Mastodawn

Dan Fixes Coin-Ops

I go into my kitchen and I look at my fridge, whose job is to move heat outside of itself into the room. Centimetres to the right of it is the oven, whose job is to make heat, and we don't like using it in the summer because its whole thing is making heat. Further right is the AC vent, which is connected to a furnace downstairs, which is connected to a big fan outside which blows my heat into the neighbourhood for a few minutes each morning to dry out the air and make it tolerable with a fan. Right next to the furnace, within a metre of it, is the hot water tank, which is another inside-out fridge that takes heat from the basement and puts it into my shower water.

None of these machines are connected together in any way at all

Like, what are we doing here. What are we doing as a species.

Dan Fixes Coin-Ops Jul 10, 2024

Like, come on, we're clever, we can figure this out.

Running pipes and hoses all through our walls to each appliance so it can send its waste heat back to the water tank? Sounds like a PITA but what with the new plumbing ways, home-run pex and all, no 90-degree joints to fail, it's more do-able now than before.

What about those fridge coils next to the oven? They're probably the easiest, they're right there

Dan Fixes Coin-Ops Jul 10, 2024

The water heater and the AC being divorced from each other is some heckin nonsense tho

My furnace fan only turns one way. The system can't flip flaps by itself. It doesn't have any way to hear if the water heater ask for some of the heat elsewhere in the house. My basement is SO CHILLY and my attic is SO HOT

Dan Fixes Coin-Ops Jul 10, 2024

My ceiling fan is cooling me down and making it absolutely fine for me to be at 28 degrees, but it's doing that by dumping 40 watts of heat into the room, and can my ceiling fan tell when I'm nearby? Can it bollocks, if I leave the room then it keeps exhausting 40w for blowing onto dead surfaces that can't sweat

Dan Fixes Coin-Ops Jul 10, 2024

Moving the heat through fluid would be better than moving it through the air, but we're not even trying to move it through the air, what the heck

Dan Fixes Coin-Ops Jul 10, 2024

I had some ideas and I looked on amazon to see if my idea could already be purchased and apparently my idea of a smart fan is very different from capital's idea of a smart fan

Me: 🦝 a smart fan is one that turns itself off when it's not pointed at a person

🦝 also it'd be neat if all the various fans around my house could coordinate with each other to move hot air to where it's either useful or not actively harmful

Capital: 🐷 a smart fan is one where you say "Hey Alexa, turn on this fan" rather than pressing the button

Dan Fixes Coin-Ops Jul 10, 2024

🦝 obviously a smart fan would need a big SPDT switch so it could be toggled back to hardwired Just A Fan mode

🐷 obviously a smart fan could have no buttons or switches and just a bunch of shitty capacitive sensors because they're so much cheaper

Dan Fixes Coin-Ops Jul 10, 2024

The angel on my left shoulder: 👼 If we put electronics in a fan then that means a power supply, and capacitors fail

The trash-fingered raccoon technician on my right shoulder: 🦝 There are fans that run off a drill battery

Dan Fixes Coin-Ops Jul 10, 2024

👼 DC motor, 🦝, brushes also fail

🦝 Brushless DC motors are also a thing

👼 Ah yes, reinventing the AC induction motor, rock-solid reliable basic tech for over a century, by involving a, what was it, a COMPUTER, yes,

Dan Fixes Coin-Ops Jul 10, 2024

🦝 Alright there are some things to think about, but the answers could save people a lot of money, not to mention the emissions versus air conditioning

👼 But for how long, 🦝? A basic fan will last as long as its owner, how long will your brushless DC computer fan keep going? Will it fail just outside of the warranty?

🐷 pardon me, gentlemen, I couldn't help but overhear...

Dan Fixes Coin-Ops Jul 10, 2024

🦝 Could we simply power the Smart Bit off some rechargeable double-A's? That'd go for a few months at a time no problem, right?

👼 You want people to go rummaging through their drawers and lever the crusties out of their Discmans so they can power a web server bolted onto an old desk fan they found in the trash

🦝 Look at me. I'm a raccoon. Of COURSE I want to

Dan Fixes Coin-Ops Jul 10, 2024

Haha oh no the software men have found my thread

Bless you, computers mans, for giving me such wonderful advice

Dan Fixes Coin-Ops Jul 10, 2024

🦝 *makes a post mentioning not one, not two, but THREE heat pumps*
🐰🐩🐁🦅 HAVE YE HEARD O' HEAT PUMPS THERE OUR DAN

Dan Fixes Coin-Ops Jul 10, 2024

🎤🐰 And now, a word from our sponsors. New fridge time? Forget the competition! OUR fridge-freezers are powered by heat pumps,

Dan Fixes Coin-Ops Jul 10, 2024

You made a what? A heat pump? You fucked up a perfectly good fridge, is what you did. Look at it, it's inside out

Deborah Pickett Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops Has anyone made the “cold pump” joke yet?

