Comments on: Divide and Rule

By: another Paul

another Paul — Mon, 13 Nov 2006 11:41:34 +0000

Your observations on the airflow are correct – updraught most of the time, downdraught on some hot days which wafts the smell of soot into the house.

The answer is to recycle the wasted heat through a heat exchanger. An architect friend of mine recently designed some houses in Ireland which draw waste/stale air through a heat exchanger using an electric fan to warm up incoming fresh air. To work efficiently the house needs to be draight proof and obvioulsy the doors and windows need to be shut.

By: Mr Paul Sharp

Mr Paul Sharp — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 02:18:46 +0000

I got a bit drunk tonight. Then, after a couple of bottles, I went outside for a cigarette.

It was cold, and I started thinking about heat and stuff.

Anyway, I thought about when poeple have gas fires on and stuff, there’s all this hot air going up the chimney.

Then I thought that there’s probably an updraught all the time, particularly when the temperature differential between indoors and outdoors is at its most extreme. (I’m not sure if this means a downdraught in summer)

I expect the energy potetial to be pretty low. Far too low for any kind of 240 volt AC supply, but whatabout having some kind of turbine or heat exchanger built into chimneys?

It could possibly be connected to a battery.

The average living room could be connected to a fairly constant, low voltage supply, that could be used to run clocks, phone chargers, appliances on standby, etc.

Just a thought.

By: Chris

Chris — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 23:09:30 +0000

I would like 2 types of sockets in my house, a normal set and a set that can be turned off on a switch by my front door. I could put all the stuff with clocks on the old circuit and then not have to worry about unplugging stuff when I leave the house.

By: robinhio

robinhio — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 12:50:04 +0000

Are there some figures due to be released on the governments performance WRT CO2 emissions etc ?

Blunketts column in the Scum yesterday was foisting the blame for the impending environmental catastrophy onto people who have kids, china etc etc.

By: Doormat

Doormat — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 09:52:20 +0000

Donald/TheJarndyceBlog,

I don’t think so: at least for modern TVs. Most modern appliances use power when in standby because they have (very) inefficient AC/DC converters, and they run these continually to power things like clocks and remote-control recievers.

However, I think that older TVs basically didn’t turn themselves off. You can check by putting a TV on standby, waiting a while, and then seeing if the screen takes some time to warm-up when you take it out of standby. My TV certainly does, but I was shocked to see recently that my parents’ old TV does not: standby just turned the input to the electron-gun off, but kept it running.

There’s a good article (with a US bias) here which has lots of technical details.

By: Sim-O

Sim-O — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 08:28:52 +0000

I haven’t heard anything to the contrary, but also, unfortunatley, it is probably the appliance that gets used the most.

By: Donald/TheJarndyceBlog

Donald/TheJarndyceBlog — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 08:07:43 +0000

The TV is the one people are most likely to turn off; they commonly still leave their microwave, computer, DVD player, computer monitor or other appliances on standby.

Is it not the case, though, that the TV uses far more power on standby than any of these others? Or am I wrong?