I am completly opposed to Air-conditions propagandized as a solution to climate change. What is the wright approach to combating this state of temporary relief except from old-fashioned fans? Don’t get me wrong. They do the job for me. I am reffering to finding a solution for people more with health issues or large facilities that are in need of something more drastic.
Some ancient middle-eastern architecture (can’t remember the name) is a low-tech and permanent air-conditioning tower. We gotta go low tech. We also need trees everywhere, white buidlings and roofs, rain water collectors, etc etc.
Dig and dont stop digging. Make a burrow
Urban planning wise: I think ivy walls, or other greenery covering residential buildings.
For reference, you might want to look up Bosco Verticale in Italy, or lush green roofs in Norway.
I know this isn’t a catch-all solution, but it could help mitigate climate crisis impact in addition to other options people offered here.
We grow a grape vine on the south wall, over a large window, using a set of stand-off cables. Warmth and light in the winter and green shade in the summer.
We are growing it for the foliage, but the delicious table grapes are a nice bonus.
@turip youtu.be/AAz5D3TnQ_k This video lists basically every option you can have. I posted it already, but building a city to create air corridors and using water-porous asphalt when you have to have it, which allows for evaporative cooling during the summer, as well as using ponds and water to create a cool island effect, can significantly reduce heating.
The best you can do quickly and for free is to close blinds to let a small amount of light in when its hot, and when it’s below 20°, open windows and have as much ventilation as possible. This is easiest and I find that in some rooms it can cool them significantly.
An Awning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhbDfi7Ee7k
Heat pumps. Work as heating and cooling, far more energy efficient
What’s the difference between a heat pump and an air conditioner when cooling?
Absolutely no difference. An AC is a heat pump.
If you’re an aussie, you know it as a reverse cycle. A shockingly large amount of the rest of the world only know window unit air cons
When cooling they act the same way (and similar to a fridge, it’s pretty basic tech, scale is what makes them more efficient) but if your climate makes a heatpump viable you’re trading out a heavily polluting heat source instead. Swings and roundabouts
Nah you know heat pumps are just air conditioners running in the other direction. Its the exact same technology.
Except it’s not, and, as previously mentioned, they are more efficient.
I hesitate to contradict you but they really are. Many use more efficient parts, but the mechanism is the same.
Similar but not the same. They both use refrigerants but the mechanisms do differ. Mostly in that AC uses fans ehich increase power consumption. I’m sure there are differentiations on both sides to prove me wrong, but I’m just speaking in general terms.
And how does the heat or coolness get distributed? Magic.
Almost all heat pumps also use fans. It’s simply more efficient.
The difference in your diagrams is not related to heat pump/AC, but forced air v. water.
Oh, I just remembered this video I watched. There is this guy on youtube that does a lot of material-sciency kind of stuff using common household ingredients. One of his videos he makes a salt-based change change material, which basically works as an icepack that freezes at around 18 degrees Celsius.
The idea is that it takes a long time for the material to melt from 18 degrees to 19 degrees so it can keep you comfortably cool if you put it in a plastic bag and wear it in a vest to keep yourself cool. If you have a cool basement, then it can pretty much re-freeze by putting it on the cold floor.
DIY Supermaterial Could Save You From Heatstroke: Salt based PCMs
Its an interesting watch.
There is no alternative in hot, humid regions (cryopaint is not proven). In dry ones swamp cooling and fans help.
However, I’m not sure many people are saying air conditioning is a solution to climate change.
Many are saying it’s an adaptation necessary to survive in warming humid regions. The human body cannot thermoregulate in wet bulb temperatures above 35c. Fans don’t help as the body cannot evaporate sweat into saturated air that is as warm or warmer. Air conditioning not only cools, but removes humidity.
If you get a severe case of influenza, it comes with a fever. The fever is a symptom, not the underlying cause of the illness, but it can kill faster. As a result, you need to treat it as well as the flu, often with acetaminophen. Air conditioning does not treat the underlying cause, but it can mitigate the symptom that kills fastest.
There’s plenty we can do, but all interventions are somewhat limited in effect. With the trend of increasingly intense heat waves, we’re likely going to have to do all of the non-AC interventions and install AC in lots and lots of places.
- Awnings to block sunlight from heating up spaces through windows
- Better ventilation systems which can more effectively pump in colder air from outside during the night
- Heat-reflecting paint to minimize heat gain from solar radiation
- More trees to provide local cooling/shade
- Ceiling fans to provide reduced perceived heat
- District cooling, when appropriate, to provide cooling at a higher energy efficiency
All help, but when the temperatures start hitting 40 C with high humidity, you’re basically out of luck without an AC, that can pump out the heat and lower the humidity.
Extremely good insulation, possibly building things underground, and then air conditioning. You said people with health issues. If you need to make sure something is a a specific temperature because of health concerns, you need air conditioning to be certain. Really making sure you’ve got incredible insulation is really all you can do. Tall trees that block the sun around the building can help. Using blinds and curtains as well instead of letting the sun in.
Building anything underground is extremely expensive and energy intensive, as you have to constantly pump ground water and pour concrete to keep walls from breaking under pressure of tons of soil.
