I am completly opposed to Air-conditions propagandized as a solution to climate change. What is the wright approach to combating this state of temporary relief except from old-fashioned fans? Don’t get me wrong. They do the job for me. I am reffering to finding a solution for people more with health issues or large facilities that are in need of something more drastic.
Dig and dont stop digging. Make a burrow
Urban planning wise: I think ivy walls, or other greenery covering residential buildings.
For reference, you might want to look up Bosco Verticale in Italy, or lush green roofs in Norway.
I know this isn’t a catch-all solution, but it could help mitigate climate crisis impact in addition to other options people offered here.
Some ancient middle-eastern architecture (can’t remember the name) is a low-tech and permanent air-conditioning tower. We gotta go low tech. We also need trees everywhere, white buidlings and roofs, rain water collectors, etc etc.
There is no alternative in hot, humid regions (cryopaint is not proven). In dry ones swamp cooling and fans help.
However, I’m not sure many people are saying air conditioning is a solution to climate change.
Many are saying it’s an adaptation necessary to survive in warming humid regions. The human body cannot thermoregulate in wet bulb temperatures above 35c. Fans don’t help as the body cannot evaporate sweat into saturated air that is as warm or warmer. Air conditioning not only cools, but removes humidity.
If you get a severe case of influenza, it comes with a fever. The fever is a symptom, not the underlying cause of the illness, but it can kill faster. As a result, you need to treat it as well as the flu, often with acetaminophen. Air conditioning does not treat the underlying cause, but it can mitigate the symptom that kills fastest.
@turip youtu.be/AAz5D3TnQ_k This video lists basically every option you can have. I posted it already, but building a city to create air corridors and using water-porous asphalt when you have to have it, which allows for evaporative cooling during the summer, as well as using ponds and water to create a cool island effect, can significantly reduce heating.
Oh, I just remembered this video I watched. There is this guy on youtube that does a lot of material-sciency kind of stuff using common household ingredients. One of his videos he makes a salt-based phase change material, which basically works as an icepack that freezes at around 18 degrees Celsius.
The idea is that it takes a long time for the material to melt from 18 degrees to 19 degrees so it can keep you comfortably cool if you put it in a plastic bag and wear it in a vest to keep yourself cool. If you have a cool basement, then it can pretty much re-freeze by putting it on the cold floor.
DIY Supermaterial Could Save You From Heatstroke: Salt based PCMs
Its an interesting watch.
Edit: Actually the more I think about it the more Solarpunk it seems. It requires zero electricity, and rather than cooling a whole area you only cool the people in it. Even better, you aren’t trapped inside to avoid the heat, as it works outside just fine.
The best you can do quickly and for free is to close blinds to let a small amount of light in when its hot, and when it’s below 20°, open windows and have as much ventilation as possible. This is easiest and I find that in some rooms it can cool them significantly.
An Awning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhbDfi7Ee7k
Heat pumps. Work as heating and cooling, far more energy efficient
Nah you know heat pumps are just air conditioners running in the other direction. Its the exact same technology.
Except it’s not, and, as previously mentioned, they are more efficient.
I hesitate to contradict you but they really are. Many use more efficient parts, but the mechanism is the same.
Similar but not the same. They both use refrigerants but the mechanisms do differ. Mostly in that AC uses fans ehich increase power consumption. I’m sure there are differentiations on both sides to prove me wrong, but I’m just speaking in general terms.
And how does the heat or coolness get distributed? Magic.
Almost all heat pumps also use fans. It’s simply more efficient.
The difference in your diagrams is not related to heat pump/AC, but forced air v. water.
What’s the difference between a heat pump and an air conditioner when cooling?
Absolutely no difference. An AC is a heat pump.
If you’re an aussie, you know it as a reverse cycle. A shockingky large amount of the rest of the world only know window unit air cons
When cooling they act rhe same way (and similar to a fridge, it’s pretty basic tech, scale is what makes them more efficient) but if your climate makes a heatpump viable you’re trading out a heavily polluting heat source instead. Swings and roundabouts
If you can come up with an alternative way to cool the air indoors that’s less energy demanding and environmentally friendly that could be a revolutionary invention on a global scale
Not gonna debate A/Cs merits as a fix for climate change but the ability to chill and cool a place at will is one of the overall more important human innovations ever. Food storage and preservation as well as tons of medical/scientific research and development is dependent on refrigeration.
It’s also really gonna depend on where you live in the world to be able to rely on standard fans, which still rely on electricity and if the humidity gets too high for your sweat to evaporate may not even cool you down properly enough to prevent wet bulb heat deaths. Bangladesh for example will cook in the coming years without something to break the heat and muggy air.
If you are looking for passive alternatives, then I’ve got bad news: you have to design them before you build a house.
