I was outside…
…for a while today. It’s sunny and quite cold, although by no means as cold as it can get up here in January. But cold enough to wear earmuffs.
I had to go to the dentist, and then I did some errands. The bright sun was great to see, because although we usually have a lot of sun in winter – and reflecting off the snow it means that sunglasses are in order – this winter so far we’ve had more cloudy days than usual. So I was happy to be out.
But I’ll tell you something – I was really really happy to get back, too. The minute I walked into my place a wonderful cozy warmth enveloped me. And it struck me that one of the greatest inventions of mankind is one we don’t often think about until it breaks: central heating.
Central Heating. Right up there with indoor plumbing!
T:
And the two go together nicely, don’t they? In winter, I like a warm bathroom. But I confess that sometimes I have to turn on the space heater to get it. If I cranked up the central heating high enough to make the bathroom really warm, the rest of the place would probably be too hot.
Yep, and people in this country for the most part have no idea what it is like to live in an old, old house where the fireplace is just about the most important thing in the house. People would gather around the fireplace until going to bed and would be bundled up all the time.
It’s almost impossible to overstate the affect central heating and air conditioning have had on modern life. We live in the greatest time to be alive. Wish more people realized this but sadly they don’t.
I enjoyed a book called “How to Be a Victorian” by Ruth Goodman. One of the things that permeates the book is how cold houses were always. For the poorer classes, it was because they couldn’t afford to be any warmer. But the upper classes–including children–were always cold as well because the Victorians thought it built character. Ample fires in bedrooms were reserved for people who were sick and the elderly.
Despite living in Texas, I felt cold the entire time I read that book.
The electricity went off at our house a couple of days last winter, and central heat won’t run unless there’s power for the fan-blower.
For our contribution to Global Warming, we installed a supplemental gas heater upstairs to augment the forced-air furnace. Sometimes we turn it on just because it’s nice to stand in front of radiant heat.
Over the holidays this year, we visited one of our long-distance kids, and opted to try the AirBnB gig.
No complaints about the room, bed, or host, except that he didn’t tell us until after we got there that he turned off the central heating at night (“dry climate”). He did provide an electric space heater, but I won’t run anything with dicey-looking plugs while I’m asleep. Got down to 55 F one night. We’ll stick with the Big Name Hotels in future, at least in winter.
My mother tells that they (1930s & 40s) would keep their bedroom doors closed during the day to keep the heat in the main portions of the house, then wrap a heated brick in a towel and stick it in the bed before they got in. Sometimes in the morning, their breath would have frosted the top of the covers.
So, my Adventures in Heating are not that bad, but not what I prefer!
Oh, I think about central heating every time I go to England.
They say going to stay with QE 2 up in Scotland @ Balmoral is a freezing experience too. Of course no central heating & fireplaces really are not that warming. I think they make do with small electric heaters. It s probably a situation where after the sun comes up its warmer outside than inside.
Apparently Meghan Markle dosent like the chill either.
I visited Emily Dickinson’s house in Amherst back in the 1970s and was struck by the Franklin stove in her bedroom. I remember thinking she must have been cozily warm while she did her writing because cast-iron stoves radiate heat very nicely.
Central heating is more of a convenience. What the Victorians needed was smarter heating. If they had not had wasteful an inefficient fireplaces they could have done much better. The technology existed, but they did not adopt it. See Mark Twain on the stoves he encountered in Europe:
“It has a little bit of a door which you couldn’t get your head in – a door which seems foolishly out of proportion to the rest of the edifice; yet the door is right, for it is not necessary that bulky fuel shall enter it. Small-sized fuel is used, and marvelously little of that. The door opens into a tiny cavern which would not hold more fuel than a baby could fetch in its arms. The process of firing is quick and simple. At half past seven on a cold morning the servant brings a small basketful of slender pine sticks – say a modified armful – and puts half of these in, lights them with a match, and closes the door. They burn out in ten or twelve minutes. He then puts in the rest and locks the door, and carries off the key. The work is done. He will not come again until next morning.
All day long and until past midnight all parts of the room will be delightfully warm and comfortable, and there will be no headaches and no sense of closeness or oppression. In an American room, whether heated by steam, hot water, or open fires, the neighborhood of the register or the fireplace is warmest – the heat is not equally diffused throughout the room; but in a German room one is comfortable in one part of it as in another. Nothing is gained or lost by being near the stove. Its surface is not hot; you can put your hand on it anywhere and not get burnt.
