Nikon is backwards

On Sun, 03 Mar 2019 08:54:49 -0000, Sandman wrote:

In article , Alan Browne
wrote:

Commander Kinsey:
You guys should have twice the insulation we have in the UK, then
your bills would be the same.

There's a limit to return on insulation such that windows and other
losses take over. This house was built around 1979 with pretty good
standards. Since then there have been improvements in standards, of
course, but you can't apply them all retroactively. I could do the
windows, but that would be decades to recover the cost. OTOH, it
would improve the resale value.

Attic insulation is maxxed out, for example. Adding any more would
not offset the cost in 100 years.

It's likely that our next house will need no source of heating other
than a wood pellet stove. Neat because they're automatic (you do
need to fill the wood hopper of course...).

Big houses have big roofs, I'm looking in to solar panels a bit now...

I did too. In Scotland certainly, they aren't worth it. I was going to get some when the government was stupidly ploughing money into them with installation grants, but since they stopped that, right on my installation date, I see no point. Small scale electricity production will never be viable.

On Sun, 03 Mar 2019 08:59:46 -0000, Eric Stevens wrote:

On Sun, 03 Mar 2019 02:05:44 -0000, "Commander Kinsey"
wrote:

On Sun, 03 Mar 2019 01:58:55 -0000, Eric Stevens wrote:

On Sat, 02 Mar 2019 13:31:25 -0000, "Commander Kinsey"
wrote:

On Sat, 02 Mar 2019 09:12:38 -0000, Eric Stevens wrote:

On Sat, 02 Mar 2019 00:02:59 -0000, "Commander Kinsey"
wrote:

On Fri, 01 Mar 2019 22:57:59 -0000, PeterN wrote:

On 3/1/2019 5:27 PM, Commander Kinsey wrote:

snip


The defroster would be on all the time and simply keep adding heat back
in. Plus ice is a good conductor of heat.

The heat of fusion (heat absorbed on melting of a solid) of water is 334
kilojoules per kilogram. The specific heat of ice at the freezing point
is 2.04 kilojoules per kilogram per degree Celsius. The thermal
conductivity at this temperature is 2.24 watts per metre kelvin.


Pure aluminum has a thermal conductivity of about 235 watts per kelvin
per meter


Brass is 109.....

You may look up the rest.

Well when I hold a piece of ice, it cools my hand pretty quickly. And my freezer which has ice all over the coils works just fine. Clearly you just don't need any more conductivity. Anyway, you should be comparing it with the conductivity of air, because that's what would replace the ice. Funnily enough, air conducts very badly, which is why placing your bare hand outside in winter in the air isn't that cold compared with picking up ice.

Air transfers heat in a freezer by convection. As you say, it is not a
good conductor.

Conduction is way better than convection for any material.

Nonsense.

How ignorant are you? Place your hand outside in the air at 0C. Now touch something. Which feels colder? Conduction passes WAY more heat than convection. Why do you think it's good to have gaps in double brick walls, double glazing etc? Why do you think we don't have solid thick glass or a triple brick wall with no gap?

I am a damned sight less ignorant than you have repeatedly
demonstrated yourself to be. Does your knowledge of thermodynamics
extend beyond what you can touch?

Personal experience always beats reading things on google.

Double brick walls were originally constructed to form a water
barrier. There is a critical gap for double glazing. Too small and
heat can conduct across too easily. Too large a gap and circulation
cells can form giving rise to heat conduction by convection.

Actually anywhere from about 1 to 4 inghes gap is the same R of 4.

On Sun, 03 Mar 2019 09:03:18 -0000, Eric Stevens wrote:

On Sun, 03 Mar 2019 02:11:48 -0000, "Commander Kinsey"
wrote:

On Sun, 03 Mar 2019 02:02:39 -0000, Eric Stevens wrote:

On Sat, 02 Mar 2019 23:55:04 -0000, "Commander Kinsey"
wrote:

On Sat, 02 Mar 2019 09:16:20 -0000, Eric Stevens wrote:

On Sat, 02 Mar 2019 00:06:08 -0000, "Commander Kinsey"
wrote:

On Fri, 01 Mar 2019 23:01:27 -0000, Eric Stevens wrote:

On Fri, 01 Mar 2019 22:27:34 -0000, "Commander Kinsey"
wrote:

---snip ---

Only if they get really clogged up. The defrost cycle is only initiated to make more room so you don't get half the cavity filled with ice where you want to place food. It cools just fine even though the coils are covered in ice. In fact older ones didn't auto defrost at all. You could leave them forever all frozen up and just get a smaller and smaller food compartment.

