[HN Gopher] An Elizabethan mansion's secrets for staying warm
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An Elizabethan mansion's secrets for staying warm
Author : Tachyooon
Score : 176 points
Date : 2026-01-17 16:53 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| mmaunder wrote:
| Related to the Maunder Minimum, named after my namesakes:
| Astronomer Walter Maunder and his wife Annie Maunder.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maunder_Minimum
|
| And here's more info on The Little Ice Age:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
|
| Debatable as to whether solar activity was a contributor to The
| Little Ice Age.
| pipes wrote:
| What did you think about the point in the article suggesting
| millions of people dying on South America caused the earth to
| cool down due to reforestation absorbing more green house gas.
| I find this hard to believe.
| lazide wrote:
| There was a noticable (and well recorded) change in the
| climate for awhile when Ghenghis Khan went on his rampage.
| And he was a lot less effective at killing people than novel
| old world diseases.
|
| It doesn't seem completely implausible.
| oezi wrote:
| Correlation vs causation?
| lazide wrote:
| Not sure how you could run an A/B test on the planet,
| really.
| mmaunder wrote:
| What a strange question.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Yep cheap energy and modern building techniques made us lose a
| lot of the common sense of yesterday.
|
| Good thing initiatives like the passive house institute are
| bringing back some of these principles, you can easily cut a
| modern home heating/cooling needs by 70%+ by following simples
| rules
| vosper wrote:
| Passive house thinking comes from an era of peak oil concerns,
| no solar, and no heat pumps. None of those conditions holds
| anymore. Further, passive houses are notorious for overheating
| and because they're so airtight they require expensive
| mechanical ventilation and make-up air systems unless you want
| indoor air pollution problems.
|
| People building houses today are much better served by spending
| their money on solar + battery + heat pumps than going passive.
| vl wrote:
| But any modern house is too airtight and essentially requires
| ERV.
|
| Which brings us to next interesting problem - you would think
| that ERV should be built-in into modern cooling/heating
| systems, but it's no the case.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Yes, it's one of the cheapest way to reduce your energy
| needs and have clean air, plus it's fairly low tech system
| defineERV wrote:
| ERV = Energy Recovery Ventilator
| megaman821 wrote:
| Also, they usually hook up the interior air intakes to
| bathrooms so smells and extra humidity have a constant flow
| out of your house.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Solar is still not free or unlimited. A well designed house
| will be more comfortable and save energy over its whole life
| while costing a fraction more than a badly designed house.
|
| It's better no matter the heat source really. And it allows
| you to do without central heating and/or complex heating
| techs which are more annoying to maintain and replace
|
| > expensive mechanical ventilation
|
| A top of the line heat recovery ventilation unit cost the
| same as a shit tier air/air heat pump and has no moving parts
| besides the fans, which are cheap and easy to replace.
|
| You can even make reasonably efficient heat exchangers at
| home with corrugated plastic sheets...
| zer00eyz wrote:
| > because they're so airtight they require expensive
| mechanical ventilation and make-up air systems unless you
| want indoor air pollution problems.
|
| Most modern homes have this issue. Building science has
| driven them to be air tight bubbles. Look at blower door
| tests on current construction and a lot of "building science"
| driven construction.
| lm28469 wrote:
| It's still miles ahead of having literal holes in your
| window frames to let "fresh air" come in when it's -20c
| outside.
|
| All you need to do is design a house with a sensible
| ventilation system, which costs virtually nothing compared
| to the rest of the building costs. It's even more stupid
| for americans because they already all have complex
| ventilation system...
| ghaff wrote:
| >It's even more stupid for americans because they already
| all have complex ventilation system
|
| Maybe for newer houses. I have an older house and I don't
| have a ventilation system. Forced radiator hot water heat
| and no AC in New England.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| you need FAR less solar+battery for passive house tho. And AC
| in summer is essentially free. Of course, it all depends on
| area, if winters barely have any snow and summers are very
| hot the benefits of very insulated house are much slimmer
|
| The old houses didn't overheat because the floor wasn't
| insulated all that well so the cold came from below. We could
| do something similar by just mounting heat pump ground loop
| under the house, before it is built, but today house
| developers want it cheap and quick so you pretty much can't
| find much of that and would have to do it on your own.
|
| Other interesting system is using underground as a way to
| cool house air intake, just running pipes underground for
| several metres to get it to cool down in summer and heat up a
| bit in winter. But again, expensive thing compared to "just
| add more solar panels/battery storage and let AC handle it"
| pluralmonad wrote:
| Ever more complex systems/technology are fine for some and
| not for others. Some people care about simplicity and the
| ability to maintain and repair the system themselves.
| loeg wrote:
| Modern insulation and windows _are_ a passive heating /cooling
| technique.
| xnx wrote:
| > Fireplaces were strategically arranged so minimal heat would be
| lost to the outer walls
|
| I'm always a little confused by radiators placed underneath
| windows in modern buildings. I'm sure it evens out cold spots,
| but it sends a lot of heat right outside.
| thatguy0900 wrote:
| I think a lot of those old central heat systems you couldn't
| actually control the heat, being able to lose a lot of heat to
| the window if you wanted was probably a feature. I was watching
| a video on old soviet blocks in cold areas and it sounded like
| it really sucked to live too close to the central heater and
| have to deal with super hot houses
| toast0 wrote:
| I lived on the top floor of a 12 story dorm with radiators.
| Everyone on our floor would have the windows open all the
| time. When it was warm out, we needed any fresh air. When it
| was cold out, the radiators would be so hot, the fresh air
| balanced it. Down about 6th floor was nice though.
|
| But, to answer the OP, putting conditioning on the perimiter
| of the building keeps the interior temperature gradient
| minimal. If you deliver conditioning to the center of the
| building, the perimeter approaches outside temperatures
| (depending) and you have a big gradient and much less
| comfort. There's also better heat transfer when you deliver
| conditioning at bigger delta T, which pushes towards the
| perimeter as well... But it means more ducting/piping. And if
| you're using fireplaces for heat, it's complex because
| classically fireplaces pull in air from the conditioned
| space, and make up air comes from outside, you really want
| that fire to warm up surfaces to get radiative heat; burying
| it in the center of the building will be better than having
| it off in the corner; but it you use outside air for
| combustion, you can put it on the perimeter.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| It stops drafts from the window before they reach occupants.
| Yes, it is less efficient in terms of total heat inside the
| structure, but its more effective at avoiding uncomfortably
| cold spots, which is (in most places at most times of year)
| more important, plus, the utility lost to the occupied under-
| window space is less than the utility that would be lost for
| the same space elsewhere; the window already limiting alternate
| uses.
| learn_more wrote:
| No furniture in front of the window.
