I reckon geothermal is the real future for home heating and cooling. A heat pump is at its most efficient when it's exchanging heat with a substance about ground temperature. The upfront cost needs to come down a lot but drilling holes straight down is a pretty straightforward task that should become easier with better automation. We're already seeing it used with the latest oil wells so it's only a matter of time before it trickles down to the average home builder.
Eh, my friend has one and the electric bills are massive. He said if h didn't buy a house with one already he'd go gas in a heartbeat.
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
edited December 2021
I'm a glass top stove owner who cooks mostly with cast iron. It's fine. Just gotta be careful not to drop the pans. I would love induction though. When I remodel I'll definitely budget for a nice big induction cooktop.
Gas stoves aren't necessarily better for the time it takes to heat something up, but rather the time it takes to adjust heat up or down. Induction stoves are as responsive as gas, but are 2-4x the price of traditional gas or coil stoves.
But I will say that for some areas it makes sense to go to electric heat with heat pump technology, but still nowhere near ready for others. Here in Chicago where it can regularly hit -10F, electric resistance heating would be 2-3x more expensive than gas (meaning $5-600+/mo for 4-6 months a year), and heat pumps just don't work well enough at those temperatures to be a primary/sole heat source.
A lot of folks here have been going split pumps lately and it does pretty well, but yeah, it does have a limit. My in laws have the split pumps, but they still have a fireplace for the super duper cold nights.
I reckon geothermal is the real future for home heating and cooling. A heat pump is at its most efficient when it's exchanging heat with a substance about ground temperature. The upfront cost needs to come down a lot but drilling holes straight down is a pretty straightforward task that should become easier with better automation. We're already seeing it used with the latest oil wells so it's only a matter of time before it trickles down to the average home builder.
Eh, my friend has one and the electric bills are massive. He said if h didn't buy a house with one already he'd go gas in a heartbeat.
we had the same problem, but ours was old, and it was very underpowered for the size of the house. it basically ran the compressor to heat all the time and couldn't keep up with the house. it also failed at the end of december a few years ago in a very bad cold stretch. a new geo thermal for the size of the house was way out of budget, so we went with propane because there was zero other options.
the geo thermal was sweet in the summertime though, the house was so cool, and cost next to nothing during the summer.
The most efficient heat is if it's running 100% (really more 75-80% where peak efficiency is at for most HVAC) all the time at the extreme regular / average temperatures.
There are tons of variation and tricks and stuff but constant stationary load almost always beats cycling if you can manage it. You kick higher to 100% in extreme heat / cold, but the proper unit with the proper building should be keeping up but barely cycling at the norms.
Edit - 100% of the time, at the peak efficient load that's 75-80%.
I wonder how many peoples heating bills would go down by updating / modernizing leak points and insulation.
I'm not calling any of you out it just seems like a design problem if you have to heat your house 24/7
Our first house, we replaced the single pane windows with double pane insulated windows, the back door with a better insulated one and better weather stripping, installed a storm door on the front door, and insulated the part of the roof that was over two unfinished storage areas on either side of the finished attic. We had a natural gas fired boiler with radiators and our gas bill went from $300-400 in the December-February months to never more than $150. This was in northern Illinois and included weeks that never got over 10 degrees, in a house built in 1921 that only had cellulose board insulation in the walls.
Last year, in our current house, with a gas fired forced air system, I set the heater to keep it at 45 degrees since we aren't living in it yet so I could work inside, and it ran near constantly. We went through almost 250 gallons of propane a month. This year, after patching all the gaps, replacing the single pane windows, insulating the 1947 part of the house that had no insulation, reinsulating the addition that had inadequate insulation, repairing the roof and redoing all the insulation in the attic, I haven't turned the heat on yet still while I work inside. The lowest temp the thermostat has recorded inside was 42 degrees.
I don’t have a gas stove, but my house has a gas furnace, hot water tank and two gas fireplaces.
