Why does 72 degrees feel like 66 degrees?

Jerry R

Thanks to all who responded to my help request, "How can 74 degrees feel like 68 degrees?"
At this point, I think that I am going to try to eliminate our lack of insulation as a factor in this problem. My plan is to staple insulation to the downstairs interior wall and take daily thermometer reading.
Thank you for your help and excellant advice. I will keep you updated.
Addtional information: For comparision, I have an independant thermometer mounted next to the T-stat( the compared reading are always the same). I have also shimmed out the T-stat(1/4")to allow for more ambient air circulation, and to eliminate the possibility of any negative influences from the T-stat's mounting wall.
At this time of the year there is only a two degree difference between the reading of T-stat thermometer and the exterior wall's test thermometer (which is mounted 12" from the floor). During mid-winter, the difference has been as much as 9 degrees.
The P-trol is set at .5, and the differential at one. The humidity readings are normal now, but they are very low in the middle of winter and higher in the summer. We intend to use a dehumidifier and humindifier as needed.
I am also calling around to find out about getting IR readings for the exterior walls.
Thank You for all your help,
Jerry

Jerry R

How can 74 degrees feel like 66 degrees?

We have a three brick exterior wall home with no internal studing. The thrid brick is our interior wall, and it has a plaster overlay. The problem is that our thermometer reads between 72-74 degrees and the home feels like 66-68 degrees. Thermometers placed at various levels within the rooms confirm the same 72-74 degree reading throughout the house. The exterior wall has shown a nine degree difference during the coldest part of winter, but this does not seem to effect our temperature range problem.
During the winter, we have to keep the thermostat on 76 degrees in order to feel comfortable. The humidity is border line high during the Fall, but it falls to the extreme dry range in the middle of the winter.
This is a bouble block home and our neighbor on the other side has the exact same design, including the old single pane windows and two pipe steam heat system. The mystery is that he is comfortable and his heating bill is half of ours. They say they are comfortable and warm at a thermostat setting of seventy degrees. Noted, their thermostat setting of 70 reprsents the difference in the heating bill, but how is their house comfortable when everything seems to be the same.
The steps we have taken so far are to flush the radiators, break and flush the return lines(this is a two pipe steam system), change the shut off valves on the supply side, change the ball checks on the return side, and change the old (1918) vent.
We would appreciate any advice as to how to overcome this problem.
Thank You,
Jerry

Kniggit

Being that you have considered the humidity portion, does this problem increase in sevarity as the humidity level drops or is it consistent through the year? Also, has someone added additional isulation in the attic of the other home? or does he/she do something to add humidity during the winter?

Kniggit

Also forgot to ask, if you are comfortable in their home, comfort level can be an individual experiance.

Bill Nye_2

thermometer

Jerry, did you ever check your t-stat against another thermometer?

S Ebels

Cold 74?

It would be interesting to shoot the exterior walls of the house with an infrared thermometer and then do the same in your neighbors home this winter. I'm betting there is a marked difference at the same indoor air temp. My guess would be that somehow you are getting air infiltration between the layers of brick in your home which would drop the interior surface temp of your outside walls. This gives you the same effect as walking into the frozen food aisle at the local grocery store. The air temp doesn't vary by more than a couple degrees but it feels like 15. Same thing will happen in your house if the indoor portion of your exterior walls is dropping substanially below your indicated air temp. All that cold mass drags heat from your body faster than it can be replaced causing you to "feel" cold.

Doug_7

What is the total R-Value of your outside walls?

What is the total R-Value of your outside walls ? Brick has a very poor insulating value - for example 4 " brick has an R-Value of only 0.8

The R-value of exterior walls should normally be about 20. If the R-value is too low, the interior wall surfaces will be very cold and the body will sense the radiant heat loss to the cold surface and even though the air temperature is 72-74 degrees, it will "feel" like 66-68 degrees due to radiant heat loss.

Also - when the interior walls get cold it sets up convection air currents - now you have cold cold air drafts simply due to the temperature difference. Feels like the window is open - except no window., Now you have a double whammy - the body senses both the cold surface radiant heat loss and the cold air drafts.

The following article which is about windows which have a low R-value explains the situation. The same would apply to low R-Value walls - ignoring solar gain from the sun shining in the window.

btech.lbl.gov/papers/44032.pdf

The first thing you should check into is the R-Value of the building envelope.

