As someone who’s house is entirely powered by solar, I love the long days! I also do a lot of outside work so the extra hours of daylight really help me there too
During winter it was so overcast and cloudy that I had to run a generator almost the entirety of the season
Full solar power is the dream! That’s awesome.
It can be pretty great, but you really do need to treat it differently than you would on the grid!
For example: at night, making sure you don’t leave lights on, not running heavy loads like the microwave for very long, etc.
The good news is that as the old expensive equipment gets phased out, it gets easier and cheaper to DIY your off grid (or emergency backup) system!
If it weren’t for having to run the heat pump, I’d have 10X what I need right now. But 3 or 4 hours of usable sunlight in the winter makes it hard to keep up.
For real, I have wood stoves (and propane heaters a supplemental) for winter heat so luckily a little less load on my system! This past winter was so cold here I had to get a subzero sleeping bag and put a living heater (my dog) inside of it because even the wood stoves couldn’t keep up
I have mini splits but because of the sun situation I couldn’t run them on heat without burning through my power/spending hundreds of dollars on gas for the generator!
I have woodstoves as well, but I’ll run the furnace fan to distribute the heat, so there’s a bit of use, and it’ll kick propane in if the fire burns down, or the heat pump if it’s above -15 outside and I have capacity. I tend to be around 10KW of usage but 23KW of panels struggles some days. After about 5 days of poor sun I’ll be out of reserve, and I fire up the genny for 5 hours to top them back up.
I’ve considered building a woodgas source for the genny, that would take me pretty much completely off the teat. I’d love to get a groundsource heat pump but those are mucho dinero.
I’ve also considered melting urea for a cooling source, since we farm and need N for the sprayer. It’s amazing how much heat the endothermic reaction takes, and using a sprayer for topdressing is much more precise than spreading dry fert.
That’s awesome, I’d love to get a system like that going for my generator. Good luck with that, if you end up doing it!
What’s the insulation situation in your house? I didn’t build mine and the previous owner who did used Styrofoam and cinder blocks so it’s a losing battle keeping it climate controlled 95% of the time (alongside no central ducts at all minus the chimney)
It being summer here, I’ve stripped the inside walls and insulation. It was built in the 60s and had terrible insulation. I did have to wear a respirator because that era of gyproc used asbestos and mine tested positive. But now I’m furring out the walls on the inside with 2X material to get an R20-24, and I’ll probably add a reflective layer for added heat retention/reflection. I also have to re-do the siding, so I might add a 2" closed-cell layer under that for another R8. I’d like to have it competely passive, with a greenhouse on one side to gather winter heat and circulate. Winter here is pretty much 8 months so I have an uphill battle there.
That’s daylight saving time’s fault.
It’s much preferred over pitch black darkness at 3:30pm in the winter…
I think you’re forgetting that night time is cool and day time is for losers.
It’s a lot less cool when you’re robbed the option of day time entirely, because you have to spend daylight hours at work…you wake up, its dark…you leave work, its dark. And on top, it’s rainy and cold and windy.
Sorry, but I prefer this to winter days where I don’t see the sun at all because it’s only up while I’m at work.
X-Files in Alaska:
Fox: “Why is the school closed on a weekday?”
Mulder: “It’s 10PM Fox.”
Uh, I’ve never actually seen the show, but I’m pretty sure Fox Mulder is the guy and something Scully is the lady.
I had ONE job. :(
22:40 here
Iceland?
Denmark
I’m enjoying seeing my solar panels still producing electricity for the house at 8:55pm at night.
But more evening sun means better light for evening events. I don’t know of too many early morning events other than work/commute and fuck the boss’ extra 5% productivity from the average person, I’d rather drive in the dark.
More evening sun means my night needs to start later, and the world doesn’t get pretty til late
Tbh id settle for a split difference, just get rid of the time shift. It’s more of an issue in the winter.
Basing everything on our system of description rather than using a rich descriptive system to define things is the problem of so much of our shit.
This is great.
9? pft try living in Alaska when the sun rises at 1 AM. And the other half the year is nonstop crushing darkness.
Yeah summer is terrible, with how you have to put on five layers to stay cool in the sunshine and then go shovel out all the sunshine in your driveway and/or scrape all the sunshine off your car before you drive ten mph all the way to work while fellow commuters slip & slide all over the sunshine covered roads…
The daylight hours per season is actually primarily effected by your distance from the equator, so a lot of places in “summer” won’t see much difference.
Why do people even like daylight? It just gives you wrinkles and cancer, that shit sucks.
“How can this be! What a cruel twist of fate… And isn’t it like 9PM!? Oh… fucking daylight savings!”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XQbPaBRvaJw&pp=ygUeQ2hhb3RpYyBnb29kIEJhcmJhZGlhbiB2c21waXJl
I love it, for real. Short winter days suck, especially after going back to standard time. Having light in the evening is wonderful.
You are wrong and i prefer the outdoors being remotely habitable.
Even at like -40, theres gear to make it tolerable. At 100f/40c, it’s just an oven, and even survivors will need shower+salt
It’s hot & humid here in the subtropics but even so I love this season the most. I was born here and grew up without AC so adapted I guess. Being still in the shade with a breeze I am comfortable up to a pretty high temp but here the summer has afternoon storms that cool it a little so the evening, while hot, is usually 25-27 not 40.
Our indoor AC is set to 26. That feels cool enough in the summer, so evening is comfortable.
I cannot get comfortable in the cold, no amount of clothing seems to work, I just don’t generate that much heat.
Riding home on the bike is MUCH safer in the daylight too.
safer
Coward! More seriously; solvable by making car use dangerous.
40
40 is a lot, but thats kind of the upper limit. Lot of places get hotter than that now.
not endothermic
Oh, cool toy time! get chemical warmers, battery warmer, etc. They exist and are simple.
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You can adapt to high temps. Drink water and consume enough electrolytes, and your body will learn to be more adept at keeping itself cool. Meanwhile, your brain will get used to high temps. The problem is that you are avoiding the heat, which means your body never adapts.
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For heavy exercise, simply do it earlier or later in the day when temps are cooler. Warmer regions developed the siesta for a reason.
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If you really hate it so much, move.
You can ada0t to medium high temps. You can survive 90f, even 100f.
You cannot adapt to 115f. You go inside, or you die.
hate it so much, move
Okay so you don’t understand that youre talking to anither human and just think disagreement is a kind of attack.
Okay so you don’t understand that youre talking to anither human and just think disagreement is a kind of attack.
No. I think that moving is an underutilized option. If you live in Alaska but hate the cold, move. If you live in Alabama but hate gun nuts, move. If you live in Briton and hate… being miserable as a lifestyle, then move!
Like, there are all sorts of ways to mitigate unhappiness. But at the end of the day, if something intrinsic to the place you live is really making you unhappy, then there is an obvious answer.
Cool, so, will you pay for me to move? Cover work while i get setyled in a new part of the world and find that?
Find me someplace i won’t be murdered for personal/demographic reasons with wither i like?
All I can say to that is - can’t do attitudes can’t do anything. You created a list of problems, and are acting like they are unsolveable, instead of seeing them as a checklist of things to get done to obtain a better life.
Okay, so, like i said earlier…
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