BC has historically promoted gas quite a bit since we produce it here. The (government monopoly) electric utility has started doing anti gas marketing lately though.
I wonder how many peoples heating bills would go down by updating / modernizing leak points and insulation.
I'm not calling any of you out it just seems like a design problem if you have to heat your house 24/7
To address those issues in most of the northeast would mean gutting to the studs and redoing the house. Even small improvements would often require opening up the walls or something like windows which will be 10-20k. Also heating your house 24/7 is common October->April or so.
There's a LOT of opportunities even in new builds, but the challenge is that most things are very capital-intensive, and paying $100 extra a month for 5-6 months out of the year is much more feasible than dropping 10-20k to cut that in half.
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
Also something I’ve noticed is that when I replaced my roof I had a more efficient attic ventilation system put in as part of the installation. And my upstairs seams much cooler. And we spend way more cooling than we do heating, so there is that.
Even with new construction you want to keep an eye out. Before our warranty was up on our current house we had it inspected and there was less insulation in the attic than should've been allowed. The builder agreed and the guy they sent out to blow more in was personally offended after getting up there and asked me for details about the original job number so I assume he could either determine it wasn't one of his crews or he was going to yell at someone. But even just gluing some XPS to your basement walls and joist cavities can make a surprising difference.
I wonder how many peoples heating bills would go down by updating / modernizing leak points and insulation.
I'm not calling any of you out it just seems like a design problem if you have to heat your house 24/7
Probably quite a bit, but not always an option for many. My building is a 116 years old, which means no exterior vapor barrier. Without an exterior vapor barrier, I can't use blown-in cellulose insulation because it will get wet/humid and then end up rotting inside the walls within 10 years. Which means the only option to do proper insulation is to tear off all the exterior siding and sheathing, put up fiberglass bats from the outside and re-clad and re-side the entire building. It has newish vinyl windows, and I do what I can with weather stripping, but there's not a lot more I can do without introducing other issues.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
I wonder how many peoples heating bills would go down by updating / modernizing leak points and insulation.
I'm not calling any of you out it just seems like a design problem if you have to heat your house 24/7
Probably quite a bit, but not always an option for many. My building is a 116 years old, which means no exterior vapor barrier. Without an exterior vapor barrier, I can't use blown-in cellulose insulation because it will get wet/humid and then end up rotting inside the walls within 10 years. Which means the only option to do proper insulation is to tear off all the exterior siding and sheathing, put up fiberglass bats from the outside and re-clad and re-side the entire building. It has newish vinyl windows, and I do what I can with weather stripping, but there's not a lot more I can do without introducing other issues.
Same here. We installed new windows almost everywhere, and the few we couldn't do we seal every winter, but no blow in insulation happening anytime soon.
I mean, can you imagine how energy efficient your house could be if you didn't have any goddamn windows? Those transparent pieces of shit are responsible for so much temperature woes, to say nothing of how structurally weak they are compared to the rest of the house.
"But I wanna see the suuuuuuunnn." Man fuck the sun.
"The sausage of Green Earth explodes with flavor like the cannon of culinary delight."
I mean, can you imagine how energy efficient your house could be if you didn't have any goddamn windows? Those transparent pieces of shit are responsible for so much temperature woes, to say nothing of how structurally weak they are compared to the rest of the house.
"But I wanna see the suuuuuuunnn." Man fuck the sun.
I can see it now, as if it were out of a Zuckerbergian fever-dream. A thousand solid concrete boxes lined up and stacked with one entrance each. Inside the premium models are 30 large LCD screens inset in the walls where windows might typically be, to "let you have views from anywhere in the world!". The budget models don't have these screens, because "why do you need a window to the world when you spend 20 hours a day at a recreation of your classic mid-2000's cubicle in the Metaverse?".
Simpsonia on
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zepherinRussian warship, go fuck yourselfRegistered Userregular
I mean, can you imagine how energy efficient your house could be if you didn't have any goddamn windows? Those transparent pieces of shit are responsible for so much temperature woes, to say nothing of how structurally weak they are compared to the rest of the house.
