Dan Fixes Coin-OpsJul 10, 2024

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.

Show threadMichael KohneJul 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.
Show threadDan Fixes Coin-OpsJul 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

Show threadMichael KohneJul 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.

Show threadDan Fixes Coin-Ops
@mhkohne how the hell would that work
Jul 10, 2024 at 3:12pmWeb
Show threadMichael KohneJul 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.
Show threadMx VerdaJul 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!

Show threadKiwiana 🦣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.
Show threadRob\Viewdata UKJul 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
Show threadvarx/socialJul 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."
Show threadvarx/socialJul 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.)
Show threadJon SpringJul 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.
Show threadPeter KrausJul 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.
Show threadJon SpringJul 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.