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Online TimFox

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #25 on: July 20, 2022, 09:16:33 pm »
A quick Google search for heat vs cold deaths in the US reveals that the issue here is not settled.
It's difficult to determine, since death certificates rarely mention either heat or cold as the cause.
 

Online Zero999Topic starter

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #26 on: July 20, 2022, 09:43:14 pm »
A quick Google search for heat vs cold deaths in the US reveals that the issue here is not settled.
It's difficult to determine, since death certificates rarely mention either heat or cold as the cause.
I can see that being debatable in the US, but in the UK there definitely seem to be more cold related deaths, than hot.
Quote
An average of 9,700 deaths each year are believed to be caused by living in a cold house, according to research by National Energy Action (NEA) and the environmental group E3G.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/27/dying-cold-europe-fuel-poverty-energy-spending

Quote
Taking Care conducted an analysis of the last five years of Government data and found that in total 6,723 people have died due to heat-related illness in summer months.
https://taking.care/blogs/resources-advice/the-main-causes-of-uk-heatwave-deaths-2022

I still question the accuracy of those articles. There have been years with extremes of temperature such as 2018, with a cold February-March followed by one of the hottest Julys. I suppose it's possible the winter cold killed the vulnerable, so there were fewer people around in summer. On the other hand COVID-16 would have killed many vulnerable people, so one would expect there to be fewer deaths in the summers of 2020 and 2021, although perhaps too many vulnerable people stayed in their hot houses, rather going out through fear of catching the virus. There are many factors.
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #27 on: July 20, 2022, 09:53:15 pm »
I think we used to get more cold1 winter days than hot summer days, so even with equal numbers of casualties the hot days would be more dangerous. Additionally, I think you need proper cold for an extended period to have an issue, whereas even a short period of too much heat can be a killer.

[1] By cold and hot I mean problematic temperatures, not just relatively cold and hot.
 
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Online TimFox

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #28 on: July 20, 2022, 10:17:23 pm »
Another detail about climate in the US, specifically where I live in Chicago, is that the average temperature (averaged over 24 hours) has increased with the overall warming trend, but that the nighttime low temperature has increased more than has the daytime high temperature.  This makes it more difficult to cool a house in the summer without A/C.
 

Offline Someone

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #29 on: July 20, 2022, 10:26:28 pm »
Yes, it's not nice being here when during a heatwave. To those who say it's nothing, temperatures today have been 10oC hotter than the usual hottest summer day and over 18oC hotter than average. Overnight lows have been between 20oC and 25oC, 7oC to 13oC above normal.
Its not "nothing" but its not a dire emergency, you can say its blah degrees more than normal but thats only what you are acclimatized to. The overnight minimum is a good measure as thats the best case possible with perfect insulation and no air-con, and often most disruptive (preventing sleep/rest). Australian city highest overnight minimums in the last 10 years (just the south east, no tropics):
Melbourne: 28
Adelaide: 34
Canberra: 27
Sydney: 25

All these places see daily maximums over 40 C routinely, yet air-conditioning is not universal: Adelaide 90%, others 70%.

Yes, heat is a bigger threat to life than cold, but that seems to have some strong acclimatization or behavioral content that London does poorly with:
https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/heat-and-health-2/assessment
So the rest of the world will rightly point to the UK (London) and say learn to adapt with high and low temperature extremes, everyone else seems to survive better.
I question whether it's true that heat kills more, than cold in the UK. Look at the average temperatures for London and compare them to the graphs in the link. According to those graphs, our winters are consistently below the temperature which results in increased excess deaths, yet much less so in summer.

Now look at the extreme heat we had yesterday, compared to normal. A high of 40°C, 17°C above average. A low of 25.8 °C, 11.6°C above average and warmer than Sydney's record low. The hottest night of the year in London is normally around 18°C and there are only 2.5 days on average above 30°C. You're right the hot night was more of a problem, bearing in mind it was only <26°C for a short time before dawn and buildings wouldn't have reached anywhere thermal equilibrium, even with all the windows open.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2022/record-temperatures-2022-a-review
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London#Climate
Is Kenley really the normal go-to benchmark location for London weather?? That is a further extreme within an extreme,. Relaxing "Sydney" to any of the weather stations within the greater area would have their maximum overnight temperature at least 29 degrees (cant be bothered to fully export all the data and check further) but only a tiny portion of the population would be exposed to those outliers, a dense city location is more representative.