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| This was deliberate engineering to bring in fresh air. After
| the 1918 Flu, there was a desire for more fresh air inside
| homes. All of the apartments I lived in Chicago were built
| decades later, but the radiator layout persists.
|
| Article[0] on it I've heard a story, and I
| don't know if it's an urban legend, that steam heat became
| popular after the 1918 flu pandemic because it was going to
| force overheating of units and make people open their windows
| and let the bad air out. I've never heard it put
| that way, but the flu pandemic had a huge impact on heating
| systems, because they actually changed the code requirements
| for heating systems when the pandemic was around, because they
| didn't know what was causing this. They thought there was
| something in the air that was causing this. And so what they
| did is they started requiring buildings to be ventilated.
| Essentially, they changed the requirements for heating
| buildings so you had to maintain 70 degrees in the building
| with all the windows open in the sleeping rooms. So people see
| these great big huge radiators and think that that's what they
| have to have in the house. Usually, the reason those radiators
| are so big is because they had to heat the house with windows
| open.
|
| [0] https://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/a-history-of-
| radiators-...
|
| Edit: switched out to different article focused on Chicago
| buu709 wrote:
| When the cold air coming from the window drops, it pushes the
| rising hot air out into the room. Overall loss of heat, but
| feels better for the human occupants long term.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Offices that use air handlers and VAVs also have narrow VAV
| zones along all perimeter windows. It's for comfort, windows
| are where the most heat is lost/gained so heating or cooling
| those zones makes the space more comfortable for the people
| inside those areas.
| zdragnar wrote:
| I lived in a house for a bit with a bedroom was in the
| northeast corner of the house, and the radiator was on an
| inside wall. The only convenient spot for the bed was the
| exterior corner.
|
| On more than one occasion, I found my bedsheets completely
| frosted stuck to the wall.
| ynac wrote:
| When we lost power for 10 days a few winters back we attempted to
| use the fire place for heat. It was a fail. Post and beam house
| (large wide open floor plan) with a large transfer from 1st to
| 2nd floor, and apprently my lack of skill for optimizing heat
| over beauty in the fireplace, left us without much of a thermal
| bump. To this day I swear we were pulling heat out of the chimney
| faster than we were heating the house; I cooled the house with
| fire.
| mlhpdx wrote:
| That's not uncommon, but having grown up in a house heated by
| wood fires I knew that when building our current house. The
| main fireplace is on a central wall and has enormous thermal
| mass. Beauty and utility can be combined.
| shagie wrote:
| My grandparents' house was this way - the chimney was in the
| center of the house (built sometime in the late 1800s and
| rebuilt in the 1950s).
|
| The fireplace had a stone chimney - and the kitchen was built
| in an 'L' shape around the first floor of the fireplace. The
| (master) bedroom (an additional bedroom was built in the
| 1950s), the stone of the chimney was a good quarter of one of
| the walls.
|
| I do, however, think that the rough hewn stone and mortar of
| the chimney with the insets around it had a certain rustic
| beauty... aside from the "that got warm" in the winter and
| could keep the kitchen, living room, and bedroom warm.
| mikestew wrote:
| Yeah, if you actually want to heat the house with fire you'll
| want an insert or a wood stove. Otherwise most fireplaces in
| most houses are decorative, and one pays for that decoration
| with heat loss.
| harperlee wrote:
| And even those will require draft from outside the insert /
| stove, so either you build them with an inlet from outside,
| you pull cold air from badly sealed doors / windows, or the
| chimney draft will be insufficient.
| masklinn wrote:
| They will require breathing but much less than an open
| fireplace and a lot more of the heat will be kept inside
| and not sent through the chimney. So overall they're way on
| the positive side. If you can get a cold air inlet it's
| better, but it's far from necessary.
| WalterGR wrote:
| > insert / stove
|
| As a kid I lived in homes with both - and a home with a
| barrel stove - and as an adult with a pellet stove and I
| don't remember that being a problem. Net, it was fine?
| testing22321 wrote:
| By law new wood stoves in many places MUST have an outside
| air intake
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Yeah fireplaces don't make sense to me. Hot air rises and it
| sucks the existing heated air in the house which all flows out.
| The only way to heat the space is you need something with a lot
| of thermal mass that heats up in the process and then radiates
| heat. So a lot of bricks around the fire, some sort of baffle
| to enable the heat transfer and a system that sucks in air from
| the outside.
| ynac wrote:
| I like the idea of an outside vent, and unfortunately, I
| think an insert of some kind. I can't help but first think of
| the goofy look of a wood fired stove sitting half in and half
| out of the fireplace. Surrounded by a few tons of river rock.
| That said, after a couple days of a couple degrees, it's
| either that or the tent in the basement.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| *outside intake. The vent would just be the chimney.
| bluGill wrote:
| The problem with outside vents is sometimes smoke goes out
| them - air comes down the chimney.
| 8jef wrote:
| What you imagine is called a rocket stove mass heater, and it
| has other names too. Works wonderfully well.
| foobarian wrote:
| We saw stoves/fireplaces like this in a bunch of taverns in
| Slovenia. Huge hulking tiled cubes around the center of the
| building that just radiated a pleasant heat from every
| square inch of the surface. I imagine it was quite
| efficient, with just a very low fire burning to keep it in
| equilibrium.
| pluralmonad wrote:
| If it was a rocket stove, it was a very small very hot
| fire. I've had a bit of a love affair with rocket stoves
| lately (even replaced my BBQ/grill with one).
| praptak wrote:
| It's challenging to design the exhaust so that the smoke goes
| away, but not too much heat.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| To use it effectively you want one with water jacket and just
| use that hot water with your normal house heating system. You
| don't need much power to run circulation pump so UPS + some
| solar panels should be enough even in deep winter. There are
| also systems that get it out of the exhaust but that doesn't
| get you much heat storage, just instant heat and generally less
| efficient.
|
| Old school version of that were masonry stoves that come with
| ton+ of mass for the bricks and smoke being routed all over
| (often including a place to sleep) to take as much heat as
| possible from it.
|
| If I had money for that I'd put a big hot water tank for
| buffer, heat it normally with heat pump, and just had emergency
| water-sheathed fireplate, with big buffer you can just fire it
| up once and have tank slowly give the heat back to the
| building. Or fire it up at the coldest days to save some heat
| pump power in days where there is barely any solar.
| bluGill wrote:
| This isn't a good idea because the water cools the fire too
| fast and you tend to get soot build up inside.
| asdff wrote:
| I know someone who gets through the winter off their fireplace.
| Really old timber house with riverrock chimney. Their fireplace
| looks nothing like what you think of a fire place looking. You
| can't see the fire, there is like this big iron door in front
| of it. They go through a huge pile of wood every winter, along
| with a couple electric heaters for rooms or office.
|
| I assume most decorative fireplaces on the other hand are not
| built to heat the house.
| tylerflick wrote:
| I grew up like this. We had special glass plates on the doors
| so you could see the fire (though this meant cleaning the
| glass every week).
| ynac wrote:
| There are a bunch of these on our island. The fireplaces are
| in the middle of the house, small doors, and once they get
| that brick warm the houses are 80 all winter long. They were
| built by Russian families in the 1940s, maybe a couple dozen
| homes on about 300 acres. The rest of the home's construction
| was typical; except for a few innovative walkways between
| main house and garage. I'm guessing it's what they knew from
| their homeland, even though temperatures here rarely drop
| below 20, and then, only for a short time.
| schiffern wrote:
| That sounds really interesting. Which island is that?
|
| There's a whole site dedicated to the (highly efficient)
| Russian/German stove:
| https://larsenfamily.com/russian_stove/nojava/index.html
| realusername wrote:
| It's pretty much 10 to 20% efficiency for an open chimney and
| 80% for a good wood stove so your result isn't surprising.