Ice is not a good heat conductor and the accumulation of ice does is
to ensure your freezer is at or slightly below 0C whereas the design
temperature is probably -18C. As the ice builds up the temperature
inside the freezer will slowly rise while the power consumptiom of the
freezer increases.

No, the freezer remains at -18C or below just fine. And you'll find ice is a very good conductor. Place some cold ice from a freezer on your hand and feel how much heat it pulls from you. It's probably as good as metal.

What you are sensing is the effect of your hand providing the latent
heat to melt the ice. The thermal conductivity of ice depends upon how
the ice was formed but typically is about 2.5 W/mK (see
https://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/i...ies-d_576.html )
The thermal conductivity of the aluminium upon which the ice is
forming is 200 W/mK or more. The thermal conductivity of copper is 385
W/mK. See
https://chemistry.tutorvista.com/phy...aluminium.html

If ice didn't conduct much, then you wouldn't melt it with your hand very fast.

Why do you say that? It's the surface that your hand is warming and as
soon it is warmed it flows away, exposing more ice.

It has to conduct heat from your hand to the ice.

What is 'it'?

The ice.

That's what you seemed to have said: the ice has to conduct heat from
your hand to the ice. What have you been smoking.

Of course heat goes from your hand to the ice, what's wrong with you?

See when you jump in a cold lake, it feels colder than the air? Water is a good conductor of heat. Ice is just frozen water.

I see you ignored this part.

So that makes ice a good conductor of heat too. How old were you when
you left school?

It's the same substance you fool.

2. They are designed (including sized) to operate in that
condition.

Then the heat pumps should be designed in the same way. And they are, plenty of them can cope with sub zero outdoor temperatures.

That's why I said to be careful as there are also plenty of them which
can't.

Yes, there's always some ****wit designer who makes a device to heat a house which only works when it's already warm outside. Doh!

Depends upon your definition of warm.

Well you said they won't work below 6C. Consider a country that never goes below 6C. That's a warm country. One not worth bothering to install a heat pump in.

No I didn't. I said there can be problems below 6C.

If there are problems, that means it isn't working. The definition of working is something operating without problems.

3. There is probably something wrong if if the coils are permanently
heavily iced up. But possibly, it is either a very old or cheap
design. In any case, it will be more expensive to run if it is
permanently operating with the coils severely iced up.

Defrosting them when they're iced up a little bit is pointless.

Why do you say that?

The defroster would be on all the time and simply keep adding heat back in.

That's not too serious considering that it is heat you are after.

I was considering a freezer, which clearly manages just fine without continually heating the coils.

We were talking about heat pumps to heat a house. A freezer turns the
problem inside out.

It's the same device. You're moving heat from a cold place to a warm place. If a freezer can do it when the cold side is -18C, then a house heat pump can do the same at more than -18C.

Once it has cooled down an insulated freezer has to pump very little
heat from the interior. The same does not apply to a heat pump trying
to keep a house hot.

What about a freezer at -10C? It gets from there to -18C pretty easily.

And the evaporator coils in the heater are ice free.

At -10C? I doubt it.

On Sun, 03 Mar 2019 09:07:29 -0000, Eric Stevens wrote:

On Sun, 03 Mar 2019 02:13:19 -0000, "Commander Kinsey"
wrote:

On Sun, 03 Mar 2019 02:07:34 -0000, Eric Stevens wrote:

On Sat, 02 Mar 2019 23:57:33 -0000, "Commander Kinsey"
wrote:

On Sat, 02 Mar 2019 18:31:43 -0000, Alan Browne wrote:

On 2019-03-01 17:27, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Fri, 01 Mar 2019 01:30:18 -0000, Eric Stevens
wrote:

On Wed, 27 Feb 2019 23:48:53 -0000, "Commander Kinsey"
wrote:

On Wed, 27 Feb 2019 22:38:00 -0000, Eric Stevens
wrote:

2. They are designed (including sized) to operate in that condition.

Then the heat pumps should be designed in the same way. And they
are, plenty of them can cope with sub zero outdoor temperatures..