"But I wanna see the suuuuuuunnn." Man fuck the sun.
Windows are part of the fire code. There needs to be 2 means of egress in every area of your house. The windows provides one of those means of egress.
I wonder how many peoples heating bills would go down by updating / modernizing leak points and insulation.
I'm not calling any of you out it just seems like a design problem if you have to heat your house 24/7
Probably quite a bit, but not always an option for many. My building is a 116 years old, which means no exterior vapor barrier. Without an exterior vapor barrier, I can't use blown-in cellulose insulation because it will get wet/humid and then end up rotting inside the walls within 10 years. Which means the only option to do proper insulation is to tear off all the exterior siding and sheathing, put up fiberglass bats from the outside and re-clad and re-side the entire building. It has newish vinyl windows, and I do what I can with weather stripping, but there's not a lot more I can do without introducing other issues.
You could also build a very large greenhouse around your house.
I wonder how many peoples heating bills would go down by updating / modernizing leak points and insulation.
I'm not calling any of you out it just seems like a design problem if you have to heat your house 24/7
Probably quite a bit, but not always an option for many. My building is a 116 years old, which means no exterior vapor barrier. Without an exterior vapor barrier, I can't use blown-in cellulose insulation because it will get wet/humid and then end up rotting inside the walls within 10 years. Which means the only option to do proper insulation is to tear off all the exterior siding and sheathing, put up fiberglass bats from the outside and re-clad and re-side the entire building. It has newish vinyl windows, and I do what I can with weather stripping, but there's not a lot more I can do without introducing other issues.
You could also build a very large greenhouse around your house.
If this Reese's Pieces trap in my back yard would ever work, I could get the government to do it for free.
Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
I mean, can you imagine how energy efficient your house could be if you didn't have any goddamn windows? Those transparent pieces of shit are responsible for so much temperature woes, to say nothing of how structurally weak they are compared to the rest of the house.
"But I wanna see the suuuuuuunnn." Man fuck the sun.
Windows are part of the fire code. There needs to be 2 means of egress in every area of your house. The windows provides one of those means of egress.
Can you imagine how much more energy efficient your house could be if you didn't have a goddamn fire code?
I mean, can you imagine how energy efficient your house could be if you didn't have any goddamn windows? Those transparent pieces of shit are responsible for so much temperature woes, to say nothing of how structurally weak they are compared to the rest of the house.
"But I wanna see the suuuuuuunnn." Man fuck the sun.
Windows are part of the fire code. There needs to be 2 means of egress in every area of your house. The windows provides one of those means of egress.
Doors in every exterior wall! With a lot of weather stripping!
I mean, can you imagine how energy efficient your house could be if you didn't have any goddamn windows? Those transparent pieces of shit are responsible for so much temperature woes, to say nothing of how structurally weak they are compared to the rest of the house.
"But I wanna see the suuuuuuunnn." Man fuck the sun.
I can see it now, as if it were out of a Zuckerbergian fever-dream. A thousand solid concrete boxes lined up and stacked with one entrance each. Inside the premium models are 30 large LCD screens inset in the walls where windows might typically be, to "let you have views from anywhere in the world!". The budget models don't have these screens, because "why do you need a window to the world when you spend 20 hours a day at a recreation of your classic mid-2000's cubicle in the Metaverse?".
I mean, can you imagine how energy efficient your house could be if you didn't have any goddamn windows? Those transparent pieces of shit are responsible for so much temperature woes, to say nothing of how structurally weak they are compared to the rest of the house.
"But I wanna see the suuuuuuunnn." Man fuck the sun.
Windows are part of the fire code. There needs to be 2 means of egress in every area of your house. The windows provides one of those means of egress.
Can you imagine how much more energy efficient your house could be if you didn't have a goddamn fire code?
