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Shifty Pony posted:Everyone in the thread might want to check to make sure that their 400lb block of concrete was not made using the concrete that 20k houses in Connecticut used which is now tearing itself apart due to expanding aggregate yep. all those raised ranch houses are now going to be regular ranch houses
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Jun 7, 2016 16:49
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this is why my house started from a mobile home
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Jun 7, 2016 17:02
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Nitrox posted:She pleaded guilty. She took a loving plea bargain to get two counts of murder off the table, because it was clear that the state was going to ram them through after two and a half years of already having been in jail waiting for trial.
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Jun 7, 2016 20:08
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Liquid Communism posted:She took a loving plea bargain to get two counts of murder off the table, because it was clear that the state was going to ram them through.
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Jun 7, 2016 20:09
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Our justice system is poorly constructed!
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Jun 7, 2016 20:21
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:And there's a few more here.
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Jun 7, 2016 20:30
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So I'm often confused by how high american's energy costs are related to heating/cooling their homes. I just assumed only american in more tropical areas had AC, but apparently the number is 87% ?! https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/07/22/europe-to-america-your-love-of-air-conditioning-is-stupid/ I know the hotels here say their #1 complain from american tourists is the lack of AC. It's been in the mid 80's F in my apartment the last few days. On days like that I do wish I had a little window AC unit or just better ventilation (it stays hot in the apartment well into the night after the outdoor air has cooled down). But it's mind blowing to me anyways that people who own whole huge stand-alone 2000+ sq. ft. houses "need" to run their AC all summer long. The financial and energy costs are just massive. But like in the case of my building, if we just had a better way to get the nice cool night air into the building before bed time it would be fine. Get it down to 77F or so so it's easier to sleep, just need to blow around air not do any energy intensive chilling. During the day you just wander around your apartment in shorts and an undershirt and drink something cool, or why are you even in your apartment during the day? You should be at work, and if not, at the beach or somewhere cool. Baronjutter fucked around with this message at 20:42 on Jun 7, 2016 |
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Jun 7, 2016 20:34
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I live in Wisconsin and have and use AC most of the summer. High 80s with humidity is not comfortable.
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Jun 7, 2016 20:36
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:And there's a few more here. I'm the "lie bace"
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Jun 7, 2016 20:42
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Yeah, I won't claim that all of those photos were all that great, but there were a few decent candidates for the thread, and I figured it was polite to reference my source.Baronjutter posted:So I'm often confused by how high american's energy costs are related to heating/cooling their homes. There's a few factors going on here. One of them almost certainly is that Americans on vacation are a lot more likely to run the AC than Americans at home, because they aren't paying the energy costs. They're on vacation, they want to be comfortable, isn't that what they're paying for, etc. etc. etc. Another is that there are some pretty wide temperature swings in much of the US, and the east and south can also get very humid. Using AC to help dehumidify your home goes a long way towards making it pleasant to live in, even if you aren't relying on the AC to cool things down significantly. I won't say that there aren't people who keep their houses at 68°F year-round and drat the cost, but I don't think those people are really representative. For my part, I live near the Pacific coast, have no AC, and limit my use of heating in the winter to just keeping the temperature at 60°F minimum. But this is not common.
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Jun 7, 2016 21:10
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:
Whereas I live in New England where the temperature regularly swings from 0F to 100F with 80% humidity. Those aren't the norms, but we'll see them at least once a year. Having AC and a dehumidifier while not required, certainly makes things more civilized. That said, the very first thing I noticed when my wife and I flew into Munich on our way to Rome for our honeymoon was the fact that there either was no AC in the airport or it was turned way down low. I can appreciate Europeans thinking Americans prefer their buildings set to "meat locker."
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Jun 7, 2016 21:21
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I generally prefer buildings's interior temperature to at least slightly follow the temperature outside, rather than there being some constant set "indoor" temperature year round. Like it's a blazing hot day so I'm dressed for it, then I walk into a shop or office and am hit with a blast of cold air. Initially it's refreshing then I realize I'm god drat cold in my shorts and tshirt. The same goes for the winter. I'm out and about outside so I'm obviously dressed for winter, then I go indoors and it's that same exact "indoor" temperature. Even taking off my coat, I'm still wearing a sweater and heavy clothes. People are going to be dressed for the weather, so make your building a little cooler in the winter and allow it to get a bit warmer in the summer. You can still heat and cool, just do it taking into account that people are going to be wearing different things. Then again in a lot of the US people just don't walk around outside. They go from car to building to car, with brief outdoor exposures in parking lots. I could see expecting a set year round indoor temperature if you're never really outside long enough to acclimatize to the season. I've got a crappy little window thermometer and last night it was only 22c at night, while my apartment was at a slightly too-hot 27. Even with all the windows open and a fan on and a small breeze flowing through our corner unit, it stayed hot. Is a lot of this due to just the thermal mass or what ever of the building? We're on the top floor, and you can feel the wave of heat hit you as you climb the stairs. All the day's heat seems to get trapped on the top floor with us. In terms of building design or renovation what could be done? Just better overall ventilation and a big fan pushing cooler outside air into the hallway?