|
| Open floor plans also destroy the efficiency as the heat goes
| up which made your already inefficient heating even worse.
|
| Combine both together and you probably have 5% efficiency.
| dylan604 wrote:
| A ceiling fan works really well for this
| maccard wrote:
| An open fire is not a particularly warm thing to have unless
| you're directly in front of it. Most of the heat goes straight
| up the flue, and it uses an enormous amount of air to keep
| burning - it will pull huge volumes from rvertwhere it can.
| This is why these old buildings didn't suffer from damp issues
| - the open fires burning were ventilating them.
| HPsquared wrote:
| It's the same problem as those portable AC units: the exhaust
| (chimney in this case) draws large amounts of air in from
| outside which is at the wrong temperature (cold in this
| case).
| dietr1ch wrote:
| At some point they realised and the newer ones have a dupex
| air duct so you can keep air pressure even
| HPsquared wrote:
| Huh, just like a balanced flue.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| If it has a flue or chimney, it isnt really an open fire.
| Look at an ancient long house, or farmer's thatched cottage
| from say 400 years ago. They had a fire on a stone circle on
| the floor in the middle of the room, and a high roof
| sometimes with a hole but often not. It was smoky, but kept
| everyone warm.
| ghaff wrote:
| There have been times, with various crises, where I only
| half considered if indoor plumbing was such a great thing.
| But that's probably a very old-fashioned New England thing.
| ahartmetz wrote:
| It gave people lung cancer, too. Maybe genetic adaptation
| to that (pretty toxic) environment is why smoking doesn't
| kill people more quickly.
| wincy wrote:
| I think before heating without smoke, it was perfectly
| sensible to smoke tobacco because it was the least bad
| thing you were inhaling on a daily basis, and you were
| likely going to die of lung cancer regardless. Makes
| sense we didn't really discover the risk until after we
| stopped using wood burning stoves (or burning coal, like
| Laura Ingalls Wilder's mother would to in Little House
| when it was available)
| maccard wrote:
| Sorry, it's not a topic I know an awful lot about. I was
| talking about an exposed hearth with a chimney like in the
| article, as opposed to a cast iron unit that recirculates
| the air like a stove
| DoctorOetker wrote:
| the fresh air inlet should be piped along the chimney walls,
| this would also recover the condensation heat of the water
| produced during combustion, but its not trivial to design while
| keeping in mind things like maintenance, different chimney
| column temperature (and thus different convective forces),
| capturing and effluence of the condensed water, ... the heated
| fresh air should not directly go to the fire but piped into the
| room.
| klondike_klive wrote:
| Did you use a fire grate with a big space underneath and keep
| it swept clean? Or did you build up a big bed of ash under the
| grate? On the advice of a chimney sweep I put a perimeter of
| bricks under the grate to form walls and we're currently
| filling it with more and more ash (it really takes a while).
| It's starting to make a difference in how much heat comes back
| into the room. Without that void underneath, the fire doesn't
| burn so hot and cold air doesn't get pulled through so quickly.
|
| (It _feels_ like it 's getting warmer - may all be wishful
| thinking though, I haven't taken any measurements!)
| cwillu wrote:
| Brits will do anything except properly insulate their damn homes.
| Glawen wrote:
| And make a bathroom practical and enjoyable. Sink with hot and
| cold tap, electric water heater in shower, come on...
| secondcoming wrote:
| I don't think I've ever been in a UK home that didn't have
| these, except perhaps the electric shower; older homes may
| still use immersion heating for hot water.
|
| Were you in prison when you experienced the above?
| Glawen wrote:
| My last year Airbnb experiences in Scotland. I could not
| believe my eyes it still existed (I used to go often in the
| UK in the past).
| rapsey wrote:
| Brits, Dutch, Belgium, Northern Germany. They all have this
| incredibly outdated building style that they refuse to change.
| Bricks with no insulation. I live 1000km to the south of them
| and it is pretty standard for us to have tripple pane windows
| and thick insulation on our houses. But they for some reason
| prefer to live in cold houses during the winter and overheated
| houses during the summer.
|
| I have had multiple conversations with people who lived a while
| in that area. Rich, educated countries, modern economies, but
| they live like they are poor farmers in the 19th century.
| gehsty wrote:
| British building regs literally require insulation? It is not
| a law that old builds have to be brought up to code, but
| there were government schemes where you got free loft and
| cavity wall insulation in old houses.
| ctenb wrote:
| This has not been true for at least a decade for dutch
| buildings: there are strict regulations requiring decent
| insulation for new buildings. Renovating and insulating old
| buildings is also encouraged, but not required by law.
| rapsey wrote:
| Insulating old buildings and especially appartment
| buildings is very common over here. There the amount of
| uninsulated buildings is so much higher. Every time I am in
| that part of Europe I am appalled at the energy waste.
| tpm wrote:
| I think the buildings really are that old - you can't legally
| build new ones like that in the EU afaik. No idea about
| Britain, but yeah, I lived there in a flat like that, it was
| over 100 years old.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| Purely anecdotal, but every house I have ever visited in the
| Netherlands and Scandinavia has been properly heated and
| above all _insulated_. Which is absolutely not the case for
| the UK and even less so for France and countries further
| "south". If you want to be cold indoors in Europe, spend a
| winter in Spain, Portugal, Italy or Greece. Here I speak with
| some experience.
| asplake wrote:
| Hasn't been true in like 50 years, at least in new builds, even
| conversions. We have building standards too you know
| crazygringo wrote:
| It's an interesting article on this one particular mansion, but
| the idea that "the same tricks for more efficient heating can be
| used in modern designs" seems pretty silly.
|
| We don't use fireplaces anymore (a major "trick" being to put
| them in the middle of the house rather than in the exterior
| walls), and while using large windows to capture sunlight and
| heat works great in the winter, it also leads to overheating in
| the summer and thus more energy for air conditioning.
|
| > _These are modest changes, imperceptible to most, and they won
| 't enable us to forgo active heating and cooling entirely. But
| they do echo a way of thinking which, today, is oft ignored.
| Hardwick Hall was designed with Sun, season and temperature in
| mind._
|
| Everyone I know who has built a house has thought _very_ much
| about sun, season and temperature. This is very much a factor in
| determining the sizes and quantity of windows on south-facing vs.
| north-facing walls, for example.
|
| Again, it's a very interesting article on this one particular
| castle, but the idea that it has something to teach modern
| architects and builders is pure fantasy. We're already well aware
| of all these factors and how they interact with materials and
| design.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| > while using large windows to capture sunlight and heat works
| great in the winter
|
| That's what awnings (or solar overhangs, or light shelves) are
| for. You block the high/hot summer sun but let in the low/cool
| winter sun.
|
| > the idea that it has something to teach modern architects and
| builders is pure fantasy
|
| Isn't the idea of mcmansions that they co opt smart classic
| design ideas, but use them in a manner which doesn't let them
| fulfill their function purpose(skeuomorphism)? So someone
| certainly has some things to learn
| crazygringo wrote:
| > _That 's what awnings (or solar overhangs, or light
| shelves) are for._
|
| Right, this is my point. We already think about these things.