In Iran, before electrical power became available, they used wind towers to draw up ground-cooled air through the qanat (underground aqueduct) system. It works without external power, but you have to know you need it before you build houses.
Also, simply a house with very thick stone walls (expensive to build), a cellar (possibly with a cistern) and no south-facing windows will stay cool during summer peaks.
That is kinda like earth tubes isn’t it? Which you could retrofit. More powerful cooling can be achieved by using the tubes as part of a geothermal heat pump. Bonus there is that its also even more efficient than a regular heat pump in winter too.
There are a few things you can add to an existing house:
- Awnings and other sources of shade over windows
- White painted exterior (some white pigments are better than others at reflecting infrared)
The south-facing comments would need to be the other way around in the southern hemisphere too.
The alternative is architecture designed to keep a building cool.
There is only so much you can do to achieve that. If temperatures are in the upper 30s for an entire week. You can’t keep the heat out forever
And hot in the winter.
Heat exchangers are a good step forward IMO. They just need a small fan to function if there is like no wind.
Planting trees and bushes and plants around the property helps cool down the air around it too
Best I can do is clear cutting to build a neighborhood and then an HOA that won’t let you plant trees.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of an HOA in Canada, yet.
At least not in Québec.
Or modifying what you have already.
Take a south or west facing window with a balcony & railing in front. By installing planter boxes on the railings and growing black eyed susans / morning glory / any climbing flowers, letting them grow up bamboo poles space 4" apart, you can create a heat absorbing barrier. The plants block and use the energy that would have been absorbed by your house. Unlike shades/screens they won’t heat up and begin radiating heat themselves.
Female Hops are another great planting option. They cannot reproduce without a male plant, and every year they will grow back stronger. Train them underneath your building eaves and they will reduce the amount of heat energy your house absorbs while producing aesthetically pleasing “cone” flowers.
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Also insulation. In Canada we need lots of insulation under our roofs for the winter. So while during the summer our black top roofs absorb a lot of heat, not as much of that heat is transferred to the indoor air as a roof with less insulation.
Its important to mention that this does require some maintenance and to be sure that the outside of the building is structurally sound (ie. gaps, rotted wood, crumbling morter,etc.)
building is structurally sound
Especially if you go with permanent plants. Like I suggest against Virginia Creeper cuz it will obscure any developing issues.
I second that! I am not too sure about hops tbh, in the sense that they don’t seem to thrive/survive where I live, but the idea of using vegetation is helping greatly to cool the microclimate. The downside is that you will need at least a balcony, the bigger it is, the more vegetation you can have, and the more you have, the cooler it will be. If you have a garden, it’s a whole other level, in the best possible way.
This approach is also great because you can plant eatibles, and have your own veggies and fruits.
Hops need LOTS of dirt for roots, water, and something to climb. I live in Zone 6a but our summers peak at 35°C so they might be more viable than you think.
If you do them in raised bed you 100% cannot have a sealed bottom.
There’s plenty we can do, but all interventions are somewhat limited in effect. With the trend of increasingly intense heat waves, we’re likely going to have to do all of the non-AC interventions and install AC in lots and lots of places.
- Awnings to block sunlight from heating up spaces through windows
- Better ventilation systems which can more effectively pump in colder air from outside during the night
- Heat-reflecting paint to minimize heat gain from solar radiation
- More trees to provide local cooling/shade
- Ceiling fans to provide reduced perceived heat
All help, but when the temperatures start hitting 40 C with high humidity, you’re basically out of luck without an AC, that can pump out the heat and lower the humidity.
Extremely good insulation, possibly building things underground, and then air conditioning. You said people with health issues. If you need to make sure something is a a specific temperature because of health concerns, you need air conditioning to be certain. Really making sure you’ve got incredible insulation is really all you can do. Tall trees that block the sun around the building can help. Using blinds and curtains as well instead of letting the sun in.
Building anything underground is extremely expensive and energy intensive, as you have to constantly pump ground water and pour concrete to keep walls from breaking under pressure of tons of soil.
So yeah, underground could work, but better used sparingly when benefit outweighs the costs, like maybe in areas that could go literally uninhabitable on the surface. Otherwise not worth it.
Most of North America built bungalows after WW2. All your dramatic concerns were addressed 50 years ago, and no, they were not extremely expensive and 8" concrete walls with French drains and sump pumps work well.
@JackbyDev @turip Problem with insulation is that there isn’t a good way to retrofit old buildings with it without mold building up, as old buildings were designed to breathe.
Not true.
You can ventilate periodically, air doesn’t hold that much thermal energy. You can also use heat recovery ventilation, should work in reverse to keep the heat out too.
There is not a magic solution that is perfect in every scenario. Air conditioners decrease humidity as a side effect, though.
