Record-breaking temperatures in the last few years shatter the myth that air conditioning alone will keep people safe
No lie. For 6 days straight it was at or over 105 F outside. My air could barely keep the indoors at 80 F and my bill was 600 for the month of high heat. I have insulation and attic vents and all that… It’s just so hot outside you can’t stand it.
Where are you?
At home, where are you?
I’m also at your home.
You’re pretty hot.
If your electricity was $600 then you gotta live in Texas. Anyway you could add a window AC unit if your electricity bill was more normal. Increasing capacity can compensate for higher temperature, as can dehumidifying and improving air circulation.
But building better insulated structures and installing better windows are cheaper in the long run. Unfortunately there are a lot of older buildings, especially apartments, that’ll never bother with it. Older homes need moderate renovation to do so also. And since the mean income for Americans is around 40k, that’s a really tall order.
The fact is, the government would need to seriously subsidize a national overhaul, but seeing all the other things they should pay for but don’t (or under pay for). As for new construction, laws requiring higher standards are fought tooth and claw by the construction industry, vary state by state, and raise the price even more than the unreasonably high cost homes already have. I think most of us will just have to accept that we’re screwed unless something drastically changes.
In places with high electricity bills, go solar!
If people can’t afford the home modifications in the above comment, how are they supposed to pay for the solar installation?
What I’m getting at is this isn’t a technological problem, it’s an economic one. People can’t afford to cope with the heat. The framing of the article is off.
There are tax credits now for weatherization, and I think more coming next year depending on your state.
Aren’t tax credits only useful at tax filing time? You still have to be able to pay the up front costs, right?
That is correct. People will typically get loans for larger purchases like solar panels so that they don’t need to pay everything upfront, but for smaller purchases like maybe $1,000 a loan isn’t really worth it, and you’ll need funds set aside to pay the contractor now and expect to see the money back when you file.
Also worth checking state/local incentives. In my state our gas company has weatherization rebates. They did air sealing and added insulation to our attic (up to a certain R value) all for free - they billed it directly to the gas company. When they were out here, I paid for a bit of extra insulation because I thought we needed it, but the base amount was completely free.
Dumb question but I’m not trying to be funny, what if we build homes underground?
It’s a good plan.
Me: I want to live in a Hobbit-hole!
Mom: we have a Hobbit-hole at home.
Home:
Your link does make me want to dig out my basement some more though, NGL.
Test for radon first:
About one in every 15 homes is thought to have high levels of radon. The highest concentration of radon tends to be found in the basement or on the first floor.
I was aware of radon being a thing, especially since I live in an area with a lot of granite in the soil, but since I currently have a vented crawlspace, I wasn’t worried too much. Thank you for reminding me that I need to think about it again if/when I close off the vents and encapsulate!
Honestly for more of these industrial server and cloud computing centers they should be buried to take advantage of cooler temperatures and save money on ac.
Insulation keeps the heat from outside from coming inside, but it’s not much help when you’re generating the heat inside yourself
Microsoft experimented with putting a datacenter underwater and saw some encouraging results.
https://news.microsoft.com/source/features/sustainability/project-natick-underwater-datacenter/
Very very expensive. Excavation is ridiculous, especially in places with poor soil composition or water tables.
Possible, but expensive. Depending on the area there are soil and geological stability issues, flooding/seepage, or other issues like radon.
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Need to use Heat Index or Wet Bulb temperature. Dry heat is not the same as humid heat - the latter contains way more heat energy. In arid regions air conditioning, or water, will prevent most heat-related risk into the future. It’s the humid regions that will suffer in heat waves.
Air conditioning was never enough and it was always going to come to this point. The real solution is to go back to the way that things were designed up until the mid 1930s which used natural air flow to remove heat from a space without the need for electricity. People in Turkey could make or keep ice in the middle of the desert thousands of years ago. We can surely do better now if we try.
A badgir. We can certainly learn a lot from other cultures.
Landlords arent going to want to install solar on the roofs to absorb some of that energy. They probably think it looks ugly. Thats the real problem.
Just need stronger air conditioners? Power em with renewable energy.
Architects and engineers designed properties cheaply with the idea that modern refrigeration would take care of everything. Houses or apartments built 100 years ago don’t really have such a problem with cooling compared to a house put up in 1950.
