I Learned Something Today

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

Average high/low temp in January for Columbus Ohio is 2.3/-6.5 in C. 

 

Italy is 11/3, in C. So italy is warmer, true. You are correct. But enough to warrant retrofitting?

 

You assume houses have tile floors here. Thats not correct for many places. 

 

And th cost of a retrofit would pay for heating a house for years.

[Donward]

6 minutes ago, Xoon said:

 

I was thinking in relation to this, the gulf stream is what keeps Norway from being a cold wasteland. Considering that Ohio is center north in the US, it should be a bit colder than, for example, Italy. 

But I see your point.

 

Remove the flooring tiles, cut into shape the heating mats, add a power cord and heat sensor, and hook it up to a thermostat. Then re add the flooring. 

Not very expensive at all. 

 

Besides, who uses water borne floor heating outside of eco houses? 

 

Yeah. That is rather expensive. 

 

The estimates I see are that it costs $10 to $20 a square foot to install the system (and up). And I don't believe that takes into account the cost for the flooring on top of that which you then have to replace (assuming you're remodeling). There are also concerns over the costs of repairing an in-floor system.

 

On top of that, modern heating systems in the US combine not only heat but air conditioning in their HVAC units. So the same heat ducts pushing heat in the winter will push cool AC in the summer. So having a heated floor, you're paying more for a redundant system. If you're going to have a redundant heating system, most Americans would prefer a pellet/wood stove.

 

There's also a concern over the cost of electricity in some regions of the US versus natural gas which can be a lot cheaper.

 

Which is why in the US if you see subfloor heating systems, they are normally relegated specifically to the bathroom, especially if folks prefer tile floors in their baths.

[Xlucine]

18 hours ago, Xoon said:

19 hours ago, Donward said:

 

Remove the flooring tiles, cut into shape the heating mats, add a power cord and heat sensor, and hook it up to a thermostat. Then re add the flooring. 

Not very expensive at all. 

 

Besides, who uses water borne floor heating outside of eco houses? 

 

Is electric heating for the whole house typical in norway? Gas in the UK is several times cheaper than electricity (like 5p/kWhr compared to 15 p/kWhr, which makes sense given how a significant fraction of the power in electricity starts as gas going into a combined cycle plant), so a gas boiler pushing hot water around the house is the normal way of heating houses here

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

53 minutes ago, Xlucine said:

 

Is electric heating for the whole house typical in norway? Gas in the UK is several times cheaper than electricity (like 5p/kWhr compared to 15 p/kWhr, which makes sense given how a significant fraction of the power in electricity starts as gas going into a combined cycle plant), so a gas boiler pushing hot water around the house is the normal way of heating houses here

Most houses I've ever seen or lived in had furnaces that heated air via natural gas and then sent that through the ducts.

[Ulric]

19 hours ago, Xoon said:

 

I was thinking in relation to this, the gulf stream is what keeps Norway from being a cold wasteland. Considering that Ohio is center north in the US, it should be a bit colder than, for example, Italy. 

But I see your point.

 

Remove the flooring tiles, cut into shape the heating mats, add a power cord and heat sensor, and hook it up to a thermostat. Then re add the flooring. 

Not very expensive at all. 

 

Besides, who uses water borne floor heating outside of eco houses? 

 

We use water borne floor heating. I believe my parents are going to install it again when they build their next house. I also helped a friend install it in his wood working shop years ago. We laid out a metal grid, attached the tubing to it in various subdivided sectors, and then the concrete slab was poured on top.

[Xoon]

22 hours ago, Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect said:

Average high/low temp in January for Columbus Ohio is 2.3/-6.5 in C. 

 

Italy is 11/3, in C. So italy is warmer, true. You are correct. But enough to warrant retrofitting?

 

You assume houses have tile floors here. Thats not correct for many places. 

 

And th cost of a retrofit would pay for heating a house for years.

I don't know a lot about the US climate, so I just guessed, thanks for correcting me. 

And yes, I assumed they did, it is the norm her in Norway for washrooms and bathrooms to have tiles, sometimes the hall too. 

But if you speak about what is the most cost efficient, electric floor heating is not worth is at all. 

