Cold sinks. Heat rises. But why? A bright boy such as myself should know. It's because ... ah ... guessing ... with warm air, the molecules are busier, bouncing around, while with cold air they are slower, bunching together. Thus denser. Heavier.
Am I right? Let's ask AI: why does warm air rise while cold air sinks?
"Warm air rises and cold air sinks due to differences in density and the force of gravity," the AI overview begins. "When air is heated, its molecules speed up and spread apart, making the warm air less dense than the surrounding air. Earth's gravity pulls harder on the nearby cold, dense air, causing it to sink to the ground. As this cold air drops, it slides under the lighter, warm air and forces it upward."
Sounds right to me. Meaning I was close enough. I'm glad being the son of a nuclear physicist had some advantage.
This is significant because for the past two weeks I've been sleeping in a blue recliner in our TV room, on the ground floor of our house. It's colder there, I realized, because the warm air rises to fill the three levels above.
So cold that, the other night, I actually adjusted the thermostat, which is an earthquake for me. I never adjust the thermostat. Not in winter. Not in summer. I always feel just fine. It's a gift.
I didn't think about this until Friday afternoon, when my wife announced that she was too was cold, working in the living room, and would adjust the thermostat. She did so, fiddling with a dial located under an African doll in our front room. That wasn't the one I used.
"I actually adjusted the thermostat the other day," I informed her. "But the one in the TV room. I was cold."
She laughed.
"That one doesn't do anything,*" she said.
"It doesn't?" I replied. genuinely surprised. "Did not know that."
"And how many years have we lived here?" she laughed.
"Twenty-six years," I said, in a small voice.
* To the air conditioner, she later elaborated. It controls our boiler; the house has radiator heat.
Wow, just wow! ;)
ReplyDeleteyou need to get a digital thermostat
ReplyDeleteGrew up with a classic Honeywell thermostat exactly like that, Mister S--in the 1950s and 1960s. It seemed like every postwar ranch in Skokie had one, and maybe they did.
ReplyDeleteSaw the very same Honeywell thermostat upon moving into this house in 1992...a Cleveland bungalow that was already over fifty years old .It's above the living room couch. No idea when it was installed...maybe in the Fifties?
Used it for another seven years, until we got whole-house AC and a new furnace. The new thermostat is digital--and it's in the dining room. If you can still call something installed in 1999 "new."
The old dial-type thermostat is still in the same spot. Removing it would leave a 3-inch circular hole in the wall. And so it remains, covered in dust, its yellowed plastic face barely legible after so many decades, eternally reading 70 degrees. It will probably not be here after we're gone.
There may be millions of residences with these relics of another time. Yours still works. Most probably don't. But they remain....like the built-in niches for telephones, doors that have actual keyholes, and those iconic glass doorknobs. We have all those things, too. Not a grandpa...but I'm living in grandpa's house.
There are many things in our house I know nothing about and many things in this house my husband knows nothing about. And we have lived here 51 years!! Conclusion: that is the way things are supposed to be. Don't mess with it!
ReplyDeleteThose old round Honeywell thermostats have a mercury switch in them. The mercury is sealed in a small glass vial, but they are now considered to be hazardous waste, plus mercury is valuable, so don't just throw them away, find some place that takes back mercury to recycle it.
ReplyDeleteClark , you must be confused
ReplyDeleteMercury, today's price $ 0.0052
Unless that's per molecule, elemental mercury has very little value
Ir was valuable when I was using it!
DeleteI went up in a hot-air balloon once. I didn't give much thought as to why it worked, I was just happy that it did.
ReplyDeleteBut did you feel warmer after you turned the dial up? That's what matters.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I periodically look at the wall and ask my wife how long that picture has been up there. Answer is usually several years. I don’t THINK she’s gaslighting me.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDelete“In my house there's this light switch that doesn't do anything. Every so often I would flick it on and off just to check. Yesterday, I got a call from a woman in Madagascar. She said, 'Cut it out.'”
— Steven Wright
Grew up in a 2000 sf ranch that had a boiler and radiator heat. It’s very good heat, nice and even because the radiators stay warm for a while even after the thermostat switches the boiler off. Doesn’t dry up the house the way forced air heat does, either. But these types of systems usually have “zones” so you can heat only the parts of the house you want to. For example if you have a 3 story house and rarely use the third floor you can turn the thermostat that controls that zone way down so you’re not using power to heat a little/unused section of the house. Pretty slick when it all works correctly. The problem for me was with the valves that control the hot water flow to the different zones. Every year or two one would get sticky and get stuck open or closed, creating an always on/always off situation. Our hard water didn’t help the situation and it became a pain in the neck. Wonderful heat, though.
ReplyDeleteThis is, at best, a tangent from today's post, but I find the temperature people keep their houses at to be a very interesting topic.