That's why I said to be careful as there are also plenty of them which
can't.

Yes, there's always some ****wit designer who makes a device to heat a
house which only works when it's already warm outside. Doh!

I guess you don't get how they work?

Heat pumps are economically sensible when the house temp is set to about
20°C and the outdoor temp is down to about -17°C.

WTF? This discussion included heat pumps not working well below 6C.. -17C is a lot below 6C.

The problem area is between 6C and 0C. Above 6c you are unlikely to
get icing on the evaporator because it should not be getting down to
freezing point. Below 0C the air should be dry for practical purposes
and provide little condensate to freeze.

Funny how freezers don't stall when cooling from room temp down through 0-6C.

It's because they are in a small sealed space which initially contains
only a small amount of water vapor.

I've seen freezers without automatic defrosting that are VERY iced up - as in 4 inches of ice over the coils. They still cool just fine. The only point in scraping the ice off is to increase the space to store the food.

On Sun, 03 Mar 2019 14:38:46 -0000, Alan Browne wrote:

On 2019-03-02 18:57, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sat, 02 Mar 2019 18:31:43 -0000, Alan Browne
wrote:

On 2019-03-01 17:27, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Fri, 01 Mar 2019 01:30:18 -0000, Eric Stevens
wrote:

On Wed, 27 Feb 2019 23:48:53 -0000, "Commander Kinsey"
wrote:

On Wed, 27 Feb 2019 22:38:00 -0000, Eric Stevens
wrote:

On Wed, 27 Feb 2019 20:28:30 -0000, "Commander Kinsey"
wrote:

On Wed, 27 Feb 2019 04:00:58 -0000, Eric Stevens
wrote:

On Wed, 27 Feb 2019 01:47:36 -0000, "Commander Kinsey"
wrote:

On Tue, 26 Feb 2019 09:58:00 -0000, Eric Stevens
wrote:

On Mon, 25 Feb 2019 23:12:05 -0000, "Commander Kinsey"
wrote:

On Wed, 20 Feb 2019 22:28:59 -0000, Eric Stevens
wrote:

On Wed, 20 Feb 2019 01:31:48 -0800 (PST), Whisky-dave
wrote:

On Tuesday, 19 February 2019 21:49:04 UTC, Eric Stevens
wrote:
On Mon, 18 Feb 2019 02:02:36 -0800 (PST), Whisky-dave
wrote:

On Saturday, 16 February 2019 00:00:21 UTC, Commander
Kinsey wrote:
On Tue, 12 Feb 2019 13:26:52 -0000, Whisky-dave
wrote:



Why would I want the heating on at home when I'm out
most of the day ?
I see you don't know what energy conservation is.

So you don't heat the home when you're at home?

Yes when at home.

I assume you come home at some point.

Yes and like most do have a switch that turns on to heat
the home, switches are things thatr can be off or on and for
teh most part I prefer my heating off from about 8am to
around 4pm during the week because I am not there.

I suppose you leave your car heater and the engine on when
you're not using your car.

I don't turn the heating off when I leave home. I merely
turn down the
thermostat.

So why do you do that ?

See below.

I find I don't save money by turning the heating rigt off
and letting the house cool down.

really most people do and it helps with teh global warming
thing.

Here in the UK we are encouraged to turn down our heating by
just 1C to both save money and the enviroment, but then I
guess if you're a Trump supporter then you don't believe in
such things.


If I do that I've got 30 tons of
house and contents to warm back up again at a time when
outside
temperatures are falling.

So you think keeping a house warm when yuo're not there is
more efficient ?

Yes.

My house is hated with a heat pump. If I leave it during the
ay and
turn it on in the evening I am giving it a major load when the
outside
temperatures are approaching coolest. That means the heat pump
runs at
a lower efficiency which means more power has to be used. That
costs
me more. And then there is problem of the icing of the outside
coil.
Deicing heaters come into use and that costs more money also.

