Why homes often feel warmer than the thermostat suggests – what to do about it | Hacker News Reader

Why homes often feel warmer than the thermostat suggests – what to do about it

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29 pointsPaulHoule18 comments

This goal reminds me of "The Room-Temperature Room" from Community [0], maintained by an elite secret society of air-conditioning repair technicians.

I think part of what I love about that clip is the (exaggerated) idea that there are all these everyday amazing things we don't usually think about, precisely because lots of human work and genius has gone into eliminating noticeable problems. Things that aren't exciting or glamorous or sexy, but dangit it'd be cool if they were.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxxYqE4Gil8&t=0m45s

They are repairmen that repair men as well...

Fun fact: that's exactly the room in which they're trying to replicate LK-99's superconductivity.

I thought that joke was making fun of the mètre étalon (e.g. the "original meter" that's in a building in France somewhere)

There have been massive improvements in home technology in 40+ years so I would think its obvious that a newer home with higher "R" values for insulation, roofing, siding, and windows is going to fare better than something from the 1950's.

I would imagine the cost of improving windows and wall insulation on an older home is going to be easily $20k. If you add in roof and siding replacement then its likely $50k+. The cheapest solution in the article was adding curtains, one could go so far as adding floor to ceiling curtains (maybe call it a tapestry lol) on the extra toasty walls.

I mean there also is the other choice of living in a more temperate climate than a desert. I suspect in the coming decades us humans will be doing that more.

For cold weather putting down rolls of insulation in the attic is usually by far the cheapest change to make, costing around $2500. https://www.bobvila.com/articles/attic-insulation-cost/

I assume this would help in hot weather too though the example older house design in the article doesn’t have an attic where it could go.

Right, insulation isn't that expensive, it's mostly labor. So laying down rolls in the attic is cheapest (held by gravity), then tacking rolls up into the joists in a crawl-space probably comes next. Opening walls or vaulted roofs is much more intensive.

Another problem is older framing might use 4" studs or rafters and you'd really want 6-8" to have more space for adding thick insulation.

>so I would think its obvious that a newer home with higher "R" values for insulation, roofing, siding, and windows is going to fare better than something from the 1950's.

You'd be surprised how in many cases materials and practices have deteriorated.

Sure, asbestos was awesome at what it did, but I’d be game to what some specific examples.

You mean like neglecting centuries of locale/climate appropriate materials and designs, and going for glass and metal boxes dependent on mechanical ventilation and air-conditioning?

Or, just as common (depending on the country), switching to non-reusable, concrete, which cracks under high temperatures, has issues with moisture retention and leakage (from flat cement roofs), gets corroded by carbon dioxide, and heats its surroundings and assissts in unbearable cities?

Over the span of about 8 years, I went from living in a < 1,000 sq-ft house built in 1951 (that I added extra attic insulation to) to a 2k sq-ft one built in 1976 to a 3k sq-ft one built in 2003.

Even though each house was successively larger, the heating and cooling bills were noticeably lower in each case. Building practices matter. Insulation and modern windows matter!

I like what traditional Japanese homes have been doing for centuries. If possible they have a sunny garden on one side of the house and a shaded garden at the opposite side. Besides being aesthetically pleasant, controlling the opening of windows and doors to those areas during the day creates an air flow through the house that will regulate room temperatures accordingly, just by using thermal physics.

Is this something anyone can do in their home? I always just open all the windows including sunny side and shady side.

What is the best way to measure electronically the "feels like" temperature then, if air temperature is not a good metric?

I'd like to hack my thermostat and heating system to maintain the same temperature inside year round, but as the article explains, the air temperature sensors are pretty much useless to determine how hot or cold it feels.

The article mentions that you can track the Temperature of surfaces with an "inexpensive infrared thermometer". Then you could calculate the "operative temperature" as the average of Mean radiant and the air temperature.

But yeah, if you want to fully automate it you'll need to figure out a way to gather those readings from the various surfaces.

That is a pretty good read to optimize temperature for your home, however I find controlling humidity more troublesome during winter months. I live in Sweden and even with a humidifier rated for my apartment size doesn't make much of a dent against dryness.

I had the same issue for years in the Midwestern US. I wasted a lot of money on the little 1 galon warm and cold mist humidifiers.

You need the type that uses multiple paper wicks (they look like air filters). I have one that uses 4 of these and has 2 big fans. It can burn through 4 gallons a day. It's not quiet but it does work.

And as a bonus you can use tap water without having to worry about limescale (it'll stay in the paper wicks which are replaceable anyway)

Wow, I didn't know humidifiers existed. All my life I've only ever used dehumidifiers, which take water from the air and into their tanks, which you have to replace every once in a while. Having to refill a humidifier with water every few days sounds like a huge hassle. It's probably more humid where I live because I live in a state on the east coast of the US.

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