Building thermal insulation. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 03:20:54 pm
content: It's been very hot here over the last two days with temperatures hitting 40oC, which hasn't been recorded in the UK before. We've all been warned about this and advised to do all the stuff that should be common sense, which I find a bit patronising.One thing the mainstream media talk about is homes in the UK are designed to keep warm in winter, not cool in summer, as is the case in hotter climes. This may be true, but I've found my house's thermal insulation is working well. It scraping 40oC where I live, yet I've managed to keep temperatures below 26oC in my house. I just opened the windows at night/early morning and closed them as soon as temperatures rose. I put aluminium foil over the window in the lounge, which doesn't have curtains or blinds. I have a modern house, built in 2016.Maybe I'm being silly, but as I've just proven, thermal insulation works both ways, so even though it might be optimal, doubt it makes much difference whether thermal insulation is designed to keep heat in, or out. It's insulation after all. The main thing lacking is air conditioning.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 04:14:11 pm
content: Don't forget to strip it all out this evening, it's cooling down tonight!Edit: The common sense stuff does work surprisingly well though, particularly closed windows, curtains and flushing the house in the early morning. Our '70s house doesn't have cavity wall insulation (dirty wall ties) but it still works.

author: mag_therm
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 04:36:09 pm
content: How are the pubs holding up?Pint of Bitter still at 10 ~ 13 C ?

author: ebastler
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 04:48:09 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on July 19, 2022, 03:20:54 pmWith the aluminium foil you have addressed one of the "deficiencies" Northern homes have in heat waves: Too much sunlight coming in through large windows, and heat not getting out again due to the greenhouse effect. (Visible light passes through the windows, IR radiation does not.) Houses in Southern climates tend to have smaller windows, and/or windows better protected from direct sunlight.The other difference might be "thermal mass". Heavy stone walls with a large heat capacity help with the summer heat, since their thermal storage capacity evens out the large day/night variation. They are less helpful in winter, where the temperature is more evenly cold throughout the day/night. Hence insulation optimized for cold climates will probably focus on low heat conductivity and less on large thermal mass.

author: nali
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 05:00:41 pm
content: Quote from: ebastler on July 19, 2022, 04:48:09 pmOur windows are fitted with Pilkington K glass which they claim enhances the greenhouse effect to trap heat. Unfortunately in this weather they seem to work a bit too well

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 06:20:09 pm
content: You are obviously right about the insulation working both ways.Passive means to combat heatwaves are,* insulate houses properly,* build small windows, or if you have large windows, use shades, blinds or best, just cover most of the window with aluminum foil, to minimize solar irradiance heat input* keep ventilation at minimum during day (windows closed), and at maximum during night (all windows fully open). Or more exactly, replace as much air as possible whenever Tout < Tin.Of course air conditioning is hard to completely avoid but letting many kW in through windows just to remove it with air conditioner is total waste of energy, and so is cooling a 25-degC room during night with a compressor if you have 20-degC air available by just opening the window.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 06:58:57 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on July 19, 2022, 03:20:54 pmThat is a modern home that has no problem with hot or cold climate. Homes build earlier than the 90's will have problems though. You can't just add insulation to those without adding (expensive) mechanical ventilation systems to keep the hummidity in check.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 07:06:04 pm
content: I have been a tourist when northern Europe was having abnormally-high summer temperatures.(A headline in das Bild translated to "Is Berlin becoming Rome?".)I was not surprised when inexpensive hotels did not have air conditioning, but I was surprised that there were no window screens to facilitate air breezes without wasps and mosquitos.Berlin was also suffering from a wasp invasion that had killed at least one police officer; the sidewalk restaurants had put out glasses of the syrups used for Berliner Weisse to keep the wasps from the customers.(The poorest tarpaper shack in backwoods US has a screen door.)

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 07:58:05 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on July 19, 2022, 07:06:04 pmYes, it's not nice being here when during a heatwave. To those who say it's nothing, temperatures today have been 10oC hotter than the usual hottest summer day and over 18oC hotter than average. Overnight lows have been between 20oC and 25oC, 7oC to 13oC above normal.Oddly enough, environmentalists have been concerned about a lack of wasps in recent summers. Although wasp plagues can be a nuisance, they do serve a purpose pollinating and eating other pests.I got the hosepipe out and sprayed the outside walls last night. I was going to do the same today, but needed to water the garden and I would've felt a bit guilty wasting it. Incidentally I'd left the hose on the lawn from the night before and burned my hand because the water inside it had been heated to an extreme temperature. I suppose this shouldn't have been surprising.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 08:11:41 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on July 19, 2022, 07:58:05 pmSocial insects are important, and are declining due to various environmental problems, but an inexpensive window screen can keep them from disturbing ones sleep.

author: Gregg
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 08:43:26 pm
content: I installed a product fromhttps://atticfoil.com/under the rafters with a fairly large plenum at the peak where I put an exhaust fan ducted to a grill in a gable. The ceiling is insulated with fiberglass but before the foil install the top of the fiberglass would get to 165F at times. Now with the fan running it may get to 85F and the bottom of the foil layer may get to 100F.There are lots of Soffit vents to let in outside air. I ran 2x2 stringers horizontally where each course of the foil ended making a little more space for the outside air to mix and also made it easier to install the long foil sheets by myself. There is also a gap all around the removable central panel that covers the fan to let air from the rest of the attic to be exhausted. The fan is much larger than necessary to keep the temperature reasonable but it made it a lot nicer to work in the attic; now it has a speed control. It is manually switched from below; I wanted to put a nice automatic control panel on the wall in a hallway but my wife thought that would be ugly.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 08:53:01 pm
content: Quote from: Gregg on July 19, 2022, 08:43:26 pmMy loft has loads of fibreglass insulation. There's no fan but I believe there's some ventilation around the sides. I'm not going to up up there to take a picture, until it's cooled down. I have no idea how hot it was there this afternoon, probably 60oC, 140oF.I've just got home. It's 21:50 in the evening, the temperature is outside is 29.7oC, but it's 28oC upstairs and 25oC downstairs in my house. There's been light rain for the last half hour. Hopefully it will cool enough for me to open the windows soon.