Heat doesn't kill more people than cold, yet heat presents a larger risk/threat to life as humans have a harder time adapting (very easy to put on more clothes when its cold). Few hot days and many cold days of course multiply out to different fatality counts.

Is cycling safer than driving a car in London because there are fewer deaths per capita or annually? hell no. Its wildly more dangerous when measured by exposure. But its till more dangerous than cycling in say The Netherlands so people can rightly question why the UK/London isnt doing better and what are they doing wrong to cause these excess deaths? Same with the extreme temperatures, unprecedented for Londoners but actually pretty common elsewhere without the excess deaths/wailing.
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #30 on: July 20, 2022, 10:38:43 pm »
Quote
Same with the extreme temperatures, unprecedented for Londoners but actually pretty common elsewhere without the excess deaths/wailing.

We're just not used to it. Our summers are typically OK-ish but nothing to write home about. Maybe a couple of days of nice sun, but then it will rain. Hell, every time there's an eclipse we don't see it because of cloud cover.

It's noticeable that when we hit 18C you get blokes down the shops in T-shirts. At 20C everyone is down to shorts too. That's an indication of what we consider 'hot'  8)
 

Online Zero999Topic starter

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #31 on: July 21, 2022, 08:10:00 am »
Yes, it's not nice being here when during a heatwave. To those who say it's nothing, temperatures today have been 10oC hotter than the usual hottest summer day and over 18oC hotter than average. Overnight lows have been between 20oC and 25oC, 7oC to 13oC above normal.
Its not "nothing" but its not a dire emergency, you can say its blah degrees more than normal but thats only what you are acclimatized to. The overnight minimum is a good measure as thats the best case possible with perfect insulation and no air-con, and often most disruptive (preventing sleep/rest). Australian city highest overnight minimums in the last 10 years (just the south east, no tropics):
Melbourne: 28
Adelaide: 34
Canberra: 27
Sydney: 25

All these places see daily maximums over 40 C routinely, yet air-conditioning is not universal: Adelaide 90%, others 70%.

Yes, heat is a bigger threat to life than cold, but that seems to have some strong acclimatization or behavioral content that London does poorly with:
https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/heat-and-health-2/assessment
So the rest of the world will rightly point to the UK (London) and say learn to adapt with high and low temperature extremes, everyone else seems to survive better.
I question whether it's true that heat kills more, than cold in the UK. Look at the average temperatures for London and compare them to the graphs in the link. According to those graphs, our winters are consistently below the temperature which results in increased excess deaths, yet much less so in summer.

Now look at the extreme heat we had yesterday, compared to normal. A high of 40°C, 17°C above average. A low of 25.8 °C, 11.6°C above average and warmer than Sydney's record low. The hottest night of the year in London is normally around 18°C and there are only 2.5 days on average above 30°C. You're right the hot night was more of a problem, bearing in mind it was only <26°C for a short time before dawn and buildings wouldn't have reached anywhere thermal equilibrium, even with all the windows open.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/press-office/news/weather-and-climate/2022/record-temperatures-2022-a-review
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London#Climate
Is Kenley really the normal go-to benchmark location for London weather?? That is a further extreme within an extreme,. Relaxing "Sydney" to any of the weather stations within the greater area would have their maximum overnight temperature at least 29 degrees (cant be bothered to fully export all the data and check further) but only a tiny portion of the population would be exposed to those outliers, a dense city location is more representative.

Heat doesn't kill more people than cold, yet heat presents a larger risk/threat to life as humans have a harder time adapting (very easy to put on more clothes when its cold). Few hot days and many cold days of course multiply out to different fatality counts.

Is cycling safer than driving a car in London because there are fewer deaths per capita or annually? hell no. Its wildly more dangerous when measured by exposure. But its till more dangerous than cycling in say The Netherlands so people can rightly question why the UK/London isnt doing better and what are they doing wrong to cause these excess deaths? Same with the extreme temperatures, unprecedented for Londoners but actually pretty common elsewhere without the excess deaths/wailing.
London is typically a couple of degrees warmer than the surrounding area. What was unusual is the records set were not in the most urban ares. Kenley is a suburb just inside the London borough and the record high was at 40.3°C in Coningsby, a rural area 110 miles north of London.

