Philosophy Now Forum

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

thedoc wrote:
You must live in a very old home that has poor insulation and sealing. My home is about 6 years old with very good insulation and well sealed windows (and lots of them and very big), but our thermostat is set at 74 degrees summer and winter and the temperature inside doesn't vary by a degree either way. Only in an older house with poor insulation and sealing would you need to set the thermostat at those extreme temperatures to maintain a comfortable environment inside.

You are talking rubbish.
You do not understand the function of a thermostat. The clue is in the word.

Technically speaking, doc is right as thermostat implies a constant temperature you want your place to be at. Just for further info, my unit does both heating and air conditioning where some of the vents shoot out heat and I think the other vents send out cool air (during the summertime of course).

PhilX

The problem is probably a combination of an inadequate heating/cooling system and heat losses into and out of the house. The fix would a system with more capacity (and more expensive both in cost and wasted resources), or a house that is better insulated and better sealed (cost more initially, but would pay off in the long run).

Philosophy Explorer wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

thedoc wrote:
You must live in a very old home that has poor insulation and sealing. My home is about 6 years old with very good insulation and well sealed windows (and lots of them and very big), but our thermostat is set at 74 degrees summer and winter and the temperature inside doesn't vary by a degree either way. Only in an older house with poor insulation and sealing would you need to set the thermostat at those extreme temperatures to maintain a comfortable environment inside.

You are talking rubbish.
You do not understand the function of a thermostat. The clue is in the word.

Technically speaking, doc is right as thermostat implies a constant temperature you want your place to be at. Just for further info, my unit does both heating and air conditioning where some of the vents shoot out heat and I think the other vents send out cool air (during the summertime of course).

PhilX

Then you are more stupid than he. I can forgive him not knowing what a thermostat does, but you who seems to know, the fault is poor reading skills.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:Then you are more stupid than he. I can forgive him not knowing what a thermostat does, but you who seems to know, the fault is poor reading skills.

You, your sock puppet Hex and Bob go to the head of the class for stupidity

PhilX

Hobbes' Choice wrote: I can forgive him not knowing what a thermostat does,

Now why would you do that, to forgive someone's ignorance about thermostats, you must first understand them yourself. Our new digital thermostats are linked to a Geo-Thermal heat and cooling forced air source and the threshold seems to be within a degree either way. Our old thermostat was electro-mechanical and was connected to an oil burning hot water heating system and the threshold was several degrees so that the furnace wasn't coming on and off on short intervals. Our new house also has exhaust fans in the roof and those are controlled by electro-mechanical thermostats that I had to reset from the builders settings.

Hobbes, I would be curious to hear what you think about Microwave ovens? Many years ago someone tried to tell me that food items in a microwave cooked from the inside out. In other words the center got hot before the outside, do you think they were correct?

thedoc wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote: I can forgive him not knowing what a thermostat does,

Now why would you do that, to forgive someone's ignorance about thermostats, you must first understand them yourself. Our new digital thermostats are linked to a Geo-Thermal heat and cooling forced air source and the threshold seems to be within a degree either way. Our old thermostat was electro-mechanical and was connected to an oil burning hot water heating system and the threshold was several degrees so that the furnace wasn't coming on and off on short intervals. Our new house also has exhaust fans in the roof and those are controlled by electro-mechanical thermostats that I had to reset from the builders settings.

All of which is irrelevant.
I objected to this;"Only in an older house with poor insulation and sealing would you need to set the thermostat at those extreme temperatures to maintain a comfortable environment inside."

Heating systems the use thermostats work at full capacity until the designated temperature is reached at which point the thermostat temporarily switches off the system until the temp falls. The thermostat then switches on the heating which operates at full potential until the required temperature is reached.... at which point the thermostat temporarily switches off the system until the temp falls. The thermostat then switches on the heating which operates at full potential until the required temperature is reached.... at which point the thermostat temporarily switches off the system until the temp falls. The thermostat then switches on the heating which operates at full potential until the required temperature is reached..... at which point the thermostat temporarily switches off the system until the temp falls. The thermostat then switches on the heating which operates at full potential until the required temperature is reached..... at which point the thermostat temporarily switches off the system until the temp falls. The thermostat then switches on the heating which operates at full potential until the required temperature is reached.

Setting the thermo at an 'extreme temperature" would not make a fuck of a difference, as the system can only achieve what it can achieve.

thedoc wrote:Hobbes, I would be curious to hear what you think about Microwave ovens? Many years ago someone tried to tell me that food items in a microwave cooked from the inside out. In other words the center got hot before the outside, do you think they were correct?

I've heard this to, but always doubted it. A I understand it microwaves work by agitating water molecules. Water deep in side the food would probably receive less energy in the centre than at the periphery as the energy from the microwave emitter would be used up. In the most expensive ovens with multiple emitters, the field can be concentrated in the central area to mitigate this effect.