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 09:16:50 pm
content: The temperature outside (22.20) is 20.7'C, down from 33'C at 5pm, that was a really fast drop. Bliss!P.S. There isn't an opening in the house that isn't open and I'm considering making a few more!150200mm (I think) of fibre glass in the loft with soffit and apex vents btw.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 10:08:46 pm
content: I notice a lot of people had their windows open around here but when outside air is at like 40C it's probably counter-effective to cooling the building.A few homes around here have shutters that can cover their windows, I think this is a fantastic idea and will definitely be something to investigate before next summer.Of course there does come a certain point when air conditioning is necessary, and while the UK does not currently get all that many 40C days even a 30C day can be uncomfortable if a few similar days have preceded it. So I will certainly be installing it in our property.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 10:54:00 pm
content: Quote from: Gyro on July 19, 2022, 09:16:50 pmLucky you. It's still above 25oC here and it's nearly midnight. I opened the upstairs windows first and now I've just opened the downstairs windows, because it's the same temperature outside as indoors.Quote from: tom66 on July 19, 2022, 10:08:46 pmI don't understand why some people open the windows in the middle of the day. It's generally better to keep them closed when the sun is out and open at night. Mine also have a security latch on them, but I don't bother as I live in a fairly safe area and there's nothing worth nicking in my house anyway.

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 10:58:59 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 19, 2022, 10:08:46 pmPerhaps you need to embrace the South German building style using exterior roller shutters.https://www.neuffer.de/en/roller-shutters.phpWorks wonders on the sunny side of the house.Concerning air conditioning: I don't know the size of your garden, but a ground source heat pump will heat your house in the winter and cool it during the summer:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pumpAnd you'll save a heck of a lot of money on energy.

author: Halcyon
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 11:09:57 pm
content: Thermal insulation is used extensively in house construction in Australia, both within the walls and the roof. It's designed not only to keep heat you generate inside the home from being lost, but also to keep the heat in summer from entering.If you go into very old homes that don't have insulation (or very little of it), you can definitely feel the difference. They are like sweat boxes in summer and chilling in the winter.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 19, 2022, 11:44:04 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on July 19, 2022, 07:58:05 pmIts not "nothing" but its not a dire emergency, you can say its blah degrees more than normal but thats only what you are acclimatized to. The overnight minimum is a good measure as thats the best case possible with perfect insulation and no air-con, and often most disruptive (preventing sleep/rest). Australian city highest overnight minimums in the last 10 years (just the south east, no tropics):Melbourne: 28Adelaide: 34Canberra: 27Sydney: 25All these places see daily maximums over 40 C routinely, yet air-conditioning is not universal: Adelaide 90%, others 70%.Yes, heat is a bigger threat to life than cold, but that seems to have some strong acclimatization or behavioral content that London does poorly with:https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/heat-and-health-2/assessmentSo the rest of the world will rightly point to the UK (London) and say learn to adapt with high and low temperature extremes, everyone else seems to survive better.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2022, 03:19:40 am
content: The insulation works equally well both ways. Opening a couple windows at night and using a fan to pull a draft through helps if you do not have air conditioning, but can be counterproductive if it is humid and you do have air conditioning because it will load the air in the house up with water which the air conditioning will have to remove later.If it is hot and dry, then a swap cooler is nice.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2022, 08:50:09 am
content: Remember during Gulf War I (the retrocon name given later) at work with us all watching TV to see the live war coverage. Helps to be in the same time zone as Bhagdad, and CNN popped over to the London correspondent about the current UK heatwave, with temperatures hitting the highest of 31C. Asked my colleague when was it 31C by us, and he replied it passed that at 07H15, and was, when he went through to tea, just a shade under 45C indoors. AC unit for our section having kind of moved large chunks of compressor off the roof a few months before when the compressor decided that throwing a rod was only the final thing, and threw heads off along with the rods.Peak we measures was 75C 1m under the concrete roof, and we went through 100l of water a day, between the 12 of us in there. People looked at me funny when i remarked a few times how cool it was outside, only 41C, till they came in at lunch time. Most popular room was the ATE system, with it's separate AC system, made from 3 Defy 36000BTU console units, and those would be repaired post haste, as otherwise there would be no flyable aircraft.Plenty of people came for winter holidays, and dropped dead from heatstroke, even before noon, while us that had been through a summer or two were out wearing jerseys, because 25C was cold to us.