Today gave me a good insulation example for windows.
The window on the left is a modern sealed double pane argon filled window. The one on the right is a double pane window from around 2000. We had a warm, moist front come through, so it went from 50ish outside to the mid 60's, while the inside of the house stayed in the 50s since the heat's not on. The window on the right being barely 20 years old is still a poor insulator compared to the modern window, as shown by the condensation on the outside.
I wonder how many peoples heating bills would go down by updating / modernizing leak points and insulation.
I'm not calling any of you out it just seems like a design problem if you have to heat your house 24/7
Probably quite a bit, but not always an option for many. My building is a 116 years old, which means no exterior vapor barrier. Without an exterior vapor barrier, I can't use blown-in cellulose insulation because it will get wet/humid and then end up rotting inside the walls within 10 years. Which means the only option to do proper insulation is to tear off all the exterior siding and sheathing, put up fiberglass bats from the outside and re-clad and re-side the entire building. It has newish vinyl windows, and I do what I can with weather stripping, but there's not a lot more I can do without introducing other issues.
You could also build a very large greenhouse around your house.
If this Reese's Pieces trap in my back yard would ever work, I could get the government to do it for free.
Oh no. That’s the ET scene right? That traumatized the he’ll out of me as a kid.
:so_raven:
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SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
I need to call someone out just to look at my furnace; nothing is technically wrong with it but it's got no manufacturer name inside the control box and I can't find a manual from the product #
I bought a MERV 13 filter for it since the dust issues in the house are bad, but it turns out you can fry an old furnace if it's providing too little airflow, which is what got me checking the furnace manufacturer
So...MERV 8 filter, and I guess I need to drop 180 bones on a purifier if I don't want to look at a filter taped to a box fan (which works just as well, per U of M) https://youtu.be/kH5APw_SLUU
Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
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SummaryJudgmentGrab the hottest iron you can find, stride in the Tower’s front doorRegistered Userregular
Anyone have any info on this? I've been hearing "the filter doesn't filter your house, it filters your furnace" which makes me wonder why MERV 9 or higher filters are sold aside from to fleece people. Is a higher MERV filter a solution or do I need to get an air purifier for a room?
Some days Blue wonders why anyone ever bothered making numbers so small; other days she supposes even infinity needs to start somewhere.
Anyone have any info on this? I've been hearing "the filter doesn't filter your house, it filters your furnace" which makes me wonder why MERV 9 or higher filters are sold aside from to fleece people. Is a higher MERV filter a solution or do I need to get an air purifier for a room?
I mean the answer to whether or not a furnace filter is filtering the air in your house is "It depends but probably?"
At the same time unless you have a very mean HVAC setup a furnace filter generally is not going to be nearly as effective at clearing at room up as an actual filter in that room.
Yeah we have 4" higher merv filters on our system, mostly to cut down on the pet hair a bit.
Running the fan 24/7 even when you're not heating/cooling is probably the most important thing if you want the filter efficiency.
life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
I have one of those fancy HEPA air purifiers sitting under the intakes for my HVAC system at home.
I mean, can you imagine how energy efficient your house could be if you didn't have any goddamn windows? Those transparent pieces of shit are responsible for so much temperature woes, to say nothing of how structurally weak they are compared to the rest of the house.
"But I wanna see the suuuuuuunnn." Man fuck the sun.
I can see it now, as if it were out of a Zuckerbergian fever-dream. A thousand solid concrete boxes lined up and stacked with one entrance each. Inside the premium models are 30 large LCD screens inset in the walls where windows might typically be, to "let you have views from anywhere in the world!". The budget models don't have these screens, because "why do you need a window to the world when you spend 20 hours a day at a recreation of your classic mid-2000's cubicle in the Metaverse?".
