Environmentally OK Lounge temperatures

[Mark]

Most of our house is at 18 degrees during the winter, I feel very uncomfortable in a CH house at 23 degrees no air cant breath. Perhaps I was born in an oilskin

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[nightjar]

I'll remember that when I need to turn the air conditioning on next.

Colin Bignell

[Malcolm Stewart]

Yes - that's the one I'm thinking of.

I've definitely changed in what I find comfortable. When I was of school age in the 1950s, I hated any sense of a stuffy environment. I started with severe hayfever in my early 20s, and I think the anti-histamines not only helped my hayfever some of the time, but allowed me to "survive" in environments which previously I'd found intolerable. (Perhaps living closely with smokers during my National Service had an effect?) Haven't suffered from real hayfever for years, and I've now enjoyed lounging around in 21-23degC for many years.

(And during the winter of 1947, I remember wearing finger mittens when doing my piano practise. Frequent frozen pipes in the poorly heated semi.)

[Bob Mannix]

"nightjar .uk.com>"

Ha ha, nice one :o) You know what I meant!

[:Jerry:]

You really are a eco to$$er, what difference is it going to make

*providing* that the temperature is kept at the chosen setting, it's not the keeping that costs but the getting there.

The boiler will still come on if the temperature drops below the chosen level, be that thermostat is set to 18degC and triggers the boiler at 16 or set to 25 and triggers the boiler at 23.

[Roger]

The message from "Mary Fisher" contains these words:

My remark was somewhat tongue in cheek as I can well recall the ice on the inside of bedroom windows in 2 of the flats I shared in the 60s. What I can't recall is whether that was the last time I experienced that in a domestic environment.

I don't do caravanning but I do camp and a few years back was camping in North Wales during a really cold spell when the night time temperature went down to minus 6. Had trouble cooking and had to put the Calor canister on one burner in order to get much output from the other. A good many years earlier I spend a whitsun night near the summit of Ben Alder and and awoke to find my bivvybag covered with hoar frost. It felt more than a little parky when I got out of my sleeping bag to get dressed.

I can't remember feeling warm as a small child in winter. Winters in short trousers always brought chilblains and home was little better than outside. A flat in a wooden building with rooms as big as classrooms. We used to huddle round the coal fire with screens to contain the heat blocking off the majority of the living room. When we moved to a newly built house with partial central heating in 1954 it felt like moving to a warmer country.

I am ok when active but when sitting around I do like to be warm (19C is warm enough for me) but I have a low resting heart rate and I think I need some activity to get the blood circulating to the extremities. I even have to wear bed socks sometimes these days if I have an inactive spell otherwise my feet get so cold I can't get to sleep.

Too much clothing is counter productive. Nothing like a layer of sweat to give a false impression of being cold.

[Mary Fisher]

"nightjar .uk.com>"

[John Rumm]

Yes, you know need to, when the temperature or humidity reaches a point where your IT or engineering equipment is at high risk of failure, or your (or your workforce's) productivity is reduced to the point that it is costing you significantly more than the cost of the aircon.

[John Rumm]

twaddle

The boiler "on" time will be proportional to the selected temperature, because the heat losses will also be proportional.

The warmer you have it, the faster the building looses heat, the more you need to replace to maintain the temperature.

[:Jerry:]

If you think that you really are a as stupid as Mr Hansen.

The temperature differential is the same.

Bollocks!

[clot]

The last statement is absolutely true! Time you went back to school!

[Peter Ashby]

Our thermostat is always set at 18C except now in the summer where it is set at around 13 so it doesn't come on. I find temperatures cooler than

18C nice after a warm day. But then I find many UK homes and offices far too warm as does my wife. She too used to complain about young secretaries wanting the temperature up too high.

There is also the matter of acclimitisation, perhaps you have simply not perseverd enough. there is also the matter of it not being healthy to go between environments too different in temperature. This is especially important for elderly people in winter as the constriction of peripheral blood vessels on stepping out into cold air from a too warm house can cause heart attacks and strokes.

It will also save you money.

Peter

[Peter Ashby]

That would probably have been around August 1992. Being the end of our last winter back home in southern New Zealand. A regular occurence in winter as the bedrooms were not heated, standard for many NZ homes. Explains the popularity of electric blankets and waterbeds though. Cold air is one thing, cold sheets something entirely other.

Peter

[Bob Mannix]

Sorry old bean, Physics 'n all that. Rate of heat loss is proportional to the temperature difference between inside and out. If the outside temperature is 10 degrees and house #1 has its thermostat set at 18 degrees and (identically insulated) house #2 has its thermostat set at 26 degrees, house #2 will lose twice as much energy to the outside in a given period as house #1. The amount might be small if the houses are well insulated, but still proportional.

[Peter Ashby]

If outside is for eg 10C and you heat your house to 18C you have an 8C gradient of heat from inside to outside. If your inside temp is 23C you have a 13C gradient, which is steeper. the steeper the gradient the higher the flow rate, be it water, heat, ion diffusion or anything else. It is simple physics.

Peter

[Peter Ashby]

might it perhaps have also been poorly insulated and draught proofed?

Peter

[Andy Hall]

The formula that applies here is

Heat loss = Area of surface x temperature difference (inside to outside) x a constant (the U value)

or for air changes heat loss is proportional to rate of air changes and temperature difference.

[Andy Hall]

I think that possibly the word "back" is optional here.

[nightjar]

All my factories have air conditioning, for the reasons given by John. However, I also have a house in the South of France where it can be impossible to sleep without cooling the bedroom to the mid 20s C.

Colin Bignell

[The Natural Philosopher]

In the Mojave desert, we managed to sleep without aircon with daytime temps up around 130F and night time ones somewhere around 100F - whatever that is in C. Unless too much beer had been drunk!

In mexico, sub 27C was Ok with full seaside humidity..although that was close to the limit.

In Johannesburg - slightly lower humidity - around 33-34C was where we seriously couldn't sleep, and go up every few hours to down ice cold drinks. I remember one Christmas spending mots of the afternoon in te pool, at 34C..it was MARGINALLY cooler than me, and marginally cooler than the air around.

Natal, wand the low veldt, was insufferable without aircon at much over 30C.

We didn't have aircon, so we suffered. If you are tired enough, you sleep.

What you do find tho, is that a whole new pace of life evolves, based round cold beers, siestas and so on..staying up late, and sleeping in the coldest part of the night, and early morning..and hanging roudn air conditioned malls and offices in the hotter parts.

Humidity is more the killer than the heat, if you have adequate water.

+50C is OK without the himidity. You just drink a lot and stay in the shade.

Up in +25C and full jungle humidity, you are permanently wet and it won't evaporate. There is but 3 degrees between you and the air, and every one of them counts. Be VERY still..and you survive.

The ball court at Chichen Itza, at 2pm..with a tropical thunderstorm brewing..hot sun reflected off the walls..and air still and trpped between them.

Yup. Thats was HOT.