, the building is said to be highly efficient and was the first Federal building to be LEED certified. Amazing. I guess we’ve learned a few things over the years. https://www.clintonlibrary.gov/about-us/leed-certified-building https://www.clintonlibrary.gov/about-us/leed-certified-build...
- rappatic 9mo ago> The house has lessons for how we can heat our homes more efficiently today The problem in Europe isn't keeping warm in the winter but keeping cool in the summer. In part thanks to their near-total lack of AC in residential buildings, Europe has an extremely high heat-related death rate. 200k people per year die of heatstroke in Europe: this accounts for 36% of global heat-related deaths. This is despite Europe being only 9% of the world population, having a very cool climate in comparison to India and similar countries, and being among the richest regions in the world.
- idle_zealot 9mo agoMost of the tricks seem like they'd work in the cooling direction too. They amount to insulation and thermal mass. You would need AC to actually lower the temperature, but those improvements would let you run the cooling on a lower duty cycle.
- chao- 9mo agoEven parts of the US that have AC standard have learned to lean on it so hard that they've lost architectural features which, 50-100 years ago, kept a house cooler in Summer. I once lived in a rental house in a "historical" neighborhood (on US timelines, not European) in a big city, and most of the houses had porches on two or three sides, depending on the cardinal orientation. These kept sunlight from falling directly on main body of the house, and strategically placed windows let you open two or three and get a breeze through the whole house. We learned this visiting a neighbor who owned their home. The rental was not as well-maintained: some of the window frames had been painted shut over decades of touchups, but we never thought much of it. The day we jimmied them open and experienced a true cross-breeze through the living room was a HUGE "Aha!" moment. Setting aside porches, even simple features like awnings above windows (esp. second-story windows) have fallen out of fashion, but they can reduce the demand on indoor AC significantly. They save money, but people think they look old-fashioned or something like that.
- edm0nd 9mo agoMy local HVAC guy joked with me that the next Bezos/Musk billionaire type is going to be the guy who runs an HVAC company in Europe.
- JohnCClarke 9mo agoWell that's full of really useful tips. I'll get the builders in to construct a 1.37m (4.5ft) thick spine through the middle of my house. Obviously.
- trhway 9mo agoYou're missing out if you don't have such thick mass of warm brick/stone. If you only knew how great it is to sleep on top of it (my grandmother had similar to that in her house :) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_stove https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_stove Modern fire codes require large space between a stove and walls which is usually goes unused where it could have been really filled with such a thick brick structure with the smoke passage snaking through it like in Russian and German stoves. Or like this: https://www.mha-net.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/stucco-heater.jpg https://www.mha-net.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/05...
- jimnotgym 9mo agoFire codes in the UK would allow a stove as close to the wall as you would like
- loeg 9mo agoModern insulation is really, really good, and modern heatpumps are very energy efficient and don't pollute your house with CO, CO2, and particulate matter like woodsmoke. Also, modern double- or triple-pane windows insulate much better than drafty Elizabethan windows. We live in a time of marvels.
- basilgohar 9mo agoYou're talking about the best of what's available but that is rarely what builders use and retrofitting your already constructed house to use these could end up costing you 1/3 or more of your home's original value. All that is to say that builders cheap out on new home construction so most people don't get to enjoy the benefits if these innovations.
- MORPHOICES 9mo ago[dead]
- 1970-01-01 9mo agoOr go solar with a battery, or just have a massive battery hooked into your distribution panel and leave the 19th century heating hacks in the 19th century. Optimize what you need for today, not whatever was state of the art 200 years ago. An electric space heater running continuously is enough in an emergency.
- candiddevmike 9mo agoI don't think you understand how much power electric heaters use and how poorly solar converts to electric heat BTUs. A heat pump would be better.
- 1970-01-01 9mo agoHeat pump requires massive investment with ROI only when you are home. Solar stores the heat as electrical power and you can release it whenever you want.
- mrexroad 9mo ago> An electric space heater running continuously is enough in an emergency. Yeah, massive battery and massive solar install might let it run continuously… even in a small well insulated house that’s gonna be using a lot of power to heat a room or two.
- 0xbadcafebee 9mo agoIf it's really cold outside, an electric heater isn't going to do much if your house doesn't have good insulation. It'll be cranking away on high 24/7 and the room will still be cold. Building direction, window choice, room design, etc all contribute to the overall thermal efficiency so that the space heater can be effective.