It's a "luxury" thing, people want it so that they can have fancy floors that tend to be very cold, and still have a warm feeling from beneath their feet. 

A rug is way more cost efficient. The only real upside is the very well distributed heating. 

 

22 hours ago, Donward said:

Yeah. That is rather expensive. 

The estimates I see are that it costs $10 to $20 a square foot to install the system (and up). And I don't believe that takes into account the cost for the flooring on top of that which you then have to replace (assuming you're remodeling). There are also concerns over the costs of repairing an in-floor system.

I am not sure about the US, but most people know a carpenter or construction worker, or knows how to do flooring in Norway. We do all the prep work for the electrician, then he does the wiring and fuses, and we add the floor again. Sometimes we let the craftsmen do it do have it be extra nice. So it tends to be pretty reasonably priced. 

 

Not sure what would break in electric floor heating. It is all solid state, it would outlast your fuses, even the thermostat. 

 

 

22 hours ago, Donward said:

On top of that, modern heating systems in the US combine not only heat but air conditioning in their HVAC units. So the same heat ducts pushing heat in the winter will push cool AC in the summer. So having a heated floor, you're paying more for a redundant system. If you're going to have a redundant heating system, most Americans would prefer a pellet/wood stove.

Most houses in Norway lack ducting outside of simple air ducts that lets fresh air in, and the blower to getting the cooking fumes and steam out.  Most people do have a HVAC and wood stove though. 

The stove is mostly for the cosy feel, but it is also a back up in case of a power outage, in which it gets very cold in the winter. 

 

 

22 hours ago, Donward said:

There's also a concern over the cost of electricity in some regions of the US versus natural gas which can be a lot cheaper.

Electricity is "dirt cheap" here, so that is a big factor. Gas is not reasonably priced. 

 

 

3 hours ago, Xlucine said:

Is electric heating for the whole house typical in norway? Gas in the UK is several times cheaper than electricity (like 5p/kWhr compared to 15 p/kWhr, which makes sense given how a significant fraction of the power in electricity starts as gas going into a combined cycle plant), so a gas boiler pushing hot water around the house is the normal way of heating houses here

Almost all houses in Norway lack water borne heating. Some do in special cases, like when a furniture factory is nearby and sells he excess heat.  Only modern houses have balanced heating with ducts, which means most heating comes from HVAC, heaters, wood stoves and floor heating. New houses tend to have floor heating in every room. Old houses only in the bathrooms and halls, places with tiles. 

 

So yes, we use almost purely electrical heating, either through HVAC or heating elements. 

 

 

2 hours ago, Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect said:

Most houses I've ever seen or lived in had furnaces that heated air via natural gas and then sent that through the ducts.

Never heard of in Norway. 

 

 

2 hours ago, Ulric said:

We use water borne floor heating. I believe my parents are going to install it again when they build their next house. I also helped a friend install it in his wood working shop years ago. We laid out a metal grid, attached the tubing to it in various subdivided sectors, and then the concrete slab was poured on top.

Water borne heating is awesome, if you can pay for it. Much more efficient and allows a lot of power saving.  Thermal solar panels, wood/gas heating, electric heating, heat pump heating. 

 

Though it is simply not worth it to retrofit in most Norwegian houses, and most opt for electrical heating instead in modern houses to save cost. 

[T___A]

TIL in logic office hours that while valid arugments forms are always valid regardless of the premises the reverse is not true. E.g. The following can be valid:  

If P then Q   

Q

∴ P  

 

 Not only if P and Q are the same but even if they are merely functionally the same.     

[Lord_James]

TIL how to make a high torque CVT, @Xoon 

 

 

[LoooSeR]

 

[Zyklon]

I know i am a bit late to the party but heating is something i am alteast a bit experienced in and i just want to brag about it further my fellow comrades discussion

 

Quote

 

Besides, who uses water borne floor heating outside of eco houses?

I know you said it later already but to just to get the point across, electricity is pretty much the worst way to heat anything in the house , and you really only use it for retrofitting were nothing else would work or if your customer is a cheap bastard.