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Jun 7, 2016 21:32
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It's mostly the thermal mass, but also it takes a fairly large volume of air to transfer enough heat when the temperature delta is low. Stack effect driven airflow through the building significantly contributes to thermal stratification, so good air sealing & compartmentalization between units will reduce the amount of heat sent up from lower level levels to higher levels.
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Jun 7, 2016 22:02
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Baronjutter posted:So I'm often confused by how high american's energy costs are related to heating/cooling their homes. I just assumed only american in more tropical areas had AC, but apparently the number is 87% ?! Where is 'here'? I'm assuming somewhere in Europe. Northern Spain is at roughly the same latitude as Vermont. France is roughly the same latitude as Maine. Pretty much all of the US is more tropical than Europe. Where I live(Texas) we're in the 90's for 5 months of the year and in the mid-high 80's for probably another 3. And it's awfully humid for most of that time, as well, and even the low 80's feel miserable with high humidity. Baronjutter posted:Like it's a blazing hot day so I'm dressed for it, then I walk into a shop or office and am hit with a blast of cold air. Initially it's refreshing then I realize I'm god drat cold in my shorts and tshirt. The same goes for the winter. I'm out and about outside so I'm obviously dressed for winter, then I go indoors and it's that same exact "indoor" temperature. Even taking off my coat, I'm still wearing a sweater and heavy clothes. People are going to be dressed for the weather, so make your building a little cooler in the winter and allow it to get a bit warmer in the summer. You can still heat and cool, just do it taking into account that people are going to be wearing different things. I am curious as to what your definition of a "blazing hot day" is. My personal scale doesn't hit blazing hot until about 105F (40C), with 97-100 being "average summer day".
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Jun 7, 2016 22:23
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Shampoo posted:I can appreciate Europeans thinking Americans prefer their buildings set to "meat locker." Cold homes are healthier, think about it. You're made of meat, does raw meat last longer when it's left in a 90 degree room or a refrigerator?
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Jun 7, 2016 22:51
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Baronjutter posted:So I'm often confused by how high american's energy costs are related to heating/cooling their homes. I just assumed only american in more tropical areas had AC, but apparently the number is 87% ?! Air conditioning takes way less energy than heating. Consider what takes more energy: cooling air from 90F to 75F during the part of the year it's uncomfortably hot, or heating air from 25-40F to 65F during the part of the year it's uncomfortably cold? Over most of the US, the energy required to heat a home is much larger than the energy required to cool a home. Over most of the US, heating is two-thirds of a typical home's annual energy costs. quote:Consequently, while indoors, Europeans wear sweaters in winter, while American wear sweaters in summer," Sivak told The Washington Post. That's total bullshit. Seriously, that is *total bullshit*. I've lived in areas of the US that are both temperate (Northeast PA), humid-as-gently caress (Philly), and hot-as-balls (Phoenix). It hit 118F here the other day. Nobody is wearing a loving sweater in the summer. Germany is currently burning wood for energy because it's considered a renewable resource, even though what it really means it that people are chopping down developed forests and turning them into wood pellets for export to "green" Germany. . They can get hosed.
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Jun 7, 2016 22:53
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I'd note that modern HVAC systems improve efficiency by using heat pumps for both cooling and heating. It's way less expensive to use energy to move heat than to create it.
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Jun 7, 2016 23:13
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Baronjutter posted:So I'm often confused by how high american's energy costs are related to heating/cooling their homes. I just assumed only american in more tropical areas had AC, but apparently the number is 87% ?! It's not a matter of "need" it's about want. I'm not a pauper; I can afford to cool my home to a temperature comfortable to me, so I'm going to do it. If you set my thermostat above 72F at night time I will hurt you. Also, FYI: the average number of days in July that get above 80 in the DC area is 29.
