Heat the person not the volume!
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I've been to a few places in the States where the common washing line or rotary was regarded as either unsightly or maybe just plain primitive...and everything had to be tumble dried...even in perfect drying weather, which you get a lot more over over there than in the UK. Seems to me like energy conservation ought to start with the easy and obvious.
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@alan fraser said:
I've been to a few places in the States where the common washing line or rotary was regarded as either unsightly or maybe just plain primitive...and everything had to be tumble dried...even in perfect drying weather, which you get a lot more over over there than in the UK. Seems to me like energy conservation ought to start with the easy and obvious.
Yes, we had those too before entering the modern age.
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@roger said:
Yes, we had those too before entering the modern age.
Yes, but the rest of us are already in the post-modern age, Roger. That's how we use only 50% of the energy of the USA per capita...to no discernible disadvantage.
[flash=640,390:df132hvu]http://www.youtube.com/v/sF4lZsx9Ifs?version=3[/flash:df132hvu]
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Hi folks.
Heating the person instead of the volume might be a good idea but there is a limit.
Here, in the southern part of the province of Quebec, in winter, the temperature can go down to -30°C and sometimes lower, in January.
Not heating the inside of the house would be like living on an iceberg. Even with warm clothings the idea of breathing very cold air 24 hours a day is not really appealing. Also, cold and humid air, yes, out climate is very humid here, is prone in developing mold, fungus and all kind of nasty things on humid surfaces like walls, ceilings, etc.
Add to that the fact that my wife is from Mediteranean origin, so she likes warmer climate
In conclusion, we keep the house at 22-23°C in winter and 24-25°C in summer by heating but not too much and using the air conditioning but not too much. Between these extremes, we neither use heat or A.C., we just open the windows.
Just ideas.
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Alan, please send me a white sheet and I will wash and dry it for you. For a good part of the year. It would dry in no time at all. It would also turn red and be hard as a rock from blowing dust. That would be if it did not get away and be blow into a desert Palo Verde tree. One day last year I was driving home and looked up a side street just in time to see a 12' x 12' gazebo lift 20 to 30 feet in the air and then rocket down just behind a small truck that was passing by. An if you did air dry your things they would soon turn to powder in the strong UV light. I had a cord on an outdoor umbrella. One day when I went to pull the cord it simply turned to powder in my hand. I grabbed another piece, put it between my hands rubbed twice and there was nothing but a handful of white powder. Outdoor drying is simply not on in this area.
But you have given me a great product idea. A drying machine designed specifically designed for the southwest. The exhaust for dryers is ducted to the outside, but the air is taken in from indoor sources. We could use solar heaters and bring that hot air to the dryer from the outside, cycle it it through the dryer and then dump the humid air back outside. Far more energy goes into heating the dryer air than turning the drum.
Also we have two 17MW power generating stations going online now. One this month and another before the end of the year. And we will have the world's largest concentrated solar generating station going online in 2013. It is a 245 MW plant designed by Abengoa solar of Spain.
I think a lot of people would be surprised at how fast the energy picture is changing here in the US. Our biggest problem is political. If we could capture the heat from extreme right wing politicians we could power the whole nation and have excess energy to sell to our friends in Quebec.
On the subject of Quebec. I worked next to a Canadian software engineer from Quebec that told me his apartment there was so tightly constructed that he could almost heat the apartment with the bodies of the occupants and the energy given off by light bulbs. Something else about the city of Montreal in Quebec that surprised me was how much of the city was underground. There are whole underground shopping centers surrounding the stations of the underground rail system.
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Pete, your comments about the heat remind me of a conversation - at one time, before the advent of air conditioning, people lived with hot weather without the aid of air conditioning, and part of that was through the design of the buildings - wide overhangs (to block out the sun), lots of windows for ventilation, high ceilings, ceiling fans, etc. Unfortunately, nowadays, there isn't too much difference between a house built in Louisiana and one in Pennsylvania.
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Roger, I'm not suggesting for a minute that we get rid of mod cons. Tumble drier ownership in the UK is not far behind that of the US. But the point is that we generally don't use them if we don't have to. That's the only point I was making....these daft edicts that ban outdoor drying for no good reason whatsoever. Dust, rain, pollen, insects or even an inconsiderate neighbour burning garden waste upwind are all perfectly legitimate excuses for drying indoors.
Daniel has a point; it would be nice if buildings in hot dry areas made more use of structures like the centuries old concept of the wind tower. As I undestand it, it can lower temperatures by 10-15° on days with a reasonably steady wind. Not a complete answer, but that's 10-15° that the AC doesn't have to cope with....with zero maintenance costs.
At the other end of the scale, insulation standards in the UK are fairly pathetic by most continental standards...although they are improving. And I absolutely loathe the practice of building modern estates of identical houses with windows, porches and conservatories which bear absolutely no relationship to the orientation of the house or the prevailing winds. -
@alan fraser said:
I've been to a few places in the States where the common washing line or rotary was regarded as either unsightly or maybe just plain primitive...and everything had to be tumble dried...even in perfect drying weather, which you get a lot more over over there than in the UK. Seems to me like energy conservation ought to start with the easy and obvious.
Yes that happened to Pauline back in '86 when we visited second cousins in Cupertino, CA. Pauline did our (two kids, mine and her's) washing and hung some of it on the fence and draped more over the garden furniture.Madge, the lady of the house, could not understand what Pauline was at. However, Kevin (2nd Cousin) was all for it ..... he was a man that knew the value of a dollar
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Mike. I thought you might want to see the latest piece of equipment ginned up by Sir Robert Dyson. It is his highly directed bladeless "hot fan". When you listen to the explanation eh is advocating heating the volume and not the person. However after a quick mental analysis of the design I suspect you can achieve either goal depending on how you place the fan and what temperature setting you use. What do you think?
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Thanks for the tip Roger. If its as good as the Dyson vacuum cleaner it will be a seller and I have no doubt that is will be.
I have a few electric blow heaters around in case of a gas supply cut. They work but not very well. It looks like the Dyson heater takes the old concept and re-engineers it to achieve more efficiency, clever.
I imagine there are lot of 'old' non efficient systems being used for heating that could be upgraded!
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@alan fraser said:
And I absolutely loathe the practice of building modern estates of identical houses with windows, porches and conservatories which bear absolutely no relationship to the orientation of the house or the prevailing winds.
You are so right Alan. Even driving around the countryside here, one will notice that many of the older country houses from small labour's cottages up to large country estate houses were orientated for maximum solar gain .... then along came the Planning Act in 1960 (or there abouts) and regimented constructions to have standard set backs parallel to the public road.
Okay, its quite possible to design with these constraints but having the ability a 'skew' the house would make it a lot more efficient building
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