Yesterday, I noticed that despite me being stripped to a T shirt, in a
workshop type room I have, the thermostat that controls the winter
heating in that room, was ON..Ok it wasn't actually controlling anything
because that whole zone is switched off for the summer, but it seemed to
say that the temperature was a mere 16C.

Now in WINTER that room needs to be up around 20-22C for comfort..

Is it merely that the rain was puring down, and the humidity was
shockingly high?

It occurred to me that a dish of water in each room in winter, would
make the place SEEM warmer by dint of raising the humidity to the point
where sweating would not cool the skin so much.

On another pint, I need - and with energy prices where they are at - to
control my UFH a little more precisely.

Currently the master thermostat is inappropiately located in the
kitchen, where the AGA renders UFH almost uneccesasary. I want to use a
radio type remote thermostat to control the overall zone, located in the
living areas, and use the existing kitchen stat to control the kitchen
alone.

This requires some extra bits.

Firstly, what kind of radio stats are there? one with feed-forward
intelligence might be nice, but simple is OK too - I can do the rest by
adjusting the zone timing.

Secondly, the kitchen stat needs to shut off a couple of zone valves on
a Polyplumb manifold..these have a screw thread outer and a plunger that
shuts the flow down and which is rotated to balance the flow.

I am sure that these exist because the manifolds are designed to utilise
something, but and ordinary motorized valve it ain't and there is no way
to fit those.

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Yesterday, I noticed that despite me being stripped to a T shirt, in a
workshop type room I have, the thermostat that controls the winter
heating in that room, was ON..Ok it wasn't actually controlling anything
because that whole zone is switched off for the summer, but it seemed to
say that the temperature was a mere 16C.

Now in WINTER that room needs to be up around 20-22C for comfort..

Is it merely that the rain was puring down, and the humidity was
shockingly high?

It occurred to me that a dish of water in each room in winter, would
make the place SEEM warmer by dint of raising the humidity to the point
where sweating would not cool the skin so much.

But in winter we dont cool by sweating, at least not to a very
significant extent. High RH also reduces comfort, causes condensation,
mould and rot.

It is a popular myth that humans are thermally like a wet bulb, in
reality we are somewhere between wet and dry.


NT

wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Yesterday, I noticed that despite me being stripped to a T shirt, in a
workshop type room I have, the thermostat that controls the winter
heating in that room, was ON..Ok it wasn't actually controlling anything
because that whole zone is switched off for the summer, but it seemed to
say that the temperature was a mere 16C.

Now in WINTER that room needs to be up around 20-22C for comfort..

Is it merely that the rain was puring down, and the humidity was
shockingly high?

It occurred to me that a dish of water in each room in winter, would
make the place SEEM warmer by dint of raising the humidity to the point
where sweating would not cool the skin so much.

But in winter we dont cool by sweating, at least not to a very
significant extent. High RH also reduces comfort, causes condensation,
mould and rot.

I think that's not right. We DO ALWAYS cool by sweating. Its just that
in the winter the rate is low enough/himidity low enough to leave the
skin dry.

It is a popular myth that humans are thermally like a wet bulb, in
reality we are somewhere between wet and dry.


I agree.

However I wasn't proposing to go to the extreme of having a winter
turkish bath in the hots necessitate a bit more heating input for
comfort than many people suppose.


NT

In article ,
The Natural Philosopher writes:
Yesterday, I noticed that despite me being stripped to a T shirt, in a
workshop type room I have, the thermostat that controls the winter
heating in that room, was ON..Ok it wasn't actually controlling anything
because that whole zone is switched off for the summer, but it seemed to
say that the temperature was a mere 16C.

Now in WINTER that room needs to be up around 20-22C for comfort..

Is it merely that the rain was puring down, and the humidity was
shockingly high?

Very likely -- humidity (and wind chill where present) are much
more important than temperature for human comfort percention.

It occurred to me that a dish of water in each room in winter, would
make the place SEEM warmer by dint of raising the humidity to the point
where sweating would not cool the skin so much.

This is done in large computer rooms where people are required to
work on a long/continous basis. The temperature is typically 21, but
the aircon cooling makes the humidity low and there's quite a draft,
which means you can end up shivering in such rooms even when you've
you're dressed for, and comfortable in, an office which might be
slightly cooler. This is handled by using humidifiers in such rooms,
which make a dramatic difference to the perceived "room temperature",
although they don't in reality change it at all, of course.

The trouble with doing this in something like a house which wasn't
designed for artificial humidity control is that you are bound to
have some cold spots, and you will get condensation at those points.

BTW a wet bulb _is_ quite a good approximiation to a the human
percention of temperature (even in winter, contrary to what I read
in another article), but you need to add in the effect of wind chill
(which makes no difference to a wet bulb). One way to do this would
be to use a heated wet bulb. You could even add in the effect of
hard work making it feel hotter by increasing the heating power
applied to the bulb, just as happens in humans.

--
Andrew Gabriel

Andrew Gabriel wrote:
In article ,
The Natural Philosopher writes:
Yesterday, I noticed that despite me being stripped to a T shirt, in a
workshop type room I have, the thermostat that controls the winter
heating in that room, was ON..Ok it wasn't actually controlling anything
because that whole zone is switched off for the summer, but it seemed to
say that the temperature was a mere 16C.

Now in WINTER that room needs to be up around 20-22C for comfort..

Is it merely that the rain was puring down, and the humidity was
shockingly high?

Very likely -- humidity (and wind chill where present) are much
more important than temperature for human comfort percention.

It occurred to me that a dish of water in each room in winter, would
make the place SEEM warmer by dint of raising the humidity to the point
where sweating would not cool the skin so much.

This is done in large computer rooms where people are required to
work on a long/continous basis. The temperature is typically 21, but
the aircon cooling makes the humidity low and there's quite a draft,
which means you can end up shivering in such rooms even when you've
you're dressed for, and comfortable in, an office which might be
slightly cooler. This is handled by using humidifiers in such rooms,
which make a dramatic difference to the perceived "room temperature",
although they don't in reality change it at all, of course.

The trouble with doing this in something like a house which wasn't
designed for artificial humidity control is that you are bound to
have some cold spots, and you will get condensation at those points.

Those are called windows. ;-)

With UFH most of the rest of the house is pretty even temperature wise.


I may simply put some vases full of flowers around the place.