So yeah, underground could work, but better used sparingly when benefit outweighs the costs, like maybe in areas that could go literally uninhabitable on the surface. Otherwise not worth it.
Most of North America built bungalows after WW2. All your dramatic concerns were addressed 50 years ago, and no, they were not extremely expensive and 8" concrete walls with French drains and sump pumps work well.
@JackbyDev @turip Problem with insulation is that there isn’t a good way to retrofit old buildings with it without mold building up, as old buildings were designed to breathe.
You can ventilate periodically, air doesn’t hold that much thermal energy. You can also use heat recovery ventilation, should work in reverse to keep the heat out too.
There is not a magic solution that is perfect in every scenario. Air conditioners decrease humidity as a side effect, though.
Alright, I have phrased my question wrong. English is not my first language and I tend to be a bit absolute. I meant that I am opposed to A/C because I feel that we -as society- have postponed our responsibility towards eco-friendliness. Additionally A/C worsense the heat outside of your house. My conserne was not only about A/C since as pointed out heat-pumps or evaporative coolers can cost (money and energy wise) if not more the same. I made this post to hear thoughts on how we can combat heat collectively and not how as individuals we can protect ourselves temporarily. I found a lot of ideas quite interesting. I believe that small changes could have an impact. So far I think the points bellow would help:
- Implementation of PDRC to large areas of cities
- Planting trees in the cities
- Blocking all sun rays so they don’t reach glass windows
- Constructing underground Air conditioning facilities such as those in China (50% more efficient)
- Raise awarness for the significance of drinnking water and so on… I am not completely opposed to technological advancements such as A/C. However I am keen on the aware use for the least hurtful use of it. I believe that Air conditioning by itself is not a viable solution. Sorry for not being more analitical.
A/C is indeed not a solution for solving climate change. It’s merely a solution to survive the transition that we are trying to do. The solution is in how you produce the electricity, among others, to feed the A/C.
Additionally A/C worsense the heat outside of your house
There is some additional heat that an AC system will create, but the heat that goes out of the external block is not heat that was created by the system. It’s heat that was displaced and that would otherwise come through other ways in the atmosphere.
A theoretical perfect heat pump would not heat the atmosphere at all, despite having a heating part. The heating would be perfectly balanced by the cooling part.
It is a bit counterintuitive when you think about machines as creating heat or creating cold. A better way to look at it is in terms of energy evacuation.
A house without any AC will radiate heat because humans inside, machines inside, they do produce heat. So that heat goes out in the atmosphere through the walls and through the windows when the inside is warmer than the outside. An AC creates a sort of channel for the heat to go all through the external block and it blasts hot air at a specific place. But what you don’t see is that as a result your colder house radiates less heat and actually may to some extent cool the atmosphere around it.
Both effects balance each other out. There is a difference because a heat pump is not a 100% efficient system. So you do have additional heat that gets there as waste. But it’s not on the same level as what gets blasted out of the external unit.
A/C and “heat pump” are the same technology
@spazzman6156 @turip They are similar, but a heat pump is a much more advanced version with a lot less energy loss.
What people refer to as a “heat pump” is just an air conditioner that can run in reverse to provide heat in the home as well as cool it. The cooling part is the same technology as a non- heat pump air conditioner.
Heating this way is more efficient than resistive electric heat
Cooling is the same mechanism as standard air conditioners
Biggest efficiency difference in A/C (cooling) would be if the compressor is inverter-driven or not
@turip Trees, trees, and public transit. And yeah, passive solar, underground trenches the Amish use. And drinking water isn’t going to fix it. There will be parts of the world where the wet-bulb temperature will literally be unlivable and will require ACs. People are also more stupid and violent when they overheat.
I have to say, drinking water in extreme heat is not nearly enough unless it’s iced or at least cooled. You can drink all the water in the world but if the humidity and temp are above certain levels your brain will still fry. Dehydration is only one part of the danger
Drinking iced beverages in extreme heat is a good way to get heatstroke.
Your thermoregulation sense will think you’re cooler than you are, and you’ll stop sweating.
Seems counterintuitive, but hot drinks in hot weather is wiser
If you are looking for passive alternatives, then I’ve got bad news: you have to design them before you build a house.
In Iran, before electrical power became available, they used wind towers to draw up ground-cooled air through the qanat (underground aqueduct) system. It works without external power, but you have to know you need it before you build houses.
Also, simply a house with very thick stone walls (expensive to build), a cellar (possibly with a cistern) and no south-facing windows will stay cool during summer peaks.
That is kinda like earth tubes isn’t it? Which you could retrofit. More powerful cooling can be achieved by using the tubes as part of a geothermal heat pump. Bonus there is that its also even more efficient than a regular heat pump in winter too.
There are a few things you can add to an existing house:
- Awnings and other sources of shade over windows
- White painted exterior (some white pigments are better than others at reflecting infrared)
The south-facing comments would need to be the other way around in the southern hemisphere too.
Similar to what others have already mentioned, you may want to look into passive heating and cooling design concepts.