However, in liquids such as a cold mug of coffee, a temperature gradient can form whereby the top of the liquid receiving less energy being outside the main field of microwaves. When the re-heated cup emerged from the oven and a spoon is placed in the cup, superheated liquid under the cool surface temperature, causing the hot liquid to overspill the cup. I've seen this demonstrated on TV.

So - depends.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

thedoc wrote:Hobbes, I would be curious to hear what you think about Microwave ovens? Many years ago someone tried to tell me that food items in a microwave cooked from the inside out. In other words the center got hot before the outside, do you think they were correct?

I've heard this to, but always doubted it. A I understand it microwaves work by agitating water molecules. Water deep in side the food would probably receive less energy in the centre than at the periphery as the energy from the microwave emitter would be used up. In the most expensive ovens with multiple emitters, the field can be concentrated in the central area to mitigate this effect.

However, in liquids such as a cold mug of coffee, a temperature gradient can form whereby the top of the liquid receiving less energy being outside the main field of microwaves. When the re-heated cup emerged from the oven and a spoon is placed in the cup, superheated liquid under the cool surface temperature, causing the hot liquid to overspill the cup. I've seen this demonstrated on TV.

So - depends.

My experience has been that the outside will get hot before the middle, in some cases the middle was still relatively cool while the outside edges were hot. So I usually stop it about half way through and stir the item moving the outside to the middle and pushing the middle out to the edge.

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote: I can forgive him not knowing what a thermostat does,

All of which is irrelevant.
I objected to this;"Only in an older house with poor insulation and sealing would you need to set the thermostat at those extreme temperatures to maintain a comfortable environment inside."

Heating systems the use thermostats work at full capacity until the designated temperature is reached at which point the thermostat temporarily switches off the system until the temp falls.
Setting the thermostat at an 'extreme temperature" would not make a fuck of a difference, as the system can only achieve what it can achieve.

Except if the system is not properly designed and the desired temperature is achieved at the thermostat but not in the rest of the house, then a higher temperature setting is needed at the thermostat to bring the rest of the house up to the desired temperature, and this seems to be the situation in PE's house. So until we have more specific information there is no point in pontificating about how the ideal system should work, and an improperly designed system is sometimes the case in an older house. I have been in some really old houses that have been retrofitted with new systems that were not installed efficiently.

Hobbes' Choice wrote: All of which is irrelevant.
I objected to this;"Only in an older house with poor insulation and sealing would you need to set the thermostat at those extreme temperatures to maintain a comfortable environment inside."
Heating systems the use thermostats work at full capacity until the designated temperature is reached at which point the thermostat temporarily switches off the system until the temp falls. The thermostat then switches on the heating which operates at full potential until the required temperature is reached.... at which point the thermostat temporarily switches off the system until the temp falls.
Setting the thermostat at an 'extreme temperature" would not make a fuck of a difference, as the system can only achieve what it can achieve.

Technically you are correct but that doesn't stop some people from thinking that setting the thermostat to a higher temperature will somehow make the system work harder and bring the temperature up faster. I would just shake my head when my wife set the thermostat higher than desired to warm the house faster. There just wasn't any point trying to explain it to her.

I think the whole thing is similar to driving a car where if you are accelerating to 25 MPH you press the pedal not very hard, but if you are accelerating to 65 MPH, you might press the pedal harder making the engine work harder to get you to speed faster. I think this kind of thinking carries over to the heating system of a house, and some people just don't understand that a heating system is just on or off and there is no in between like there is with a car.

thedoc wrote:

Hobbes' Choice wrote: All of which is irrelevant.
I objected to this;"Only in an older house with poor insulation and sealing would you need to set the thermostat at those extreme temperatures to maintain a comfortable environment inside."
Heating systems the use thermostats work at full capacity until the designated temperature is reached at which point the thermostat temporarily switches off the system until the temp falls. The thermostat then switches on the heating which operates at full potential until the required temperature is reached.... at which point the thermostat temporarily switches off the system until the temp falls.
Setting the thermostat at an 'extreme temperature" would not make a fuck of a difference, as the system can only achieve what it can achieve.

Technically you are correct but that doesn't stop some people from thinking that setting the thermostat to a higher temperature will somehow make the system work harder and bring the temperature up faster. I would just shake my head when my wife set the thermostat higher than desired to warm the house faster. There just wasn't any point trying to explain it to her.
.

Time and again, all this winter my partner has been whacking up the thermostat. My chair is next to the rad in the sitting room. Without me knowing what she'd done I'd end up staggering out of my chair, mouth bone dry, seating, practically collapsing with heat stroke, as the temperature has been slowly and imperceptibly rising.
After days and days of useless explanation, I finally got a RED permanent parker on 20degrees and told her not to exceed it on PAIN OF DEATH!
She's reluctantly complied, but I doubt she agrees. I have another issue with the use of the drain/plug in the kitchen sink, and its most efficient use.


She keeps removing it and allowing the sink to get blocked with shite, rather then leave it in place to use to neatly remove the flotsum.

I think the sink bit would annoy me more.