Dan Fixes Coin-Ops Jul 10, 2024

@futzle those are for Australia

Deborah Pickett Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops *checks kitchen* So they are.

Errol Cavit Jul 11, 2024

@futzle @ifixcoinops Subsidising heat pumps in NZ (to encourage insulation and winter power savings) had the side effect of increasing power usage in summer. Lots of Aucklanders dealing with the humidity!

eviloatmeal, resident Death Stranding 2 apologist (arch, btw)Jul 11, 2024

@ErrolNZ @futzle @ifixcoinops How does that work?

Errol Cavit Jul 11, 2024

@eviloatmeal @futzle @ifixcoinops Setting the heat pump to 'cool'. Previously domestic aircon units were rare.

eviloatmeal, resident Death Stranding 2 apologist (arch, btw)Jul 11, 2024

@ErrolNZ @futzle @ifixcoinops I mean how does the insulation help reduce power consumption in winter by keeping heat in, while not keeping heat out in the summer? I would have thought that more insulation means equally less energy spent on heating or cooling, with a slower time for the temperature to equalize to the outside temperature.

Errol Cavit Jul 11, 2024

@eviloatmeal @futzle @ifixcoinops Previously there was no actual cooling method fitted, standing fans don't really count. Make a cooling and de-humidifying (maritime temperate climate) device available, people use it.
And often the extra insulation needed to get the heat pump subsidy meant fitting underfloor insulation, most homes had ceiling insulation already. Wall/window insulation optional.

Kirk Smith, PhD Jul 11, 2024

@ErrolNZ @futzle @ifixcoinops ye olde Jevons paradox?

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox

Jevons paradox - Wikipedia

Errol Cavit Jul 11, 2024

@kirk @futzle @ifixcoinops Sort of. Heating costs may have increased, but homes being warmer was a desired outcome. But the tech gave a new option, which was utilised.

Adrian Cockcroft Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops I have a hot water heater pump unit that makes its little room cold, and a wine closet chiller in the attic above where it’s hot. I’m going to duct the input to the chiller to get cold air from the water heat pump and duct the input for the heat pump up into the attic to get warm air. Hopefully the heating and cooling will all end up being more efficient…

Biggles 20X6!Jul 11, 2024

@ifixcoinops hahahaha my brain went: so a fridge is a 'peat hump'?

@ifixcoinops I've been on the internet for a minute and therefore I would just like to celebrate you on this, which is one of the most epic and well deserved rants I have read, lo these many years

Piers Cawley Jul 11, 2024

🎤🦦 that's an interesting use of the phrase "powered by"

Thalass Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops
I'm proud of myself that I resisted mentioning that 😅

ouinne Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops this is a brand new sea shanty phenomenon

Ember is so tired of people.

@ifixcoinops what is with people talking about heat pumps like they're a 'revolutionary' new tech invented today

rateexportpilot Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops thoughts and prayers.

Kevin Granade has moved Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops look, you can't do *your* complex failure prone thing, you have to do *my* complex failure prone thing!

Edd Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops I have a plan to hook up presence detectors in rooms so that I could automate things like lights and fans with some cheapo smart plugs. Alas my simple plan to do it based off bluetooth tracking of phones was foiled by my partner's inability to ever carry her phone with her, and I haven't gotten around to investigating which room presence detectors work locally with no cloud bollocks nailed onto the side.

leadedsolder Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops drug store rechargeable AAs might be the most environmentally friendly option for things that need batteries at this point. Easy to source, easy to replace... I don't know what the realistic cycle life is or what horrible stuff it leaves behind in the soil though.

Sergi Jul 11, 2024

@ifixcoinops I read your thread, I loved it, and thought "I must follow this person!"

Then I realized I arrived at this thread because I'm already following you ,😄

penguin42 Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops Oh it's easy to solve; you just need to put a fan in the fan, to cool the fan.

Dan Cassidy 🦌Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops My experience is that the bearings are always the first thing to fail in a brushless fan (thinking here mainly of PC cooling fans). Not in the sense that it no longer works, but in the sense that it makes such an unholy racket I can't put up with it. Wouldn't the same thing happen to an AC induction fan? Or do they just use shitty bearings in most PC cooling fans?

Dan Fixes Coin-Ops Jul 10, 2024

@whimsy so I've seen a 70's-era score motor motor fail one (1) time

Damn things just, keep going

Alaric Snell-Pym Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops capsense? Nah, that would be too user friendly. Just bluetooth and an app. And a single blue LED so bright it's half the power budget and can set light to bits of nearby paper.

Michael Kohne Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops I like your idea WAY better.

