Thread: Aircon: the final answer

what is MIT?

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

it is the news today

Thanks for the continuing comments, gents.

To answer a couple of questions that have been asked here, my books are at MIT Press website at

Richard Meehan | The MIT Press

A pdf of my book on tropical architecture can be read/downloaded for free at:

Tropical Cool: Living with Heat and Humidity in Paradise.

Thanks for the pdf selections.

Originally Posted by OhOh

Thanks for the pdf selections.

+1

Change your nick to Jack Cool

Thanks Richard, I will read it later

You certainly don't need aircon but neither do you need a lot of other things in life, it is more about what you want and how you want to live in my opinion.

You could live in a cardboard box, you could live off rice, you could do a lot of things but we choose not too because it is not a comfortable lifestyle and this is the same with aircon in my eyes. You could certainly sit there sweltering but if you don't need to then why do?

Personally I turn my aircon on maximum fan at 16 Degrees (The lowest setting) For half an hour/40 minutes before sleeping and the bedroom gets really cool. Then just before going to sleep I turn it off and sleep with the fan on.

^
Well said. I think a lot of posters like to brag about not needing AC and saving a thousand baht or so. Cheap Charlies they are.

Yes - I agree in whatever suits your needs you use. Whatever keeps ya happy!

^ I did give two situations where its use might be OK - contemporary Thai house construction (describing it as architecture is over stating it a bit) is on the whole so fucking God-awful that many modern houses are simply uninhabitable for at least part of the year without air conditioning but I live in a teak house so I don't have this problem. It gets warm in the summer but how one reacts to these things is to a large degree a matter of choice; you can be bothered by these things or not. And like you, I do a lot of work outside so that too helps obviate the need for excessive cooling.

Interesting style of writing Jack. I believe I saw a video about your home build a while ago. Sadly, the last thing I wrote was a check to my local utility.

When I modernised my Thai house I painted the entire roof and walls in reflective paint, I also lined the roof space with "staycool" insulation and added natural ventilation. I have 3 aircons but never use more than one on at a time, except when the family visits from the UK.
My normal electricity costs are around 2000 Baht and jump to 4000 Baht when the family visits Still much cheaper than keeping warm in England!

Hi Jack,

I have now read Your book and You come around a lot, not only about AC and cool houses, but I have certainly got some input to when I am about to remodell my wifes Isaan house.

Thanks

Conrad

This comment comes from a warm afternoon in a small village in Southern Thailand. The temperature is 87 deg F (30 deg C)and the humidity is high, about 70 percent. I am tapping this comment out on my ipad (3G internet here, surprisingly) from the bedroom of a masonry-walled house of the type which is now preferred by most people here, a style consistent with peoples' desire for modern things, promoted by the government, and in accord with available building resources. These houses have in the past few years replaced the older wooden raised houses that were the traditional standard.

I can report that I am comfortable without aircon though the heat and humidity are much higher than what is accepted in modern western culture. Let me describe the immediate relevant conditions.

Some Buddhist-tech observations:

Like most of my neighbors I am inside and engaged in quiet activity at this time of day and wearing minimal clothing--jockeys. I have the wooden windows closed because the outside air is warmer than the interior. The surrounding masonry walls are about 29.5 degrees, plus or minus .8 degree, still five degrees below my exposed skin temperature which allows radiant disposal of about 30 watts of my roughly 90 watts of metabolic heat production. I have a choice of both an overhead fan and a table fan. Though I like the romance of overhead fans, they usually pull hotter air back down from the ceiling and they don't provide the fairly high one-meter-per-second air velocity that I have become accustomed to, so like most locals I use a supermarket purchased 2 ft diameter table fan, low setting. This removes, via convection, the remaining 60 watts of heat, so my body temperature is stable and I am not sweating, so the high humidity is not relevant to my comfort or even discernable. If I were to turn off the fan, I would lose less heat and my body temperature would begin to rise from the excess 30 watts of metabolic heat retained, and I would begin to sweat. Because of the high humidity the sweat would accumulate which would be the greater cause of complaint of discomfort, especially when lying on a bed, where sweat accumulates.

This is exactly what happened when I took a break and went downstairs to talk with my mother-in-law.