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Jun 7, 2016 23:15
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there wolf posted:I think one of my old neighbors ran an illegal radio station out of their garage or something. My old computer speakers would pick it up sometimes. Now they just get News!Weather!Traffic, on the hour, every hour! which is broadcasting from only a measly 20 miles away. Reminds me of WLW in the 1930s when they were broadcasting at 500 kW. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WLW quote:Many reports have surfaced over the years, from those who lived near the 500 kilowatt transmitter, of power fluctuations. Residents would see their lights flicker in time to the modulation peaks of the transmitter. It was widely reported that the signal was so overpowering some people picked up WLW radio on the metal coils of mattress and boxed bedsprings,[14] similar to KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Arcing often occurred near the transmission site.[15] There were stories about nearby residents could also hear it playing in their pots and pans.
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Jun 7, 2016 23:17
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Yeah, I absolutely cannont imagine living anywhere without air conditioning? And why should I? Probably mostly a byproduct of living in Florida, where it's normally 90+ with with 90% humidity. But yeah, I can't even get to sleep if it's hotter than 76* in the house. I also work on ACs for a living so there's that. I work outside for 8+ hours in the heat and humidity, so that can get hosed.
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Jun 7, 2016 23:46
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Alereon posted:I'd note that modern HVAC systems improve efficiency by using heat pumps for both cooling and heating. It's way less expensive to use energy to move heat than to create it. It gets complicated when you consider source energy. A heatpump can take a relatively small amount of electricity to move a fairly significant amount of heat, but generating that electricity typically involves releasing a fairly significant amount of heat at a power plant. On average, it probably takes more natural gas burned in a power plant to generate electricity to drive a heat pump to heat your home than just burning the natural gas to heat your home would require (though certainly not always)
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Jun 7, 2016 23:47
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Zhentar posted:It gets complicated when you consider source energy. A heatpump can take a relatively small amount of electricity to move a fairly significant amount of heat, but generating that electricity typically involves releasing a fairly significant amount of heat at a power plant. On average, it probably takes more natural gas burned in a power plant to generate electricity to drive a heat pump to heat your home than just burning the natural gas to heat your home would require (though certainly not always) It's also complicated by how the energy is delivered to a home, as well. For instance, my parents have to use heat pumps where they live because they don't have a gas pipeline near where they live. They have dual zoned their home, to save on long term energy costs, but the units themselves are far more expensive than a gas furnace. They just had to replace one of the units for $6500 and according their new HV/AC guy, they'll probably need to replace the other one soon(ish). My mom fed the guys lunch, so apparently my parents are now their favorite customer. So there's that. I guess the last person they had, who installed the units when the house was built, cut a poo poo ton of corners and the units burned through their effective service life faster than they should have. Of course, he was out of business before my parents realized they never got the warranty paperwork from him, hence the all-new unit.
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Jun 8, 2016 00:02
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Yeah, having a proper installer, someone who knows what they're doing, how to set things up, and how to check for maximum efficiency is going to help you out in the long run more than anything. But a lot of people are just concerned about cost so they pay some hack 1/4 of the price to slam a cheapo Goodman unit in there and call it a day.
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Jun 8, 2016 00:09
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Khizan posted:Where is 'here'? I'm assuming somewhere in Europe. Northern Spain is at roughly the same latitude as Vermont. France is roughly the same latitude as Maine. Pretty much all of the US is more tropical than Europe. Where I live(Texas) we're in the 90's for 5 months of the year and in the mid-high 80's for probably another 3. And it's awfully humid for most of that time, as well, and even the low 80's feel miserable with high humidity. also, come to Texas in about July, and tell me again about "cool night air." We're lucky if it's not still 95F at 2 AM...
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Jun 8, 2016 00:25
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I think we can all agree that the year-round clothing of choice for most Americans is pajama pants and a hoodie.
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Jun 8, 2016 00:51
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I think you have bedtime clothes confused with Wal-Mart formal wear my friend
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Jun 8, 2016 01:25
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ExplodingSims posted:I think you have bedtime clothes confused with Wal-Mart formal wear my friend I go to Wal-Mart because I don't feel like dressing up for Target
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Jun 8, 2016 01:35
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I went to a conference in Las Vegas, and on check-in, they handed out a zipped sweat shirt as a gift. I was super confused by the logic there, but I saw plenty of people wearing them throughout the conference.peanut posted:I think we can all agree that the year-round clothing of choice for most Americans is pajama pants and a hoodie. Is this supposed to refute the post saying Americans wear sweaters in Summer?