What makes you so certain deaths from cold are similar to those from heat in the UK? You haven't provided solid evidence to backup your assertions. The figures I posted were for the whole summer/winter. I accept they might not be 100% accurate, but they seem plausible, given our average temperatures.

Another detail about climate in the US, specifically where I live in Chicago, is that the average temperature (averaged over 24 hours) has increased with the overall warming trend, but that the nighttime low temperature has increased more than has the daytime high temperature.  This makes it more difficult to cool a house in the summer without A/C.
I agree about overnight lows. The heatwave in 2018 was much longer, making July much warmer on average, but it cooled down at night.

This was a short lived heatwave, lasting just a few days. There were probably more deaths in 2003, which lasted much longer.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2022, 08:24:38 am by Zero999 »
 

Offline Someone

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #32 on: July 21, 2022, 10:17:24 am »
What makes you so certain deaths from cold are similar to those from heat in the UK? You haven't provided solid evidence to backup your assertions. The figures I posted were for the whole summer/winter. I accept they might not be 100% accurate, but they seem plausible, given our average temperatures.
How much more clearly do I have to say this:

extreme hot weather is more of a risk to people than extreme cold weather

nothing comparative about the number of deaths/fatalities, the statement is about rate

London bends up the risk at both low and high extremes more than other comparable cities, and all the cities have risks that are higher (and steeper increasing) in hot extremes than in cold extremes. Pictured below for people who can't be bothered to read this at the same time as looking at the external site (https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/heat-and-health-2/assessment). We could take your insistence on annualised numbers and from that data with its top and bottom 2.5 percentiles marked out, oh look very similar absolute numbers of deaths occur during the 2.5% hottest days compared to the 2.5% coldest days.

but once again all I keep saying is... unusual hot is more dangerous to peoples health than unusual cold

even this the most extreme record setting heatwave in the UK, still in the shadow of covid, something we have more control over than the weather but are letting loose anyway.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2022, 10:24:23 am by Someone »
 

Online Zero999Topic starter

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #33 on: July 21, 2022, 11:08:06 am »
What makes you so certain deaths from cold are similar to those from heat in the UK? You haven't provided solid evidence to backup your assertions. The figures I posted were for the whole summer/winter. I accept they might not be 100% accurate, but they seem plausible, given our average temperatures.
How much more clearly do I have to say this:

extreme hot weather is more of a risk to people than extreme cold weather

nothing comparative about the number of deaths/fatalities, the statement is about rate

London bends up the risk at both low and high extremes more than other comparable cities, and all the cities have risks that are higher (and steeper increasing) in hot extremes than in cold extremes. Pictured below for people who can't be bothered to read this at the same time as looking at the external site (https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/heat-and-health-2/assessment). We could take your insistence on annualised numbers and from that data with its top and bottom 2.5 percentiles marked out, oh look very similar absolute numbers of deaths occur during the 2.5% hottest days compared to the 2.5% coldest days.

but once again all I keep saying is... unusual hot is more dangerous to peoples health than unusual cold

even this the most extreme record setting heatwave in the UK, still in the shadow of covid, something we have more control over than the weather but are letting loose anyway.
Yes, it's true people can warm up more easily in winter, than cool in summer, but you're missing the point: in the UK, it's likely we cumulatively have more cold, than heat related fatalities.

The most concerning thing about those graphs is the cold deaths in London, vs Stockholm in Sweden, not the heat related deaths given January and February are 6°C milder. It's true July and August are only a bit higher than Stockholm's but the extremes are much higher and the summer is much longer. This is an effect of Stockholm being further away from the Atlantic ocean and further north. London gets more of a breeze from the Atlantic, but the sun is stronger and a southerly can push temperatures very high for the latitude.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm#Climate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London#Climate

We do need to do better insulating, heating and cooling ours homes in the UK. Insulation will help with both extremes, but ultimately we need better heating, especially for the vulnerable. Heat pumps are touted as the solution, but are expensive. I suppose the main advantage is a heat pump can cool as well as heat. Unfortunately I can't see many people replacing their gas boilers with heat pumps, because it won't pay off. Hopefully electricity will become cheaper than gas at some point, due to market forces.