|
| > _Isn 't the idea of mcmansions_
|
| I don't think McMansions, or whatever your favorite example
| of bad architecture is, shows that we've somehow lost
| knowledge. Architects and builders are aware of all of these
| things, but that doesn't mean there aren't still clients who
| want less energy-efficient designs for all sorts of reasons,
| like aesthetics.
|
| We know how to build energy-efficient buildings that are
| appropriate for the location and seasons. We also know how to
| build buildings for other purposes, and are aware of the
| tradeoffs in how they use more energy. Energy conservation
| isn't the only goal in home design.
| dpark wrote:
| I think the idea with McMansions is that they are just tacky.
| Poorly aped styles. Columns that don't do anything and are
| proportioned wrong for the load they are intended to look
| like they carry. Complex roofs that do nothing useful but
| "look fancy". 100% style over substance, but with style that
| snooty people look down on.
|
| I imagine that McMansions are generally about as energy
| efficient (per square foot) as other contemporary homes,
| though.
| dpark wrote:
| It feeds into people's desire to feel superior. "You and me,
| dear reader, we're two of the very few smart ones in a sea of
| incompetents."
| quesera wrote:
| It's not like the wisdom is _lost_ , it's just ignored in
| modern builds.
|
| All architects think about siting and solar exposure. But the
| builders are in charge, and they optimize for what the market
| responds to -- which does not always include factors like these
| which contribute to long-term comfort and livability.
|
| So I would say that _consumers_ could learn a thing or two.
| That said, most buyers are not buying newly-built homes, so
| their ability to influence the inclusion of some of these
| features are limited.
|
| The industry is downstream of market demands. If customers
| aren't aware enough to demand smart things, builders will skip
| them to save money, or to optimize for more visible features.
| Same old story.
| themaninthedark wrote:
| Even when the buyer is buying a newly built house, it's often
| already built or being built off of already existing plans
| that do not take these things into account.
| bombcar wrote:
| Exactly. You can't have two houses on opposite sides of the
| street that are perfect copies without some compromise
| somewhere.
| ericmay wrote:
| > So I would say that consumers could learn a thing or two.
| That said, most buyers are not buying newly-built homes, so
| their ability to influence the inclusion of some of these
| features are limited.
|
| Even then I think Americans are not at all well-versed in
| what makes a house a _good_ house in terms of design or
| aesthetic and there isn't a marketplace that exists to help
| customers shop and compare.
|
| Today, if you're buying a new build your only option is
| McMansion style or just a smaller and equally distasteful
| version of the McMansion. And yes they are all distasteful -
| it's a matter of fact, not opinion.
|
| So most people buying new builds end up with the same cargo
| culled designs. And then "architects" design more and more
| different versions of these horrendous designs and plop in
| things like Sedona Avenue near the golf course and that's how
| you get suburbia. There's never a market signal, despite the
| fact that we can build homes much more nicely and with
| techniques to be a little more naturally energy efficient and
| kinder on the eyes.
|
| There is also much less competition with neighborhood design
| though surprisingly there have been some inroads there that
| have fostered some competition, but it's mostly for now for
| the wealthy. I live in a neighborhood designed before cars, a
| neighborhood that today is largely illegal to build. But the
| home prices are highest here because the market is demanding
| this type of neighborhood - single family detached homes
| mixed with apartments and coffee shops and small offices and
| restaurants. "Mixed-use development". It's incredibly scarce
| and in most American cities it has the most expensive average
| real estate and tends to be the most economically vibrant.
| Little pockets of Europe.
|
| Neither home builders or zoning officials have _taste_ and
| because as you in my view correctly acknowledge the builders
| are downstream of market demands, because the market doesn't
| even understand what is actually good and possible, the
| entire industry and government regulation apparatus is
| downstream of the sewer.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Or it is set out in building codes that they must design in a
| certain way.
|
| In the UK that means adding lots of insulation. UK houses
| predominantly had a lot of thermal mass from the inner skin
| of the cavity wall being brick or later concrete blocks. The
| little wall insulation, if it even existed, was in the
| cavity. In a push for more insulation they switched to
| lightweight thermal blocks, and sometimes more insulation
| inside, or timber frames. All of which designed for
| insulation while reducing the thermal mass. No matter how
| much sun you put in during the day you only heat the air,
| which goes cold quickly. This is not the architects choice.
|
| Architects can only design for orientation on a single house
| plot. In the UK they are trying to cram houses on at 50 to
| the acre or more due to the price of building land. They
| focus on best use of space, rather than orientation because
| of that
| Izkata wrote:
| > > It's not like the wisdom is _lost_ , it's just ignored
| in modern builds.
|
| > Or it is set out in building codes that they must design
| in a certain way.
|
| An anecdote: Two decades ago in college in the US, I knew
| several people doing Architecture. One day in one of their
| dorm rooms, one of them went on this long rant about how
| modern codes ignore environmental factors and just require
| certain things no matter the climate.
|
| I don't know how universal her experience was, but I can
| see these two lines I quoted as both happening, just in
| reverse - the building codes are causing loss of
| knowledge/wisdom.
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| And if they are not used it's more of question of price and
| other available options and not "the modern architects forgot".
|
| Making what's essentially "an insulated box" is far more
| universal climate-wise than most of the old methods, because
| what's good in summer (north-facing windows, good airflow,
| getting some cold from the ground) is terrible for winter and
| vice versa. And where it is useful, it IS used, just instead of
| fireplace having big thermal mass we have floor heating where
| the concrete floor is the heat storage (and sometimes extra
| tank of water)
|
| And every method to make it "better" directly competes with
| "just buy more solar/battery to run heat pump cheaper.
| lurk2 wrote:
| > and while using large windows to capture sunlight and heat
| works great in the winter, it also leads to overheating in the
| summer and thus more energy for air conditioning.
|
| A lot of contemporary energy-efficient designs slope the
| windows now such that light can enter in the winter but not the
| summer, but in the past this problem would have been remedied
| with awnings.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > Everyone I know who has built a house has thought very much
| about sun, season and temperature.
|
| I've lived in houses that certainly did not take into account
| sun, season and temperature. I learned a lot from that
| experience. My current house is optimized for it. I've learned
| a few more things about it, and could do better.
|
| > the idea that it has something to teach modern architects and
| builders is pure fantasy
|
| Not my experience with architects and builders.
|
| For example, how many houses have a cupola? They're common on
| older homes, but non-existent on modern ones. What the roof
| does is accelerate the wind moving over the roof, then the air
| vents in the cupola let the wind through, which sucks the heat
| out of the attic.
|
| Another design element is eaves. Eaves shade the house in
| summer and don't shade it in winter (for more heat gain). Eaves
| also keep the sides of the house dry, which means your siding
| and paint and window frames last a lot longer. Mine are 1.5
| feet. Most houses around here have tiny or even non-existent
| eaves.
|
| The advent of air-conditioning is when architects stopped
| paying attention to the sun.
| amluto wrote:
| > For example, how many houses have a cupola? They're common
| on older homes, but non-existent on modern ones. What the
| roof does is accelerate the wind moving over the roof, then
| the air vents in the cupola let the wind through, which sucks
| the heat out of the attic.
