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Comment by bkmartin | Hacker News Reader

Easy answer... it's convenient. You show me a people warming/cooling solution as convenient as whole home heating and cooling and then the conversation can begin. It's about creating an environment to live in that is consistent, has nothing to do with a house's feelings.

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For warming you can use far-infrared panels. They heat surfaces (such as your skin) instead of air.

I honestly thought I was talking to a group of engineering-minded people. This comment? This is where dreams go to die.

But I guess there's no room for improvement, which is why heated seats were never invented in cars, why hand warmers were never invented, why heated jackets don't exist, why we don't have ice packs, etc. Those things would be crazy and useless.

Maybe you are missing the point here. Heated seats in cars do not replace the heating system in the car. Hand warmer, heated jackets are for outside, not inside. Do you want to walk around, inside your house in a heated jacket and hand warmers? It isn't nearly as convenient as having your house be 70 degrees, or whatever you deem comfortable.

agree. Also, you need to heat your house here in Michigan if you don't want your water pipes to freeze... or your kid's pet cockatiel to die or suffer.

I can't speak to cockatiels, but the house should be okay ar 40-45degrees, where people would be uncomfortable.

I have a bathroom where the water pipes pass through an outside wall. On nights where the temperature goes below 0 degrees F, I open the cabinet door under the sink so heat can get in there. My thermostat is programmed to drop to 60 degrees F at night but because the thermostat is across the house, our downstairs bathroom gets very cold. It's on a slab too. Pipes always freeze if we forget to prop the door open and the temps get down below or in the single digits.

I had been thinking of getting one of those wires you put on the pipe to keep it from freezing but it's behind a wall and very hard to get too...

You might be able to use a water circulator to keep hot water in the pipes.

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