Oh and the last two years has shown we can't control a virus, any more than the weather.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2022, 11:12:02 am by Zero999 »
 

Offline Someone

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #34 on: July 21, 2022, 11:22:34 am »
but you're missing the point: in the UK, it's likely we cumulatively have more cold, than heat related fatalities.
The graphs and study I linked to disagree with that. The number of deaths from the outlier days of cold or heat are similar in quantity. Or you want to argue some 10-20% difference as if its significant???

Look at it anyway you like from your local perspective/optics, but to people outside the UK, Londoners (and the UK in general) do poorly with protecting themselves from hot and cold when compared to other cities. Be that on absolute temperature, or percentile outliers, its a higher risk in all examples. Something is odd about the London (UK) populations ability to withstand temperature extremes, they're bad at it, unexplainably....

I can't see many people replacing their gas boilers with heat pumps, because it won't pay off. Hopefully electricity will become cheaper than gas at some point, due to market forces.
Lol, still blinkered with the local stance desperately looking away from solutions rather than to them. Even with the broken UK energy market forcing gas to 1/4 the price of electricity, gas heating is still not an obvious solution over heat pumps (for a greenfield install).

Oh and the last two years has shown we can't control a virus, any more than the weather.
No, plenty of places have shown how it is possible to control covid with reducing human contact, just like its possible to wear more clothes and not die of cold. Controlling the weather isn't required.
 

Online Zero999Topic starter

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #35 on: July 21, 2022, 01:07:14 pm »
but you're missing the point: in the UK, it's likely we cumulatively have more cold, than heat related fatalities.
The graphs and study I linked to disagree with that. The number of deaths from the outlier days of cold or heat are similar in quantity. Or you want to argue some 10-20% difference as if its significant???
No they don't. They just show relative mortality, referenced to a temperature when mortality is minimum, which is about 19°C and is also the mean for the warmest month in London. The relative risk is over 2.5 at 30°C, call it 2.8, so nearly three times as many people die when it's that hot, compared to when it's 19°C, yet there are only an average of 2.5 days per year above 30°C. Compare this to cold: the relative risk is just under 1.5, call it 1.4, at  0°C, yet London has 27 nights per year below freezing.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-climate-averages/gcpsvg3nc

It's more nuanced than that. There are other factors at play, such as the timing of the heatwave. Read the associated text.

Quote
Look at it anyway you like from your local perspective/optics, but to people outside the UK, Londoners (and the UK in general) do poorly with protecting themselves from hot and cold when compared to other cities. Be that on absolute temperature, or percentile outliers, its a higher risk in all examples. Something is odd about the London (UK) populations ability to withstand temperature extremes, they're bad
That's because temperature extremes are much less common in London, compared to elsewhere in Europe, so when they do occur, mortality is higher.

Quote
I can't see many people replacing their gas boilers with heat pumps, because it won't pay off. Hopefully electricity will become cheaper than gas at some point, due to market forces.
Lol, still blinkered with the local stance desperately looking away from solutions rather than to them. Even with the broken UK energy market forcing gas to 1/4 the price of electricity, gas heating is still not an obvious solution over heat pumps (for a greenfield install).
The problem is most people already have gas boilers and replacing them with heat pumps is not economical. What other solutions are they? Insulation only goes so far. Even if it's perfect the best you'll get is an indoor temperature a few degrees above the annual average.

Quote
Oh and the last two years has shown we can't control a virus, any more than the weather.
No, plenty of places have shown how it is possible to control covid with reducing human contact, just like its possible to wear more clothes and not die of cold. Controlling the weather isn't required.
Not for very long and lots of the measures imposed have arguably caused more years of life lost.
« Last Edit: July 21, 2022, 01:12:45 pm by Zero999 »
 