A future where efficiency housing is a bunch of windowless rooms is... horrifying. Our biology is hard-wired to detect and react to the sun, mostly in positive and useful ways. Psychologically, we like the sun. We need the sun, or at least a sun-brightened sky. Universally take windows out of homes and you may as well just hand out medication for depression to every human being on the planet. No, not medication to treat depression, medication to give people depression, because then at least nobody will have to listen to the weirdos boasting about how the lack of sun doesn't bother them.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
I need to call someone out just to look at my furnace; nothing is technically wrong with it but it's got no manufacturer name inside the control box and I can't find a manual from the product #
I bought a MERV 13 filter for it since the dust issues in the house are bad, but it turns out you can fry an old furnace if it's providing too little airflow, which is what got me checking the furnace manufacturer
So...MERV 8 filter, and I guess I need to drop 180 bones on a purifier if I don't want to look at a filter taped to a box fan (which works just as well, per U of M) https://youtu.be/kH5APw_SLUU
I live out in the country and its super dusty out here. I have a couple actual air filters in the bedrooms but just use the box fan method for our living room. It seems to work! That filter is grungy as hell after 3 months.
Anybody have any experience with with the ASUS ZenWifi mesh system? I don't know if it's just the size of my new house or the thickness of the walls + insulation + height of ceilings but my google wifi setup that worked great at my old place is just not cutting it, without even addressing The Basement Situation.
The Basement Situation being that my finished basement has 2 foot thick walls (drywall + framing + structural cinder block + framing + drywall) and 9 foot ceilings, plus another 3-4 feet of space between the basement ceiling and ground floor floor, full of insulation and wires and pipes and HVAC conduit. I've got wifi down there, with a google node that at least claims it is connected, but various of the networked devices down there will periodically just decide "Nah, I'm not going to connect to this network anymore" (despite showing multiple bars of signal).
I've finally overcome The Basement Situation with the help of a 30" long 1/2" masonry bit and a surprisingly tiring afternoon with a hammer drill, but I'm sick of smart devices around the house randomly deciding not to talk to the network anymore. The ASUS setup seems promising, if their very-buzzwordy specs are to be believed.
PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
It's no better than any other mesh wifi system. The trick is to put the APs halfway between your source and where you need coverage.
It's no better than any other mesh wifi system. The trick is to put the APs halfway between your source and where you need coverage.
I've got 5 of them around the house: opposite ends of the 2nd floor, one end and center of the main floor, and one in the basement (it's essentially two big rooms), half the size of the floor above).
Despite that, I get iffy signal at my smart bed's hub, which is literally 3 feet from the google mesh node, some smart bulbs within about 20' of the node in the kitchen pantry which will periodically be unreachable, and a smart bulb over the kitchen sink (within eyesight of the pantry door) that is never reachable despite working fine if I put it in a socket three feet closer to said pantry.
Initially I had one node upstairs and one on the main floor but I couldn't get devices in the bedroom or living room (opposite ends of the house from where the nodes were located) to connect at all.
Sometimes I suspect they must have used lead paint despite the house being built in 2001 just based on how shit wifi signal reliability is.
PSN,Steam,Live | CptHamiltonian
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That_GuyI don't wanna be that guyRegistered Userregular
If it were my house, I'd run a cable from the modem to each floor that needed wifi. It should be easy enough to punch through a wall to run a cable outside than back in. Just use fire caulk to plug the hole.
If it were my house, I'd run a cable from the modem to each floor that needed wifi. It should be easy enough to punch through a wall to run a cable outside than back in. Just use fire caulk to plug the hole.
The exterior walls are all brick.
I do actually have cable run to each floor at this point. The previous owners had run cable from the room where the cable enters the house (no fiber here, yet) down into the basement office. I ran it up through some built-ins and the ceiling into an attic space off the master bedroom closet to put in a jack in my brother-in-law's room.
I could put wireless bridges upstairs and in the basement and a standard wifi router on the main floor, but I still suspect that whatever is killing the signal across the length of a given floor is going to have the same problem. Anybody have a recommendation for some especially-strong-signal router and APs? My neighbors either don't have a wifi network or it's far enough away that I can't pick it up from near the house so I'm not worried about interfering with someone else's signal.
