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Comment by joe_the_user | Hacker News Reader

Last December, Nevada County Ca, where I live, had a massive snow storm that knocked out power and snowed people in for 1-3 weeks. I wound up huddled in my apartment with 45 degree heat for five days or so. With enough sweaters, I was a comfortable temperature.

Aside from what you mention, since basically you providing your own heat for yourself, you have to put or take off layers depending on physical activity. And so naturally this process involves too-hot and too-cold periods that are less than pleasant. Still, I survived to tell the tale.

I mean, we could all live like the hero of To Build A Fire, at least until we died.

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> we could all live like the hero of To Build A Fire

That (and 45 degrees) are strawperson arguments against turning down the thermostat a little and putting on a sweater (and let me recommend shoes). My sense is that many people generally (I don't know the parent commenter) shoot down any individual action, because it's individual action - it's reactionary, ridiculing any 'liberal' idea.

I'm actually pretty progressive and do sometimes leave my sweater on after taking walk and turn the thermostat down.

However I have a bunch of other "personal comfort issues", related to health. so often leave the heat at seventy while I deal with these.

But even more, I do think the "liberal spirit" of trying to solve or pretending you can solve social or environmental issues with exhortations to individual action is reactionary in the end. The only solution to global warming or pollution or etc is action by the state involving the regulation of private enterprises. These "if we all consumed less" positions are kind of the flip side of telling people who make minimum wage they're poor 'cause they drink a soda at lunch or have netflix etc.

Edit: TL;DR; Exploring what you're comfortable with is a good, even suggesting other explore this good. But the spirit of "the problem is you-all consumer too much" is problematic.

It's another strawperson argument. It's not all one or the other. Reducing your energy consumption is not sufficient, and I don't know anyone who says it is.

The idea that individuals are powerless is antithetical to democracy, which IMHO is why the reactionaries push it. They say the same thing about protests (despite a long history of success) and any other individual/collective action. Democratic government is a form of collective action, and so they decry that too. They want you dependent on strongpersons and corporations, and IMHO by buying into it, you are surrendering your power and (unwittingly for most) doing nothing less than fighting agaist freedom and democracy. Collective action is quite powerful - ironically, the reactionary movement uses it heavily, and is the foundation of a free society, as is individual responsibility. (It's also the foundation of a free market and SV-style entrepenurialism - individuals doing something in their garage and changing the world.)

Communities, society, depend on everyone doing their part as individuals. You can't prevent trash on the streets in your community by obstaining from littering yourself, but we do keep the streets clean in large part by each person not littering (and we also obey the law, help people in need, etc. etc.).

Reality is quite the opposite of reactionary propaganda: Individuals acting works incredibly well. The Minutemen in the American Revolution were volunteers, who defeated the subjects of the British King. After centuries of unprecendeted success in human history, it's incredible that people abandon it simply because of propaganda.

> I'm actually pretty progressive

I don't know you, of course, and it's just one comment in one moment in your life, but the parent comment is clearly anti-progressive.

But we all do consume too much for it to be sustainable. While I agree that we primarily need regulation, mostly on industries and the production of goods and services, our collective individual choices do matter. And I can’t credibly fight for regulations while driving a huge SUV or crisscrossing the world with jet planes.

Pretending these little moments do anything to help is not a liberal idea. It’s just as stupid as avoiding exercise and eating less to reduce your carbon dioxide output. It demonstrates a complete disconnect from the ability to contextualize real issues from things that actually help.

Stopping climate change is not a “liberal idea”, at least not in the mainstream liberal sense. Airplanes are still filled with liberals even quite far left on the spectrum in the US (even AOC flies all over the east coast because her time is “too important” to be disrupted by climate change).

It is liberals that do try to do something about climate change, while the right in the US still question if it even exists.

Some do, but doing something stupid and patting yourself on the back is worse than doing nothing at all. At least someone who intentionally doesn’t do anything knows they aren’t doing something and might vote for real change.

In my experience, those that don't take any individual action rarely take any meaningful action on any other plane either. Either you get it and care, which means you do whatever little you can do yourself and work for changing the society, or you don't get it and you don't care.

Those that criticise individual action are most often the ones that can't bring themselves to sacrifice even the smallest pleasure or convenience, but still feel a small pang of guilt whenever they see other people doing their best to do their part.

One place you still need heat is the shower. Maybe some people are okay with taking a shower in 45F ambient temps, but I would resist it.

One thing that's kind of silly about most of our shower stall designs is their open-top design. While a few are sold with caps most are not. Having a cap on top of the shower allows for lower ambient temperatures in the bathroom while showering in (relative) comfort. This also has the benefit of reducing condensation on the ceiling and walls of the bathroom.

Probably because moisture is a much bigger problem in homes than heat or cold. If the shower stall were closed on top, when the door was closed, the moisture would sit in the shower and not evaporate. That can lead to mold problems.

It's much easier to deal with moisture when it's largely restricted to the interior of the shower! Easy to wipe down the sides and then leave the door open to allow the remaining moisture to evaporate. Seems superior to having the water vapours condensing on ceilings and walls in the bathroom that likely can't be wiped down.

You can also just have a small shower room, with a separate door, it's about equivalent. You see this in many houses where the sink vs shower & toliet are two separate 'rooms' connected to each other.

Yeah I never got why this is the standard. Glad I’m not the only one

Do you mean water or air temps? I would hate a shower in 45F water, but a shower in hot water in 45F temps would be fine.

You’d be surprised how quickly you can get used to cold showers. I’ve been only cold showering for about 5 years now

How cold is cold?

When our gas went out in the summer, taking a 'cold' shower was bearable, some days even enjoyable.

