Why VW and not BMW or MB?
boonhet
And both make me go with a different company next time so idk what they think they're gaining.
I installed triple glazing and started shutting windows during the day, but since there's little ventilation, that means the air gets really bad here eventually. There's trees on the south side of the house and no windows on that wall. I'm further north than the majority of the UK (think between Inverness and Shetland for my latitude - except I'm at the Baltic sea).
The AC is just necessary in the last few years. A decade ago it got hot, but not unbearably. Now it's worse. I think the increased insulation is actually making AC-less, windows-closed situation heat worse since there are no shutters. I do wonder if polarizing film would be an effective alternative, as I don't want it to be dark 24/7 and I'd forget to re-open the shutters when the summer is over lol
Does that work for ground source heat pumps too? Like could I literally cool my floor with one? For summer and light winter, my air to air unit is fine and air to water is great too, but when it's like -25 or -30 out, the air source units start getting pretty inefficient.
I live in Estonia, temperatures don't ever get to 39C but they do get up to 33-34 and for some reason my house gets pretty humid even at high temps, so it's worse inside than outside, even if it's hotter outside. I got a heat pump installed about 2 years ago, cost around 2k installed, but then again I went for a beefy Mitsubishi unit (big house and only one unit for now). It's an absolute game changer in the summer, and in the winter when it gets cold, it saves me effort as well - I have to load the furnace less.
I figure it's already earned its keep via the heating, but also if I do 2 extra hours of productive work 2 days a week, that's 10 weeks of summertime heat till it's paid off in full and while most summers don't come with 10 weeks of heat, every summer has at least 4-5 hot weeks here.
For detached houses, you can do split systems with multiple indoor units per one outdoor unit. In a flat, you're a bit more fucked because you might need permission from other people in the building, etc.
It's possible to protect against heatwaves on a city level. Increase the albedo value of the city by doing the following: Incentivize lighter colored roofing and walls, grow leafy trees for shade, cover parking lots with solar roofing (and add EV chargers). Basically do whatever possible to reduce the amount of asphalt and darkish materials in general, being hit by sunshine.
No it won't save your ass when ambient temperature is 50C, but considering that cities are by their very nature hotter than the ambient temperature out side of the city, these things would help reduce that gap.
Well naturally, that's what they teach you in manhood 101. Did you skip the class?
I think summer time is the superior timezone up here in Estonia. Look, the sunrise is already after 9 AM in December. Nobody's gonna be seeing the sun before work or school anyway. But sunset is around 3:30 PM. Schoolkids could get an extra hour of sun after school by being on summer time in the winter.
For the time period of the autumn clock shift, we get an 8:23 AM sunrise and a 5:45 PM sunset one day and then the next it's 7:26 AM and 4:42 PM. You suddenly go from it being light outside when you finish work, to it already being dark. Because of winter time.
In the spring, you suddenly get an hour of extra daylight after your work/school day. Who doesn't want that? All you lose is that sunrise goes from 5:55 AM to 6:52 AM. But sunset goes from 7 to 8 PM basically
This is even funnier to me because where I'm from, trains in cities aren't really a big thing, but trains BETWEEN cities very much are.
This map is outdated as the Lelle-Pärnu route isn't currently serviced, and missing some stops, but this is our railway map:
Tartu has 2 stations as far as I know, Tallinn has multiple, the other places the train stops are all small enough that only one station exists. Entire point of it is to get people into and out of the cities. In the cities we have buses and (only in Tallinn) trams, used to also have trolleys. But only the capital, Tallinn, is a place where you would take a train from one station to another within the city itself.
Most of these places are villages and small towns. The population of Puka is like 500. Orava is around 200.
Now we just need the Tartu-Viljandi-Pärnu route and maybe a Narva-Tartu route, as both would be used by a lot of students (Tartu is a university city), but unfortunately geography doesn't favour my idea, there's protected wetlands between Pärnu and Viljandi as well as between Tartu and Viljandi
If you ever need a new one, front loaders tend to fit more and I believe they're more efficient too. Plus if a top loader grenades itself, it might be a pain to get your laundry out if the drum doesn't move anymore. Front loaders are more expensive though.
Yeah, hoping we can avoid that, but it's not looking too great. It's a mitigation for today's world, but not for the future unless we also manage to solve the water issue. And just global warming in general.