[Y_Y]

> One always sucks air while the other blows air, synchronized over WiFi. This should be done, or hot air would be pushed out from the building through the walls during the ingress phase, causing heat loss." ...Perfect!

Absolutely.

> A room is not heated by increasing its internal energy but by decreasing its entropy due to the fact that during heating, the volume and pressure remain constant and air is expelled.

https://pubs.aip.org/aapt/ajp/article-abstract/79/1/74/10418...

The point about balancing airflow is crucial, but I think underappreciated by non-professionals. Thermodynamics is highly non-intuitive in places, and the enclosed climate-controlled spaces we love to inhabit are certainly included in that.

Don't get me started on the idea that you can cool a closed room by running a fan or opening a fridge.

[teekert]

Don't get me started on the idea that you can cool a closed room by running a fan or opening a fridge.

Oh man I had this discussion with my wife yesterday, we have a small electric heater in a room where a pipe burst and I still need to fix that (no heating means instant fungus problems). It keeps its fan rotating always, that way it determines the input temp for its thermostat more accurately. But wife insists it is sometimes blowing cold air and thus very very bad... I explain what a thermostat is (bimetals and all) and that she experiences "coldness" because a layer of warm air is blown from her skin, it's not blowing cold air... she doesn't follow... I even measure the energy usage and the thing only uses 20 W or so when just blowing, not heating. Even when just blowing it's moving cold moist air from the walls so overall good. It's difficult dealing with her like this.

I'll pay someone to tell me how to deal with someone like this and maintain a positive atmosphere. The thing is, I also do it for things that really are probably not worth discussing... I should pick my battles better, is there ever a good time for some mansplaining? Or should I say... Nerdsplaining?

[sneak]

The problem as it stands now is that she is experiencing something (“it is blowing cold air”) and your claims (“no it’s not”) run counter to that direct experience.

Place and leave a thermometer in front of it and give her the information that you are using to make your own claims.

You went through a process to learn that moving air feels colder than still air at the same temperature. It seems that perhaps she has not. Surfacing the ground truth of the air temperature may help the situation.

[teekert]

Full of enthusiasm I did this whole thing as they did in Veratasium [0]. Didn't impress anybody in my family. Although my son is getting there I think... Maybe I'm just too bad and lengthy at nerdsplaining.

Actually, I didn't put an ice cube on the metal, that is the trick. of course.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqDbMEdLiCs

[vanderZwan]

> Don't get me started on the idea that you can cool a closed room by running a fan or opening a fridge.

On that note, I'm curious if hybrid heating/cooling solutions will ever take off. Other than this OpenERV product I mean, which I guess technically counts!

Low Tech Magazine mentioned some experiments in their article on compressed air energy storage (CAES). Instead of trying to make that form of energy storage an adiabatic process, the idea is to use the heat produced/required in the compression/decompression steps in the household to improve the energy efficiency (e.g. use heat produced during compression to heat water; do the decompression in a space that should be cold anyway like a basement used for food storage).

[0] https://solar.lowtechmagazine.com/2018/05/ditch-the-batterie...