morning

@Tinkeringbell yay

It will certainly save me a lot of cleaning. I was prepared to go do that right after the guy left, but it wasn't necessary so I had unexpected spare time last night.

Since it wasn't mold, I enjoyed a steaming hot bath again :D

@Tinkeringbell oh, that reminds me... we've lived in this place for a year now, and not even tried the bath :(

we were about to, and then a whole lot of cold water came out of the boiler... turned out it was broken :/

Oof.

I think it broke down half a dozen times before they replaced the circuit board, and then it stopped working twice more because the thermostat cable wasn't attached properly -_-

O.o

But it's totally fixed now? Or at least seemingly so?

worked without fail for almost a year now, hoping that sticks :)

fortunately this place is not too old and well insulated, so the coldest it gets without heating is probably 16C

i.e. mid winter

That's not too bad.

gf still doesn't like it of course :rolleyes:

there is overwhelming drama when it is too cold :D

That can be survived with a few candles, a blanket, a cup of hot chocolate (with liquor, if it suits you) a thick sweater and warms socks :P

@MiG What is 'too cold' for her?

I'm also not bothered by lower temperatures, so snuggling also fixes things ;)

probably anything below 20

tbh, if I have to do work I prefer it to be warmer than that... got a blood flow thing with my extremities, so typing becomes difficult if it's not warm

@MiG That's not too bad to be honest, I know people that complain when it's not at least 23 in their home.

heh, that's pretty warm

in my student room there were a lot of internationals below me, it would get to 24C without me having the radiator on

I do admit having this bedroom be 20 degrees makes a world of difference when I'm working. Back at my parents I would regularly be bundled up in blankets, here I'm often walking around barefoot XD

took a little while to get back to normal when I moved after graduating :D

heh, I've actually done the opposite... we sleep better when the bedroom's cold, so even now I ventilate it for an hour... levels out at 17C when we go to sleep, works quite well

gf of course puts up all kinds of oscar level drama when we go to bed, because the blanket is cold :rolleyes:

but a snuggle helps, and I think she sleeps a lot better now than when she didn't regulate the temperature herself

Oh, I do ventilate the bedroom at night (and shortly before I go to sleep) too. I can't sleep when the room is 20 degrees XD

that reminds me, I got sucked into a meeting first, and then the inbox... think the bedroom window has been open for 2 hours now :D

But in the morning, I close the window, and let the heat from the rest of the apartment get in by opening all doors. Then it quickly levels out at 20 again.

I do that with the hallway / bathroom, living room is heated so I keep that door closed

@MiG Oops. That'll drive up the gas bill :P

you have no idea... we have this bizarre architectural feature of a saddle roof on our apartment, which probably doubles living room volume and traps all the heat 6m up

Time for a lowered ceiling?

I do turn down the thermostat at night, but it's still a huge gas bill

we rent and we're not planning to stay here for years, we're biting the bullet I guess

I'm kinda glad I have a heat pump and no gas connection at all. With the subsidies for the high gas prices, my energy costs actually went down this year!

@MiG Yeah, fair point. If you don't own a place, making big investments is not your job :)

in summer it's the opposite btw, living room has never heated up as much as our previous apartment (also right below the roof, but normal ceiling height)... I think I took out the standing fan exactly once last year

oh, we are funding a small country's GDP worth in energy

@MiG That's nice!

@MiG This isn't :P

:D

@Tinkeringbell we're looking at buying a place in the next couple of years, and considering it's my research subject I'll definitely insist on something renewable and efficient :]

it's pretty weird working on making neighbourhoods, cities and countries sustainable, yet being stuck with gas at home

._.

@MiG I need gas for cooking.

:D

Why? Your landlord's decisions aren't yours... and you need to make the neighbourhoods, cities and countries sustainable before you can live sustainably in them!

@JourneymanGeek I'm intimately familiar with Indian cooking :P we will probably have a butane stove on the side or something :)

@MiG well also heat management

@Tinkeringbell I'm not saying I can help it right now, but there definitely is some irony in it :)

@MiG my new apartment will have district cooling

that's pretty cool :)

what kind of technology is used?

(no heating. Its the tropics)

@MiG Meh.

I assume it'll be surface water based?