ReplyDeleteIt was raised earlier this summer during a heat wave, when Mayor Mamdani in New York encouraged residents to set their thermostats to 78°. The right-wingers (and others, for that matter) were aghast, realizing immediately that it was yet another indication of his iron-fisted communist ways. Telling people what to do in their own homes!
Of course, this request of his had no force of law, or anything; it was just a tip to try to prevent the electrical grid from being overloaded. One that has been offered by many mayors and other powers-that-be, like the EPA, for years.
Our genial host states: "I never adjust the thermostat. Not in winter. Not in summer. I always feel just fine." I, on the other hand, monitor the thermostat like a hawk and sometimes adjust it several times a day. In general, 78° is the low point. We'll go down to 75 sometimes, for a treat!
We have an old central A/C system that I don't want to overuse. My goal is to not have it come on more than once an hour, 45 minutes sometimes. We live in a west-facing condo, and as the sun starts pouring in on the hottest afternoons, we incrementally go from 78 up to as high as 83 in order to accomplish that. But, once the sun goes down, we can "cool off" again. I'm not suggesting that this is pleasant, but it's kinda amazing how one adapts to temperature variations over time.
Years ago, I looked into the matter and found a Consumer Reports article similar to the one I'm linking to.
Its recommendations:
• 78° F when you’re home
• 85° F when you’re at work or away
• 82° F when you’re sleeping
Followed by a huge understatement: "But not everyone finds those temperatures comfortable." BTW, sleep experts have concluded that the best temperature for sleeping is 65°. 😉
https://www.consumerreports.org/appliances/central-air-conditioning/best-setting-for-central-air-conditioning-a1889096483/?
We had central air in our house by '62. My father was an early adapter. That was the end of our patio usage. He insisted on keeping the thermostat at 65 degrees, all summer long. And what my father wanted, he got.
DeleteThe house felt like a walk-in cooler. Slept under quilts in July. Went outside to warm up. Listened to tunes on WLS, and Cub road games on WGN radio. Or threw a ball against the side of the house, until Old Yeller yelled for me to stop.
Summers at 15 and 16 were not happy ones. Life got better after I could drive.
My old man was gone before I was ten. Not sure which is worse.
DeleteWe had an addition put onto our house 15 yrs ago. It required a new furnace, so we replaced the Honeywell thermostat, too. My spouse assured me I'd never need to use my multiple table top humidifiers again because a humidifier was built right into the furnace! When winter came, I was warm and dry. Too dry. I couldn't wear my contact lenses. the cat gave off sparks. My husband adjusted the humidity gauge. I set up a table top humidifier. Back and forth all winter until the humidity setting on the furnace was at "max" and couldn't be amplified further. To my husband, the furnace's humidity indicator was at "normal", so all was well. I, on the other hand, didn't care what the furnace manual OR the humidity indicator said, I didn't like it! Things finally settled down in Spring. The next winter I announced I couldn't survive another season of desiccation. We needed a furnace repair call or even a new furnace. I would make the call!
ReplyDeleteThe repair technician found the problem in under 5 minutes. After the furnace was installed, the plumbers were supposed to come back and run a water line to the furnace, but that step never happened. The gauge wasn't attached to a water supply, and was forever registering "normal". Grrrrrr.
Thermostat as placebo - - fantastic!
ReplyDeleteDay Late Dept: a suggestion you may well have already considered for the book: interviews of adult converts to Judaism, folks who’ve deliberately chosen what they believe to be the benefits thereof, as opposed to those of us who received the religion via accidents of birth.
I too usually feel comfortable even without air conditioning my body regulates its temperature very well I only sweat just a little. A fan is nice not just for the movement of air but for the sound
ReplyDeleteIn the winter I'm good with just a long sleeve shirt and down vest I like to wear a hat though it's more like a headband it doesn't have a top and I'm generally comfortable occasionally need a pair of gloves when it gets around zero
I'm in New Mexico now so how do they put it 4 mild seasons. The high desert really doesn't get too hot maybe around 90 occasionally a bit warmer always a nice breeze in the winter it might snow usually at night when you wake up in the morning you might see a inch or two two or three times a year melts by noon and it's usually 50.
Indoor modification of temperature is just not a thing for me just make sure that it's 40 in the pipes don't freeze in Chicago and the sun seems to be all you need in New Mexico there is a small old fashioned space heater in the shack no thermostat it's just kind of an off and on thing the x likes it if when I get up before her I turn it on so that she could take a shower without freezing her little tushy off
We plan to retire to New Mex. too. Winter not so bad. Humidity very low but not as super hot as AZ.
DeleteYes. Arizona ? I don't understand why anybody goes to live there especially Tucson in Phoenix.
DeleteI usually fly in and out of Phoenix in life week it was 116°
No thank you
Phoenix does have a lovely musical instrument museum
DeleteExcellent resource for perceived benefits of Judaism. And my wife is a convert. Duh! Surely Neil is deep into this already.
ReplyDelete