Posts
Eh, my friend has one and the electric bills are massive. He said if h didn't buy a house with one already he'd go gas in a heartbeat.
https://www.redfin.com/CA/Long-Beach/2303-E-Ocean-Blvd-90803/home/7609132
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
A lot of folks here have been going split pumps lately and it does pretty well, but yeah, it does have a limit. My in laws have the split pumps, but they still have a fireplace for the super duper cold nights.
we had the same problem, but ours was old, and it was very underpowered for the size of the house. it basically ran the compressor to heat all the time and couldn't keep up with the house. it also failed at the end of december a few years ago in a very bad cold stretch. a new geo thermal for the size of the house was way out of budget, so we went with propane because there was zero other options.
the geo thermal was sweet in the summertime though, the house was so cool, and cost next to nothing during the summer.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/BretonBrawler
I'm not calling any of you out it just seems like a design problem if you have to heat your house 24/7
There are tons of variation and tricks and stuff but constant stationary load almost always beats cycling if you can manage it. You kick higher to 100% in extreme heat / cold, but the proper unit with the proper building should be keeping up but barely cycling at the norms.
Edit - 100% of the time, at the peak efficient load that's 75-80%.
Our first house, we replaced the single pane windows with double pane insulated windows, the back door with a better insulated one and better weather stripping, installed a storm door on the front door, and insulated the part of the roof that was over two unfinished storage areas on either side of the finished attic. We had a natural gas fired boiler with radiators and our gas bill went from $300-400 in the December-February months to never more than $150. This was in northern Illinois and included weeks that never got over 10 degrees, in a house built in 1921 that only had cellulose board insulation in the walls.
Last year, in our current house, with a gas fired forced air system, I set the heater to keep it at 45 degrees since we aren't living in it yet so I could work inside, and it ran near constantly. We went through almost 250 gallons of propane a month. This year, after patching all the gaps, replacing the single pane windows, insulating the 1947 part of the house that had no insulation, reinsulating the addition that had inadequate insulation, repairing the roof and redoing all the insulation in the attic, I haven't turned the heat on yet still while I work inside. The lowest temp the thermostat has recorded inside was 42 degrees.
BC has historically promoted gas quite a bit since we produce it here. The (government monopoly) electric utility has started doing anti gas marketing lately though.
To address those issues in most of the northeast would mean gutting to the studs and redoing the house. Even small improvements would often require opening up the walls or something like windows which will be 10-20k. Also heating your house 24/7 is common October->April or so.
There's a LOT of opportunities even in new builds, but the challenge is that most things are very capital-intensive, and paying $100 extra a month for 5-6 months out of the year is much more feasible than dropping 10-20k to cut that in half.
Probably quite a bit, but not always an option for many. My building is a 116 years old, which means no exterior vapor barrier. Without an exterior vapor barrier, I can't use blown-in cellulose insulation because it will get wet/humid and then end up rotting inside the walls within 10 years. Which means the only option to do proper insulation is to tear off all the exterior siding and sheathing, put up fiberglass bats from the outside and re-clad and re-side the entire building. It has newish vinyl windows, and I do what I can with weather stripping, but there's not a lot more I can do without introducing other issues.
Same here. We installed new windows almost everywhere, and the few we couldn't do we seal every winter, but no blow in insulation happening anytime soon.
"But I wanna see the suuuuuuunnn." Man fuck the sun.
I can see it now, as if it were out of a Zuckerbergian fever-dream. A thousand solid concrete boxes lined up and stacked with one entrance each. Inside the premium models are 30 large LCD screens inset in the walls where windows might typically be, to "let you have views from anywhere in the world!". The budget models don't have these screens, because "why do you need a window to the world when you spend 20 hours a day at a recreation of your classic mid-2000's cubicle in the Metaverse?".
