Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => The Roundtable => Topic started by: K Frame on March 11, 2021, 09:26:58 AM
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Americans and our air conditioning...
WAAAAAH! They're killing the Earth!
Jesus wept... I wonder how many of them have actually spent a summer in the mid-Atlantic? A typical summer here is bad... A bad summer here is horrendous.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-air-conditioning-trap-how-cold-air-is-heating-the-world?utm_source=pocket-newtab
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I imagine their response would be: "Well, then don't live in places that are uncomfortable."
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I imagine their response would be: "Well, then don't live in places that are uncomfortable."
And yet despite the experience of the 20th Century, so many Europeans still live within marching distance of Germany . . .
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"We hate air conditioning"
https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/08/europe/france-heat-wave-deaths-intl-hnk-scli/index.html
Of course then they don't say, "Maybe AC isn't such a bad idea." They say, "OMG GLOBAL WARMING!"
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And yet despite the experience of the 20th Century, so many Europeans still live within marching distance of Germany . . .
They may protest about living under German control, but it's what they all secretly want. That's the whole reason they formed the EU - they wanted to get the Deutsches BDSM Erlebnis but with fewer goosestepping Aryans.
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^^^LOL.
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When I lived in Texas I used to hate it when places set the AC to 70F when it was 110F outside. AC is good but I literally had to carry a sweater to the mall. It doesn't have to be a competition about who can be colder.
AC very good. Last time I went to kyoto it was during a heat/humidity wave and they have very minimal AC. The office buildings are deathtraps, stores are hot, hotel rooms are hot, the train cars are insane... It's a panicky strange feeling NOT having anywhere whatsoever to go to get away from it.
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Leaving this right here. https://matadornetwork.com/read/mapped-united-states-canada-latitudes-europe/ (https://matadornetwork.com/read/mapped-united-states-canada-latitudes-europe/)
(https://cdn1.matadornetwork.com/blogs/1/2017/07/latitudes.jpg)
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^
Kerplunck.
Very interesting. Not sure too many conclusions could be drawn from the coincidence of latitudes, but still very interesting.
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I don't mind it too much if it's warm, or even hot.
What I can't tolerate is when it's hot and humid. The humidity absolutely kills me.
And in the summer Seren camps out on the AC vent. I really run the AC for her.
Because she's a German breed.
And she keeps threatening to invade France if I don't turn the AC on.
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And she keeps threatening to invade France if I don't turn the AC on.
She is a good girl.
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Back when I was in full-time real estate, I had a couple moving here from Germany to take a university position. We were looking at homes in mid-Fall so temps were about what they would have experienced in the hotter parts of German summers. To a house they groused about wasteful air conditioning and asked several times about building a home without it to save money. The next summer we had a real scorcher, two-plus weeks with highs at over 110 deg. Turns out they took to appreciating "wasteful air conditioning" a bit more after that.
Brad
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And then there is that annoying Gulfstream that brings mild temperatures to northern Europe. I guess we could redirect that to Africa and let the euroweenies cook.
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Maybe we should complain about their use of wasteful heat. No one should live in those cold climates.
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Kerplunck.
Very interesting. Not sure too many conclusions could be drawn from the coincidence of latitudes, but still very interesting.
Crap . . . according to the map overlay, I may as well be in Libya.
:rofl:
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Arrogant Euro-trash, *expletive deleted*ck 'em and feed 'em hot peppers.
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Crap . . . according to the map overlay, I may as well be in Libya.
:rofl:
At least your feet are dry, I'm in the middle of the Med
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Back when I was in full-time real estate, I had a couple moving here from Germany to take a university position. We were looking at homes in mid-Fall so temps were about what they would have experienced in the hotter parts of German summers. To a house they groused about wasteful air conditioning and asked several times about building a home without it to save money. The next summer we had a real scorcher, two-plus weeks with highs at over 110 deg. Turns out they took to appreciating "wasteful air conditioning" a bit more after that.
Brad
Oh yeah, I've recounted before a woman I used to work with. Grew up in Northern Germany somewhere near the Baltic coast in the old East Germany.
She moved from there to DC. She said she had heard that our summers could be "bad" but that it was an abstract thing. The first year she moved it was an absolute scorcher (summer of 1991 or 1992 was horrendous) with our brutal humidity levels. Only she didn't really know how to deal with it, and thought it was mostly American hype.
