Air conditioning raising controversy

[Stan31]

Thanks. I've actually bought a dehumidifier a while ago but it was causing so much heat that I threw it out, I thought as long as I'd remove the humidity, I should be fine in the summer, as I don't mind dry heat, but it was like a furnace.

My AC units are enormous but they're built into the building, so I can't do anything about them... I think this is the situation in most new buildings in the city.

[Matthew]

Originally Posted by dchan

I would also advise strategic window placement and shading.

Windows invite heat coming in through sunlight. You can control the amount of sunlight through strategic window placement. For now, I am speaking only for the northern hemisphere.
- Typically, north and south-facing windows are preferred.
- North windows won't get much (if any) direct sunlight.
- South windows get a ton of sunlight in the winter for free heat gain. This is because the earth is tilted so that the sun's rays are angled sharply from the south.
- South windows won't get too much sunlight during the summer because the sun is almost directly above.
- East and West windows are not so lucky. They will get tons of direct sun either in the morning or the afternoon. Try to avoid too many East and West windows

An insurance company in Winston-Salem, during the Energy Crisis of the 1970s, hired a well-known California architect to design the most energy efficient building (a building of the future) for their new headquarters. It was a fun experimental project from a company with deep pockets. The building followed these window placement guidelines, which created a very unusual structure that almost appears as a different building depending on what angle you view it from. It was in several publications at the time, but most of that discussion centered on everything being computer controlled and how that would be the future of office buildings. It's under renovation and now has no problems leasing space. The north side is often the most loved, since it is a wall of glass with views of the Sauratown Mountains. The south side is sort of odd, with the windows on the upper floors angled down instead of using window shades. On the lower part of the south side, the windows were blocked by a neighboring building and are actually angled upward to let light in through the narrow space between the two structures. That neighboring office building was recently demolished and will be replaced with a shorter 6-storey apartment building, so it will be interesting to see what impact that has on the now exposed (to sunlight) windows that are angled upward. It's really the east and west sides that are an issue, since there is so little glass on those sides and most people want big windows in their office. Just four narrow windows on the east sides and four narrow windows west sides of each floor.


Credit

[jlousa]

Something that isn't mentioned much is the affect of the refrigerants on the the environment. Yes Freon has been banned due to it's effect on the ozone, and now R-22 practically phased out but even the newer refrigerants (R134a/401/407/R410 etc) are much worse then C02 at trapping in heat. Between 2000-4000times worse, and all these ac units leak, on average 5-20% of their charge every year. There is a move to start to use c02 as a refrigerant as leaks wouldn't be so detrimental but it operates at ridiculously high pressures.

[harryc]

Originally Posted by jlousa

Something that isn't mentioned much is the affect of the refrigerants on the the environment. Yes Freon has been banned due to it's effect on the ozone, and now R-22 practically phased out but even the newer refrigerants (R134a/401/407/R410 etc) are much worse then C02 at trapping in heat. Between 2000-4000times worse, and all these ac units leak, on average 5-20% of their charge every year. There is a move to start to use c02 as a refrigerant as leaks wouldn't be so detrimental but it operates at ridiculously high pressures.

Would be interesting to compare the greenhousing done by leaked refrigerants -vs- the greenhousing done by traditional gas furnaces.

In Norther Ill many people are replacing - or at least augmenting - their furnaces ( and yes furnaces are mandatory here ) with heat pumps, these can provide both heating and cooling.

[C.]

Originally Posted by SIGSEGV

While air conditioning is certainly nice, I don't understand why people set the temperatures so low. It doesn't need to be fucking freezing to be comfortable.

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Don't touch my AC, bro!

I work hard for my money, and I choose to spend it on keeping my place at 72.

[mousquet]

Originally Posted by C.

I work hard for my money, and I choose to spend it on keeping my place at 72.

That sounds kinda decent. I guess I wouldn't catch a cold in July/August in your home, though you never know these days.

I recently heard of people suddenly dying from heat in Vancouver and Seattle. They died just like that, because their body temps went too high.
And you know what? It makes me freak out. It's not like Vancouver was in Arizona or Mexico.

So, this topic has apparently been relevant... I'll confess, I did it on purpose, because it's been a long long controversy here in my country.

I mean, maybe you should set your A/C to 77 now.
Maybe even to 80.

[dchan]

Originally Posted by Stan31

Thanks. I've actually bought a dehumidifier a while ago but it was causing so much heat that I threw it out, I thought as long as I'd remove the humidity, I should be fine in the summer, as I don't mind dry heat, but it was like a furnace.

My AC units are enormous but they're built into the building, so I can't do anything about them... I think this is the situation in most new buildings in the city.

Interesting, thanks for sharing your experience. Perhaps your dehumidifier might have been too "oversized" and was generating too much heat? It's best to have it work with the AC to dry the air. The dehumidifier will do most of the drying work, and the AC will do some while cooling the room. So perhaps figure out a good balance between the two units.

And yes, AC contractors tend to "oversize" units in buildings. Not sure why. It seems they don't trust the Manual J calculations, or they believe that occupants would rather be cooled down more quickly than worry about cold humid indoor conditions.

[dchan]

Originally Posted by Matthew

An insurance company in Winston-Salem, during the Energy Crisis of the 1970s, hired a well-known California architect to design the most energy efficient building (a building of the future) for their new headquarters. It was a fun experimental project from a company with deep pockets. The building followed these window placement guidelines, which created a very unusual structure that almost appears as a different building depending on what angle you view it from. It was in several publications at the time, but most of that discussion centered on everything being computer controlled and how that would be the future of office buildings. It's under renovation and now has no problems leasing space. The north side is often the most loved, since it is a wall of glass with views of the Sauratown Mountains. The south side is sort of odd, with the windows on the upper floors angled down instead of using window shades. On the lower part of the south side, the windows were blocked by a neighboring building and are actually angled upward to let light in through the narrow space between the two structures. That neighboring office building was recently demolished and will be replaced with a shorter 6-storey apartment building, so it will be interesting to see what impact that has on the now exposed (to sunlight) windows that are angled upward. It's really the east and west sides that are an issue, since there is so little glass on those sides and most people want big windows in their office. Just four narrow windows on the east sides and four narrow windows west sides of each floor.

Thanks for sharing this building! I haven't hear of this building yet, and will look into it. It certainly does take the window placement and orientation to an extreme.

Originally Posted by jlousa

Something that isn't mentioned much is the affect of the refrigerants on the the environment. Yes Freon has been banned due to it's effect on the ozone, and now R-22 practically phased out but even the newer refrigerants (R134a/401/407/R410 etc) are much worse then C02 at trapping in heat. Between 2000-4000times worse, and all these ac units leak, on average 5-20% of their charge every year. There is a move to start to use c02 as a refrigerant as leaks wouldn't be so detrimental but it operates at ridiculously high pressures.

Yes, 100% correct. It's definitely a problem that energy efficiency experts and professionals will need to sort out. It will be a balance between lowering fossil fuel carbon emissions vs increased heat pump HVAC adoption. Hopefully, as more buildings are built more to passively conserve energy and use very little heating/cooling, we won't need to rely so much on refrigerants to provide occupant comfort.