Offline Someone

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #36 on: July 21, 2022, 10:55:42 pm »
but you're missing the point: in the UK, it's likely we cumulatively have more cold, than heat related fatalities.
The graphs and study I linked to disagree with that. The number of deaths from the outlier days of cold or heat are similar in quantity. Or you want to argue some 10-20% difference as if its significant???
No they don't. They just show relative mortality, referenced to a temperature when mortality is minimum, which is about 19°C and is also the mean for the warmest month in London. The relative risk is over 2.5 at 30°C, call it 2.8, so nearly three times as many people die when it's that hot, compared to when it's 19°C, yet there are only an average of 2.5 days per year above 30°C. Compare this to cold: the relative risk is just under 1.5, call it 1.4, at  0°C, yet London has 27 nights per year below freezing.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-climate-averages/gcpsvg3nc

It's more nuanced than that. There are other factors at play, such as the timing of the heatwave. Read the associated text.
You seem to keep talking about your figures as if its disproving what I put up, but its just something entirely different....
Pictured below for people who can't be bothered to read this at the same time as looking at the external site (https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/heat-and-health-2/assessment). We could take your insistence on annualised numbers and from that data with its top and bottom 2.5 percentiles marked out, oh look very similar absolute numbers of deaths occur during the 2.5% hottest days compared to the 2.5% coldest days.
Below is the graph again with some crayon markup to highlight the point you keep trying to argue against. The 2.5% outlier temperatures high and low, have similar numbers of deaths (area inside the circled bits) and the hot end has an elevated risk as it goes to the further extreme/limits. You just picked some arbitrary temperatures that aren't comparable in their occurrence, which I never suggested, I keep pointing back to comparable points.

Comparable, similar, its not some obvious cold = more deaths unless you take an unbalanced measure of which days to include in the counting of extreme/outlier. You keep trying to make your own interpretation of what is/isnt an outlier, to suit your point, misrepresenting/misinterpreting what I'm pointing at (now with a big crayon since you keep walking this off to stupidity).
 

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #37 on: July 21, 2022, 11:06:54 pm »
Oh and the last two years has shown we can't control a virus, any more than the weather.
No, plenty of places have shown how it is possible to control covid with reducing human contact, just like its possible to wear more clothes and not die of cold. Controlling the weather isn't required.
Not for very long and lots of the measures imposed have arguably caused more years of life lost.
Lol, so you'd have some data/figures to back that up? "letting it rip" and taking a soft-to-zero approach to controlling covid is not a binary alternative to locking down the population in their houses, there are a huge range of measures somewhere in between that each have their own tradeoffs. But sure, just dismiss every possible control measure (I specifically suggested an effective and low impact example) as not worth it because you say "lots" of measures arent delivering a net benefit. Simple challenge, point to credible control measure that have been shown to reduce life more than it increased it, rather than just adding unsupported nonsense.
 

Online Zero999Topic starter

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #38 on: July 22, 2022, 07:37:08 am »
Oh and the last two years has shown we can't control a virus, any more than the weather.
No, plenty of places have shown how it is possible to control covid with reducing human contact, just like its possible to wear more clothes and not die of cold. Controlling the weather isn't required.
Not for very long and lots of the measures imposed have arguably caused more years of life lost.
Lol, so you'd have some data/figures to back that up? "letting it rip" and taking a soft-to-zero approach to controlling covid is not a binary alternative to locking down the population in their houses, there are a huge range of measures somewhere in between that each have their own tradeoffs. But sure, just dismiss every possible control measure (I specifically suggested an effective and low impact example) as not worth it because you say "lots" of measures arent delivering a net benefit. Simple challenge, point to credible control measure that have been shown to reduce life more than it increased it, rather than just adding unsupported nonsense.
Given humans are a social species, reducing human contact is a fairly costly measure. There isn't solid data to prove solidly which measures genuinely helped and which did harm more than good. Every country did different things and there are too many confounding factors to link cause and effect. Most of the measures seem to have done more harm, where I live. Either way, this isn't the place to discuss it. I shouldn't have taken the bait, when you mentioned COVID.  :palm:

but you're missing the point: in the UK, it's likely we cumulatively have more cold, than heat related fatalities.
The graphs and study I linked to disagree with that. The number of deaths from the outlier days of cold or heat are similar in quantity. Or you want to argue some 10-20% difference as if its significant???
No they don't. They just show relative mortality, referenced to a temperature when mortality is minimum, which is about 19°C and is also the mean for the warmest month in London. The relative risk is over 2.5 at 30°C, call it 2.8, so nearly three times as many people die when it's that hot, compared to when it's 19°C, yet there are only an average of 2.5 days per year above 30°C. Compare this to cold: the relative risk is just under 1.5, call it 1.4, at  0°C, yet London has 27 nights per year below freezing.
https://www.metoffice.gov.uk/research/climate/maps-and-data/uk-climate-averages/gcpsvg3nc