 

If you really don´t want to use or have access or the space available for Wood, Gas or Oil, then atleast buy a heating pump, because depending on the type you can get COPs of around 4, which means for each unit of Electricity consumed you get 4 units of heat. Those nice heating pumps can also be put outside and they are not that loud, except you use Split-Systems were the fan is louder than your neighbouring airport.

 

And because you want that nice COP you opt for low temperature heating systems, since the heating pump is alot more efficient then, like floor heating so its not a bad combination.

Also for highly efficient gas and oil ovens a low temperature system is beneficial since those use the condensation energy of the exhaust too which means you need to get to around 50 [°C] with the exhaust which your standard radiator heating system won´t get bellow.

 

Also with Water based floor heating you can also get a bit of cooling going on for the hot summers, however you can get around 20 [W/m²] of cooling from them so its more of an auxillary there, however we must note that humans tend to feel heat or the lack of alot better in their feet so you can, if you do heating, lower the overhaul room temperature about 1-2 [°C] the person in the room will not feel colder.

 

If you have however large office spaces or maybe large areas which you use constantly, its really the best thing to use thermal activation of components, its alot slower to react ofcourse but it has a very even temperature emmission and also offers cooling with around 40-60 [W/m²] (if you really push it)

 

On 1/17/2019 at 8:25 PM, Donward said:

 There are also concerns over the costs of repairing an in-floor system.

 

On top of that, modern heating systems in the US combine not only heat but air conditioning in their HVAC units. So the same heat ducts pushing heat in the winter will push cool AC in the summer. So having a heated floor, you're paying more for a redundant system. If you're going to have a redundant heating system, most Americans would prefer a pellet/wood stove.

 

Which is why in the US if you see subfloor heating systems, they are normally relegated specifically to the bathroom, especially if folks prefer tile floors in their baths.

 

Since i work at a plumber, i haven´t seen a case of floor or wall heating systems getting damaged by itself, only thing that sucker will leak is if someone drills a hole through one of your pipes, or if the floor screed isn´t properly made or heated and the whole thing sheers itself appart. One thing however which happens to old systems is that alot of oxygen gets into the system because of bad pipes, this in turn corrodes the older metal works and that leaves a sort of sludge in the system which is hard to get out.

 

Ofcourse if you live in more moderate climates air heating is not much of a problem and even cooling is sometimes your only option, but tbf air is a shitty heat transfer medium, it has a specific heat capacity of around 1 [KJ/Kg K] which is 4 times worse than water, and combine that with the density of it and here we have it.

 

You are talking about electical floor heating right, because if you use floor heating once, just use it everywhere.

 

 

 

[Lord_James]

1 hour ago, Zyklon said:

 

Ofcourse if you live in more moderate climates air heating is not much of a problem and even cooling is sometimes your only option, but tbf air is a shitty heat transfer medium, it has a specific heat capacity of around 1 [KJ/Kg K] which is 4 times worse than water, and combine that with the density of it and here we have it.

 

Well, I mean, another give away that air is a bad heat conductor is that (static) air layers are generally used as insulation in many buildings, and is one of the reasons double paned glass windows are exponentially better at insulation than single paned or laminated glass or acrylic windows. 

[Zyklon]

Well that also is a dead giveaway ofcourse.

[Xoon]

2 hours ago, Zyklon said:

I know you said it later already but to just to get the point across, electricity is pretty much the worst way to heat anything in the house , and you really only use it for retrofitting were nothing else would work or if your customer is a cheap bastard.

 

If you really don´t want to use or have access or the space available for Wood, Gas or Oil, then atleast buy a heating pump, because depending on the type you can get COPs of around 4, which means for each unit of Electricity consumed you get 4 units of heat. Those nice heating pumps can also be put outside and they are not that loud, except you use Split-Systems were the fan is louder than your neighbouring airport.

In the area, where I live, which is not more expensive compared to the rest of the country, the square meter price is roughly 3750 USD per square meter. This makes large houses expensive, so you want to use space as efficiently as possible. Electric floor heating is almost universally used only on bathrooms until recently, since they have tiles, which get very cold. Since the total watt usually roughly equals your average heater, and the very cheap power we have here, the electricity efficiency is not really a factor. 