Doug

Brad White_123

I tend to agree with you, Steve

The IR gun will tell surface temperature and I think it is an MRT (Mean Radiant Temperature) issue. Not as much on infiltration, just that deep soaking cold that will suck the heat off of your body.

This past winter, working on a local university music building here near Boston, being in the basement mechanical spaces was incredible. The cold you could not shake, gloves or not. Not sure how the trade folks did as well but at least they were moving. I could barely hold a pencil and it took as long in the trailer to get warm as I spent in "the hole".

Christian Egli_2

Faulty furniture: bar stools instead of cozy couch cure chill

Everything points to abnormal air draughts, and beer is optional.

Excessive dryness hints to excessive air infiltration. If it were only a cold wall symptom, there should be indoor condensation problems and molds. If it were cold wall and cold air diagnosis, then the thermometer shouldn't be saying 76F.

Lack of adequate insulation does not explain lack of comfort here, you are getting 76F temperatures after all. You don't have forced air, so we should expect the thermometer to indicate about the same temperature as the objects and the walls. Plus, even in the winter, poorly insulated walls give you all that much more solar gain. You haven't tried placing the thermometers on the floor, I think you'll find your ice cube there.

Usually, it is perfectly comfortable to stand in the proximity of a hot radiator even in a cold environment. What is never comfortable is to stand in a draught during the winter. You know of the wind chill effect they talk of so much on TV in the winter. It's the same effect we expect from the cooling fan in the summer.

This, incidentally, is the big flaw of forced air heating and the equally big flaw of radiant cooling. This artificial wind chill factor can be taken anywhere between 3 and 10 degrees F. Your 7 degrees of complaint seem to fit this pattern better than any others, though not by forced air.

A draught doesn't mean your hair blows in the wind. The faintest draught can be felt with a wet finger held up in the air. Practice by blowing on it and you'll see what you can feel. Trace your draughts near the floor.

Do you have a whole house attic fan? If so, tape it shut like during the anthrax scare.

Do you have a fireplace? If so, do not use it and seal the flue either (more or less) permanently or install a chimney cap vent shutter that seals tight when not in use.

Do your windows not seal tight? If so, clean out dried up dirt that may prevent them from closing tight and tape them up too.

Do you have stairways going up? Do you keep windows open for ventilation (in a upstair bathroom perhaps)?

I seem to find duct tape very useful, don't I?

Lastly, and this is most important, all these air draughts we're trying to chase would not be present in your home if you didn't heat it. With no wind storm and indoor / outdoor temperatures equal, there is no air circulation -- perfect comfort

The point is, with 60F indoor winter temperature, you get minimal draught. With 70F, you get borderline draught. With 80F, you have a tornado, lots of wind chill effect and no comfort. (These numbers are just representative of the proportional concept)

Try setting your thermostat at 70 or 65 even and see if it gets better. Are your feet freezing cold when the heat is on full blast at 76F? If so, it's precisely because you're having these inconvenient whole house draughts. Your feet shouldn't freeze as solid with a lower general temperature in the home.

Other tricks. Install heavy drapes over the windows and close them. Keep doors closed - particularly doors that lead to other levels. Winterize the home with foam seals and plastic window film and tape. Buy furniture that sits you higher up above the ground... etc...

It's all about convective forces and thermodynamics and fortunately, steam heat shines in this regard. I hope you'll be comfortable soon.

jeff_25

cold

you said fuel higher than na

jeff_25

cold

you said fuel useage higher than neighbor what pressure are you running your boiler at

Perry_2

Solar gain may also explain the difference with your neighbors

I'll also bet on air infiltration. However, whenn comparing to your immediate neighbor - consider the orientation of the building to normal daylight.

Are they getting more solar gain than you? If so, their exterior bricks heat up more than you do and they do not need as much heat to be added. This could have a significant affect on the heating bill.

Perry

Weezbo

Find and read the Jain Doctrine of Manysidedness.

such is the relative truth to an individual.