|
| This one is genuinely obsolete. With modern techniques, it's
| straightforward to build a reliable unvented attic, and there
| are few if any climates where a vented attic makes sense.
| There are plenty of climates where a vented attic, even a
| nice one with a cupola, is massively inferior to an unvented,
| conditioned attic.
|
| Seal and condition your attic. Put on a decorative cupola if
| you like. If you live in a place with heavy snow load, you
| vent a small gap between the top of your attic and your roof
| surface to help keep the actual roof surface cold enough to
| avoid melting the snow.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I've been in an attic many times on a sunny day. The heat
| in the attic is well above what it is outside. I'm highly
| skeptical that an unvented attic is going to keep a house
| cool in summer.
| amluto wrote:
| Me too. But have you been in a competently built
| insulated and unvented attic? The insulation on top makes
| an _enormous_ difference, to the point that the attic can
| usually maintain a very pleasant temperature.
|
| While it's true that the top side of above-attic
| insulation will be rather warmer than a vented attic on a
| hot sunny day, insulation on top of your attic also tends
| to work rather better than ceiling insulation. And there
| are plenty of other benefits to an unvented, insulated
| attic.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Interesting! But having a sealed attic makes me concerned
| about mildew. Ventilation is needed to keep the moisture
| out.
| amluto wrote:
| Au contraire.
|
| If you live in a climate where the outdoor air is
| generally fairly dry and also sufficiently warm that it
| spends most of its time above the interior dewpoint, then
| fine. You can vent our attic and it stays dry. This
| covers rather little of the world.
|
| If you do not insulate at all and you heat your house
| when it's cold or wet and you do not experience hot and
| humid weather, then there will be enough heat flow to
| keep your attic dry. This is generally an awful idea, but
| old insulated houses did work in many climates.
|
| If you live somewhere cold and put fluffy stuff on your
| ceiling and you vent your attic and you have air leaks in
| your ceiling (hint: this is basically unavoidable) and
| it's very cold in your attic, you may get condensation in
| the ceiling insulation or the attic. Mold time.
|
| If you live somewhere hot and humid and you vent your
| attic, then you are are filling your attic with hot,
| humid air. Your dehumidifier or A/C will not control your
| attic humidity. But your A/C may cool _parts_ of your
| attic, leading to additional condensation.
|
| If you have nasty severe blowing rain, it may blow into
| your attic, leading to damage. This is a problem in
| hurricanes.
|
| Wildfire embers can ignite the inside of your attic. You
| can try to use fancy supposedly ember resistant vents to
| mitigate this, or you can omit vents entirely.
|
| If you seal your attic and control moisture in the living
| spaces well enough to avoid moisture problems and you
| have adequate conditioning in your attic, your attic will
| be about the same temperature and humidity as your living
| spaces, and you'll be fine.
|
| You can geek out at buildingscience.com. The author
| appears to have become increasingly convinced that vented
| attics are basically never the answer.
| WalterBright wrote:
| All I can say is my attic is vented, and is dry and free
| of mold.
| pilingual wrote:
| Ridge vent is the modern approach, with vents and wind
| baffles in the eaves so air is evenly distributed.
|
| 1.5' overhang is good, 2' is ideal. Cheap builders will go 1'
| or even less.
|
| Good architects still pay attention to the sun. It's often
| builders who are the culprits because they want to save
| money.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Around Seattle, modern houses are square boxes with a flat
| roof, and zero eaves. I watch these homes get built all the
| time. A few years later, I see all the water damage to the
| siding.
|
| You're right about ridge vents, they behave much like a
| cupola, but the holes in them are too small for much
| airflow, and are easily blocked by debris, insects and
| moss.
| pilingual wrote:
| > easily blocked
|
| That's a concern. It may be a good idea to put a
| connected thermometer and hygrometer in the attic. If it
| is ventilating properly, the temperature and humidity
| should be close to outdoor values.
| coryrc wrote:
| Forced ventilation of the attic creates negative pressure in
| the attic, which pulls conditioned air from the house. The
| additional air movement (which you should minimize with air
| sealing) costs more than the additional loses by the mildly
| increased temperature differential through the insulation.
|
| If you aren't using A/C and have the windows open, then it
| only helps, of course.
| WalterBright wrote:
| The idea includes gaps where the roof meets the ceiling, so
| air is drawn from outside.
|
| > If you aren't using A/C and have the windows open, then
| it only helps, of course.
|
| I make use of the "stack effect" to cool the house down in
| the evening. Not even a fan is necessary.
|
| One mistake I made was to not have the A/C pull from the
| basement, which is always 10 degrees cooler than the rest
| of the house.
| coryrc wrote:
| > The idea includes gaps where the roof meets the
| ceiling, so air is drawn from outside.
|
| Of course you should have soffit venting, but forced
| ventilation results in negative pressure, regardless of
| whether that venting is a cupola harnessing the wind or a
| motorized fan. That negative pressure will pull
| conditioned air out and building science research shows
| higher attic temperatures are better than forced
| ventilation.
|
| Even better is larger amounts of passive ventilation, but
| if the only thing you change is adding forced
| ventilation, then you're creating negative pressure and
| this is worse _if using A /C_.
| scheme271 wrote:
| Unless you have really good insulation, in hotter areas,
| your roof will absorb a lot of heat and that gets
| transferred to the attic and then to the rest of the house.
| One of the cheapest and best upgrades in hotter areas is to
| have an attic fan and vents to send the hot attic air
| outside.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > attic fan
|
| The cupola does that using the "stack effect" and the
| acceleration of the wind as it hits the sloping roof, at
| zero cost!
|
| That said, I do have an attic fan connected to a
| thermostat. I'd rather have a cupola, though.
| coryrc wrote:
| Building science shows this is not true if you use A/C
| and have appropriate amount of ceiling insulation.
| Inadequate ceiling insulation is helped by this.
| interloxia wrote:
| >a major "trick" being to put them in the middle of the house
| rather than in the exterior wall
|
| I vised Lowenburg in Kassel which has bedrooms with similar
| curtains around the bed. Much later (1891) and with other
| heating technology of note. I was intrigued by the fireplace
| design in the room immediately behind the bed. The open fire is
| backed by a huge granite block built into the wall. The room
| had a close connection to servant stairways directly down to
| the exterior.
|
| The guide describe the otherwise plain room as a dressing room.
| It looked like a convenient place to store a lot of firewood to
| stoke the fireplace attached to the bed behind it to me.
| solidsnack9000 wrote:
| The central spine of the building, 1.4m of stone or brick, could
| probably help cool a house, as well.
| RickJWagner wrote:
| Energy efficiency can seem counter intuitive.
|
| A great example is the Clinton Presidential Library in Little
| Rock, Arkansas. At first glance, the building seems to be a giant
| rectangular box made of glass. Hardly ideal in the long, hot
| Arkansas summers.
|
| It's not the truth, though. In reality, the building is said to
| be highly efficient and was the first Federal building to be LEED
| certified. Amazing.
|
| I guess we've learned a few things over the years.
|
| https://www.clintonlibrary.gov/about-us/leed-certified-build...