It's more nuanced than that. There are other factors at play, such as the timing of the heatwave. Read the associated text.
You seem to keep talking about your figures as if its disproving what I put up, but its just something entirely different....
Pictured below for people who can't be bothered to read this at the same time as looking at the external site (https://www.eea.europa.eu/data-and-maps/indicators/heat-and-health-2/assessment). We could take your insistence on annualised numbers and from that data with its top and bottom 2.5 percentiles marked out, oh look very similar absolute numbers of deaths occur during the 2.5% hottest days compared to the 2.5% coldest days.
Below is the graph again with some crayon markup to highlight the point you keep trying to argue against. The 2.5% outlier temperatures high and low, have similar numbers of deaths (area inside the circled bits) and the hot end has an elevated risk as it goes to the further extreme/limits. You just picked some arbitrary temperatures that aren't comparable in their occurrence, which I never suggested, I keep pointing back to comparable points.

Comparable, similar, its not some obvious cold = more deaths unless you take an unbalanced measure of which days to include in the counting of extreme/outlier. You keep trying to make your own interpretation of what is/isnt an outlier, to suit your point, misrepresenting/misinterpreting what I'm pointing at (now with a big crayon since you keep walking this off to stupidity).
We were focusing on different parts of the graph. I didn't look at the bar chart, which just says the most number of deaths occur when the temperature is 11°C, which oddly enough is close to the mean annual temperature for London. The dotted lines you've highlighted are close to the mean overnight low in January and July daily high.

The article just talks about deaths vs temperature. It doesn't try to directly attribute cause and effect. Infectious diseases such as influenza peak in the cold months here, yet when it's hot people might do risky things to cool of, such as go for a swim in lakes and rivers.
 

Online Siwastaja

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #39 on: July 22, 2022, 03:46:29 pm »
I think people dying out of cold vs. hot are different segments.

Ignoring really harsh climates like Siberia, so in UK and similar, it's much simpler to protect oneself from cold vs. hot. So dying out of cold means total homelessness, lack of any kind of shelter, lack of clothes, lack of motivation to harvest some cardboard boxes or used clothes out of trash - basically, total inability to live. Probably many who died out of cold in statistics would have died out of drugs or alcohol if not cold.

But ignoring the danger of heat can easily be explained by much smaller motivational issues, like "I don't want to invest in air conditioner, it's just a few weeks a year, besides it consumes a lot of power, and I have been on this planet for 85 years, bloody youngsters and their toys".

But we are getting back to this again, people in UK should be aggressively installing air-to-air heatpumps whenever possible, as they will significantly ease the energy problem during winter, and also help during summer. Of course it is then tempting to use a lot of energy to provide comfortable cooling but the net effect is still positive.
 
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Online Zero999Topic starter

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #40 on: July 24, 2022, 11:19:06 am »
I think people dying out of cold vs. hot are different segments.

Ignoring really harsh climates like Siberia, so in UK and similar, it's much simpler to protect oneself from cold vs. hot. So dying out of cold means total homelessness, lack of any kind of shelter, lack of clothes, lack of motivation to harvest some cardboard boxes or used clothes out of trash - basically, total inability to live. Probably many who died out of cold in statistics would have died out of drugs or alcohol if not cold.

But ignoring the danger of heat can easily be explained by much smaller motivational issues, like "I don't want to invest in air conditioner, it's just a few weeks a year, besides it consumes a lot of power, and I have been on this planet for 85 years, bloody youngsters and their toys".

But we are getting back to this again, people in UK should be aggressively installing air-to-air heatpumps whenever possible, as they will significantly ease the energy problem during winter, and also help during summer. Of course it is then tempting to use a lot of energy to provide comfortable cooling but the net effect is still positive.
The problem in the UK is, a lot of old and vulnerable people live in homes with inadequate insulation and can't afford high fuel bills. It's obviously easier to keep warm when it's cold, than cool, when it's hot but the UK still gets many more cold days vs hot. The figures I posted above still shows death from cold is still more likely, than due to heat. I accept it's not solid data, but a ratio of 2 deaths from the cold, for every death from heat makes sense, given our climate. This might change in the future.