You could also build a very large greenhouse around your house.
Can you imagine how much more energy efficient your house could be if you didn't have a goddamn fire code?
Doors in every exterior wall! With a lot of weather stripping!
Incorrect. It's Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway pushing windowless housing.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2021/10/30/ucsb-dorm-charlie-munger/
The window on the left is a modern sealed double pane argon filled window. The one on the right is a double pane window from around 2000. We had a warm, moist front come through, so it went from 50ish outside to the mid 60's, while the inside of the house stayed in the 50s since the heat's not on. The window on the right being barely 20 years old is still a poor insulator compared to the modern window, as shown by the condensation on the outside.
Oh no. That’s the ET scene right? That traumatized the he’ll out of me as a kid.
I mean the answer to whether or not a furnace filter is filtering the air in your house is "It depends but probably?"
At the same time unless you have a very mean HVAC setup a furnace filter generally is not going to be nearly as effective at clearing at room up as an actual filter in that room.
Running the fan 24/7 even when you're not heating/cooling is probably the most important thing if you want the filter efficiency.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
A future where efficiency housing is a bunch of windowless rooms is... horrifying. Our biology is hard-wired to detect and react to the sun, mostly in positive and useful ways. Psychologically, we like the sun. We need the sun, or at least a sun-brightened sky. Universally take windows out of homes and you may as well just hand out medication for depression to every human being on the planet. No, not medication to treat depression, medication to give people depression, because then at least nobody will have to listen to the weirdos boasting about how the lack of sun doesn't bother them.
I live out in the country and its super dusty out here. I have a couple actual air filters in the bedrooms but just use the box fan method for our living room. It seems to work! That filter is grungy as hell after 3 months.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
The Basement Situation being that my finished basement has 2 foot thick walls (drywall + framing + structural cinder block + framing + drywall) and 9 foot ceilings, plus another 3-4 feet of space between the basement ceiling and ground floor floor, full of insulation and wires and pipes and HVAC conduit. I've got wifi down there, with a google node that at least claims it is connected, but various of the networked devices down there will periodically just decide "Nah, I'm not going to connect to this network anymore" (despite showing multiple bars of signal).
I've finally overcome The Basement Situation with the help of a 30" long 1/2" masonry bit and a surprisingly tiring afternoon with a hammer drill, but I'm sick of smart devices around the house randomly deciding not to talk to the network anymore. The ASUS setup seems promising, if their very-buzzwordy specs are to be believed.
I've got 5 of them around the house: opposite ends of the 2nd floor, one end and center of the main floor, and one in the basement (it's essentially two big rooms), half the size of the floor above).
Despite that, I get iffy signal at my smart bed's hub, which is literally 3 feet from the google mesh node, some smart bulbs within about 20' of the node in the kitchen pantry which will periodically be unreachable, and a smart bulb over the kitchen sink (within eyesight of the pantry door) that is never reachable despite working fine if I put it in a socket three feet closer to said pantry.
Initially I had one node upstairs and one on the main floor but I couldn't get devices in the bedroom or living room (opposite ends of the house from where the nodes were located) to connect at all.
Sometimes I suspect they must have used lead paint despite the house being built in 2001 just based on how shit wifi signal reliability is.
The exterior walls are all brick.
I do actually have cable run to each floor at this point. The previous owners had run cable from the room where the cable enters the house (no fiber here, yet) down into the basement office. I ran it up through some built-ins and the ceiling into an attic space off the master bedroom closet to put in a jack in my brother-in-law's room.
I could put wireless bridges upstairs and in the basement and a standard wifi router on the main floor, but I still suspect that whatever is killing the signal across the length of a given floor is going to have the same problem. Anybody have a recommendation for some especially-strong-signal router and APs? My neighbors either don't have a wifi network or it's far enough away that I can't pick it up from near the house so I'm not worried about interfering with someone else's signal.
On a lot of the french doors I've encountered, you can pull the lever up to force it to latch.