| rappatic wrote:
| > The house has lessons for how we can heat our homes more
| efficiently today
|
| The problem in Europe isn't keeping warm in the winter but
| keeping cool in the summer. In part thanks to their near-total
| lack of AC in residential buildings, Europe has an extremely high
| heat-related death rate. 200k people per year die of heatstroke
| in Europe: this accounts for 36% of global heat-related deaths.
| This is despite Europe being only 9% of the world population,
| having a very cool climate in comparison to India and similar
| countries, and being among the richest regions in the world.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| Most of the tricks seem like they'd work in the cooling
| direction too. They amount to insulation and thermal mass. You
| would need AC to actually lower the temperature, but those
| improvements would let you run the cooling on a lower duty
| cycle.
| chao- wrote:
| Even parts of the US that have AC standard have learned to lean
| on it so hard that they've lost architectural features which,
| 50-100 years ago, kept a house cooler in Summer.
|
| I once lived in a rental house in a "historical" neighborhood
| (on US timelines, not European) in a big city, and most of the
| houses had porches on two or three sides, depending on the
| cardinal orientation. These kept sunlight from falling directly
| on main body of the house, and strategically placed windows let
| you open two or three and get a breeze through the whole house.
|
| We learned this visiting a neighbor who owned their home. The
| rental was not as well-maintained: some of the window frames
| had been painted shut over decades of touchups, but we never
| thought much of it. The day we jimmied them open and
| experienced a true cross-breeze through the living room was a
| HUGE "Aha!" moment.
|
| Setting aside porches, even simple features like awnings above
| windows (esp. second-story windows) have fallen out of fashion,
| but they can reduce the demand on indoor AC significantly. They
| save money, but people think they look old-fashioned or
| something like that.
| edm0nd wrote:
| My local HVAC guy joked with me that the next Bezos/Musk
| billionaire type is going to be the guy who runs an HVAC
| company in Europe.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Europe is pretty big and varied.
|
| >The problem in Europe isn't keeping warm in the winter but
| keeping cool in the summer. In part thanks to their near-total
| lack of AC in residential buildings,
|
| The times they are a-changing. Every house on my 21 year old
| estate came with ac. I'd assume the same for newer
| constructions. People rarely use it due to the price of
| electricity. Temps get well over 30C for a couple of weeks in
| august.
| peterfirefly wrote:
| > 200k people per year die of heatstroke in Europe
|
| Extremely doubtful. Even Teh Grauniad disagrees.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/17/human-ma...
|
| Note that the Grauniad figures include some very unusual heat
| waves. There's no way the normal average could be a lot higher
| in years that were a lot colder.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| I live in Europe. My house gets too warm maybe 1 week of the
| year. I bought a big floor standing fan and it fixed that.
|
| 30 degrees Centigrade is exceptional here.
|
| Whereas in other parts of Europe it gets much hotter. Probably
| best not to generalise over a whole continent that covers 36
| degrees of latitude (more than the contiguous 48 states of the
| US, at about 25 degrees), and goes from islands sat in the Gulf
| Stream to land sat next to an even larger land mass.
| JohnCClarke wrote:
| Well that's full of really useful tips. I'll get the builders in
| to construct a 1.37m (4.5ft) thick spine through the middle of my
| house. Obviously.
| trhway wrote:
| You're missing out if you don't have such thick mass of warm
| brick/stone. If you only knew how great it is to sleep on top
| of it (my grandmother had similar to that in her house :)
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_stove
|
| Modern fire codes require large space between a stove and walls
| which is usually goes unused where it could have been really
| filled with such a thick brick structure with the smoke passage
| snaking through it like in Russian and German stoves. Or like
| this:
|
| https://www.mha-net.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2020/05...
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Fire codes in the UK would allow a stove as close to the wall
| as you would like
| loeg wrote:
| Modern insulation is really, really good, and modern heatpumps
| are very energy efficient and don't pollute your house with CO,
| CO2, and particulate matter like woodsmoke. Also, modern
| double- or triple-pane windows insulate much better than drafty
| Elizabethan windows. We live in a time of marvels.
| basilgohar wrote:
| You're talking about the best of what's available but that is
| rarely what builders use and retrofitting your already
| constructed house to use these could end up costing you 1/3
| or more of your home's original value.
|
| All that is to say that builders cheap out on new home
| construction so most people don't get to enjoy the benefits
| if these innovations.
| teiferer wrote:
| Um, nobody builds a house without modern insulation (rock
| wool etc) and 3-pane windows. It wouldn't be legal either.
| SturgeonsLaw wrote:
| That depends where you are. Here in Australia the default
| is single glazed windows, and double glazed is hideously
| expensive, especially to retrofit.
|
| Sounds you're somewhere with some actual building
| standards though.
| donavanm wrote:
| Also in australia, the BCC/NCA is an absolute joke
| compared to basically every other industrialized country.
| There's a reason for the annual "Austrlian houses dont
| meet WHO minimum standards" articles.
|
| As an example single pane windows havent been effective
| or widely used since the 70-80s in north america and
| europe. And both places energy standards effectively
| preclude them since 2000ish. Or insulation in australia
| is effectively absent in pre 2000s, and maybe R-4ish on a
| new build now. Conversely NA was R-4 in the 70-80s and it
| would be about R-6 (or more) these days.
|
| Our residential solar and heat pump uptake is great. But
| for building standards and quality were a joke.
| dmd wrote:
| Build, no. But here in New England (Boston suburbs) even
| double-pane windows are still quite rare, because most
| houses are ~100 years old or more.
| loeg wrote:
| Windows have a lifetime of only 15-30 years, though. If
| you have to replace them anyway, you might as well get
| double-pane (even if the rest of the house isn't well
| insulated).
| dmd wrote:
| What does 'lifetime' mean? Mine are nearly all original.
| b112 wrote:
| Windows last hundreds of years because glass lasts
| hundreds of years.
|
| Modern windows don't last very long, because the seals
| leak, and the argon gas or whatever leaks out. The glass
| is still good, but the insulative quality is gone.
|
| The parent poster didn't realize that if you don't have
| double pane windows, you have single pane windows, which
| have no gas to leak.
| cenamus wrote:
| Even if it's mostly air it insulates quite a bit better
| than single pane windows. Of course worse than with the
| original gas filling, as the windows are optimized for
| maximum distance between the glass panes without having
| the inner gas start to "circulate" - which starts to
| happen at a smaller distance for air than for the noble
| gasses.
| b112 wrote:
| Yes, for sure. My house is 65 years old, and all the
| windows have leaked.
|
| But my point was that windows, the glass part, lasts
| centuries, if not longer. Not the mere decades cited
| upstream.
| bluGill wrote:
| That is the stated lifetime - but they typically last
| much longer.
| maccard wrote:
| I live in the UK and nobody is replacing windows every 15
| years. 30 _maybe_
| jaccola wrote:
| I think this is the stated lifetime of insulated windows.
| But obviously single glazed windows were never insulated
| in the first place so there is no practical lifetime on
| them...
|
| In my house and on my road a lot of the glass is 150+
| years old.
| fmlpp wrote:
| Haha. Made of what? Come on, around here there are plenty
| of wooden doors and windows 70-100 yo and this is a humid
| climate.
