I spend a lot of time in a secret underground laboratory (basement workshop/office). It’s my version of a Man Cave. In place of a big screen TV, pool table, and bar, it has (along with every power tool known to modern man) an oscilloscope, a table saw, and a box of red wine sitting on top my computer tower.
It’s also completely unfinished (exposed studs) and unheated, with no insulation in the walls whatsoever. The temperature at my desk is presently 52 degrees and thanks to the thermal mass of the concrete walls and floor, will remain at this approximate temperature for the four coldest winter months. It’s 39 degrees outside as I write. The cave analogy isn’t too far off.
Staying warm while sitting on one’s ass in front of a computer for hours on end in a 52 degree room can be challenging.
I’ve tried using a space heater under my desk but it sucks 1,200 watts of power just to make my shins sweat while I shiver from the knees up. There was also the potential for my pants to catch on fire. I’ve tried running the clothes dryer and venting it into the basement but this created a noticeable spike in our monthly electric bill. I installed some extra vents in our gas furnace ducting that I can open into the basement, but this created an equally obvious spike in our gas bill.
I finally solved the problem with some electrically heated clothing. This system uses (literally) a hundred times less energy than a space heater and keeps me warm and cozy from head to toe. By keeping my basement unheated I’ve reduced the natural gas consumption in our two-story home by roughly thirty percent.
The vest is the heart of the system. I don’t want to recommend a specific heated jacket because the one I chose may fail or blow up any day. I will say this much: the one I chose is working flawlessly to date. It has six pockets sewn inside with Velcro strips to keep them closed. It comes with three carbon fiber heating pads, a lithium ion battery pack, and a charger. You can place all three pads on the backside of the jacket or just one on back and two in front. The battery pack is integrated with a battery management circuit board, has five power settings and, ah, a diode flashlight. You get about five hours of heat on the highest setting, which is usually not needed, seven hours on the next setting, and up to fourteen hours on the lowest setting, all for a hundred bucks.
The manufacturer claims you will get 500 to 1,000 charges, depending. When my batteries have reached the end of their useful life I plan to use one of my Dewalt power tool batteries in a fanny pack using a rheostat and some simple circuitry to control power. While researching this I found other manufacturers of similar jackets. One of them claims to have a hibernation circuit that will protect your batteries from self-discharging too far over the summer months and being damaged. This problem can also be dealt with by periodically charging your pack over the summer.
Of course, the battery pack is made in China. I am not sure which battery chemistry it uses. I suspect it is lithium ion as opposed to lithium polymer, which means it could explode in my pocket and ruin my day. I am also not sure if the battery management system will automatically shut the pack off before it discharges to the point that it will be damaged. I play it safe and make sure I don’t let it discharge too far.
The jacket is usually all I need, but because my feet can get cold after enough time sitting on a 50 degree slab of concrete, I also have a heat pad on the floor that I can slip my feet under. I keep another one handy that I can put on my lap as well. These can be purchased at any pharmacy for ten to twenty dollars. I keep them plugged into a switched power strip (with indicator light) on my desk.
I bought my jacket (marketed by a company located in an obscure town called Tumwater, hint, hint) at a motorcycle accessory shop.
Ideas like these don’t really have much value in the big scheme of things unless they catch on and are used by tens of millions. What would motivate tens of millions of Americans to stop heating their Man Caves and switch to heated clothing?
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Comments
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cavecanem Posted 3:09 am
03 Feb 2009
Can you imagine the waste stream and the natural resources being wasted, as well as the environmental destruction, if tens of millions of people all bought "heated" clothing?
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biodiversivist Posted 3:52 am
03 Feb 2009
Staying warm when you are doing some physical activity is not a problem. Sitting still for hours on end in a cold place is the problem. Wearing two jackets and a hat didn't do the job for me. Long Johns are too hot when you enter the heated world again and taking them off and on is a major hassle.
Heated vests and pads are another choice, somewhere between heating an entire floor and putting on your arctic survival suit.
Can you imagine the the waste stream and the natural resources being wasted by insulating and heating a basement, workshop, or garage just so you can sit at your computer? It's all relative. You get to pick you level of purity.
*Sarcasm alert
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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David Roberts Posted 3:53 am
03 Feb 2009
grist.org
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Colin Wright Posted 4:00 am
03 Feb 2009
Do your hands stay warm enough to type? What about those chemical heat pads?
Would an electric blanket restrict your movement too much?