author: Miyuki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2022, 10:00:25 am
content: I have an over a hundred years old houseAnd our ancestors have a smart solution to summer heat/sun heatingThe roof overhang is designed so it shades windows during summer but allow all the sun to pass during winter monthsI have added 24cm of styrofoam insulation on the northern wall and about 20cm is planned on other walls to keep both cold and heat outside and stable temperature inside.As the house is built from stone and full bricks with walls 50-60cm thick, this provides massive thermal mass.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2022, 02:00:40 pm
content: Our house is basically uninsulated, and we have a huge south-facing kitchen window (frame is metal and dating from the 40's or something).On Monday we closed the (thin, red) blind on the window about 3/4 (too many plants on the windowsill to go the whole way) and kept the doors and windows shut. It was 37C outside and I didn't measure the kitchen but it was pleasantly cool. Even chilled, although that might be the contrast with outside. I belatedly noticed that someone was baking bread in the combioven!Yesterday it was 40C in the shade and the same measures taken (less the bread baking). Bit warmer in the kitchen since the overnight temperature had been 23C, so it wasn't going to be cooler than that. Still pleasantly cool.In contrast, my office has aircon which I set to 30C, translating to 27C actual, and that was noticeably warmer than the kitchen.Summary: the trick of getting cool air in early then shutting out the heat and sunlight works very well. I think insulation would only show its worth if you had to use energy for cooling/heating (aircon, radiators), which would show up as reduced bills. But it's not necessary to combat extremes in the short term.

author: Benta
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2022, 08:30:35 pm
content: This might interest you:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/20/britain-worst-built-homes-europe-extreme-weather-upgrade

author: Gyro
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2022, 08:56:52 pm
content: Quote

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2022, 09:08:28 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on July 19, 2022, 11:44:04 pmI question whether it's true that heat kills more, than cold in the UK. Look at the average temperatures for London and compare them to the graphs in the link. According to those graphs, our winters are consistently below the temperature which results in increased excess deaths, yet much less so in summer.Now look at the extreme heat we had yesterday, compared to normal. A high of 40°C, 17°C above average. A low of 25.8 °C, 11.6°C above average and warmer than Sydney's record low. The hottest night of the year in London is normally around 18°C and there are only 2.5 days on average above 30°C. You're right the hot night was more of a problem, bearing in mind it was only <26°C for a short time before dawn and buildings wouldn't have reached anywhere thermal equilibrium, even with all the windows open.https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2022/record-temperatures-2022-a-reviewhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London#ClimateQuote from: Benta on July 20, 2022, 08:30:35 pmIt really isn't that bad. People need to invest on improving insulation. My parent's house is >70 years old and they fixed the insulation. The added the following: extra fibreglass was laid down in the loft, expanding foam cavity, double glazing and a conservatory which helps add another barrier. Their house is now nearly as good as mine, built about 65 years later.Anyway, the weather is now back to normal. It's 18°C and pouring with rain.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2022, 09:16:33 pm
content: A quick Google search for heat vs cold deaths in the US reveals that the issue here is not settled.It's difficult to determine, since death certificates rarely mention either heat or cold as the cause.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2022, 09:43:14 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on July 20, 2022, 09:16:33 pmI can see that being debatable in the US, but in the UK there definitely seem to be more cold related deaths, than hot.Quotehttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/27/dying-cold-europe-fuel-poverty-energy-spendingQuotehttps://taking.care/blogs/resources-advice/the-main-causes-of-uk-heatwave-deaths-2022I still question the accuracy of those articles. There have been years with extremes of temperature such as 2018, with a cold February-March followed by one of the hottest Julys. I suppose it's possible the winter cold killed the vulnerable, so there were fewer people around in summer. On the other hand COVID-16 would have killed many vulnerable people, so one would expect there to be fewer deaths in the summers of 2020 and 2021, although perhaps too many vulnerable people stayed in their hot houses, rather going out through fear of catching the virus. There are many factors.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2022, 09:53:15 pm
content: I think we used to get more cold1winter days than hot summer days, so even with equal numbers of casualties the hot days would be more dangerous. Additionally, I think you need proper cold for an extended period to have an issue, whereas even a short period of too much heat can be a killer. By cold and hot I mean problematic temperatures, not just relatively cold and hot.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2022, 10:17:23 pm
content: Another detail about climate in the US, specifically where I live in Chicago, is that the average temperature (averaged over 24 hours) has increased with the overall warming trend, but that the nighttime low temperature has increased more than has the daytime high temperature. This makes it more difficult to cool a house in the summer without A/C.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2022, 10:26:28 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on July 20, 2022, 09:08:28 pmIs Kenley really the normal go-to benchmark location for London weather?? That is a further extreme within an extreme,. Relaxing "Sydney" to any of the weather stations within the greater area would have their maximum overnight temperature at least 29 degrees (cant be bothered to fully export all the data and check further) but only a tiny portion of the population would be exposed to those outliers, a dense city location is more representative.Heat doesn't kill more people than cold, yet heat presents a larger risk/threat to life as humans have a harder time adapting (very easy to put on more clothes when its cold). Few hot days and many cold days of course multiply out to different fatality counts.Is cycling safer than driving a car in London because there are fewer deaths per capita or annually? hell no. Its wildly more dangerous when measured by exposure. But its till more dangerous than cycling in say The Netherlands so people can rightly question why the UK/London isnt doing better and what are they doing wrong to cause these excess deaths? Same with the extreme temperatures, unprecedented for Londoners but actually pretty common elsewhere without the excess deaths/wailing.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 20, 2022, 10:38:43 pm
content: QuoteWe're just not used to it. Our summers are typically OK-ish but nothing to write home about. Maybe a couple of days of nice sun, but then it will rain. Hell, every time there's an eclipse we don't see it because of cloud cover.It's noticeable that when we hit 18C you get blokes down the shops in T-shirts. At 20C everyone is down to shorts too. That's an indication of what we consider 'hot'