Consider these things. One firing is enough for the day; the cost is next to nothing; the heat produced is the same all day, instead of too hot and too cold by turns; one may absorb himself in his business in peace; he does not need to feel any anxieties of solicitudes about the fire; his whole day is a realized dream of bodily comfort.
America could adopt this stove, but does America do it? The American wood stove, of whatsoever breed, it is a terror. There can be no tranquility of mind where it is. It requires more attention than a baby. It has to be fed every little while, it has to be watched all the time; and for all reward you are roasted half your time and frozen the other half. It warms no part of the room but its own part; it breeds headaches and suffocation, and makes one’s skin feel dry and feverish; and when your wood bill comes in you think you have been supporting a volcano.”
My house has no central heating, instead it uses a pellet stove in one corner that’s about 30 years old. Our winters are rarely below freezing and we have little trouble keeping the house warm. What is challenging:
Keeping the house at a constant temperature: when the stove is on the house warms up until we turn it off, and then it cools until we turn it on. Newer models incorporate a thermostat.
Keeping the house at an even temperature: we use ceiling fans to move the air around but some rooms are 5 – 10 degrees cooler than others. The upstairs and downstairs are never at the same temperature.
Dealing with weather that is not very cold: if outdoor temperatures are higher than 50F, then the minimum stove setting rapidly makes the living room uncomfortably warm. So we end up turning the stove off all night and are much too cold in the morning when we wake up.
Wait. It breaks?
(Shudders. Digs deeper into das Federbett. Note to self: never move north.)
Just wait until your central heating, which may run on oil or gas, but it still needs electricity for the control and distribution is being powered by weather dependent energy like solar and wind. Going to be tough keeping it going on cloudy, calm days. Brought to you proudly by all the Dem. prez candidates.
@physicsguy:Just wait until your central heating, which may run on oil or gas, but it still needs electricity for the control and distribution is being powered by weather dependent energy like solar and wind.
Don’t need to wait that long. Areas that implemented voluntary smart grids can simply make them compulsory, and then the utilities can start running your appliances to suit their convenience rather than yours…
“Central heating is more of a convenience. What the Victorians needed was smarter heating. If they had not had wasteful an inefficient fireplaces they could have done much better.” [Frederick @ 3:59 pm]
Actually, the Victorian age was more cooling conscious than heating conscious. In an age of cheap heat but before air conditioning, rooms were built tall so that heat would rise above the living area. Double hung windows, too, were for strategic ventilation; open the tops on one side of the house/room and the bottoms on the other side to allow cooler air in and warmer to exhaust above.
I live in an old Victorian (c. 1875) with 12 ft ceilings. It has retrofitted central heating (but not zoned heating). It makes little sense to heat rooms we only seldom use. So, in the winter, we generally keep the thermostat low (62-63 degrees) and supplement the most used rooms with modern space heaters. The goal is to eventually get non-vented gas fireplaces in the hearths where the original gas heaters were, but that is a long-term (read expensive) project.
Central heat is a huge benefits for smaller homes, especially those with open plans.
Not believing in global warming, I moved to southern Texas. While central heat and AC are nice, indoor plumbing is awesome. Hot running water is the bomb.
Beginning to enjoy this climate change for NE. I opted to stay home today since they said it would be a chiller. My thermometer got up to 30 with bright sunshine so really that is not what NE people call cold. Tomorrow due to be 47 & Sat & Sun upper 50’s. So it has been a mild January for us.
Recently watched a new version of ‘Dracula’ on Netflix, wherein the eponymous antagonist mused:
“I knew the future would bring wonders, but I did not know it would make them ordinary.”
We live in an ordinarily wonderful time.
“one of the greatest inventions of mankind is one we don’t often think about until it breaks: central heating”
Until it breaks or *it is broken*, by the efforts of Democratic politicians, who in some places will likely create both natural gas shortages and electricity shortages.
Central heating is made a lot nicer by the *thermostat*, which is a quintessential feedback device. It is interesting to think about what a temperature-control system that did *not* use feedback would look like…it would have to be quite complicated, and would probably never work very well.
Extensions to the realm of politics can be made.
And you probably couldn’t live in Texas if not for that other great invention: air conditioning.
We have a portable oil-filled electric powered radiator, which we use when we need it. Most years in Slovakia that was in the late fall, when the temperatures were definitely cool, but only sometimes cold.
Most flats have shared community heating from huge community hot water boilers, for 10,000 or more flats running to and from the flats in giant insulated pipes. The hot water only came when “they are heating!”, usually after a week or so of overly cold days. Usually with 2 or more members of our 6 person family getting sick. Now, and for a couple of years, they heat sooner.