She ended up with heat stroke and a far greater appreciation for the fact that in the days before air conditioning European nations considered a diplomatic posting to Washington a tropical posting, just like being sent to India, Africa, or parts of Asia.
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Oh yeah, I've recounted before a woman I used to work with. Grew up in Northern Germany somewhere near the Baltic coast in the old East Germany.
She moved from there to DC. She said she had heard that our summers could be "bad" but that it was an abstract thing. The first year she moved it was an absolute scorcher (summer of 1991 or 1992 was horrendous) with our brutal humidity levels. Only she didn't really know how to deal with it, and thought it was mostly American hype.
She ended up with heat stroke and a far greater appreciation for the fact that in the days before air conditioning European nations considered a diplomatic posting to Washington a tropical posting, just like being sent to India, Africa, or parts of Asia.
He has a few other videos on the weather in the USA compared to England. Basically most Brits and Europeans would be shocked at the weather here.
British Heat Waves Ain't Got Nothing on America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxKHrqL1zJ0
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Back when I was running the captive insurance risk retention group, I would have to go to London once a year and meet with the underwriters at Lloyds. We usually went in the fall, and the London weather was almost identical to Seattle but with less rainfall.
ETA: this is our first house having a heat pump, and I must say we do enjoy it for the three weeks or so that it gets up into the upper 80s to 80s in Seattle.
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He has a few other videos on the weather in the USA compared to England. Basically most Brits and Europeans would be shocked at the weather here.
British Heat Waves Ain't Got Nothing on America
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxKHrqL1zJ0
I've seen a lot of that guy's videos even though I have never subscribed.
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ETA: this is our first house having a heat pump, and I must say we do enjoy it for the three weeks or so that it gets up into the upper 80s to 80s in Seattle.
I'm on my first heat pump too. I like it a LOT more for hot weather than for cold. We get into the 90s here for a couple of months and even break 100 occasionally, and it just does a great job, and from everything I can tell is much cheaper than AC, even taking CA vs ID electricity rates into account.
I still don't like it much for cold weather in the temperature range of ~27-37 or so. Below 27 is when the propane furnace kicks in and gives toasty heat, and above 37 is where the heat from the heat pump stops feeling "cool" to me. Also when the heat pump is working in that range, looking at my daily electricity use, it just sucks down the juice in that temp range. I think because it cycles between heating and defrost cycle so much.
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I don't mind it too much if it's warm, or even hot.
What I can't tolerate is when it's hot and humid. The humidity absolutely kills me.
And in the summer Seren camps out on the AC vent. I really run the AC for her.
Because she's a German breed.
And she keeps threatening to invade France if I don't turn the AC on.
Point her at Russia. That'll keep her busy.
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I, too, am on my first heat pump.
I grew up in Central Pennsylvania in a huge Victorian-era house without AC, except for a window shaker in the (BIG) kitchen and another in my Mom and Dad's bedroom, which did nothing for my bedroom. Ugh.
The real special one was my first couple summers in DC. Had a top floor south and east facing apartment in the city in a 1920s steel and concrete building. Had an AC in the bedroom, but it did virtually NOTHING to knock down the EZ Bake Oven aspects of that building.
I love my heat pump for summer AC, but as I've recounted many times here, I've always hated it for "heating" my home in winter. Hence, the pellet stove.
Even with central air I still have to run dehumidifiers in the house because the system is sized for the heat loading as it was when I bought it and it had, at best, R 15 worth of insulation in the attic. I'd lie in bed in the evenings in the summer and I'd feel as if I were in a broiler because of the heat radiating down from the ceiling.
Back in 2010 I jumped it from an R 15 to an R 50 and that made all the difference in the world, both summer and winter, but it also meant that since I didn't get the heat loading in the summer the AC was now way oversized and it didn't remove the humidity like it used to.
All in all, however, given how much electric I am NOT using in the winter to heat my house now that I have my pellet stove I figure I have the right to use electric to run the AC to cool my house and the Eurotrash can go EFF themselves with an iron stick. The ones who screech the loudest have no conception of what summer can be like in much of the United States.
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Point her at Russia. That'll keep her busy.
She's not interested. Even she's smart enough to know that you can't win a land war in Russia.
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Heat pumps aren't quite so prevalent in these parts (yet), mostly because natural gas is dirt cheap. In my old house my highest gas bill of memory was a couple of years ago when we had several weeks of sub-freezing temps. If I recall properly, it was about $130 total. Had I been on a heat pump it would have cost roughly $250 in electricity.