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 08:10:00 am
content: Quote from: Someone on July 20, 2022, 10:26:28 pmLondon is typically a couple of degrees warmer than the surrounding area. What was unusual is the records set were not in the most urban ares. Kenley is a suburb just inside the London borough and the record high was at 40.3°C in Coningsby, a rural area 110 miles north of London.What makes you so certain deaths from cold are similar to those from heat in the UK? You haven't provided solid evidence to backup your assertions. The figures I posted were for the whole summer/winter. I accept they might not be 100% accurate, but they seem plausible, given our average temperatures.Quote from: TimFox on July 20, 2022, 10:17:23 pmI agree about overnight lows. The heatwave in 2018 was much longer, making July much warmer on average, but it cooled down at night.This was a short lived heatwave, lasting just a few days. There were probably more deaths in 2003, which lasted much longer.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 10:17:24 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on July 21, 2022, 08:10:00 amHow much more clearly do I have to say this:extreme hot weather is more of a risk to people than extreme cold weathernothing comparative about the number of deaths/fatalities, the statement is about rateLondon bends up the risk at both low and high extremes more than other comparable cities, and all the cities have risks that are higher (and steeper increasing) in hot extremes than in cold extremes. Pictured below for people who can't be bothered to read this at the same time as looking at the external site (https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/heat-and-health-2/assessment). We could take your insistence on annualised numbers and from that data with its top and bottom 2.5 percentiles marked out, oh look very similar absolute numbers of deaths occur during the 2.5% hottest days compared to the 2.5% coldest days.but once again all I keep saying is... unusual hot is more dangerous to peoples health than unusual coldeven this the most extreme record setting heatwave in the UK, still in the shadow of covid, something we have more control over than the weather but are letting loose anyway.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 11:08:06 am
content: Quote from: Someone on July 21, 2022, 10:17:24 amYes, it's true people can warm up more easily in winter, than cool in summer, but you're missing the point: in the UK, it's likely we cumulatively have more cold, than heat related fatalities.The most concerning thing about those graphs is the cold deaths in London, vs Stockholm in Sweden, not the heat related deaths given January and February are 6°C milder. It's true July and August are only a bit higher than Stockholm's but the extremes are much higher and the summer is much longer. This is an effect of Stockholm being further away from the Atlantic ocean and further north. London gets more of a breeze from the Atlantic, but the sun is stronger and a southerly can push temperatures very high for the latitude.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm#Climatehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London#ClimateWe do need to do better insulating, heating and cooling ours homes in the UK. Insulation will help with both extremes, but ultimately we need better heating, especially for the vulnerable. Heat pumps are touted as the solution, but are expensive. I suppose the main advantage is a heat pump can cool as well as heat. Unfortunately I can't see many people replacing their gas boilers with heat pumps, because it won't pay off. Hopefully electricity will become cheaper than gas at some point, due to market forces.Oh and the last two years has shown we can't control a virus, any more than the weather.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 11:22:34 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on July 21, 2022, 11:08:06 amThe graphs and study I linked to disagree with that. The number of deaths from the outlier days of cold or heat are similar in quantity. Or you want to argue some 10-20% difference as if its significant???Look at it anyway you like from your local perspective/optics, but to people outside the UK, Londoners (and the UK in general) do poorly with protecting themselves from hot and cold when compared to other cities. Be that on absolute temperature, or percentile outliers, its a higher risk in all examples. Something is odd about the London (UK) populations ability to withstand temperature extremes, they're bad at it, unexplainably....Quote from: Zero999 on July 21, 2022, 11:08:06 amLol, still blinkered with the local stance desperately looking away from solutions rather than to them. Even with the broken UK energy market forcing gas to 1/4 the price of electricity, gas heating is still not an obvious solution over heat pumps (for a greenfield install).Quote from: Zero999 on July 21, 2022, 11:08:06 amNo, plenty of places have shown how it is possible to control covid with reducing human contact, just like its possible to wear more clothes and not die of cold. Controlling the weather isn't required.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 01:07:14 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on July 21, 2022, 11:22:34 amNo they don't. They just show relative mortality, referenced to a temperature when mortality is minimum, which is about 19°C and is also the mean for the warmest month in London. The relative risk is over 2.5 at 30°C, call it 2.8, so nearly three times as many people die when it's that hot, compared to when it's 19°C, yet there are only an average of 2.5 days per year above 30°C. Compare this to cold: the relative risk is just under 1.5, call it 1.4, at 0°C, yet London has 27 nights per year below freezing.https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-climate-averages/gcpsvg3ncIt's more nuanced than that. There are other factors at play, such as the timing of the heatwave. Read the associated text.QuoteThat's because temperature extremes are much less common in London, compared to elsewhere in Europe, so when they do occur, mortality is higher.QuoteThe problem is most people already have gas boilers and replacing them with heat pumps is not economical. What other solutions are they? Insulation only goes so far. Even if it's perfect the best you'll get is an indoor temperature a few degrees above the annual average.QuoteNot for very long and lots of the measures imposed have arguably caused more years of life lost.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 10:55:42 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on July 21, 2022, 01:07:14 pmYou seem to keep talking about your figures as if its disproving what I put up, but its just something entirely different....Quote from: Someone on July 21, 2022, 10:17:24 amBelow is the graph again with some crayon markup to highlight the point you keep trying to argue against. The 2.5% outlier temperatures high and low, have similar numbers of deaths (area inside the circled bits) and the hot end has an elevated risk as it goes to the further extreme/limits. You just picked some arbitrary temperatures that aren't comparable in their occurrence, which I never suggested, I keep pointing back to comparable points.Comparable, similar, its not some obvious cold = more deaths unless you take an unbalanced measure of which days to include in the counting of extreme/outlier. You keep trying to make your own interpretation of what is/isnt an outlier, to suit your point, misrepresenting/misinterpreting what I'm pointing at (now with a big crayon since you keep walking this off to stupidity).