| maccard wrote:
| I live in Edinburgh, and 100 year old buildings are the
| newest ones in the city. A good chunk of the city is what
| we call a "conservation area" - so you can't modify the
| aesthetic of the building (windows included), but the
| vast vast vast majority of people outside that space have
| double glazed windows I'd wager.
| loeg wrote:
| Not sure where you live, but all of that stuff is minimum
| code in new construction where I live. And it is inspected.
| yrro wrote:
| In the UK it's minimum code and we don't bother to
| inspect. We trust the building firms to self-certify,
| with predictable results...
| m463 wrote:
| the modern way of doing that is ICF - insulated concrete forms.
|
| I remember talking to a builder once who was building a house
| this way. He said the mass wasn't allowed to be advertised with
| an R-value since it wasn't actually insulation, but he said it
| was comparable to an R-50 house.
| UltraSane wrote:
| ICF homes are also VERY air tight. They often need special
| variable output heating and cooling.
| m463 wrote:
| I had trouble with my heating system and got a good long
| talk with the HVAC pro.
|
| I think variable output heating/cooling has one interesting
| capability - it can adjust to things you've adjusted. For
| example, a one or two-stage heating system has trouble if
| you close heating vents in some rooms. It might overheat if
| too many are closed for example. With a variable-output
| system, it can support this. further with variable dampers
| it can support zoned heating and cooling. You can give the
| places that need it less or more airflow and have a more
| comfortable house without waste.
|
| after seeing things like heatermeter (pid controlled smoker
| controller based on the raspberry pi), I wonder why this
| kind of convenient and efficient control isn't more common.
| tstrimple wrote:
| Most high quality modern homes are built to be air tight
| and bring air in with exchangers. Monopoly framing is how
| they are approaching this with stick frame houses. They
| essentially create what looks like a building from the game
| Monopoly (no overhangs) with air tight materials and tape
| every hole they can find. They will install a blower door
| and measure how much air leaks from the building envelope.
| The overhanging features are installed _outside_ of the air
| tight monopoly frame.
|
| This is what a monopoly framed house looks like before the
| roof and siding are put on: https://www.afirsttimehomebuild
| er.com/img/pure_monopoly_fram...
|
| All of the Zip boards are air and water tight and they use
| the tape on all of the seams to seal those. The roof will
| sit on top of the already water & air tight frame. Same
| with the siding.
| UltraSane wrote:
| It takes a LOT of effort to make stick framed homes as
| air tight as ICF houses automatically are.
| driverdan wrote:
| ICF is great but it's still uncommon. Most contractors know
| nothing about it.
| ggm wrote:
| Passive solar houses do exactly this. But you're fundamentally
| right, it's not really a retrofit. It's a goal you set for the
| next house.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Or go solar with a battery, or just have a massive battery hooked
| into your distribution panel and leave the 19th century heating
| hacks in the 19th century. Optimize what you need for today, not
| whatever was state of the art 200 years ago. An electric space
| heater running continuously is enough in an emergency.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| I don't think you understand how much power electric heaters
| use and how poorly solar converts to electric heat BTUs. A heat
| pump would be better.
| 1970-01-01 wrote:
| Heat pump requires massive investment with ROI only when you
| are home. Solar stores the heat as electrical power and you
| can release it whenever you want.
| mrexroad wrote:
| > An electric space heater running continuously is enough in an
| emergency.
|
| Yeah, massive battery _and_ massive solar install might let it
| run continuously... even in a small well insulated house that's
| gonna be using a lot of power to heat a room or two.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| If it's really cold outside, an electric heater isn't going to
| do much if your house doesn't have good insulation. It'll be
| cranking away on high 24/7 and the room will still be cold.
| Building direction, window choice, room design, etc all
| contribute to the overall thermal efficiency so that the space
| heater can be effective.
| asplake wrote:
| I live not far from Hardwick Hall, drive past it frequently, and
| have visited it a few times. Learned a lot of of new stuff about
| it from this article, thanks.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| Some highlights of this rubbish article
|
| > Pretty much all the fireplaces I see are also built on the
| central spine of the building, meaning not much heat would be
| lost to the windows or exterior wall.
|
| Or maybe because, as the first half of the article say, it is
| because the outside walls have nowhere to put a fireplace,
| because they are covered in windows?
|
| > he told me it can feel around 10C (18F) warmer inside on a cold
| winter's day. Other, typical Elizabethan houses, he estimates,
| would have only feel 2-3C (3.6-5.4F) warmer.
|
| It 'feels' warmer...he 'estimates'. Nice way to do science
|
| > Since it's winter, and cold, I move my desk to a south-eastern
| window. It brightens the mornings and if I wear another layer, I
| find I can lower the thermostat by 2C (3.6F).
|
| More good science, change two variables but attribute the effect
| to only one of them. If I wear another layer of clothing, move my
| desk to the basement, sacrifice a goat, speak in tongues and draw
| a pentacle on the floor, I can turn the thermostat down 2 degrees
| too.
|
| But let's start at the top
|
| >England's longest river was usually flowing freely
|
| Then list lots of evidence that it was not at all unusual for it
| to freeze at the time.
|
| Great work
| defrost wrote:
| The river Thames in the Kingdom of England ( ~950 AD -> now +/-
| various other countries ) _usually_ was freely flowing - just
| as the article states.
|
| The article takes a long view of time, stretching back to at
| least the founding of London, the capital city, two thousand
| and more years past on the banks of that very river.
|
| There _was_ a relatively short period of time when the Thames
| did freeze in winter and England was much colder, this article
| talks about a chunky bit of architecture during that period.
|
| The windows are discussed wrt their thermal effects, allowing
| the sun in to heat central stone during the day on one side of
| the building, likely with heavy curtains at night, with windows
| blocked internally and largely for show on the rear.
| riazrizvi wrote:
| You had me at 'rubbish article'. There's a bunch of Youtube
| content on this that's far superior, example:
|
| https://youtu.be/puzxeIvpgwg
|
| https://youtu.be/SrC3wms8pQ8
| pinnochio wrote:
| The author is not a scientist publishing in a scientific
| journal, in case that wasn't clear from the domain.
|
| You always this cranky and uncharitable?
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| The castles and mansions were relatively modern. Most people
| didn't have "good" home design, they had older, practical
| architecture. Their homes had thin walls, were drafty, and had no
| chimneys; there was a hole in the roof where the smoke from your
| fire would go, so your attic was filled with smoke (where you'd
| smoke meats for winter).
|
| You're better served by looking to 19th century lower and middle
| class architecture. Right before air conditioning, but with
| relatively modern designs using modern building materials and
| practices ("insulation" (horsehair and newspaper),
| fireplaces/stoves, corridors with doors to separate cold rooms
| from hot ones, windows designed to allow cross-breezes, covered
| porches to provide shade in summer, etc). Right before air
| conditioning came in, we had pretty much gotten to the peak of
| design that used natural forms of temperature regulation. Some
| designs even created mini greenhouses of glass, with half the
| wall mounted with earth, for thermal regulation as well as solar
| heating. The only better passive methods invented since then is
| geothermal.
|
| The peak of winter heat management were the _pechka_ , Russian
| rocket stoves built into literal tons of masonry, for the most
| thermal mass possible. You'd heat it up once with a small amount
| of wood and it warms the house the whole day. They were so big
| you could sleep on top of it.
| expedition32 wrote:
| The 19th century was basically the low point of Dutch
| civilization. People stayed warm because 10 people slept in one
| room.
|
| It was so bad that even rich people had to admit that the
| country had become an embarrassment.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| Ignoring the colonial era of course.
| bluGill wrote:
| Modern insulation with hvac is better yet. You need hvac to
| bring air in as a modern house should be air tight. Not much
| heat or ac should be needed.
| maccard wrote:
| I'm inclined to agree, even in cold places. AC is remarkably
| efficient, especially when you reverse it (and get a heat
| pump).