Heat pumps are amazingly efficient in terms of energy transfer, and are far are more efficient than straight resistive heating. Unfortunately they still end up about twice the operating cost of a gas-fired unit in our market. That tends to sway a lot of buyers, at least around here.
Brad
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Nat gas is quite prevalent here, as well, but my community was built right in the middle of the natgas hook up moratorium in the 1970s. At least they installed a heat pump instead of a freaking electric furnace. Ex and I looked at a couple of houses that had straight electric furnaces with exterior AC units.
I've said a number of times if my house had come with natural gas I wouldn't have a pellet stove.
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There are ways to adjust those heat pumps so you might be a little happier in the winter.
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There are ways to adjust those heat pumps so you might be a little happier in the winter.
Don't be a tease.
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There are ways to adjust those heat pumps so you might be a little happier in the winter.
I am perfectly happy with my heat pump's winter performance...
Now that I have the thermostat set at 60 degrees and heat with my pellet stove.
I'm pretty sure that the ONLY time the heat pump came on this entire winter was the 10 days when I was away for Christmas visiting friends.
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Now that I have the thermostat set at 60 degrees
That seems to be key. My heat pump doesn't seem to work that hard to keep the house at 62 (my nighttime setting), but working it's way back to 69-70 in the morning just seems to strain it when it's near freezing outside.
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They don't like anymore than a two degree change much.
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When you're heating with a heat pump (instead of cooling), especially if it's one with the electric coils to provide supplemental heat, it's often best just to pick a set temperature and stay with that. Otherwise you turn the toaster on and your electric meter takes off from the side of the house like a helicopter.
Heat pumps do not do well recovering like that.
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One trick I have learned is that if I manually set the temp up like 10 deg or more, the thermostat will automatically kick over to the furnace. I've started doing that this winter when I get up in the morning and it's in that "funky" range of outside temps. Knock it up from 62 to 72 so the furnace kicks on, then when the house gets to around 68-69, set the temp back to that and let the heat pump take over.
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When I have customers complaining about the cold heat pump air under 40 I change the switch over temp up if they have natural gas or propane and understand they are going to use more. If they have electric backup I tell them to add as much insulation as possible and be sitting down when they open the electric bill.
We have several house around here that are electric only heat. I can't do anything about the $600-700 bills in the winter. I didn't put it in.
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When I have customers complaining about the cold heat pump air under 40 I change the switch over temp up if they have natural gas or propane and understand they are going to use more. If they have electric backup I tell them to add as much insulation as possible and be sitting down when they open the electric bill.
We have several house around here that are electric only heat. I can't do anything about the $600-700 bills in the winter. I didn't put it in.
I seem to remember Nick once posted some chart about efficient changeover temps taking into account temperature and electricity costs vs gas costs. I seem to recall my current switchover temp somewhat matched what the chart said, but next Winter I might knock the temp up to 30deg and see what I think. I'm not as concerned with costs as I am with comfort. :)
I definitely used more propane this Winter vs last. I'll have to check my met station software to be sure, but we were probably colder this year. December for sure was.
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And then there is that annoying Gulfstream that brings mild temperatures to northern Europe. I guess we could redirect that to Africa and let the euroweenies cook.
Without the GS taking equatorial warmth to northern Europe, their climate would be more like Siberia in winter.
Let 'em freeze.
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Heat pumps are amazingly efficient in terms of energy transfer, and are far are more efficient than straight resistive heating. Unfortunately they still end up about twice the operating cost of a gas-fired unit in our market. That tends to sway a lot of buyers, at least around here.
Brad
Not only that, but I've never heard of a gas line being blown down in a storm.
Terry runs and hides
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When I have customers complaining about the cold heat pump air under 40 I change the switch over temp up if they have natural gas or propane and understand they are going to use more. If they have electric backup I tell them to add as much insulation as possible and be sitting down when they open the electric bill.
We have several house around here that are electric only heat. I can't do anything about the $600-700 bills in the winter. I didn't put it in.
Tell them to get a pellet stove.
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Not only that, but I've never heard of a gas line being blown down in a storm.
Terry runs and hides
Some years ago (15, maybe?) we had a hurricane come up the east coast. The storm surge inundated a bunch of communities, including one in which a friend of mine lived at the time. Some how the storm surge managed to get into the gas mains. Gas service for something like 30,000 people was shut down for nearly a month while they cleaned, dried, and repaired the lines.