Where do you live? I'm in the UK and for some reason heat
pumps haven't taken off here, we're still using gas boilers!
Maybe heat pumps became more popular out in the middle of
nowhere in the USA because piped gas isn't usually available?
I'm shortly going to replace my gas boiler (you call them
furnaces if you're American - we think of a furnace as a huge
commercial thing for burning waste etc) with a heat pump -
mainly because I want to be able to run it in reverse as an air
conditioner.

I live in Auckland. I would be very careful before installing a
conventional heat pump if you expect the temperature to fall much
below 6C for more than a few days in the year.

Most American houses use them without bother. They work well
below 6C. I'll obviously read the specs first. I think some of
them are **** at low temperatures, but not all of them. After
all they work the same as a fridge or freezer, where the cold
side can be -18C or less.

The problem is that the evaporator (outside coil) has to be cooler
than the outside air. Otherwise you would never extract heat
from the
outside air. Nominally the temperature difference is only 2C but
with
cheaper units the size of the evaporator has bee stinted and it
needs
a hiher temperature diffeence to work. The problem is that as the
temperature of the outside air falls moisture starts to condense on
the evaporator and s it falls further the water freezes on the
evaporator. The answer to this is to shut down the heat pump and
switch on heating elements to melt the ice. Once the ice is gone
the
heat pump can start up and continue until the next freezing event.

Depending on the heat pump you can run into coil freezing at
outside
air temperatures of 6C. However, if the air temperature is less
than
0C there should be insignificant water vapour in the air and
continual
freezing is not a problem. So 6C to 0C is the temperature band you
usually have to watch. Bear in mind that heat output is
considerably
throttled if the unit has to keep shutting down to thaw out. Also,
the
heating elements will cause power consumption to rise sharply when
you
get into the evaporator freezing zone.

Then explain to me how my freezer can function with the coils
inside the freezer at -18C or below, and constantly frozen up.

1. They will ice up in the normal course of operation and there
usually is a defrost cycle to cope with that.

Only if they get really clogged up. The defrost cycle is only
initiated to make more room so you don't get half the cavity filled
with ice where you want to place food. It cools just fine even
though the coils are covered in ice. In fact older ones didn't auto
defrost at all. You could leave them forever all frozen up and just
get a smaller and smaller food compartment.

Ice is not a good heat conductor and the accumulation of ice does is
to ensure your freezer is at or slightly below 0C whereas the design
temperature is probably -18C. As the ice builds up the temperature
inside the freezer will slowly rise while the power consumptiom of the
freezer increases.

No, the freezer remains at -18C or below just fine. And you'll find ice
is a very good conductor. Place some cold ice from a freezer on your
hand and feel how much heat it pulls from you. It's probably as good as
metal.

Not even close.

Have you tried it? Put a piece of metal in your freezer, and wait till
everything has cooled. Now take the metal in one hand and some ice in
the other, see if one is different to the other.

Too subjective.

Subjective is the best way to measure anything.

A better test is simply put your hand on any metal at room temperature..
It feels cold and conducts your body heat well. Better than water does
at room temperature for that matter.

Rubbish. If I stick my hand in a bowl of room temperature water, it cools my hand just as effectively as metal.

2. They are designed (including sized) to operate in that condition.

Then the heat pumps should be designed in the same way. And they
are, plenty of them can cope with sub zero outdoor temperatures.

That's why I said to be careful as there are also plenty of them which
can't.

Yes, there's always some ****wit designer who makes a device to heat a
house which only works when it's already warm outside. Doh!

I guess you don't get how they work?

Heat pumps are economically sensible when the house temp is set to about
20°C and the outdoor temp is down to about -17°C.

WTF? This discussion included heat pumps not working well below 6C.
-17C is a lot below 6C.

Here, good heat pumps are effective down to -17°C. The two sentences
below are the key.

I shall make sure I buy a decent one.

So what's the difference between a good and a bad one? Different refridgerant? Stronger pump? Different coil design?

It's all about how cold you can make the refrigerant. As long as you
can make it colder than the outside air, then heat flows into it.