This central heating was so strong that for some wasteful places, when it got too hot, they would just open the double windows to let most of the heat out for awhile. This was required for those radiators, quite common, whose handles were stuck in the “on” position.
Those stuck in the off position were fixed, but it wasn’t cheap.
We also added heating elements under our kitchen floor tiles, so they are quite nice in the winter. Sometimes we wish we had done it also to bathroom.
@David Foster: It is interesting to think about what a temperature-control system that did *not* use feedback would look like…it would have to be quite complicated, and would probably never work very well.
I think a simple one would just be something that is connected to an outdoor thermometer (or failing that, an almanac) that is scheduled to run different amounts of time, say “turn on every four hours and stay on for x minutes” where x depends on the time of day and the date (for the almanac) or the outdoor temperature.
That would probably work better than what the Victorians had, but it wouldn’t keep your house at a current or comfortable temperature. It would probably keep your pipes from freezing unless you had very unusual weather indeed.
“It is interesting to think about what a temperature-control system that did *not* use feedback would look like…it would have to be quite complicated, and would probably never work very well.” [David Foster @ 4:42]
Take most gas ovens from even as late as the 1930s (see the kitchen in A Chirstmas Story) the burner could be turned on or off and while the height of the flame could be controlled, the “thermostat” was cook or baker learning how high a flame needed to be in order to thoroughly bake but not char. Consider the effort of making a pie in an old wood or coal stove oven and the knowledge and experience of the women who could successfully do so.
rom la wik: “Gezellig in English language could be used in places or with a party of people (one or more) that are ‘easy to relax into’ and ‘heartening’.
The adjective gezellig can be used in a wide variety of situations:[4]
A room, restaurant, or café can be gezellig (meaning ‘cozy’ or ‘inviting’).
A person can be gezellig (meaning ‘inviting’ or ‘pleasant’ or ‘funny’, ‘convivial’ or ‘sociable’).
A party can be gezellig (meaning ‘relaxed atmosphere with nice people and cozy surroundings’).
A visit to one’s grandparents can be gezellig (meaning ‘togetherness’).”
An attempt to provide accurate temperature control without benefit of feedback would need to involve something like: measure the outdoor temperature…measure the wind speeds (which affect heat loss as well as chimney draft)…calibrate for the BTU content of the fuel (I believe natural gas varies significantly in BTU per cubic foot)…calibrate for the quality of the insulation and the window areas…include variables for time of day and season of year (which influence the amount of solar influx)…and provide a calculating mechanism of some kind to properly combine all of the above.
OR, you could just do what Mr Honeywell did: too cold, turn it ON, too hot, turn it OFF.
Reminds me: There’s a German researcher, Dietrich Doerner, who studies decision-making and, particularly, the mental patterns that lead to *failure*. One of his simulations was the temperature control simulation. Subjects were put in the position of a supermarket manager and told that the thermostat for the freezers has broken down. They had to manually control the refrigeration system to maintain a temperature of 4 degrees C–higher and lower temperatures are both undesirable. They had available to them a regulator and a thermometer.
The results were often just bizarre. Many participants failed to understand that delays were occurring in the system (a setting does not take effect immediately, just as an air conditioner cannot cool a house immediately) and that these delays needed to be considered when trying to control the system. Instead, they developed beliefs about regulator settings that could best be described as superstitious or magical: “twenty-eight is a good number” or, even more strangely, “odd numbers are good.”
@David Foster: Many participants failed to understand that delays were occurring in the system (a setting does not take effect immediately, just as an air conditioner cannot cool a house immediately) and that these delays needed to be considered when trying to control the system.
Was one of these participants my wife, and was one of these systems the heater system in my car?
Federick,et al:
I grew up with a relative who felt that it would get to the desired temperature faster if you set the thermostat to a higher temperature than desired. I’ve lived with other people who felt exactly the same way.
Ah, but wait! The Central Heat and A/C will not be used because of Climate Change. And of course no fires either. Going to be real Cold in those caves. Hot, not so much if you move to the way back.
Another note:
When we built our house 40 plus yrs ago Natural Gas was expensive and going up. Electricity was cheaper – the more you used the price came down. We put in baseboard heaters and an air cooler. Then things changed as they are wont to do.
Two yrs ago we put in Mini Splits in 6 rooms. Heat in Winter, Cool in Summer. And seems to be efficient, at least much more so than base board heaters. And in Summer the house is drier since we took out the air cooler.
On demand will be a disaster.
The results were often just bizarre.