What is a huge factor, is installation cost. Adding a boiler, water pump, heating element, piping, valves and thermostats is very expensive, especially when the typical plumber costs 135USD an hour. Oil heating is now banned. You have the refill a gas tank, and store in in a safe area, which is a huge hassle. Wood is plenty and cheap, but requires frequent refilling and a lot of space, usually people opt for a fireplace instead. 
Electric floor eating is relatively cheap. The construction worker simply lays it down into the floor before adding the concrete, and the electrician puts a temperature measure wire below the floor tile to the thermostat, while also wiring the thermostat. This requires 1 10A fuse, probably 20m of cable and a thermostat.

Recent advances allows you to cut heating elements into size from rolls of fabric, and just lay it under the flooring. 

 

Heating pumps are a very recent thing, and don't really work too well. They do provide cheaper heating, but cost a lot of initially install, and takes 20 years to pay off themselves.  This is because of very low temperatures in the winter and low electricity prices.  Ground heating fixes the cold issue, but is very expensive.

 

Cooling is rarely a issue. Since it usually never gets hotter than 24 degrees C around here. Record was 32,4 degrees C. 

 

Recently, heating all the floors as gotten more popular. But this is usually done when retrofitting old houses. Which is extremely expensive to do by water born heating.  

 

 

If I get the money to build my own house, I'll probably build a house with water born heating, but most construction companies shy's away from it. 

[Lord_James]

34 minutes ago, Xoon said:

In the area, where I live, which is not more expensive compared to the rest of the country, the square meter price is roughly 3750 USD per square meter. This makes large houses expensive, so you want to use space as efficiently as possible. Electric floor heating is almost universally used only on bathrooms until recently, since they have tiles, which get very cold. Since the total watt usually roughly equals your average heater, and the very cheap power we have here, the electricity efficiency is not really a factor. 

What is a huge factor, is installation cost. Adding a boiler, water pump, heating element, piping, valves and thermostats is very expensive, especially when the typical plumber costs 135USD an hour. Oil heating is now banned. You have the refill a gas tank, and store in in a safe area, which is a huge hassle. Wood is plenty and cheap, but requires frequent refilling and a lot of space, usually people opt for a fireplace instead. 
Electric floor eating is relatively cheap. The construction worker simply lays it down into the floor before adding the concrete, and the electrician puts a temperature measure wire below the floor tile to the thermostat, while also wiring the thermostat. This requires 1 10A fuse, probably 20m of cable and a thermostat.

Recent advances allows you to cut heating elements into size from rolls of fabric, and just lay it under the flooring. 

 

Heating pumps are a very recent thing, and don't really work too well. They do provide cheaper heating, but cost a lot of initially install, and takes 20 years to pay off themselves.  This is because of very low temperatures in the winter and low electricity prices.  Ground heating fixes the cold issue, but is very expensive.

 

Cooling is rarely a issue. Since it usually never gets hotter than 24 degrees C around here. Record was 32,4 degrees C. 

 

Recently, heating all the floors as gotten more popular. But this is usually done when retrofitting old houses. Which is extremely expensive to do by water born heating.  

 

 

If I get the money to build my own house, I'll probably build a house with water born heating, but most construction companies shy's away from it. 

 

In conjunction, good insulation can mitigate some of the inefficiencies of the electric floor heater (and air conditioning in general). Here in the first level of hell (Florida), buildings can be efficiently cooled by having good insulation and keeping the air inside moving; my father does this in his home and can effectively keep the air conditioning off much of the year, except on the hottest days (>33 C). It only gets cold here for a total of 2 weeks, 3 weeks if the planets align, but never much lower than 0 C, so heating is a secondary issue. 

[Zyklon]

On 7/9/2019 at 11:27 PM, Xoon said:

In the area, where I live, which is not more expensive compared to the rest of the country, the square meter price is roughly 3750 USD per square meter. This makes large houses expensive, so you want to use space as efficiently as possible. Electric floor heating is almost universally used only on bathrooms until recently, since they have tiles, which get very cold. Since the total watt usually roughly equals your average heater, and the very cheap power we have here, the electricity efficiency is not really a factor. 