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 21, 2022, 11:06:54 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on July 21, 2022, 01:07:14 pmLol, so you'd have some data/figures to back that up? "letting it rip" and taking a soft-to-zero approach to controlling covid is not a binary alternative to locking down the population in their houses, there are a huge range of measures somewhere in between that each have their own tradeoffs. But sure, just dismiss every possible control measure (I specifically suggested an effective and low impact example) as not worth it because you say "lots" of measures arent delivering a net benefit. Simple challenge, point to credible control measure that have been shown to reduce life more than it increased it, rather than just adding unsupported nonsense.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2022, 07:37:08 am
content: Quote from: Someone on July 21, 2022, 11:06:54 pmGiven humans are a social species, reducing human contact is a fairly costly measure. There isn't solid data to prove solidly which measures genuinely helped and which did harm more than good. Every country did different things and there are too many confounding factors to link cause and effect. Most of the measures seem to have done more harm, where I live. Either way, this isn't the place to discuss it. I shouldn't have taken the bait, when you mentioned COVID.Quote from: Someone on July 21, 2022, 10:55:42 pmWe were focusing on different parts of the graph. I didn't look at the bar chart, which just says the most number of deaths occur when the temperature is 11°C, which oddly enough is close to the mean annual temperature for London. The dotted lines you've highlighted are close to the mean overnight low in January and July daily high.The article just talks about deaths vs temperature. It doesn't try to directly attribute cause and effect. Infectious diseases such as influenza peak in the cold months here, yet when it's hot people might do risky things to cool of, such as go for a swim in lakes and rivers.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 22, 2022, 03:46:29 pm
content: I think people dying out of cold vs. hot are different segments.Ignoring really harsh climates like Siberia, so in UK and similar, it's much simpler to protect oneself from cold vs. hot. So dying out of cold means total homelessness, lack of any kind of shelter, lack of clothes, lack of motivation to harvest some cardboard boxes or used clothes out of trash - basically, total inability to live. Probably many who died out of cold in statistics would have died out of drugs or alcohol if not cold.But ignoring the danger of heat can easily be explained by much smaller motivational issues, like "I don't want to invest in air conditioner, it's just a few weeks a year, besides it consumes a lot of power, and I have been on this planet for 85 years, bloody youngsters and their toys".But we are getting back to this again, people in UK should be aggressively installing air-to-air heatpumps whenever possible, as they will significantly ease the energy problem during winter, and also help during summer. Of course it is then tempting to use a lot of energy to provide comfortable cooling but the net effect is still positive.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2022, 11:19:06 am
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on July 22, 2022, 03:46:29 pmThe problem in the UK is, a lot of old and vulnerable people live in homes with inadequate insulation and can't afford high fuel bills. It's obviously easier to keep warm when it's cold, than cool, when it's hot but the UK still gets many more cold days vs hot. Thefigures I posted abovestill shows death from cold is still more likely, than due to heat. I accept it's not solid data, but a ratio of 2 deaths from the cold, for every death from heat makes sense, given our climate. This might change in the future.The fact is heat pumps don't make financial sense. A heat pump installation costs 10 times the price, compared an efficient gas boiler. Gas is much cheaper than electricity, so a heat pump isn't even cheaper to run. Perhaps this might change in future, especially for new builds, as a lot of the cost is ripping everything out and starting again. I certainly wouldn't consider a heat pump. I don't have a hot water cylinder and I don't even use hot water very often. I take cold showers most of the time and have found modern detergents are good enough to wast my dishes in cold water, or I'll just boil the kettle.We need to work on improving insulation, which will provide protection against both hot and cold. Here's a photograph of the loft insulation in my house and my parents'. My parents' house did come with some insulation, but they upgraded it around 25 years ago. They both look pretty similar, even though my house was build in 2016 and my parents' back in the 1950s.EDIT:This is odd, the picture of the insulation in my parents' house has been flipped 180 degrees by the forum software. I checked the original file and it's the right way up. I don't know why it's upside down here.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2022, 04:44:03 pm
content: Heat pumps make sense if you can take advantage of arbitrage (which requires a lot of capital!)For instance a home battery of 15kWh or so can be charged at night on off peak rates and a heat pump can then provide heating/cooling during the day (hot water running overnight as a tank will hold that just fine.) As much demand as possible should be shifted into this off peak period, e.g. home appliances.Off peak rates are about 1/4 that of on peak and this is likely to remain the case as wind power and other renewables kick in.At say 8p/kWh you are looking at an equivalent unit price of 2p/kWh for heating and cooling at a COP of 4.If you add solar then you can using a flexible tariff sell energy back to the grid at 50p+/kWh during peak times whilst you draw down on a battery during that period.The problem is a home energy storage system even without solar is knocking on £5k so you have to be in it for the long haul to make this pay off. This is "Vimes' theory of socioeconomic unfairness" again.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2022, 04:49:12 pm
content: QuotePlease tell me who your energy provider is as my off peak rate is about 2/3 of peak

