Test? Is it safe?

[Peter Korsten]

Tony Hardie-Bick schreef:

> Heating is the only aspect of electricity saving that may significantly benefit 
> the environment in a domestic situation.

In the UK perhaps, but in a significant part of the world (I would even 
say the largest part by area, though not necessarily by population), air 
conditioning is just as important, if not more.

It's not just convenience: you really cannot work if it's 35 Celsius 
outside. And in summer, it's that temperature every day.

Our house is not at all insulated, basically because houses are built to 
keep out the heat. Arguably, you could insulate against the heat as 
well, but more than the heat, sunshine is an issue. You can keep the 
heat outside, but you cannot keep the sun from warming up your house, 
unless you paint your roof and walls in a reflective metal paint. And 
there's probably a law against that. :)

For heating, we could use another solar water heater, but with a larger 
tank. Or perhaps it's not needed, I don't know. But I don't know if you 
could use a conventional heater on the roof, because it works on the 
principle that hot water goes up, so you'd at least need a pump of some 
sort. And whether the tank could deal with a closed circuit, I don't know.

And there's the issue that our house has no central heating, so we'd 
have to build that as well. If we were to build a new house, we'd do 
underfloor heating (very nice with all the floors being tiled), but 
retrofitting is not really an option.

Cooling is a bit more difficult, because it works on the basis of 
compression and evaporation. Could you use the same solar water heater 
you use for heating? Maybe; Einstein helped market a fridge that works 
on heat, but it's not very efficient.

Anyway, I think we need a bit more research into this, because the most 
obvious energy source for air conditioning is the sun.

- Peter