On Sun, 03 Mar 2019 14:47:26 -0000, Alan Browne wrote:

On 2019-03-02 19:03, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Sat, 02 Mar 2019 18:48:45 -0000, Alan Browne
wrote:

On 2019-03-01 18:59, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Fri, 01 Mar 2019 20:13:58 -0000, Alan Browne
wrote:

On 2019-02-28 14:49, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Thu, 28 Feb 2019 18:41:02 -0000, Alan Browne
wrote:

On 2019-02-28 11:53, Commander Kinsey wrote:
On Thu, 28 Feb 2019 16:36:34 -0000, Alan Browne
wrote:

On 2019-02-28 11:14, Commander Kinsey wrote:

Surely you can just make the bedroom one run at half power?

Easier to just let the thermostat run the whole thing.

But I like a cooler room for sleeping.

Us too. So the whole house is dropped to 17°C from about 22:00.

So to make your bedroom cooler, you change the whole house?!

Why not.

Gross stupidity? I have my house at a comfortable living temperature,
and my bedroom at a comfortable sleeping temperature. Those
temperatures never change. I don't have to think about when I'll be in
the house, if it will warm up fast enough, if it'll cool down fast
enough, etc, etc.

I don't worry about it at all. That's what the programmable thermostat
is for...

That's ok if you have a very rigid life sticking to the same times every single day.

Again the average temp of the house is cooler, so less heating
is spent. It's quite simple.

Are you really really poor or something? Just get a warmer jumper.

Nope. We like the cool at night.

I thought we were talking about when you were out at work.

I've never known any need replaced unless it's physically damaged..
And
it doesn't matter what's inside it, it's still a motionless gas which
provides insulation.

Double/Triple pane glaze here has a particular gas for insulation.
Gases have different conductivity (ie: Helium is very conductive;
Krypton, xenon and argon are insulating gases. The best insulator is
vacuum, but that of course would not work well with big flat pieces of
glass.)

After 10-15 years, the gases leak and the insulating value of the glass
goes way down. Perhaps they're better these days. I'll ask my
neighbor, he's in that business.

No idea what's inside ours. And I'm not sure anyone's ever tested how
good old ones are. The only problem I've seen is physical damage
allowing water vapour inside so you get it steaming up.

I believe that means they're borked and need to be replaced. Local
expert can tell you what's what.

Mine have never done it. The ones I saw had a small crack in the glass.
One had been physically hit, the other was where someone had installed
an extractor fan and tightened it too much, cracking the glass and
letting moist air inside. I assume whatever is inside is reduced to 0%
RH in manufacture.

Good assumption that the gas is "clean" and dry.

Well I've never seen anything inside one unless physical damage has occurred.

Last time I asked someone about double glazing, he just said it's an R
value of 4, due to the "air gap", I've never heard of different gases
being better. I thought it was just the same as a double brick walled
house with an unfilled cavity.

More or less. Certainly better than ordinary glass.

If gases don't make much difference, why aren't they just filled with
dry air?

Probably because nitrogen has a heat conductivity roughly twice that of
argon (for example).

I didn't think either had a significant conductivity, and it was convection inside the panes that caused heat transfer.

Attic insulation is maxxed out, for example. Adding any more
would not
offset the cost in 100 years.

I didn't bother increasing mine, so many boxes up there, that's the
insulation :-)

My next door neighbour had hers increased, then realised loads of
paintings she had stored up there got left at the wrong end from the
access hatch and she can't get to them. Stupid builders should have
spotted them. And I wonder what she does to access pipework and
wiring? My other neighbour had his increased, then flattened it by
putting flooring down. Dumbass, he doesn't realise it's the
thickness
of air that counts, not the amount of fibreglass. And he's a
tradesman
aswell.

Pretty dumb. Would have been better to remove insulation. We run
pipes
under floors - in the basement - never in attics - insulated or not.

(Yes, the basement is heated and finished).

Most UK houses don't have basements. Getting to those pipes would
mean
pulling up some floor, then crawling through a 2 foot high space.

In Canada (and much of the US) it's pretty common for homes (less so
for
commercial buildings). So you double your space.