The fact is heat pumps don't make financial sense. A heat pump installation costs 10 times the price, compared an efficient gas boiler. Gas is much cheaper than electricity, so a heat pump isn't even cheaper to run. Perhaps this might change in future, especially for new builds, as a lot of the cost is ripping everything out and starting again. I certainly wouldn't consider a heat pump. I don't have a hot water cylinder and I don't even use hot water very often. I take cold showers most of the time and have found modern detergents are good enough to wast my dishes in cold water, or I'll just boil the kettle.

We need to work on improving insulation, which will provide protection against both hot and cold. Here's a photograph of the loft insulation in my house and my parents'.  My parents' house did come with some insulation, but they upgraded it around 25 years ago. They both look pretty similar, even though my house was build in 2016 and my parents' back in the 1950s.

EDIT:
This is odd, the picture of the insulation in my parents' house has been flipped 180 degrees by the forum software. I checked the original file and it's the right way up. I don't know why it's upside down here. :-//
« Last Edit: July 24, 2022, 11:26:08 am by Zero999 »
 

Offline tom66

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #41 on: July 24, 2022, 04:44:03 pm »
Heat pumps make sense if you can take advantage of arbitrage (which requires a lot of capital!)

For instance a home battery of 15kWh or so can be charged at night on off peak rates and a heat pump can then provide heating/cooling during the day (hot water running overnight as a tank will hold that just fine.)  As much demand as possible should be shifted into this off peak period, e.g. home appliances. 

Off peak rates are about 1/4 that of on peak and this is likely to remain the case as wind power and other renewables kick in. 

At say 8p/kWh you are looking at an equivalent unit price of 2p/kWh for heating and cooling at a COP of 4.

If you add solar then you can using a flexible tariff sell energy back to the grid at 50p+/kWh during peak times whilst you draw down on a battery during that period.

The problem is a home energy storage system even without solar is knocking on £5k so you have to be in it for the long haul to make this pay off.  This is "Vimes' theory of socioeconomic unfairness" again.
 

Online themadhippy

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #42 on: July 24, 2022, 04:49:12 pm »
Quote
off peak rates are about 1/4 that of on peak
Please tell me who your energy provider is as my off peak rate is about 2/3 of peak
 

Offline tom66

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #43 on: July 24, 2022, 04:56:21 pm »
Quote
off peak rates are about 1/4 that of on peak
Please tell me who your energy provider is as my off peak rate is about 2/3 of peak

Octopus Go, I pay presently 5.5p/kWh in the off peak (5hrs from 8.30pm) and 14.2p/kWh on peak.  Next year this goes up to 8.25p/kWh and ~40p/kWh so that's 4.8x difference.  If I wanted 4 hours off peak, I'd pay 7.5p/kWh instead but I like the extra hour.

You need a SMETS2 smart meter to benefit from this.

It makes for cheap EV usage and since off peak starts at 8.30pm (moving to 9.30pm) it captures some of the late evening usage, and the tumble dryer gets put on then.
« Last Edit: July 24, 2022, 04:59:01 pm by tom66 »
 

Online themadhippy

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #44 on: July 24, 2022, 05:41:26 pm »
Quote
I pay presently 5.5p/kWh in the off peak (5hrs from 8.30pm) and 14.2p/kWh on peak.  Next year this goes up to 8.25p/kWh and ~40p/kWh
Ah a different off peak tariff to the traditional economy 7,i'll  have to run some numbers,but the 10p a unit more peak cost to what im paying and only 5 hours off peak initially make it look like i'd be worse off
 

Offline tom66

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #45 on: July 24, 2022, 06:29:19 pm »
Yeah the 5hrs off peak do mean I have upwards of 9kW of load switch on around 8.30pm sometimes... Dishwasher, EV charger, tumble dryer, sometimes a late dinner and the hot water tank is now on off peak electricity as it costs less than gas to heat it that way.