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2022, 04:56:21 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on July 24, 2022, 04:49:12 pmOctopus Go, I pay presently 5.5p/kWh in the off peak (5hrs from 8.30pm) and 14.2p/kWh on peak. Next year this goes up to 8.25p/kWh and ~40p/kWh so that's 4.8x difference. If I wanted 4 hours off peak, I'd pay 7.5p/kWh instead but I like the extra hour.You need a SMETS2 smart meter to benefit from this.It makes for cheap EV usage and since off peak starts at 8.30pm (moving to 9.30pm) it captures some of the late evening usage, and the tumble dryer gets put on then.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2022, 05:41:26 pm
content: QuoteAh a different off peak tariff to the traditional economy 7,i'll have to run some numbers,but the 10p a unit more peak cost to what im paying and only 5 hours off peak initially make it look like i'd be worse off

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2022, 06:29:19 pm
content: Yeah the 5hrs off peak do mean I have upwards of 9kW of load switch on around 8.30pm sometimes... Dishwasher, EV charger, tumble dryer, sometimes a late dinner and the hot water tank is now on off peak electricity as it costs less than gas to heat it that way.I think the energy providers are offering off peak tariffs not because it is profitable during the off peak, but because by encouraging you to shift away from on peak, they aren't paying huge amounts per kWh. On peak prices to providers can be upwards of £'s per kWh so even 1kWh shifted into the off peak could be worth giving a discount on during the off peak, especially right now where gas peaker plants are expensive to operate given the high cost of gas.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 24, 2022, 11:13:34 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on July 24, 2022, 11:19:06 amExpensive? 10 times the price? Heat pumps start well under 1000 dollarpounds:https://www.saturnsales.co.uk/Mitsubishi-High-Efficiency-Heat-Pumps-Air-Conditioning.htmlHeating your whole house and amortizing the cost of the device is not essential to being safe, that's being picky. If you want to throw up alarming figures, explain the basis for them. Because everywhere else sees heat pumps as the cheapest way to go be that lifecycle cost, installation cost, or running cost. That link above is to cheap air-air units with SCOP (seasonally averaged coefficient of performance) over 5, so even with the UK's broken energy market keeping gas synthetically cheap.... heat pumps still end up cheaper to run.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2022, 12:52:47 am
content: I fitted a heat pump to my office, which previously was heated with a fan heater. It's about 5.5mx3.3mx2m so my main problem was finding a system small enough! I wound up with a DIY one (everything pre-charged, you just push in the bayonet-type fittings to connect the inside to outside). it cost £695 11 years ago and paid for itself within 3 years. Not only that, it's a much nicer warmth than a fan heater (no sudden cold feeling when the fan goes off, no hotspots and cold spots), and in the summer it can cool instead. One of my better purchases.Downside is it can take a little while to get up to temperature, but that can be solved with some smarts, as can automatically turning it on low if the temperature drops below 12C.As Someone notes, you don't need to heat the entire property to be safe. In older times it was common to have an open fire in the living room and the rest of the place would freeze, but people survived. I think looking at using a heat pump to deal with a single room, leaving the rest of the place to be the existing boiler which can then be turned off for most of the time, would save a few bob.

author: Miyuki
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2022, 04:40:10 am
content: Quote from: Someone on July 24, 2022, 11:13:34 pmI do not know how in the UK but in continental Europe, as most places have huge subsidies for installation, prices skyrocketed, especially with companies licensed to install the "right models" on the list for those subsidies.And the installation cost billed by those companies is huge.But those Mitsubishi units you posted look decently priced.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2022, 07:06:58 am
content: You can also get monobloc heat pumps:https://les.mitsubishielectric.co.uk/products/residential-heating/outdoor/ecodan-puhz-monobloc-air-source-heat-pumpwhich can be installed by a regular plumber, as all the air con stuff is in one self-contained unit. These, in theory, just fit in place of the heating loop in your property, though you may require some radiators to be changed to handle the lower delta-T.These cost ~roughly 2-3x the cost of a gas boiler right now.Personally I'd keep the gas boiler as a backup and use air source heat pumps for the majority of the time. For the odd day that goes below 0C where heat pumps roll off in efficiency, I can switch to gas. It's a shame I'll have to pay a gas connection fee all year round but I guess someone's got to pay for the infrastructure.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2022, 07:20:54 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 25, 2022, 07:06:58 amIt's not the cost of the heat pump itself for many people. Heat pumps don't provide instant hot water. I have a combi boiler, which heats the water as it's being used. A heat pump would require a hot water cylinder to be fitted, costing more in pipework, labour and space. At the moment, it wouldn't pay for me to fit a heat pump. I'm better off paying the mortgage off more quickly, or investing the money in stocks and shares.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2022, 07:38:34 am
content: Maybe I'm thinking about this in the longer term but a hot water tank is a benefit, not a cost.Combi boilers are inefficient for heating hot water because they produce it on demand: they need to burn a tremendous amount of gas to get the heat exchanger up to temperature, if the system hasn't been used for heating recently. I recall the calculation being that if your system takes 30 seconds before upstairs taps have hot water, then it burned about 200Wh of gas just getting to that point, let alone any actual usage. It's fine if all you do is take showers (runtime >> startup time), but if you wash your hands with warm water, then it's not going to take many cycles before that pays off.Whereas a tank, whilst it does use space, consumes relatively little 'lost' energy (our tank is ca. 1kWh/day and better ones do exist) that's made up by the lack of cycling. And once we have a home with solar, excess power from that can divert into the tank, or cheap electricity can be bought overnight to charge it up.You can also get electric instant hot water, usually around 9-12kW. More expensive than a combi though, and a bit slower admittedly, but an option if you don't want a tank and still wanted heat pumps.I'm a big fan of 'inflationary hacks' and energy efficiency is one of those. Paying the mortgage down quicker is also sensible; it depends on your longer term opinions on energy prices...will they go down or stay where they are, or even go further up?