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Pangolin Posted 1:53 pm
03 Feb 2009
Don't forget to glue a sheet of foil backed foam to the basement wall and floor; foil facing towards you to bounce body heat back at you. Another sheet of foam covering the floor at your feet covered with a scrap of plywood will keep the feet warm. I once tried sitting on a cushion of double-layer bubble wrap insulation that they sell for wrapping water heaters but the local heat wave created an excess of moisture.
Trying to heat a basement with your 60-watt sitting body heat won't work. Trying to heat a tent sized space with two or even three surfaces insulated (think corner) and a convection barrier (sheet) covering the other surfaces might. Add the heat of your computer tower and about 40 watts of hot plate and things will heat up fine.
This "little tent inside the house" strategy is used in Mongolia and was the whole purpose of four-poster beds. The bed curtains were for warmth. Making a little refuge tent tent for a reading nook or at your computer desk could be a way to save power provided you are comfortable enough to turn the heat down and actually use it.
Sci Fi writer Fritz Lieber wrote up the ultimate cold room hack titled "A Pail of Air."
Put the Carbon Back
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biodiversivist Posted 1:55 am
04 Feb 2009
Insulating walls doesn't do much if you don't heat the space. As you know, insulation just slows down how fast the heat escapes. It won't generate heat. The concrete floor is a heat sink and there isn't much I could do to insulate it, other than tear it out and put foam under a new slab. My garage door also opens up into this space and there isn't much to be done with garage doors.
Attempting to insulate this space would be a very expensive, resource intensive project, and then I'd have to heat it.
And I like my unfinished workshop. I like having a bare concrete floor, exposed studs, wires and pipes. The thought of covering all that up pains me. I can lay my hand on anything that needs fixed, water heater, furnace, you name it. I can reroute pipes and wires as the need arises for various and sundry experiments. I've replaced every single wire and pipe in this house over the years (it was built in 1918).
I considered other things like an electric blanket and chemical pads but in the end, the electrically heated motorcycle vest and pads seemed to offer the greatest comfort and convenience.
Pangolin,
Heating a small space is a good idea. A space heater in a single small room with the door closed would take a lot less energy than keeping an entire house at 70 degrees. Enclosing a space in my shop would be a royal pain, and still take a lot more energy to keep me this warm.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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sunflower Posted 4:14 am
04 Feb 2009
Circa 1918 homes do not have much insulation, if any.
The stimulus package has 30% for you, and with 60% of your own hot labor (deferred compensation) the cost might be just 10% for a passive house retrofit.
I just opened a 450 square foot skylight streaming sunlight into the concrete basement workshop on this glorious Seattle day. We did not insulate our floor either, makes for a better thermal mass battery.
-- Smug mug.
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biodiversivist Posted 3:13 pm
04 Feb 2009
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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sunflower Posted 1:43 am
05 Feb 2009
My lessons learned from AB Lovins used existing materials, existing labor skills, and existing tooling to do something new.
It was also a good fit during hard times for the self reliant.
Carpenter Ants tore down my first home in the woods. Insects have antennae tuned for millions of years to find and burrow into dead wood. So a deadwood house in a living forest is definitely contraindicated.
Your home sounds like an engaging retrofit challenge. Some generic ideas... make air tight, air to air heat exchangers (from bathrooms and to bedrooms), improved wall insulation, thick exterior window shutters, solar hot water preheat, an attached greenhouse with a Trombe wall, and a clothesline. Wood heat with a certified stove.
The Obama stimulus package is a great opportunity to RD&D home energy retrofits.
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biodiversivist Posted 2:35 am
05 Feb 2009
Next, I learned that a house in the woods is quickly overrun by mice, wood ants, termites, and yellow jackets. Walked into it one day to find two weasels attracted by the mice. Could hear the termites and wood ants munching on the wood.
Finally, wood ants, mice and termites love to burrow through Styrofoam insulation.
Concrete is the way to go if you want to live as one with nature.
Thanks for the retrofit tips. I just happen to be retrofitting it as part of another experiment that I will be posting on in a month or so when I get the heating bill results.
Building a home from scratch could capture so much more energy than trying to retrofit one but retrofits are the big ticket item.
In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity. Poison Darts--Protecting the biodiversity of our world
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amazingdrx Posted 2:55 pm
05 Feb 2009
The thing is that even with 60 degrees inside and this direct radiant heat heating your personal blood stream circulation heating system, life would be perfectly comfortable.
And then by all means layer clothing and you could even sleep in a snowbank. Pretty cool hi-tech hobo living. Add a Blackberry and a pack sized solar panel, and a thermocouple to put in a campfire to charge your batteries. Any piece of plastic over a few sticks or a cardboard box becomes a mini-mansion. Hehey.
Adventure homelessness, a new genre of reality teevee?
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
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