Heat the person not the volume!
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Hi Guys,
I had a long chat with an old friend Frank (also an architect) about general 'green' issues today. We can both remember donning the warm underwear with the onset of Winter! Central heating was not common here in Ireland back in the 50 / 60s!
This made sense. When it got cold, we wrapped up! However these days folks just turn up the central heating. This was fine (but foolish) to a certain extent in recent times but rising oil prices and global warning issues will make it a non option soon, I think.
We came to the conclusion that humans are not evolved to live in cold climates! If we were, I imagine we would have a good coat of hair / fur
However, that's an other story.In the end we came to the conclusion that there is a definite opening for the development of 'modern high tech' long-johns ...... 'heat the person not the volume!'
I imagine the same thing (high tech clothing) could be used to keep people cool also rather than turning volumes into fridges.
Any ideas or thoughts?
Mike
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What about those space age reflective blankets that mountaineers use? Those are lightweight, but kind of shiny. Maybe they could interweave, or layer garments with these materials. Hmm I bet somebody already did this.
Infrared/radiant heaters primarily heat the objects with the most water content, usually people and commonly used in warehouses, although, this would not qualify as zero carbon footprint. (Neither would stepping on charcoal and tracking it in the house
)
On the matter of keeping cool. As you know, cooling is the extraction of heat. Perhaps some way to utilize phase change salt solutions circulating through garments, run with energy extracted from some source right under our noses but not yet tapped. -
I have a better idea. Localized radiant heating (LRH). Only the floor tiles a person is standing above or sitting above heat up. Radiant floors are the preferred mode as heat rises and feet are the first to suffer in the heavier cold air that pools at the bottom of a room.
Another option would be moving parabolic mirrors that could track a persons movements and project some short infrared.
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Ahhhhhh GREAT!!! I have managed to attract the 'thinkers' here
Two totally different avenues to explore.
Mitcorb, your suggestion is good and I have seen something along these lines in clothing recently. It was an over jacket and gloves with interwoven elements that ran on AA batteries. Must try and find the link and post here.
Your suggestion for cooling with salt is thought provoking! As you say, maybe the answers could be in something that is 'under or noses' and we have not thought about yet. I imagine we should look at nature and animals in particular .... the Polar Bear comes to mind. Those guys have it all figured out when it comes to keeping warm!
Rodger, your approach is something I had not thought of. A friend of mine has underfloor heating in his apartment. I must say that it works well and is not too expensive to run. Taking it a stage further is something that would lessen the running costs quite a bit. The only possible problem that I could see would be drafts being generated .... but again they would probably not be discernible.
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No trouble staying warm if you had her.
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Living in Texas it's not the cold that chews resources and strains the grid, it's the heat.
In the same vein, is there a way to cool the person and not the volume?
With global climate change underway I think cooling needs to be addressed with some serious urgency.
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Back when I was an Architectural student in the '70's our Environmental Studies tutor told us of a serious effort to deal with this exact issue.
Microwave the people!
The idea was for a very low energy system to be installed in ceilings that would be designed to warm up the human body just enough to make them comfortable.
I'm not sure if it was a failure to perfect the technology or simply a failure to convince people that this was a good idea that killed the idea (or perhaps that lecture was given on April 1st.)
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Pete, Mitcrorb has raised an interesting possible solution to the cooling! Perhaps you you investigate further?
@mitcorb said:
... On the matter of keeping cool. As you know, cooling is the extraction of heat. Perhaps some way to utilize phase change salt solutions circulating through garments, run with energy extracted from some source right under our noses but not yet tapped.
John, Microwave people! On the face of it, it makes sense as its only the non metallic items in a microwave oven that get cooked! I've had some bad experiences with microwaves, like the time I tried to evaporate water from a sealed plastic car tail light! The bloody plastic started to smoke. I digress
I imagine there are papers on this somewhere and probably well worth looking up.
I don't mean to sound conspiratorial but I would not be surprised if good past inventions were brought up and put to bed by the oil industry.
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Pete, further! If the Sun is causing your discomfort, it can also be the solution to the discomfort, as far as cooling volumes is concerned. http://www.solarpanelsplus.com/solar-air-conditioning/ But you probably know this already
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Check out the Bloom Energy Server. Just Google it. In fact, Google has an installation of this large scale fuel cell at one of its campuses. It was featured on the TV show "60 Minutes". However, I was thinking about tapping into some of those seemingly marginal sources such as people walking across special mats or rugs fitted with some mechanism to absorb the energy.
I think the microwave thing may have been plagued with the possibility of interfering with important peoples' Twittering, or cardiac pacemakers or hearing aids. As an aside, my cellphone when it begins to receive a call near my computer, creates an audio pulse just before it begins to "ring". -
Bloom Energy Server! Will look it up.
Yeah, microwaves make me nervous.
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I'm sitting here looking out the window. It's cold, overcast and windy as the last remnants of Irene finally make it across the Atlantic, having slingshotted of Newfoundland. I'm wearing a wonderful invention called a sweater.
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Lucky bastards, I cannot remember what cold feels like.
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I'd be tempted to offer a swap, Pete. But having tramped around Rome a couple of weeks back with temperatures around 40°C...with a heavy head cold to boot...I'm not so sure. It seems like it's relatively easy to keep the body warm with appropriate clothing, but there's not much defence against heat other than expensive HVAC or radical building design.
Well, actually there is...sitting under a palm tree, drinking ice cold beer and flopping into the pool every half hour or so. Trouble is you don't get much work done. -
40C sounds like paradise after 117F. I might even need a sweater. Here we have misters (not a male person but a gadget that creates a cooling mist) that sprays a fine mist over patrons of outdoor bars and restaurants.
And think about this. If your sweater causes you to sweat it will actually chill you even further as the sweat evaporates.
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@solo said:
Lucky bastards, I cannot remember what cold feels like.
You always welcomed to wist in Finland - it's starts to get a bit chilly here... bit by bit, four to five months later, maybe 30 degrees below zero (Celsius scale) or -22 ºF.
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Pentti, perhaps we can express boxes if the local climate back and forthe from Arizona to Finland until we are both comfortable. I think it had just dropped under 100F last night I 10 PM when I took the dog for a walk.
--Roger
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While we are swopping climates, anyone got rain?
We are burning up here in Texas, over 1000 homes burned down so far.
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Yeah, my mother lives close to you and is suffering it all as well.
Fortunately for us we caught the path of the recent tropical storm. A few days ago it was 90-100 and the past couple days have been rain and below 70. Other than the fact that my head is splitting and my sinus' are freaking out with the sudden change I am enjoying it quite a bit. "Hello pullover, I have missed you." -
It rained briefly here twice today, and half of yesterday = <17C [60F]...
That's around the seasonal average - just perhaps a tad cool/wet...
But then in the UK it's hard to separate Summer from Winter... let alone Spring and Autumn [Fall]
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