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2022, 10:04:03 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on July 25, 2022, 07:38:34 amIt depends on your usage.I hardly ever use hot water, so that would be 1kWh/day up in smoke. I live on my own. I normally shower cold and use cold water to wash my hands, as hot dries my skin. If I need hot water to wash the dishes, I boil a kettle, but I find modern detergents are so good I can use cold if they're not very greasy. The hot water from the combi boiler is used occasionally, normally when I have guests over who want a hot shower. I have the thermostat set to a cool 15°C and it's only on for 6 hours a day on work days and a bit more when I'm off work, although I'm often out.I doubt the energy savings of a heat pump would ever pay for its upfront cost, then there's all the inconvenience and hassle of getting it done which is more of a deterrent than the money for me.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2022, 12:31:18 pm
content: Yeah, that's fair enough - you're probably a rounding error in terms of savings.Still, it disappoints me that new properties are being built with combi boilers still. It's a really bad decision. These should be super-insulated and use small heat pumps to provide heating and cooling.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2022, 01:42:18 pm
content: QuoteAnd strangely the price increase is around the same amount as the subsidy.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2022, 02:55:35 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on July 24, 2022, 11:13:34 pmYes, plus:It's becoming more and more obvious this synthetically cheap gas is not going to last for long. Also here we have this thing called "moral".For example, right now Finnish taxpayers are paying for Germany's synthetically cheap gas. The problem just is: Germany has 16x the population. Now that Finland subsidized German cheap gas by some ~10 billion euros - 4% of the country's GDP - divided to each German this is mere ~120EUR. Sure it helps them a bit. But divide the same sum to every Finn, and now it is suddenly ~2000 EUR. You could install five ****king million heatpumps (premium models) with this sum. It would be better investment than just paying for more expensive gas.The only consequence is slow annihilation of Finland as a country, and transition into total poverty and source of some cheap labor, in eternal debt.Once you have pumped us dry, then there is no Finland left to pay for your bills. The problem is, due to the small size of Finland, we are already very close to that point.At some point your fixed price gas contracts just can't be maintained because someone has to pay the actual bill.Thanks to Brexit we don't likely to have to literally payyour(the UK commenters) gas bills. But the bottom line is the same: your bullshit gas is artificially cheap, and that is not going to last forever.Meanwhile in Finland, successful people avoid earning too much to avoid 70% income tax, and instead do plumbing work for their own houses. This way we can at least try to avoid sending any more money out of this country. But for long-term productivity, it would be more fruitful if I did EE things as full-time job (because I'm relatively good with this) and let others do the plumbing. But can't do that, because then my wage is sent to Germany, Spain etc., and Istillcan't afford a plumber.So I have installed my heatpump myself. I have made plumbing for water energy storage system myself. I have installed heat recovery ventilator myself. I have to, because our heating energy bills have quadrupled during this year. We don't have the luxury of 10-year fixed price cheap gas contracts.Think about that.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2022, 08:42:29 pm
content: Gas is cheaper than electricity. There's nothing artificial about that. It's a primary energy source, where as electricity is mostly secondary i.e. generated from nuclear, gas and coal. I know some of it is renewable and there are government subsidies for green energy.Here's my bill showing my usage over the last year. To be fair we did have a mild winter. I've seen higher bills, but even then, I don't see how I could save any money with a heat pump. I don't use enough heating for that.Annual Energy Usage July 2021 to 2022

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2022, 09:11:17 pm
content: At present, electricity prices are coupled to the cost of the most expensive generation source, which is currently gas due to the Ukraine invasion. In principle, this exists to ensure that this source is always available for grid stability. The problem is, this is leading to situations like this on Agile (for today, at least):https://www.energy-stats.uk/octopus-agile/... where prices rarely dip below 40p/kWh despite somewhere around 33% of energy being generated by wind which typically has a strike price of around 4p/kWh. (You can very roughly calculate the cost paid at auction by taking the per kWh price and dividing by 2.2 for Agile.) The most marginal generator sets the half hourly price, even if it contributes only 5% of the energy. We've had days when renewables are providing upwards of 80% of all demand but prices remain stubbornly high because of this rule.Ofgem are consulting on changing this, as they believe that the price should be determined by a true supply and demand auction. (Frequency reserve auctions will still exist to provide stability.) The result *should* be lower energy prices, but only when renewables are in high supply. So there's no reason to expect the 4x or so cost difference between gas and electricity to remain true forever, they may well begin to vary considerably.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2022, 09:52:56 pm
content: My gas has gone up more than electricity. If it was purely due to gas prices, then both should have gone up the same.Last year had a colder winter and April was especially cold, so my usage was much higher, but this year's lower usage hasn't been enough to offset the higher price. I'm not too bothered as it's still not much money for me spread over a year, as my usage is so low.Annual Energy Usage October 2020 to 2021