- asplake 9mo agoI live not far from Hardwick Hall, drive past it frequently, and have visited it a few times. Learned a lot of of new stuff about it from this article, thanks.
- jimnotgym 9mo agoSome highlights of this rubbish article > Pretty much all the fireplaces I see are also built on the central spine of the building, meaning not much heat would be lost to the windows or exterior wall. Or maybe because, as the first half of the article say, it is because the outside walls have nowhere to put a fireplace, because they are covered in windows? > he told me it can feel around 10C (18F) warmer inside on a cold winter's day. Other, typical Elizabethan houses, he estimates, would have only feel 2-3C (3.6-5.4F) warmer. It 'feels' warmer...he 'estimates'. Nice way to do science > Since it's winter, and cold, I move my desk to a south-eastern window. It brightens the mornings and if I wear another layer, I find I can lower the thermostat by 2C (3.6F). More good science, change two variables but attribute the effect to only one of them. If I wear another layer of clothing, move my desk to the basement, sacrifice a goat, speak in tongues and draw a pentacle on the floor, I can turn the thermostat down 2 degrees too. But let's start at the top >England's longest river was usually flowing freely Then list lots of evidence that it was not at all unusual for it to freeze at the time. Great work
- pinnochio 9mo agoThe author is not a scientist publishing in a scientific journal, in case that wasn't clear from the domain. You always this cranky and uncharitable?
- defrost 9mo agoThe river Thames in the Kingdom of England ( ~950 AD -> now +/- various other countries ) usually was freely flowing - just as the article states. The article takes a long view of time, stretching back to at least the founding of London, the capital city, two thousand and more years past on the banks of that very river. There was a relatively short period of time when the Thames did freeze in winter and England was much colder, this article talks about a chunky bit of architecture during that period. The windows are discussed wrt their thermal effects, allowing the sun in to heat central stone during the day on one side of the building, likely with heavy curtains at night, with windows blocked internally and largely for show on the rear.
- riazrizvi 9mo agoYou had me at ‘rubbish article’. There’s a bunch of Youtube content on this that’s far superior, example: https://youtu.be/puzxeIvpgwg https://youtu.be/puzxeIvpgwg https://youtu.be/SrC3wms8pQ8 https://youtu.be/SrC3wms8pQ8
- 0xbadcafebee 9mo agoThe castles and mansions were relatively modern. Most people didn't have "good" home design, they had older, practical architecture. Their homes had thin walls, were drafty, and had no chimneys; there was a hole in the roof where the smoke from your fire would go, so your attic was filled with smoke (where you'd smoke meats for winter). You're better served by looking to 19th century lower and middle class architecture. Right before air conditioning, but with relatively modern designs using modern building materials and practices ("insulation" (horsehair and newspaper), fireplaces/stoves, corridors with doors to separate cold rooms from hot ones, windows designed to allow cross-breezes, covered porches to provide shade in summer, etc). Right before air conditioning came in, we had pretty much gotten to the peak of design that used natural forms of temperature regulation. Some designs even created mini greenhouses of glass, with half the wall mounted with earth, for thermal regulation as well as solar heating. The only better passive methods invented since then is geothermal. The peak of winter heat management were the pechka, Russian rocket stoves built into literal tons of masonry, for the most thermal mass possible. You'd heat it up once with a small amount of wood and it warms the house the whole day. They were so big you could sleep on top of it.
- expedition32 9mo agoThe 19th century was basically the low point of Dutch civilization. People stayed warm because 10 people slept in one room. It was so bad that even rich people had to admit that the country had become an embarrassment.
- AlecSchueler 9mo agoIgnoring the colonial era of course.
- bluGill 9mo agoModern insulation with hvac is better yet. You need hvac to bring air in as a modern house should be air tight. Not much heat or ac should be needed.
- 9mo ago
- teiferer 9mo ago>to keep temperatures cosier through the winter without turning up the thermostat. Point of a thermostat is to not have to do this. Requires a well calibrated heating system though, depending on outside temperature.
- hasanabi 9mo ago[flagged]
- halls-940 9mo agoI'm pretty sure humans understood taking advantage of sunlight to warm structures since the earliest structures. Most animals understand the sunlight/shade difference. The aztecs, egyptians, etc..