I think the energy providers are offering off peak tariffs not because it is profitable during the off peak, but because by encouraging you to shift away from on peak, they aren't paying huge amounts per kWh.  On peak prices to providers can be upwards of £'s per kWh so even 1kWh shifted into the off peak could be worth giving a discount on during the off peak, especially right now where gas peaker plants are expensive to operate given the high cost of gas.
 
 
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Offline Someone

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #46 on: July 24, 2022, 11:13:34 pm »
The fact is heat pumps don't make financial sense. A heat pump installation costs 10 times the price, compared an efficient gas boiler.
Expensive? 10 times the price? Heat pumps start well under 1000 dollarpounds:
https://www.saturnsales.co.uk/Mitsubishi-High-Efficiency-Heat-Pumps-Air-Conditioning.html

Heating your whole house and amortizing the cost of the device is not essential to being safe, that's being picky. If you want to throw up alarming figures, explain the basis for them. Because everywhere else sees heat pumps as the cheapest way to go be that lifecycle cost, installation cost, or running cost. That link above is to cheap air-air units with SCOP (seasonally averaged coefficient of performance) over 5, so even with the UK's broken energy market keeping gas synthetically cheap....   heat pumps still end up cheaper to run.
 
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Offline PlainName

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #47 on: July 25, 2022, 12:52:47 am »
I fitted a heat pump to my office, which previously was heated with a fan heater.  It's about 5.5mx3.3mx2m so my main problem was finding a system small enough! I wound up with a DIY one (everything pre-charged, you just push in the bayonet-type fittings to connect the inside to outside). it cost £695 11 years ago and paid for itself within 3 years. Not only that, it's a much nicer warmth than a fan heater (no sudden cold feeling when the fan goes off, no hotspots and cold spots), and in the summer it can cool instead. One of my better purchases.

Downside is it can take a little while to get up to temperature, but that can be solved with some smarts, as can automatically turning it on low if the temperature drops below 12C.

As Someone notes, you don't need to heat the entire property to be safe. In older times it was common to have an open fire in the living room and the rest of the place would freeze, but people survived. I think looking at using a heat pump to deal with a single room, leaving the rest of the place to be the existing boiler which can then be turned off for most of the time, would save a few bob.
 
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Offline Miyuki

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #48 on: July 25, 2022, 04:40:10 am »
The fact is heat pumps don't make financial sense. A heat pump installation costs 10 times the price, compared an efficient gas boiler.
Expensive? 10 times the price? Heat pumps start well under 1000 dollarpounds:
https://www.saturnsales.co.uk/Mitsubishi-High-Efficiency-Heat-Pumps-Air-Conditioning.html

Heating your whole house and amortizing the cost of the device is not essential to being safe, that's being picky. If you want to throw up alarming figures, explain the basis for them. Because everywhere else sees heat pumps as the cheapest way to go be that lifecycle cost, installation cost, or running cost. That link above is to cheap air-air units with SCOP (seasonally averaged coefficient of performance) over 5, so even with the UK's broken energy market keeping gas synthetically cheap....   heat pumps still end up cheaper to run.
I do not know how in the UK but in continental Europe, as most places have huge subsidies for installation, prices skyrocketed, especially with companies licensed to install the "right models" on the list for those subsidies.
And the installation cost billed by those companies is huge.

But those Mitsubishi units you posted look decently priced.
 

Offline tom66

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Re: Building thermal insulation.
« Reply #49 on: July 25, 2022, 07:06:58 am »
You can also get monobloc heat pumps:
https://les.mitsubishielectric.co.uk/products/residential-heating/outdoor/ecodan-puhz-monobloc-air-source-heat-pump

which can be installed by a regular plumber, as all the air con stuff is in one self-contained unit.  These, in theory, just fit in place of the heating loop in your property, though you may require some radiators to be changed to handle the lower delta-T.

These cost ~roughly 2-3x the cost of a gas boiler right now.

Personally I'd keep the gas boiler as a backup and use air source heat pumps for the majority of the time.  For the odd day that goes below 0C where heat pumps roll off in efficiency, I can switch to gas.  It's a shame I'll have to pay a gas connection fee all year round but I guess someone's got to pay for the infrastructure.
« Last Edit: July 25, 2022, 07:12:17 am by tom66 »
 


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