Temperature variations in a room

Temperature variations in a room

I have two cottages each over a century old. One has 10 foot ceilings, and one has 12 foot ceilings. I have been taught that was kind of a way to stay cooler in the warm season as the heat always accumulates in the higher parts of the room. Once when fixing a ceiling fan in one of the 12 foot ceiling rooms, I could distinctly go through an invisible heat layer to where it was real hot up high, like above 8 feet or so above the floor in that room. And of course in the cold season, it gets real chilly to me down lower in the room and even the house. So the idea of using a ceiling fan to circulate the warm air up higher seems to have some basis to me where I live.

Now whether you want to talk about outside, like when flying, or inside, like in a house just suggests the enormous amount of variations one can be affected by. My main requirement is to make sure my water pipes under the floors and in the walls do not freeze and burst. Then I would have a real problem.

Even in my cottage with 10 foot high ceilings, the temperature might be 62 F around a foot or so off the floor, and as much as 72 F around 7 feet high above the floor. And I know the temperature sensors are not calibrated, so that may be a factor too.

So conventional wisdom still applies.

1)      Wear more clothes if you get cold or chilled. Where less clothes if it gets too warm for you.

2)      High tech long johns that wick away moisture from the skin to an outer layer that absorbs the liquid makes sense to me.

3)      Exercise and movement does help generate heat, even if the first few minutes are often pretty chilly until you “warm up”.

4)      Wearing multiple layers is usually better that one thicker layer when you get chilled, or just to prevent getting chilled.

5)      Get higher up in the room if you can during the cold season. Get lower down in the room if you can during the warm season.

6)      Don’t let yourself get wet from water or sweat as that will increase the cooling effect on you.

7)      Water in pipes does not usually freeze if it is moving enough. Said another way, the old saying about letting your pipes drip during bitter cold weather is usually a good idea and even if it does use extra water. And keeping your pipes above freezing, as cold as that might be, is still better that the pipes cracking from frozen water in them.

8)      Now if you are limited in your water availability, then do drain the house pipes so that they cannot freeze. In this case use some kind of public health way to collect your pee and poop in order to prevent diseases like cholera.

9)      If it gets too cold, use sleeping bags, extra blankets, or shared bodily warmth (popular for many couples for obvious reasons).

Most modern houses have central heat and air and are generally 8 feet in ceiling height. Of course they often depend on modern electricity or natural gas to heat and cool with during the appropriate season, and both systems need electricity to circulate the air in the room.

And the longer the outside temperature stays below freezing, then often the ground will freeze deeper and deeper over time. The reason I mention that is because we usually count on having our water pipes buried and insulated by the ground. Burying one’s pipes below the local “freeze line” is then a valid consideration during construction.