What is a huge factor, is installation cost. Adding a boiler, water pump, heating element, piping, valves and thermostats is very expensive, especially when the typical plumber costs 135USD an hour. Oil heating is now banned. You have the refill a gas tank, and store in in a safe area, which is a huge hassle. Wood is plenty and cheap, but requires frequent refilling and a lot of space, usually people opt for a fireplace instead. 
Electric floor eating is relatively cheap. The construction worker simply lays it down into the floor before adding the concrete, and the electrician puts a temperature measure wire below the floor tile to the thermostat, while also wiring the thermostat. This requires 1 10A fuse, probably 20m of cable and a thermostat.

Recent advances allows you to cut heating elements into size from rolls of fabric, and just lay it under the flooring. 

 

Heating pumps are a very recent thing, and don't really work too well. They do provide cheaper heating, but cost a lot of initially install, and takes 20 years to pay off themselves.  This is because of very low temperatures in the winter and low electricity prices.  Ground heating fixes the cold issue, but is very expensive.

 

Cooling is rarely a issue. Since it usually never gets hotter than 24 degrees C around here. Record was 32,4 degrees C. 

 

Recently, heating all the floors as gotten more popular. But this is usually done when retrofitting old houses. Which is extremely expensive to do by water born heating.  

 

 

If I get the money to build my own house, I'll probably build a house with water born heating, but most construction companies shy's away from it. 

 

Yeah Air heat pumps loose alot of efficiency when its freezing outside, and for ground usage you either need some deep holes which are expensive to make or if you have the space which really is depending on where you live also expensive.

And i also doubt ( i have no idea how the "water laws" in norway is) that ground water usage is a thing in your area, because even in Austria where we have an abundance of it, there are alot of regulations and things to consider, and ofcourse cost is a whole other issue.

 

Cooling is really an issue if you are hotter areas thats true, but it also depends on other factors for example  if your house is made out of some flimsy wood or steel pannels, or in an extreme case I had once, made out of 2[ m] wide rocks which are suspended in concrete.

 

There are is also a way to retrofit water floor heating, you just rip your old floor out but let the concrete underneath untouched, put on some insulation, and then just your usual piping , ontop of it some metal sheets for heat conducting and then your new floor, you loose some height in the room ofcourse and the advantage of the typical even heat transfer  but its a nice-ish retrofit.

 

 

 

[Belesarius]

Today I learned that there is a farm in Sweden that makes cheese out of Moose milk, and that it sells for approxiimately $500/lb.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/moose-cheese?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=gastro-page

[Priory_of_Sion]

TIL about the "death spears" of Australia. 

 

These spears have their relatively simple wooden tips covered in adhesive yellow gum sap with multiple embedded stone, wood, and shell chips with later post-European contact spears sometimes including glass shards as an advancement over the stone chips. 

 

Unlike most spears used by hunter-gatherers these seem to have been more specialized for use in warfare instead of a more utilitarian design that can be used for hunting game. Sure, you could kill someone with a regular spear or a wooden club, but the death spears went further and the microliths in the spear tip would imbed in flesh and cause more damage, especially if an attempt to remove the spear was tried, along with a higher probability for infection. 

 

These death spears and similar  bone-barbed "war spears" in Australia were usually ~10 feet in length and apparently noticeably bulkier than the ~8 ft spears used for hunting. Aborginal Australians also had their own form of the atlatl called the woomera which helped them fling spears ~70 yards. 

 

There has been a couple British accounts of early settlers & convicts being killed with these spears; sometimes even after the spear was removed. The archeological record suggests that these spears have been in Australia for a while, as recently a skeleton which has been found with microliths found within their bodies matching the description of a death via the death spear has been dated to 4000 years before present. Microliths have been found as late as 15000 years ago, yet it is kinda hard to establish whether these microlith chips were used for death spears.  

 

I got most of this info from Allen & Jones' "Violence and Warfare among Hunter-Gatherers" and Davidson (1934)

 

 

 

[Lord_James]

TIL about “metal stitching” 

prepare to get jump-scared into the 90s with this one (might want to lower your volume)