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I am guessing you live alone. Try telling a one year old to put on a snowsuit to eat soup in. Or your dog. When the weather is -40 degrees, a sweater won't save

I am guessing you live alone. Try telling a one year old to put on a snowsuit to eat soup in. Or your dog. When the weather is -40 degrees, a sweater won't save you. When it is 110 you will need a trunk with batteries behind you to power your personal AC 24/7. Give it a try and turn off the heat and AC for a season. You might make it, but will it be worth the $100-200/month? Edit: don't forget that AC is much more efficient than heating. With AC you are looking to change the temperature by at most 35 degrees and you are moving heat, so you are getting a multiplier there. With heating, you are heating from freezing or below for most places.

toomuchtodo 12y ago
> Edit: don't forget that AC is much more efficient than heating. With AC you are looking to change the temperature by at most 35 degrees and you are moving heat, so you are getting a multiplier there. With heating, you are heating from freezing or below for most places. Its also incredibly efficient if you're using a geothermal system to pull cold out of the ground vs pushing heat into existing hot air with a compressor.
- freehunter 12y ago
  Look at that, there is an improvement over forced air. Everyone else said that didn't exist.
- IgorPartola 12y ago
  It can be, assuming you are in the right location in the world. The problem is cost efficiency: you are talking about tens of thousands of dollars for a system that will only pay for itself in a decade (often times; in some situations this is the perfect answer). Geothermal is no silver bullet unfortunately. There is physical efficiency, and there is economic efficiency.
- jeremycole 12y ago
  Er, geothermal doesn't "pull cold out of the ground", it pushes heat into it.
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    Splitting hairs. Its utilizing a temperature differential, as heat and the lack of heat are both forms of energy that can perform work.
freehunter 12y ago
I don't live alone, and I live in a place where the weather occasionally dips to -30F wind chill (and in summer occasionally hits 90F), so I understand hot and cold weather. I have a family and pets. Literally every single person who commented on this has completely and 100% failed to read a single word I wrote. You're wrong, you're missing the point, and it seems like you're intentionally being obtuse. Sorry if this sounds snappy, but I've read and re-read my original post over and over again and I'm not seeing why everyone interprets it as me telling them AC and heat isn't necessary. Things like "It would be nice to re-think the necessity of AC, as well" and "There has to be a way to cool me down in the summer without needing to cool my entire house" don't mean "turn off your climate control", they mean "let's get better climate control". Your comment is exactly the kind of thinking that I was arguing against. Right now we need AC and heat for the entire house. Just a few years ago, we needed gasoline to power our cars and just a few decades ago we needed a dedicated room to run a calculator. I have a coat with a battery that heats up just the coat for when I'm outside in winter. Shrink it to a normal long sleeve shirt that you would wear inside anyway. That's a start. The point is, we need heat/AC now, but are they the best we could possibly do? And is forced air the best we can do?
- IgorPartola 12y ago
  I believe I understand you correctly. You want some type of smart system to heat/cool only what's necessary. Fair enough, and maybe there is even something to it. I do see problems with it. If you are talking about a per-room system, latency becomes an issue. If I go from my bedroom to my bathroom, how long must I be in the room until the heat comes on? Moreover, won't turning heat on/off put a lot of strain on the system? This is not convenient. It's an actively worse system than what I have now. Additionally, I'll spend much more energy heating each individual room, unless I have insulated doors and inside walls: another huge expense. If you are talking about everyone wearing electric coats and blankets and their AC equivalents, forget about it. First, you have to carry a battery pack and charge it every so often. Second, where you used to be able to just turn up the AC a bit and wear shorts, now you have to wear a spacesuit to not suffocate in the summer. I think HVAC could definitely use innovation, and this goes beyond the really expensive geothermal systems or high efficiency condensers. Boring things like insulation and construction materials is what's going to make a huge difference here. Buildings with good insulation and little air exchange with the outside will use significantly less energy than those with poor insulation. Heating being the #1 consumer of energy in any given house, we need to trap it inside for as long as possible. Remember, it's much easier to insulate a wall that's not moving, sitting, bend, bathing, etc. than a human. In short, I understand what you are saying, and I think that others on here do too. I simply disagree with it.

toomuchtodo 12y ago

> Edit: don't forget that AC is much more efficient than heating. With AC you are looking to change the temperature by at most 35 degrees and you are moving heat, so you are getting a multiplier there. With heating, you are heating from freezing or below for most places. Its also incredibly efficient if you're using a geothermal system to pull cold out of the ground vs pushing heat into existing hot air with a compressor.

freehunter 12y ago
Look at that, there is an improvement over forced air. Everyone else said that didn't exist.
IgorPartola 12y ago
It can be, assuming you are in the right location in the world. The problem is cost efficiency: you are talking about tens of thousands of dollars for a system that will only pay for itself in a decade (often times; in some situations this is the perfect answer). Geothermal is no silver bullet unfortunately. There is physical efficiency, and there is economic efficiency.
jeremycole 12y ago
Er, geothermal doesn't "pull cold out of the ground", it pushes heat into it.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  Splitting hairs. Its utilizing a temperature differential, as heat and the lack of heat are both forms of energy that can perform work.

freehunter 12y ago

I don't live alone, and I live in a place where the weather occasionally dips to -30F wind chill (and in summer occasionally hits 90F), so I understand hot and cold weather. I have a family and pets. Literally every single person who commented on this has completely and 100% failed to read a single word I wrote. You're wrong, you're missing the point, and it seems like you're intentionally being obtuse. Sorry if this sounds snappy, but I've read and re-read my original post over and over again and I'm not seeing why everyone interprets it as me telling them AC and heat isn't necessary. Things like "It would be nice to re-think the necessity of AC, as well" and "There has to be a way to cool me down in the summer without needing to cool my entire house" don't mean "turn off your climate control", they mean "let's get better climate control". Your comment is exactly the kind of thinking that I was arguing against. Right now we need AC and heat for the entire house. Just a few years ago, we needed gasoline to power our cars and just a few decades ago we needed a dedicated room to run a calculator. I have a coat with a battery that heats up just the coat for when I'm outside in winter. Shrink it to a normal long sleeve shirt that you would wear inside anyway. That's a start. The point is, we need heat/AC now, but are they the best we could possibly do? And is forced air the best we can do?

IgorPartola 12y ago
I believe I understand you correctly. You want some type of smart system to heat/cool only what's necessary. Fair enough, and maybe there is even something to it. I do see problems with it. If you are talking about a per-room system, latency becomes an issue. If I go from my bedroom to my bathroom, how long must I be in the room until the heat comes on? Moreover, won't turning heat on/off put a lot of strain on the system? This is not convenient. It's an actively worse system than what I have now. Additionally, I'll spend much more energy heating each individual room, unless I have insulated doors and inside walls: another huge expense. If you are talking about everyone wearing electric coats and blankets and their AC equivalents, forget about it. First, you have to carry a battery pack and charge it every so often. Second, where you used to be able to just turn up the AC a bit and wear shorts, now you have to wear a spacesuit to not suffocate in the summer. I think HVAC could definitely use innovation, and this goes beyond the really expensive geothermal systems or high efficiency condensers. Boring things like insulation and construction materials is what's going to make a huge difference here. Buildings with good insulation and little air exchange with the outside will use significantly less energy than those with poor insulation. Heating being the #1 consumer of energy in any given house, we need to trap it inside for as long as possible. Remember, it's much easier to insulate a wall that's not moving, sitting, bend, bathing, etc. than a human. In short, I understand what you are saying, and I think that others on here do too. I simply disagree with it.