That’s what you get when you use undergraduate psych majors as your research subjects.
Since I consider myself “prepp-ish” rather than a full “prepper”, I cover my bases: my house has gas heating and hot water, I have an electric space heater in my basement somewhere, I have a propane grill and an extra tank, and I keep a working fireplace and a cord of hardwood.
If the Big One hits here in Seattle and knocks out the electricity and/or gas for a month in the middle of winter (such as it is around here), I’m going to be able to keep cooking and I’m not going to freeze.
What we really appreciate here in Singapore is central cooling – current 24h temp ranges from 26-32 deg C (78-90 deg F).
About fifteen years ago we had a big ice storm here in central North Carolina. My unvented gas fireplace wasn’t working properly and I was afraid I’d die of monoxide poisoning. I had no power for six days (“I” because my husband and daughters were not home). Afterwards, we had the house wired for a gasoline generator and installed a direct-vent gas fireplace, both of which have come in very handy. When the power goes out, the generator keeps the fridge and freezer going, the well pumping water, and we can make coffee. The propane grill outside works for cooking.
@neo:I grew up with a relative who felt that it would get to the desired temperature faster if you set the thermostat to a higher temperature than desired.
Some kinds of heating systems would work that way; you’d get an overshoot problem maybe once you hit your temperature. Generally thermostats are programmed to cut back when the sensed temperature is near the set temperature (the “P” in PID controller).
But what my dear wife doesn’t seem to get is that the car is cold because the engine is cold, and turning the heat to max will do literally nothing until the car warms up.
In Scotland some of the homes still do not have central heating which leads to death. I knew a lady who died because of old age just a couple of years ago who had lived her entire life in Edinburgh and she never had central heating. Some homes use wood burning stoves to provide heating: https://www.thestoveandfireplacebuilder.co.uk/wood-burning-stoves/
Of course this American lived for 27-years without any heat at all in Maine. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Thomas_Knight
Frederick on January 9, 2020 at 8:07 pm said:
…
But what my dear wife doesn’t seem to get is that the car is cold because the engine is cold, and turning the heat to max will do literally nothing until the car warms up.
* * *
AesopSpouse and I have had that same discussion.
Repeatedly.
Cold air blowing at max speed is not gezellig.
Also: I’ve been in houses with heated floors and only wish we could retrofit ours.
Best done in new construction.
Second favorite: our son’s boiler pipe system. Zoned heat, won’t burn the kids (or melt the Legos under the radiator), doesn’t dry out the air. Does need electric power, but they also have a fire-place (which we need to test-drive sometime).
Warmth is a relative thing. I’ve lived in the middle part of Minnesota for the past 30 years. There have been periods of a week, sometimes (but rarely) two, when the temperature did not get above zero — for the high. When it finally hit plus ten, you could feel the warmth.
There are advantages to the cold. It builds character in the people who live here. And we don’t have much of a homeless problem.
And it snows. One of my dreams is to hire a small airplane to take me up some completely cloudless night, not very high, when there’s a full moon, on a day when it snowed a couple inches, enough to blanket the landscape. *Sigh*
I remember reading about Native Americans wearing a simple loin cloth in a cold Eastern winter with no problem.
Another story involved Daniel Boone, his sons and a few other companions sleeping outside on the ground during a snow storm. In the middle of the night, the Boone boys were awakened when Dad kicked out the snow ball “pillows” they had rolled. Daniel muttered something like “my boys won’t be sissies!” before everyone returned to sleep.
Those people were tough.
And human bodies CAN take more than we typically expect nowadays.
Of course, they were warmer than we are.
Via InstaPundit:
https://www.sciencealert.com/human-bodies-have-steadily-grown-colder-over-the-past-century
How trenchant this post.
I live in New England. I have used all manner of heating systems, wood stove, coal stove, pellet stove, hot air, propane fireplace insert, baseboard hot water, radiant. I am mildly competent in construction. Yesterday I had a company come to clean my oil fired hot air furnace and hot water heater, two different units. The furnace firebox had developed a hole and the furnace was “condemned.”
Temperature in the teens and I had no central heat. I had a propane fireplace that would probably prevent the house from freezing and the water pipes as well. But it wasn’t central heat.
The company owner showed up onsite to assess it within 3 hours. This morning his crew arrived at 8am and worked until 3:30pm to install a new furnace with a coil to add air conditioning.
My son is a tradesman. I have worked with them for years yet I could not do what they did in 7 hours. Living in the USA in the 21st century is a gift of which I never tire or fail to appreciate.
Testing.