Same goals, different methods
Jul. 7th, 2008 10:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
helwenHad an interesting little convo over at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
baronessmartha's LJ just now, on whether or not to insulate the heating pipes in the basement. In one case it made sense to insulate the pipes because they were the pipes to the 2nd floor of a 2-family home -- the 2nd floor family would be paying to heat the 1st floor family's home. In the other case it was a single family home, with a somewhat damp basement, so leaving the pipes uninsulated helped keep the basement's humidity reasonable most of the year, and heated the floor for the first floor, helping to keep heating costs down.
***
I've written about insulating more than once here, but really, what is appropriate depends on the house. In our old house the basement walls were nice and thick, so we only insulated the floor/ceiling where the house walls met the foundation, to keep out air penetration. Oh, and also the back/outside basement down in winter, of course.
For the basics, it's good to insulate the walls, windows (shades/curtains), and roof/attic. Although some people use their attics as an additional layer of insulation... but at the farm here and also at our old house, heavy roof insulation would be nice because both are large enough to have rooms where one can work or have a spare bedroom. Insulation is useful year-round too, of course.
It's the fine details that can get interesting... some places are easier to insulate than others, apartments that have restrictions, etc.
***
How to heat/cool a home varies too, just in our little area here, nevermind the entire country, or other places around the world. In the newspapers, on tv, or in in-person discussions, a lot of folks seem to get fixated on one particular type of energy as what will 'save' us from the energy crisis, but it's never that simple. Passive solar works in the Northeast U.S., but not nearly as well as it does further south. Wood isn't a very renewable resource in Arizona. Wind only works well where there is a fairly consistent flow. Commercial wind is more limited in locations than residential wind. Passive geothermal works in our area for 9-10 months of the year, but you'd want an alternative source for the coldest days of the year. And so on.
***
For heating or cooling, air travels differently in different house designs. Some houses are rather poorly designed for circulation, and if you're looking at building or buying, or even renting long-term, that's something worth trying to figure out before you commit to a place. Victorian/Edwardian style houses for instance, usually have a staircase going all the way up to the attic, often in or near the center of the house. In our old house it was sort of in the center but going off to one corner/side of the house. It was great at sending a current of air all the way from the basement up to the attic -- a fire hazard if the furnace were to fail, or probably why the house had a couple of doorways with doors in them... But in the summer we could have the basement door open if it were cooler down there, and funnel some of the coolness upward. Regardless, we'd have the upper doors open and the windows in the attic, so the hot air could keep going.
Some houses are set up so that opening windows/doors at opposite ends of the building creates a cross-draft for cooling. Others have extended roofs on the southern exposure, such that there is shade for the southern rooms in the summer, but there's still natural lighting in the winter.
***
Sometimes of course, if one has access to and can afford the more wasteful methods of cooling or heating, you use them -- we've made it through a good part of the summer without A/C for instance, but I've finally asked L to put in one of the air conditioners in the living room, because the humidity just isn't letting up and I have work to do and I'm just not 100% functional in this weather. *sigh* I won't have it on all the time of course, but I was really hoping to not have to use it at all this year. But as I said, there's work to be done, plus I should make sure my breathing's as up to snuff as it can be for going to Pennsic at the end of the month.
And if you need A/C but can't afford it, I highly recommend malls and libraries (pref. the latter). Even for a few hours a day it can make a big difference. Heck, even if you can afford the A/C, go share someone else's when you can and save energy -- well, assuming you don't have to drive a ridiculous distance to get there...
baronessmartha's LJ just now, on whether or not to insulate the heating pipes in the basement. In one case it made sense to insulate the pipes because they were the pipes to the 2nd floor of a 2-family home -- the 2nd floor family would be paying to heat the 1st floor family's home. In the other case it was a single family home, with a somewhat damp basement, so leaving the pipes uninsulated helped keep the basement's humidity reasonable most of the year, and heated the floor for the first floor, helping to keep heating costs down.***
I've written about insulating more than once here, but really, what is appropriate depends on the house. In our old house the basement walls were nice and thick, so we only insulated the floor/ceiling where the house walls met the foundation, to keep out air penetration. Oh, and also the back/outside basement down in winter, of course.
For the basics, it's good to insulate the walls, windows (shades/curtains), and roof/attic. Although some people use their attics as an additional layer of insulation... but at the farm here and also at our old house, heavy roof insulation would be nice because both are large enough to have rooms where one can work or have a spare bedroom. Insulation is useful year-round too, of course.
It's the fine details that can get interesting... some places are easier to insulate than others, apartments that have restrictions, etc.
***
How to heat/cool a home varies too, just in our little area here, nevermind the entire country, or other places around the world. In the newspapers, on tv, or in in-person discussions, a lot of folks seem to get fixated on one particular type of energy as what will 'save' us from the energy crisis, but it's never that simple. Passive solar works in the Northeast U.S., but not nearly as well as it does further south. Wood isn't a very renewable resource in Arizona. Wind only works well where there is a fairly consistent flow. Commercial wind is more limited in locations than residential wind. Passive geothermal works in our area for 9-10 months of the year, but you'd want an alternative source for the coldest days of the year. And so on.
***
For heating or cooling, air travels differently in different house designs. Some houses are rather poorly designed for circulation, and if you're looking at building or buying, or even renting long-term, that's something worth trying to figure out before you commit to a place. Victorian/Edwardian style houses for instance, usually have a staircase going all the way up to the attic, often in or near the center of the house. In our old house it was sort of in the center but going off to one corner/side of the house. It was great at sending a current of air all the way from the basement up to the attic -- a fire hazard if the furnace were to fail, or probably why the house had a couple of doorways with doors in them... But in the summer we could have the basement door open if it were cooler down there, and funnel some of the coolness upward. Regardless, we'd have the upper doors open and the windows in the attic, so the hot air could keep going.
Some houses are set up so that opening windows/doors at opposite ends of the building creates a cross-draft for cooling. Others have extended roofs on the southern exposure, such that there is shade for the southern rooms in the summer, but there's still natural lighting in the winter.
***
Sometimes of course, if one has access to and can afford the more wasteful methods of cooling or heating, you use them -- we've made it through a good part of the summer without A/C for instance, but I've finally asked L to put in one of the air conditioners in the living room, because the humidity just isn't letting up and I have work to do and I'm just not 100% functional in this weather. *sigh* I won't have it on all the time of course, but I was really hoping to not have to use it at all this year. But as I said, there's work to be done, plus I should make sure my breathing's as up to snuff as it can be for going to Pennsic at the end of the month.
And if you need A/C but can't afford it, I highly recommend malls and libraries (pref. the latter). Even for a few hours a day it can make a big difference. Heck, even if you can afford the A/C, go share someone else's when you can and save energy -- well, assuming you don't have to drive a ridiculous distance to get there...