- thangalin 9mo ago> Scandinavian cabins, despite lacking modern insulation, maintain warmth in sub-zero temperatures. This video explores centuries-old building techniques, comparing their performance against modern homes. Discover the surprising physics principles behind their resilience and energy efficiency. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVqwiMtoDhk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVqwiMtoDhk
- vondur 9mo agoI don’t know how many people have homes with 4.5 ft thick walls. Adobe houses in the Southwest US were similar in design with thick walls.
- usrusr 9mo ago"King Henry VIII and his queen" Someone appears to have had a bit of fun being unspecific
- karim79 9mo agoThis just reminds me of a random discussion I had with a very close German friend. He pointed out that Tado (who do smart radiator valves) noted from a study, which drew from their data, that the UK sucks at insulation, losing heat up to three times faster than other European neighbours[0]. [0] https://www.tado.com/en-gb/press/uk-homes-losing-heat-up-to-three-times-faster-than-european-neighbours https://www.tado.com/en-gb/press/uk-homes-losing-heat-up-to-... Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated nor am I a customer of Tado. Also, I'm British and I just felt like commenting here because it felt relevant.
- keiferski 9mo agoNow it makes sense to me. I live in central continental Europe but spent a month or so in the UK a couple years ago, and one of my immediate impressions was how much colder it felt inside buildings. The buildings themselves seemed thinner and made of less dense materials as well.
- karim79 9mo agoRight. My friend said to me, after visiting his sister and brother-in-law in the UK that "it's incredible, the houses there are made of shit". Sounds harsh and I reprimanded him but I think there's something to it.
- onion2k 9mo agoI wonder if that correlates with the average age of houses. The UK has a lot of buildings that are well over 100 years old that can only be insulated by stuffing cavity walls full of an insulating material. My house is 126 years old, and despite my best efforts it's still terrible.
- walthamstow 9mo agoI'm very surprised to hear that such an old house has cavity walls. I would expect solid brick walls in Flemish bond. My house is 1970 and has them, they were much more common after the war.
- arthurofbabylon 9mo agoI was speaking with an architect a few months ago and dismayed to learn that they no longer bother designing for thermal management (relying on air-conditioning alone). They are fully focused on the aesthetic "integration" of the structure in the landscape. (I use quotes for the word "integration" because it implies a harmonious coalescing across domains, including temperature.) Their prior work beautifully incorporated passive heating/cooling, much to the benefit of the clients' health and happiness. Where did this architect lose the thread? I've noticed in general a thorough dismissal of passive benefits. It seems that we are caught by a cultural need for immediacy. Thermal management, and particularly passive thermal management, pays immense dividends slowly, but it takes a greater intelligence or broader perspective for anyone to appreciate these advantages. Those who sit still and think clearly see the advantages of passive benefits, and anyone who gardens or does systems design intrinsically observes the long-term flows and thus understands the passive benefits at play. But so many people – from practitioners like the architect to stakeholders like their clients – go through life wholly unaware of this goldmine that is right there in front of their imagination.
- bhickey 9mo ago> passive thermal management I lived in an almost passive house for about a year. When the HVAC system stopped working* in July, I didn't notice until the middle of November. * Air handler was running, compressor was off.
- pvtmert 9mo agoI envision even simpler and more practical thing, under-the-floor heating with addition of disposal water. Me and my wife are taking shower daily, hers being hotter than mine (apparently that's common difference between female & male). Every time, I am thinking that so much heat is going down the drain as waste, why not circulate this under the bathroom floor until it cools down. Since we have a tub, I usually close the drain, sit/stand on a bench above the tub, rinse thoroughly at the end, keeping hot water afloat for next 20 minutes. Since tub itself absorbs the heat, even after I open the drain and let go all the water, tub itself stays warmy for an hour or so.
- hardlianotion 9mo agoApropos the information box, I don’t believe that the European colonisation of the New World was a cause of the Little Ice Age. A claim that bold should really show it’s workings.
- president_zippy 9mo agoThe big about textiles (curtains and bed fabric) functioning as insulation gave me flashbacks to my dad repeatedly complaining over the past decade about a couple small boxes of my stuff taking up space he "needs" in his 700 sqft attic. I told him, "What's the big deal? It's free insulation during brutal north Texas summers. It's as good as vermiculite insulation minus the asbestos contamination!" I only put about as much rigor into this as reddit PC builders making untested "gut calls" about thermodynamics, and I was mostly just being a smartass, but it's nice to see I had the same idea as English nobility who comfortably survived winters before the invention of HVAC as we know it. Nice to see some proof I'm not completely full of crap.