Agreed - I'm in the process of building one. Maybe they don't do it
much in Scotland due to ground water. I had to install a pump, which
removes a LOT of water. In a rainy season, it can end up extracting
about 100 gallons per hour for a 7x7m basement. Pity you can't sell
water.

New homes are often sold with "unfinished" basements - so the new owner
can get ahead of debt shock before finishing it up. (Added bathroom /
laundry room, rec-room, spare bedroom (aka: future home of son who
can't
find work), storage, etc. (Furnace, water heater, mains/breaker panel,
freezer, 2nd fridge, etc. are down there too...)

Another breaker panel? Why?

No. Just one. Downstairs - fed from the meter (outdoor).

One main (200A / 240VAC) breaker panel;

**** me that's a lot of power! I have an 80A 240V supply (well the main
fuse is 100A but the meter is 80A for some reason - ****wit installer
probably, I guess the meter blows before the fuse). Have you got 5

The $500 meter blows to protect the $5 fuse. Naturally.

I don't care, it's not my property :-) The meter is owned by the electric company.

(Fuse? I haven't seen mains fuses in decades...)

All UK houses seem to have those on the incoming feed, usually 100A. Most people have put breakers in the panel inside for individual circuits. I avoided that and kept my fuses, no nuisance trips.

saunas or something? I'd hate to see your bill.

Again: electric furnace. That's 84A itself.

= 20kW

That's a big furnace. My gas boiler is 10kW, and its more than I need, the limitation of producing heat is the size of the radiators it feeds. The boiler cycles on and off.

Electric stove, oven,
water heater, clothes dryer, etc.

My bill is less than $2000/year for electricity which includes all heating.

That's 4 times me, although the dollars are less than the £? Are those US or Canadian dollars?

then all the circuit breakers in another panel.

Why two panels? I have all mine in one unit.

Modular. One sits atop the other. Offhand I don't know if the
electrical code demands they be separate.

I see no point in separating them. If I want to work inside my panel, I can just pull out the main incoming fuse next to the meter.

In article , Commander Kinsey
wrote:


So to make your bedroom cooler, you change the whole house?!

Why not.

Gross stupidity? I have my house at a comfortable living temperature,
and my bedroom at a comfortable sleeping temperature. Those
temperatures never change. I don't have to think about when I'll be in
the house, if it will warm up fast enough, if it'll cool down fast
enough, etc, etc.

I don't worry about it at all. That's what the programmable thermostat
is for...

That's ok if you have a very rigid life sticking to the same times every
single day.

most people have a regular schedule, however, modern smart thermostats
can adapt to changes.

In article , Commander Kinsey wrote:

Commander Kinsey:
How ignorant are you? Place your hand outside in the air at 0C.
Now touch something. Which feels colder? Conduction passes WAY
more heat than convection. Why do you think it's good to have
gaps in double brick walls, double glazing etc? Why do you think
we don't have solid thick glass or a triple brick wall with no
gap?

Eric Stevens:
I am a damned sight less ignorant than you have repeatedly
demonstrated yourself to be. Does your knowledge of thermodynamics
extend beyond what you can touch?

Personal experience always beats reading things on google.

Sounds a bit like the reasoning of a flat earther

--
Sandman

On Sun, 03 Mar 2019 22:02:39 -0000, Sandman wrote:

In article , Commander Kinsey wrote:

Commander Kinsey:
How ignorant are you? Place your hand outside in the air at 0C.
Now touch something. Which feels colder? Conduction passes WAY
more heat than convection. Why do you think it's good to have
gaps in double brick walls, double glazing etc? Why do you think
we don't have solid thick glass or a triple brick wall with no
gap?

Eric Stevens:
I am a damned sight less ignorant than you have repeatedly
demonstrated yourself to be. Does your knowledge of thermodynamics
extend beyond what you can touch?

Personal experience always beats reading things on google.

Sounds a bit like the reasoning of a flat earther

Bull****, I do not experience flat earth.

In article , Commander Kinsey
wrote:

Personal experience always beats reading things on google.

Sounds a bit like the reasoning of a flat earther

Bull****, I do not experience flat earth.

you do if you put a ball on the ground and it does not move.