In the freezing winter? Tried it once, never again. I'm not even sure it would be safe to shower in water that cold for any long periods of time.

After you do it if or a while, your definition of cold changes. First it was cold during the summer, now in the summer the water doesn't feel cold at all. For me to really feel cold water (after years of doing this), it has to be well before freezing outside and even then I can be standing under this water for minutes at a time.

I'm not personally advocating for this, but some argue for water conservation by taking a https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navy_shower which involves only about 2 minutes of time in the water.

>A Navy shower (also known as a "combat shower", "military shower", "sea shower", "staggered shower", or "G.I. bath") is a method of showering that allows for significant conservation of water and energy by turning off the flow of water in the middle portion of the shower while lathering.

Hold up - do you mean to tell me that people do not turn off the water while lathering? I've showered this way all my life, is this not the norm?

The controls to get back to your proper temperature after a shutoff are unreliable. What you need is a shutoff valve on the shower head itself, so the temperature stays the same, which is not common on many showers unless they are using the navy shower head too. It's mostly a UI issue.

I came up with this method a few years ago and have used it ever since. I’ve never looked back; I’m no less comfortable now than before, and I enjoy using less energy even though my hot water use is included in the rent.

I’ve had little luck converting friends and family to it, though.

Honestly in the time it'd take to turn it off and on I could basically finish 'lathering', I don't belabour it or find particular pleasure in prolonged showers.

I can understand it for people that like a long shower, maybe.. except that surely it's the water they enjoy rather than just the process, so being there with it off wouldn't be any fun?

Often with combi boilers, if you turn off the water it takes a solid 30s to a minute for the water to come up to temperature again, sometimes longer if you account for the water in the pipes and the thermostat reaching equilibrium.

Obviously newer/better boilers come up to temperature quicker but you don't always have the luxury of choosing your boiler.

Why would you ever do that in a developed country? You'd be saving like 3 cents per shower or less.

It's not a question of economics, it's about not purposefully wasting resources.

Perhaps you'll be surprised to hear that I also turn off the lights in rooms that I am not in, or that I don't keep cars running when I'm not using them to move around.

Counter-question: why would you ever keep the water running when you're not utilizing the water?

Because when you turn the water off it's cold. I would rather pay 1.5 cents to remain warm while I lather. If the resource was actually scarce, it wouldn't cost so little to use it.

I think it’s a cultural and technical thing. But still, it’s weird hearing that people leave the water on and this “navy” shower isn’t the norm. Perks of growing up in a communist country, with constant outages.

I love these ideas both just for the joy of tinkering (which many on HN will understand), to experiment with saving resources, and to actually save a little:

In the summer I take cold and cool showers. It struck me that it's a bit insane to consume energy cooling my home, and then using hot water to heat myself up again. Just leave home a little warmer and the cool shower feels great - less AC, less water heating, and happier results.

Also, I took a trip to a poorer country where people, lacking plumbing, bathed using buckets and a big cup. I tried it and it worked fine[0] - almost no drawback at all, just a different habit. I need far less water to shower than I imagined and if I can, turn the water on and off as I shower. Unfortunately, it requires a shower control that is one lever that retains its heat setting; resetting the temperature every time is too cumbersome.

[0] To be clear, I am not at all implying that those people shouldn't have plumbing (they should) or that I was trying to experience poverty in any way (a ridiculous notion, considering where I came from and where I was returning to). I just saw that it worked fine and tried it.

I'd recommend the sauna as an alternative... I'm really interested in the homestead movement and one thing thats promoted is the rocket stove, I've often wondered how such a design might work out if you used it for cooking while using the residual heat for a hot "sauna" wall in the next room...

Most people in the warmer parts of Japan and China (not Hokkaido, not Heilongjiang) don’t use that much heating in the winter, I’ve gotten used to it and don’t really find it a problem.

I lived in Shanghai, which is too warm for snow in the winter. But it's still freezing cold; when I wasn't running heat (because I didn't know how), I'd wake up in the morning with my toes suffering from frostbite. I was miserable all the time until I obtained a space heater.

Frostbite! I'm really sorry you had to go through that, it's a serious thing.

People often don't pay much attention to their toes but they're pretty important for balance. It must be difficult living with that injury.

I have no lasting damage - my blanket was good for that much. My toes would be red and painful when I woke up.

https://www.healthline.com/health/frostnip

I've always found the best way to stay warm when sleeping, is to wear as little clothes as possible. My best guess is that heat escapes from our hands and feet so all the warm clothes causes this huge difference in temperature in our bodies.

Even here in -20 temps, I typically sleep in a t-shirt and shorts. Heat from my body warms up the little enclosed space under the blankets quite quickly and the overall temp is a lot more comfortable than being wrapped up in multiple layers that restrict movement.

I think the depends heavily on having a room/blanket/sleeping-bag arrangement that doesn't leak a lot of heat.

In extremely cold, drafty situations (living in unheated bus) with only blankets rather than a sleeping bag, putting on clothes is necessary.

Of course, if you have a good sleeping bag, as little clothes as possible is how to sleep outdoor.

I agree with you, but for me, maybe because I don’t have much hair on my head, adding a knit cap certainly helps.

That sounds like you have the wrong blanket.

A better set of blankets is potentially a solution to the narrow problem of my toes freezing while I'm asleep. It doesn't do anything for me while I'm awake.

Note that I was living in a school dormitory with bedding provided by the dorm, so it met a local standard of reasonableness.

Some warm socks might help too.

The hero of To Build A Fire was obviously the sled dog, the human was too much whiny and needy - which is what caused the hero to abandon him in the end.

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