A lot of comments on the HVAC sizing video are implying that the fact that I live in a townhome is some kind of gotcha which invalidates the whole video. Rather than continuing to play whack-a-mole, here's a community post instead:
I was upfront about the fact that sharing walls with neighbors makes my home energy-efficient. So it's not like I was trying to hide that - it's honestly weirding me out how many people think I was trying to pull a fast one by "ignoring" that fact. But if you're under the impression that I'm "getting heat" from those shared walls - no. That's not how that works.
You don't include shared walls when doing load calculations because the loading on them is somewhere between zero and negligible: even if one of my neighbors were going buck-wild and setting their thermostats to 85 degrees, then there's only a 15 degree temperature differential across that wall and hardly any heat would move from their home into mine. Similarly, if they had left and turned the heat down to 55 degrees, then that *single* wall behaves as though the outside temp were 55 degrees. Some heat will move across it, but very little compared to the exterior walls (especially since our shared walls are insulated on both sides, but that's a particular fact of my home which I can't say how common it is in the grand scheme).
But most importantly, the dynamics in-play here were identical between using my furnace for heating and using the space heaters for heating. Heat is heat! Doesn't matter how it got there. If you somehow got under the impression that I shut off my heat and was mooching entirely off my neighbors - you must have checked out early.
Lastly, I want to address supplemental/backup heat. So so soooo many comments on both versions of the video don't seem to get how that works. Now, rather than be cranky about this, I'll put the blame on me and assume I failed to communicate this effectively. With a heat pump system with auxiliary heat (electric heat strips or even a furnace if you go dual-fuel) you have *two* sources of heat. Both of them should be sized to take care of your heating needs by themselves - ideally the heat pump holds it own, and the heat strips can also hold their own if they must. But when the system is operating normally, they can work together and double your heat output when you need it. So on those epically cold days? When you want to bump the temp up, you can absolutely do it even without whipping out space heaters. I included the line about "whip out some space heaters" because they're extremely cheap and anybody can do it, and I typically lean on the side empowering people to fix their own problems. But that apparently backfired since many people are under the impression I'm advocating for heating systems that barely work. That just isn't the case.
I'm probably paying too much attention to comments (particularly since some are clearly coming from folks who think I have an "agenda" and want to push "scams" on people), but this is a really important topic and we desperately need everyone inside the industry and out to recognize these new realities. I'm disappointed in myself for not staving some of those wonky misinterpretations off.
Technology Connections
A lot of comments on the HVAC sizing video are implying that the fact that I live in a townhome is some kind of gotcha which invalidates the whole video. Rather than continuing to play whack-a-mole, here's a community post instead:
I was upfront about the fact that sharing walls with neighbors makes my home energy-efficient. So it's not like I was trying to hide that - it's honestly weirding me out how many people think I was trying to pull a fast one by "ignoring" that fact. But if you're under the impression that I'm "getting heat" from those shared walls - no. That's not how that works.
You don't include shared walls when doing load calculations because the loading on them is somewhere between zero and negligible: even if one of my neighbors were going buck-wild and setting their thermostats to 85 degrees, then there's only a 15 degree temperature differential across that wall and hardly any heat would move from their home into mine. Similarly, if they had left and turned the heat down to 55 degrees, then that *single* wall behaves as though the outside temp were 55 degrees. Some heat will move across it, but very little compared to the exterior walls (especially since our shared walls are insulated on both sides, but that's a particular fact of my home which I can't say how common it is in the grand scheme).
But most importantly, the dynamics in-play here were identical between using my furnace for heating and using the space heaters for heating. Heat is heat! Doesn't matter how it got there. If you somehow got under the impression that I shut off my heat and was mooching entirely off my neighbors - you must have checked out early.
Lastly, I want to address supplemental/backup heat. So so soooo many comments on both versions of the video don't seem to get how that works. Now, rather than be cranky about this, I'll put the blame on me and assume I failed to communicate this effectively. With a heat pump system with auxiliary heat (electric heat strips or even a furnace if you go dual-fuel) you have *two* sources of heat. Both of them should be sized to take care of your heating needs by themselves - ideally the heat pump holds it own, and the heat strips can also hold their own if they must. But when the system is operating normally, they can work together and double your heat output when you need it. So on those epically cold days? When you want to bump the temp up, you can absolutely do it even without whipping out space heaters. I included the line about "whip out some space heaters" because they're extremely cheap and anybody can do it, and I typically lean on the side empowering people to fix their own problems. But that apparently backfired since many people are under the impression I'm advocating for heating systems that barely work. That just isn't the case.
I'm probably paying too much attention to comments (particularly since some are clearly coming from folks who think I have an "agenda" and want to push "scams" on people), but this is a really important topic and we desperately need everyone inside the industry and out to recognize these new realities. I'm disappointed in myself for not staving some of those wonky misinterpretations off.
More Pumping More Now
1 year ago | [YT] | 13,494