There is a good deal to be learned here in Koc Wua Village (=cow stable village) beyond the particulars advanced here, that is relevant to the air conditioning debate. Maybe a good subject for a book!

In Science, as in Art, the delight is in the detail. --V. Nabokov

Just a little observation. Before 1950 there was basically no air conditioning. I remember living in Miami, Florida in the US, where the temperature is sometimes hotter than in Bangkok and through most of the year it's as hot as Bangkok. Nothing was air conditioned, schools, hospitals, transportation, houses, etc. I wonder how we all survived? Now that I'm in my senior years and having lived in Bangkok, on and off for the past few years, I have gotten used to air conditioning. However, use it mostly at night for sleeping although we do have AC throughout the house.

Heat, like anything else, is an acquired taste. The trick is not to fight it, but accept it, and learn to stay out of the sun and minimize activity on the hottest part of the day. (It also helps if you are not overweight.)

RickThai

Originally Posted by robuzo

Originally Posted by Davis Knowlton

Originally Posted by aging one

I think living in the city raised the hear index considerably. It would be much easier to be out of Bangkok and live with no air as I did on Samui for 18 months. But March April and May could not be done with my house and having it point west as it does. The rest of the year would be okay.

True. I live in a valley in the country, and it is always much cooler here than in the city, and we have a good breeze all day, pretty much every day.

The temperature gradient from the sidewalk on Sukhumvit to about 50 meters into Ben Park under the trees is good example of the necessary item the op omits- greenery. It makes all the difference. It's why Bangkok, with its abundance of (mostly private) greenery is cooler during its nastiest season than Tokyo is in July-August (the most pronounced difference is at night).

Have to agree that greenery makes a difference since the Jungle that is our garden area has grown up to retake the house, it is a lot cooler. We are up the side of a mountain so we get a breeze most of the time and the house only has one wall without big windows.
Only time appreciate air con is when in 7 in the village when frickin hot from market shopping..also in a nice resort room someplace.
Always thinking about getting it in our bedroom for the dozen or so stinkers we get every year ..think it possible that AC can fk up body's resistance to infection/ acclimatisation..?
Had it in whole house in FNQueesland rarely used it as, like here, always outside....
... one of the main reasons I am here is to be warm to hot FFS

You know, I was just thinking about this whole A/C vs fan discussion and my 2 cents:

At school we used to sit in an A/C room, which was nice, cool and quiet. They've kicked us out and now we've got a few ceiling fans. These fans are noisy and most important of all, they blow all of my paper away... very very stressful when you try to get something done.

Not sure about home though, one of my wife's uncles has a 1 storey house which is amazingly cool. I've been checking it out for a while and came to the conclusion that sufficient ventilation is the key to success. What amazed me is that they've got a zincalume roof without any insulation or suspended ceiling. They just have holes just above eye height in every wall.

Originally Posted by jack swelters

I wrote a book on heat transfer

Your previous name wasn't Diaw was it?

...been said ....but still don't understand why anyone would come to a tropical country and spend their time cocooned in air conditioned comfort.
Of course makes sense if one is in a city and workingor a cronic couch potato/ internet addict........but if one takes a vacation or retires in some tropical environment seems illogical if not plain silly ...with exception of getting a comfortable night's sleep maybe.
Each to their own I guess....

Wonder if anyone has considered a Coober Pedy ( S.Australia) style underground home..lots of hills here to dig into....lol

Originally Posted by rickschoppers

^
Well said. I think a lot of posters like to brag about not needing AC and saving a thousand baht or so. Cheap Charlies they are.

I'm not bragging when I say I don't use air-con,
I find fans more than adequate,
I sleep like a baby every night and iv'e never had
heat-rash, sweat-rash etc etc.
My monthly electricity bill has never been more than 850 baht
for my 3/ bed- 2 bath roomed house ..
I will never see sixty again
Please will somebody tell me where i'm going wrong???????

We have a 5 bedroom house.

Use the downstairs air-con quite a bit to cool the living room but not much need recently as it's been raining quite a bit.

Upstairs we generally use 2 air-cons. Set them on 24c and turn on the ceiling fans. Seems to work just fine.