Doug Baker - Elbows Up! 🇨🇦Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops Probably 30 years ago Bill Gates’ house (on Seattle’s Lake Union, I think) was set so that each room would sense a person’s approach/presence and then turn on lights, audio etc. Your idea should be easily doable.

Texty the Bard Jul 10, 2024

@SonofaGeorge @ifixcoinops (Lake Washington)

And yes, smart-home stuff does this easily with motion or heat sensors. My pantry light is motion controlled, as are the lights in the spouse's home office (though if he's just vegging in the comfy chair instead of working, it sometimes thinks the room has become devoid of humans and switches off. Ha.)

Instant water heaters are also nice, though expensive.

Alexis Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops Solar photovoltaic panels work better when cooled.

Solar thermal collection tech could be adapted into water cooling for solar PV, using a household hot water tank as a heat accumulator.

But nobody's doing it because "it's expensive."

Meanwhile I'm over here like, y'know what's more expensive? Species-wide migration to another planet because we choked this one on the farts of industry.

Pete Keen Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops we have a ground source heat pump for HVAC and it's hooked into our water heater. Waste heat is used to preheat the water that the hot water heater draws from.

It's useful and efficient but on all but the hottest days we're still running the hot water heater an awful lot.

phi1997 Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops
Melting, I think

Michael Kohne Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops Not having everything in your house be one big appliance, so that when things fail, you don't lose everything all at once. There's a lot of redundancy in that setup, but remember, if you remove redundancy, you increase the consequences of failure.

Dan Fixes Coin-Ops Jul 10, 2024

@mhkohne nah, if the fridge's heat quits going into my oven then it'll just take as long to prewarm as it already does.

Machines can be made so that if one part stops working, it puts a note in the log and carries on going but a bit shittier. Most machines IRL work like that, except for the crap ones of course

Michael Kohne Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops Ahh, but then you've further increased the complexity, leading to greater likelyhood of failure.

What we actually need is a fairly simple way to store and release heat the way we do with batteries for electric. Then you can just equip any heat-wasting devices with an output to the 'heatsink' and any heat-using devices to take heat FROM the heat-sink, with everything capable of also operating without a house-wide heat sink.

Dan Fixes Coin-Ops Jul 10, 2024

@mhkohne how the hell would that work

Michael Kohne Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops Hell if I know. The only way I can imagine is a well insulated cistern in the basement and a stupid amount of plumbing, which would make the exercise more stupid than almost any other way to do the job.

Mx Verda Jul 10, 2024

@mhkohne @ifixcoinops oh oh! I know this one! Look up communal heating!
Icr what it’s called, but the thing Sweden invested in decades ago.

Dredging up from downthread: district heating!

Kiwiana 🦣Jul 10, 2024

@mhkohne @ifixcoinops we have hydronic heating in the floor slab (foundation) which is insulated from the ground. A heat pump warms the water but so too does the sun when it shines on the tile floor. The water is circulating through the floor slab. Essentially it’s a large thermal battery because the concrete retains the heat and continues to release it even when the heat pump is not going.

Rob\Viewdata UK Jul 10, 2024

@mhkohne @ifixcoinops
Sounds like we need a personal version of the Sand Battery: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-61996520

Climate change: 'Sand battery' could solve green energy's big problem

A storage device made from sand may overcome the biggest issue in the transition to renewable energy.

BBC News

varx/social Jul 10, 2024

@mhkohne @ifixcoinops Hell of a way to go. "Here lies Dan, who was flash-incinerated when the heat shield on his waffle iron failed."

varx/social Jul 10, 2024

@mhkohne @ifixcoinops The "how do I connect,,, all these heat pumps" problem has been bothering me a lot too, though, and the best I've come up with so far is a whole-house copper coolant loop/heat sink that also doubles as the electrical ground for all those appliances. (I guess I felt like creating more problems than I solved, today.)

Jon Spring Jul 10, 2024

@ifixcoinops @mhkohne water has a pretty high specific heat. I wonder if having two water tanks, one for hot water and a larger one for cold water (since lower temp difference between room temp and freezing) would ever make sense for the home heating/cooling and refrigeration parts, where we just want to move heat around, with the tanks managing the daily cycle part.

Peter Kraus Jul 11, 2024

@Spring @ifixcoinops @mhkohne the reason why we don't use water as a working fluid in our fridges is that it freezes at 0°C. Also, the heat of vaporisation is the more important quantity, as heat pumps usually exploit the state change of the working fluid at different pressures.

Jon Spring Jul 11, 2024

@pkraus @ifixcoinops @mhkohne I didn’t mean as working fluid, I meant as an alternative to air source / ground source, since the original comment was inquiring about the potential synergies between e.g. air cooling and a water heater. I presume there are good reasons that’s not common, but I’m curious to understand better what might be.