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| ...but when electricity dies down, you're basically fucked.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _" insulation" (horsehair and newspaper)_
|
| It immediately brings to mind when we had insulation blown into
| our walls, and the guy doing the work showing us the shredded
| newspaper treated with borax, and explaining how the borax made
| it fire-resistant.
| yborg wrote:
| The masonry heater has a long history.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masonry_heater
| fuzztester wrote:
| Related:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurie_Baker
| teiferer wrote:
| >to keep temperatures cosier through the winter without turning
| up the thermostat.
|
| Point of a thermostat is to not have to do this.
|
| Requires a well calibrated heating system though, depending on
| outside temperature.
| halls-940 wrote:
| I'm pretty sure humans understood taking advantage of sunlight to
| warm structures since the earliest structures. Most animals
| understand the sunlight/shade difference. The aztecs, egyptians,
| etc..
| thangalin wrote:
| > Scandinavian cabins, despite lacking modern insulation,
| maintain warmth in sub-zero temperatures. This video explores
| centuries-old building techniques, comparing their performance
| against modern homes. Discover the surprising physics principles
| behind their resilience and energy efficiency.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVqwiMtoDhk
| vondur wrote:
| I don't know how many people have homes with 4.5 ft thick walls.
| Adobe houses in the Southwest US were similar in design with
| thick walls.
| usrusr wrote:
| "King Henry VIII and his queen"
|
| Someone appears to have had a bit of fun being unspecific
| karim79 wrote:
| This just reminds me of a random discussion I had with a very
| close German friend.
|
| He pointed out that Tado (who do smart radiator valves) noted
| from a study, which drew from their data, that the UK sucks at
| insulation, losing heat up to three times faster than other
| European neighbours[0].
|
| [0] https://www.tado.com/en-gb/press/uk-homes-losing-heat-up-
| to-...
|
| Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated nor am I a customer of Tado. Also,
| I'm British and I just felt like commenting here because it felt
| relevant.
| keiferski wrote:
| Now it makes sense to me. I live in central continental Europe
| but spent a month or so in the UK a couple years ago, and one
| of my immediate impressions was how much colder it felt inside
| buildings. The buildings themselves seemed thinner and made of
| less dense materials as well.
| karim79 wrote:
| Right. My friend said to me, after visiting his sister and
| brother-in-law in the UK that "it's incredible, the houses
| there are made of shit". Sounds harsh and I reprimanded him
| but I think there's something to it.
| onion2k wrote:
| I wonder if that correlates with the average age of houses. The
| UK has _a lot_ of buildings that are well over 100 years old
| that can only be insulated by stuffing cavity walls full of an
| insulating material. My house is 126 years old, and despite my
| best efforts it 's still terrible.
| walthamstow wrote:
| I'm very surprised to hear that such an old house has cavity
| walls. I would expect solid brick walls in Flemish bond. My
| house is 1970 and has them, they were much more common after
| the war.
| onion2k wrote:
| Old Victorian terraces in the North East where I live have
| them because they were built by very wealthy shipyard
| owners so they could afford to put up high quality housing,
| and they needed something to keep out the damp. Cavity
| walls made from two layers of brick with iron ties were the
| solution.
| walthamstow wrote:
| Blimey, NE weather and on the water as well, that's a
| tough heating/insulation job!
| rcxdude wrote:
| I would suspect so, but a lot of the stock since then isn't
| that much better. There was a lot of building up to the 60s
| but they weren't exactly well regarded for quality. And new
| builds have a bad reputation now for similar reasons, as even
| though the minimum standards have risen they're still not
| particularly great (and especially not a very good tradeoff
| between quality and cost).
| arthurofbabylon wrote:
| I was speaking with an architect a few months ago and dismayed to
| learn that they no longer bother designing for thermal management
| (relying on air-conditioning alone). They are fully focused on
| the aesthetic "integration" of the structure in the landscape. (I
| use quotes for the word "integration" because it implies a
| harmonious coalescing across domains, including temperature.)
| Their prior work beautifully incorporated passive
| heating/cooling, much to the benefit of the clients' health and
| happiness. Where did this architect lose the thread?
|
| I've noticed in general a thorough dismissal of passive benefits.
| It seems that we are caught by a cultural need for immediacy.
| Thermal management, and particularly passive thermal management,
| pays immense dividends slowly, but it takes a greater
| intelligence or broader perspective for anyone to appreciate
| these advantages.
|
| Those who sit still and think clearly see the advantages of
| passive benefits, and anyone who gardens or does systems design
| intrinsically observes the long-term flows and thus understands
| the passive benefits at play. But so many people - from
| practitioners like the architect to stakeholders like their
| clients - go through life wholly unaware of this goldmine that is
| right there in front of their imagination.
| bhickey wrote:
| > passive thermal management
|
| I lived in an almost passive house for about a year. When the
| HVAC system stopped working* in July, I didn't notice until the
| middle of November.
|
| * Air handler was running, compressor was off.
| pvtmert wrote:
| I envision even simpler and more practical thing, under-the-floor
| heating with addition of disposal water.
|
| Me and my wife are taking shower daily, hers being hotter than
| mine (apparently that's common difference between female & male).
|
| Every time, I am thinking that so much heat is going down the
| drain as waste, why not circulate this under the bathroom floor
| until it cools down.
|
| Since we have a tub, I usually close the drain, sit/stand on a
| bench above the tub, rinse thoroughly at the end, keeping hot
| water afloat for next 20 minutes.
|
| Since tub itself absorbs the heat, even after I open the drain
| and let go all the water, tub itself stays warmy for an hour or
| so.
| hardlianotion wrote:
| Apropos the information box, I don't believe that the European
| colonisation of the New World was a cause of the Little Ice Age.
| A claim that bold should really show it's workings.
| president_zippy wrote:
| The big about textiles (curtains and bed fabric) functioning as
| insulation gave me flashbacks to my dad repeatedly complaining
| over the past decade about a couple small boxes of my stuff
| taking up space he "needs" in his 700 sqft attic.
|
| I told him, "What's the big deal? It's free insulation during
| brutal north Texas summers. It's as good as vermiculite
| insulation minus the asbestos contamination!"
|
| I only put about as much rigor into this as reddit PC builders
| making untested "gut calls" about thermodynamics, and I was
| mostly just being a smartass, but it's nice to see I had the same
| idea as English nobility who comfortably survived winters before
| the invention of HVAC as we know it.
|
| Nice to see some proof I'm not _completely_ full of crap.
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