@MiG they have rooftop chillers which pipe chilled water

so there's no compressors

mytengah.sg/centralised-cooling

wondering what the COP of that system will be

COP?

coefficient of performance

ah no idea

its supposed to be "more efficient"

or seasonal performance factor, that gives a better idea of year round performance

Well weather here is pretty constant

it's the coefficient of how much thermal energy it outputs, compared to how much electricity goes into the system

an oldfashioned AC unit will probably land somewhere around 2

ah

a ground sourced heatpump could be anywhere between 3 and 8

I think this is just a bigass chiller on the roof

and an electric heater has a COP of 1, as it converts 100% of the electricity into heat

need to read up on those, cooling will become more and more important for residential use in this country as well, at least for vulnerable groups

@MiG I think there's a simllar system in the new downtown

todayonline.com/singapore/…

spgroup.com.sg/wcm/connect/spgrp/… there's also a whitepaper but Its a bit over my head

thanks :) looks like it's pretty much a giant AC unit though... yes, DC is more efficient than individual units, but this is pretty conventional technology from the looks of it :)

but without clearly defined seasons, thermal storage is probably less functional then it would be in temperate climates, so apart from ensuring electricity input comes from fully renewable sources, and not building big damned glass boxes (shiny office towers are always extremely bad) but bioclimatic buildings will also get you there :)

probably

Trust the expert :P

@MiG might like sustainability.stackexchange.com then, if it's part of their job :)

heh, had no idea that existed

oh, funny questions :D "Is there a link between sleepiness and car ownership rate?"

Huh?!

I didn't scroll that far, but is that really on topic there?

recent post, was downvoted already so probably got deleted by now

nope, still there

It's a 'small' site. I don't think that question will be closed this week :P

ugh, browsing the rest of that place for a bit and I'm not sure if I want to participate there tbh... there'll be a lot of people pushing scientifically badly supported theories and opinions

You could be the counterweight to that, but yeah... that requires a lot of energy that could be used for other things ;)

I only know the site exists, because I saw a question or two in HNQ.

I haven't really participated there beyond that.

might still have a look, but yeah, it costs a lot of energy fixing things that are wrong on the internet :P

Ah yes, age old wisdom ;)

:D

was pleasantly surprised when I found out Root Access has a bot that posts xkcd :D

not read those in a while, love them :)

I still have a bit of 'what if' to read.

what if?

I like some of the xkcd ones, other ones... I don't get.

@MiG a book written by the author of the xkcd comics :)

@MiG SE chat has a rss feed bot system built in

About what would happen if...

And then some seriously ridiculous situations ;)

But all scientifically explained.

@Tinkeringbell oh cool, need to check it out then :)

@JourneymanGeek yeah, nice :)

@MiG what-if.xkcd.com/archive

@MiG He's written more than that book alone too, so be sure to check out the others as well and report back :P

@Tinkeringbell you'll like this one then btw: explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

@Tinkeringbell "report back" lol

@MiG I saw that one, yes. It was posted in the Tavern (on mse chat) :)

it'll have to join the queue, think I have about 1.5m worth of books that I bought but didn't read yet :x

That's a lot of worth of books.

I think mine is only in the low thousand? :P

well, I usually figure I'll just buy it so it's there when I have time to pick it up... and I have a habit of bringing a book home when traveling

something related to the local culture, could be an iconic writer, or a cookbook, interesting story etc

That's a neat idea! I've been collecting less expensive stuff, like neat stones or shells :P

Or cheap tourist products. Like those mini-eiffel towers? :P

Most of my unread books I picked up at a 'boekenfestijn' when they were still happening.

only thing I sometimes pick up is a tiny trinket - got a pocket sized Tintin moon rocket from Brussels :)

and re: books, sometimes I find something related to a different place I've visited and I take that... Found an amazing book about NYC in Antwerp, there's this fantastic travel book store there that's worth checking out if you're in the neighbourhood :)

Yeah, I like tiny trinkets. Better than big souvenirs, as I don't usually have a place for those. But tiny trinkets can just all go on a bookshelf in front of the books :)

altaviatravelbooks.be - this one

@MiG I like visiting bookstores abroad... though I don't know if I'd pick one with travelbooks. Maybe something with antique books, or history...

and this is the book I got there: naibooksellers.nl/…

@Tinkeringbell well, I love the combination... Their main business tends to be maps and travel guides, but the better ones also stock great travel stories

lieverinleiden.nl/ondernemers/atleest-boekhandel < That's still my favorite bookstore

anavasi.gr - this one is in Athens, same idea... bought a Greek cook book there :D

@Tinkeringbell oh cool, gonna check it out next time we're in Leiden :)

I hope they're still there! I seem to remember there was a website, but it's down now.

Anyhow, the website wasn't much either :P

@Tinkeringbell nobody has marked it as closed on google maps, I'm sure it's still there

We would go there to buy study books, and of course the owner never had enough of those in stock... so you'd write your name down in this little notebook, and he'd send you an e-mail if the book was in stock and you could come by and pick it up :D

There were cats in the store too :)

And it smelled like book.

:D

@MiG You never know, but I do hope!

I will find out I guess ;)

Have fun!

Report back :P

thanks \o/