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2022, 10:18:30 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on July 25, 2022, 08:42:29 pmCheaper yes, cheaper by a factor of 4x or more? Historically true, but not in the past few years (depending on your wholesale market).https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/wholesale-market-indicatorsGas is up around 1/3 to 1/2 the price per unit of energy compared to electricity pretty much around the world, and this started happening before the eastern European conflict (as tom66 mentions above electricity price will track marginal generation costs so they will lift together somewhat).UK consumers having their energy regulator force the retail price ratio to be different to the wholesale price ratio is a massive market intervention, its artificial, and that amounts to a subsidy for gas users. Its not sustainable economically, someone is paying for it. But you'll make lots of noise and confusion if people point this out because you're the one benefiting. We're headed for Streisand Effect here, keep making more noise and will only getmoreattention.

author: PlainName
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2022, 10:34:31 pm
content: Does it really matter if gas is cheaper or more expensive? The fact is it's a single source - run out, or get cut off, and you have nothing. With electricity you can switch to whatever fuel you can use to drive a generator - water, wind, solar,gas, whatever. So the end user (meaning the equipment to be powered) should logically be electric.Of course, electricity consumers are dependent on the grid and whatever thy choose to use for fuel. When they go down, so do we. We might have a local generator of some form and we might even have decent solar or wind, but typically we either live and die with the grid, or completely off the grid. Even with solar and wind, if we are on the grid that all goes down too if the grid does. We need a simple way for a switch between grid and local generation, transparent (apart from how much power) to the consuming equipment.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 25, 2022, 11:25:01 pm
content: Quote from: dunkemhigh on July 25, 2022, 10:34:31 pmThe end user (generally) just picks the lowest cost option. When consumers are sold artificially cheap gas, of course they use it. Its those gas to electricity generators that should be stabilizing the relative wholesale market pricing of the two, whenever electricity is more than 3x the cost of gas all the combined cycle gas generators can start printing money (profiting), bringing the price of gas up and the price of electricity down. Around 1/3 of the electricity generation and capacity in the UK is gas fired, and load factors have been steadily dropping with the decline in electricity demand, so they have capacity spare.When gas burned in a power plant and then used to run a heat pump makes more heat than just burning the gas directly at point of use, consumers should be incentivized to have heat pumps. A free market would have reached that equilibrium long ago. But the UK keep gas pricing low for consumers, and those consumers do "stupid" things in response (but then come on here and shout about how nothing is wrong and its all completely normal).

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 27, 2022, 06:05:06 pm
content: State interference with markets is seldom a good thing. The government go on about net zero and banning gas boilers, but won't stop meddling with the market. I don't buy into net zero, because our emissions are a drop in the ocean compared to other countries.I'm not averse to the idea of a heat pump, but there's no point in me installing one. Perhaps if I have to because my gas boiler breaks down, I might consider one, if it can cool as well as heat. My CO2emissions are well below the average for Brit. I don't drive and cycle most places. I do enough as it is.

author: EPAIII
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2022, 12:53:54 am
content: No screens in Germany. Who would have thought that? I guess the need for them, although present, must be rare.As for US homes, my experience is windows here do have them. But doors are another thing. Most people do not leave their doors open. Closed and locked is more the norm.That "... poorest tarpaper shack in backwoods US ..." is probably about ready to fall down or blow away with the next stiff breeze. The screen door may be the only door. Believe me, I have seen more than one.Quote from: TimFox on July 19, 2022, 07:06:04 pm

author: EPAIII
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: July 28, 2022, 01:44:26 am
content: I did not read all of the responses above, but I do have one GREAT tip on staying cooler in the summer. It is highly reflective roof paint.I lived for over a decade in the Miami, Florida area. Now it is not the hottest climate where I have lived, New Orleans, El Paso, and my present home town of Beaumont Texas all have hotter weather in the summer. El Paso was the hottest. The asphalt streets softened to the point where trucks sank in at traffic lights. But the humidity was lower so you did not feel it as much. Miami had the advantage of being between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico and that moderated it's weather.But back to my point: highly reflective roof paint. My home there had a concrete tile roof: they were very common in that area. It was painted white, probably because that color reflected the most light and, presumably, heat. Good idea. But after I had been there for some years I saw that my roof looked bad and needed a new coat of paint. So I purchased a brand that was highly recommended and I painted it.The improvement was instant and easily observed. When I walked on the old paint surface, I could feel the heat through my shoes. That part of the roof was HOT. Almost uncomfortably so, even with my shoes. But the newly painted surface was A LOT cooler. I checked this with my hand. I could not keep my hand on the old paint but could easily feel the relative coolness of the new.I can't remember the brand of paint, but I believe it contained a lot of titanium dioxide. But there may have been other, proprietary ingredients.Another thing is most houses in the Miami/Ft Lauderdale area had stucco covered exterior walls and they too were usually painted white. And window awnings were also very popular. They stopped direct sunlight from entering the window.My point is, the roof faces UP and therefore gathers more heat than the walls and it does so ALL DAY LONG while most walls are in shade half the time or more. A highly reflective roof paint/coating will stop the absorption of a large percentage of that heat. And the same applies to the exterior walls. To me this is the first line of defense against heat. Insulation would be second and an AC system third.Oh, and shade trees also help a lot. But they can be problematic if your area suffers from hurricanes or other severe storms as one close to a house or other building can easily be blown over. I saw a front yard tree once that went from the front door of a home to the back door. It's roots were still in the front yard, but it's top was in the back. It cleared a path that almost perfectly bisected the house.