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Jun 8, 2016 01:44
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Cargo shorts, flip flops, football jerseys and mossy oak ball caps for me
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Jun 8, 2016 02:16
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In the heating cooling debate there's another interesting point. Legislation and financial incentives have been introduced in the last 50 years to make homes more efficient. As the homes became more efficient, energy use has stayed level. Homes from the 1950s with single pane wood windows and poor insulation design, and little regard for the effects of solar gain were far too expensive to cool with the inefficient AC units of the time. Newer homes with good building products and smart designs are more affordable to cool, so AC has proliferated. I would argue that you do not need an air conditioner for a single family home in the Denver metro area, yet I don't think you could purchase a new one without it. It does offer you the ability to keep the curtains open during the day and the windows shut at night, for safety, neither of which bother me. I can live in the cave and get raped from time to time by intruders.
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Jun 8, 2016 02:49
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StormDrain posted:It does offer you the ability to keep the curtains open during the day and the windows shut at night, for safety, neither of which bother me. I can live in the cave and get raped from time to time by intruders. Lifehack: install bars on your windows if you feel that way.
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Jun 8, 2016 04:22
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Another point towards A/C in the US is that median housing stock age is much lower than that of the UK. The vast majority of homes in the US were built after central heating and air became standard, and it's much easier and cheaper to install that in new construction so why not?
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Jun 8, 2016 04:43
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Air conditioning rules but I really don't understand the people that keep it cranked to insanely low temperatures. Here in Texas unless you have a medical condition you should be able to deal with 85 degrees no problem so why on earth do people keep their A/C set to 72 all day? I hear people complain about $300-$400 per month electric bills sometimes. On the flip side natural gas is so loving cheap here there isn't an economic reason to not have your house at tropical island temperatures all winter.
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Jun 8, 2016 04:47
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Shifty Pony posted:Air conditioning rules but I really don't understand the people that keep it cranked to insanely low temperatures. Here in Texas unless you have a medical condition you should be able to deal with 85 degrees no problem so why on earth do people keep their A/C set to 72 all day? Perks of living in the modern era. It costs me $40 a month to keep my apartment at 73 with a comically oversized PTAC so I do so. What blows my mind is that, given how obscenely well these things work, enough people here supplement them with window units that the management had to actually send out a bitch letter about people installing them poorly. Are these people subletting their living rooms as walk-in freezers? poo poo.
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Jun 8, 2016 05:06
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Shifty Pony posted:Here in Texas unless you have a medical condition you should be able to deal with 85 degrees no problem so why on earth do people keep their A/C set to 72 all day? my spouse gets sadie-grumpy at temperatures above 74, increasing exponentially as the mercury rises. some peeps just can't handle heat. (personally i figure warmer temps are an excellent excuse to lie around and not do much.)
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Jun 8, 2016 05:54
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My wife is from Vietnam. I can't set the thermostat below 75° in the summer, otherwise she gets out the blankets and robes. We usually go to bed with her under the covers and me on top.
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Jun 8, 2016 05:59
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Baronjutter posted:So I'm often confused by how high american's energy costs are related to heating/cooling their homes. I just assumed only american in more tropical areas had AC, but apparently the number is 87% ?! You made a poor assumption. The US as a whole has a huge yearly temperature swing, outside of a few areas west of the Rockies with relatively mild swings due to the climate there.
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Jun 8, 2016 06:48
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Shifty Pony posted:Air conditioning rules but I really don't understand the people that keep it cranked to insanely low temperatures. Here in Texas unless you have a medical condition you should be able to deal with 85 degrees no problem so why on earth do people keep their A/C set to 72 all day? I hear people complain about $300-$400 per month electric bills sometimes. Cause 85 is awfully loving hot to keep your house when you don't have to? 72 is a bit insane, but I keep it at 78 with no regrets. Darchangel posted:also, come to Texas in about July, and tell me again about "cool night air." We're lucky if it's not still 95F at 2 AM... And even during the few months out of the year when it is nice cool night air it's often hellaciously humid nice cool night air, so that all that nice cool air makes your bedroom unpleasantly damp.
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Jun 8, 2016 07:08
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Shifty Pony posted:Here in Texas unless you have a medical condition you should be able to deal with 85 degrees no problem I live in Georgia and have a medical condition that makes it extremely uncomfortable and possibly dangerous for me to hang out in anything much above 72 f.  AC bills rock.
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Jun 8, 2016 08:42
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packetmantis posted:I live in Georgia and have a medical condition that makes it extremely uncomfortable and possibly dangerous for me to hang out in anything much above 72 f. 
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