When You are uncomfortable You are uncomfortable.



what someone else feels or what someone else thinks is generally unimportant to you. you live there so it is up to you to change your environment . take temp readings of the floors walls and ceilings.that way you may be able to direct your efforts to correct the aspect that is influencing your comfort level.

my buddy says "turn the thermostat to where you are comfortable and leave it alone".

in many ways that is correct . the location ,height,type of t stat can provide different readings in a room.

being in a hypothetical room with a wind blowing down your neck from a leaky window even if the room is 74 can make many people feel uncomfortable.

having a pro stop in and check out some of the concernes you have would probably be of more of a benifit than guessing at "what makes rooms uncomfortable"....

Barbarossa

There are two compelling reasons in the above posts; measure the RH during the heating season and relate that to the OSA temp, which is easey and radition losses which is a little subjective.For the radition effect face the outside wall then face the interior and see if feels colder on your face.

ttekushan_3

air infiltration

Check out where the floor joists meet the wall. The air may be coming into the joist space between floor and ceiling and filling the interior walls and floors with cold air. It will ultimately wind up providing the combustion air for the boiler and supply air to the draft hood of the boiler. If the house has any projections, like an outside vestibule, or a porch, ANYTHING thats tough to seal, you will likely find the culprit.

Furthermore, you may want to provide an alternate path for the combustion room air by ventilating the combustion room itself. Less fresh air is likely to come through the living spaces to get to the flue.

Oh. Speaking of flues, also check where else air can exit through the attic spaces. Say your house has openings near ground level for air to come in. Now imagine inside walls with no fire stop that go clear to the attic space. Add a few openings to the outdoors up there and you have turned the interior structure into a flue for cold air. Brrrr. This is what was happening with one situation I was involved with where the identical house with the finished attic had lower heat loss than the house with the unfinished attic. It was all in the "flue effect."

I would have someone come in with a true thermal imager and/or do a blower door test. You might be very surprised where the heat loss is actually occuring. And its a real time saver over trial and error.

-Terry

dana_3

cool at 72 degrees

plain and simple not enough humidification in the air

Mike T., Swampeast MO

Am I correct that this is a duplex--e.g. you have a shared wall with the neighbors? What's the orientation? Is your exposed side wall facing N or W? Pehaps at a street corner or fairly far away from the next building?

You say that the exterior walls are three-wythe (three bricks thick). Are you certain? 12" minimum thickness. Are there air gaps between the layers with staggered stretchers? In my experience such a construction is MUCH more efficient and comfortable compared to construction where the bricks and mortar are in complete contact throughout the wall.

Have you spent some time in the neighbor's place to verify that they have what you consider an acceptable comfort level?

Are you using daily setback of 5 or more degrees? How about the neighbors?

jalcoplumb_5

Are your radiators heating?

Are all your radiators heating evenly and at the same time? What pressure is your boiler running? Is the near boiler piping as per the manufactures instructions? What is your heat anticipator setting or cycles per hour for your t-stat? How long does it take from cold radiator, cold boiler to hot boiler hot radiator? Is there insulation on your supply and return mains? Over the years have you had any radiators moved or removed?

Just curious. Might be a system problem.

Your neighbor might have a more functional system.

Rick_41

I might suggest getting a blower door readout. There should be someone in your area that does this. In our area they only charge 30-50.00 to set it up and give you a report to how much air infiltration you have. With our apts we don't bother with actually doing that we get a high cap fan (more than 3 amps) and set it in a window, hopefully on the 1st floor.
We staple plastic over the window and cut out a hole slightly smaller than the cage on the fan. (make sure furnace and gas HW heaters are off, we also temp plug the chimney pipes (don't forget to unplug them!) Then blow air out on HI. You can then go outside and feel the air coming out of your place,..It’s coming in somewhere just as fast. On a cool/cold day you now can feel a lot of them.

We try to put the fan in a common hall. This way you can shut all interior doors and crack open one at a time. In this way you can work on the leakiest room first. Perhaps you can make a house too tight be we have never been able to do it in an older house. Despite blocking a lot of holes and drafts, we still get good draft to a chimney even with a bath and kitchen exhaust fan on.

I also found one building that was letting out a lot of heat from the air space of the space between the plaster and the brick. It was only 1/2-3/4 inch thick but up on the top of the building they didn't have any real cap where the roof met the wall. Cold air was traveling down. I put a temp probe in the bottom of the wall in the basement and it consistently was only a few degrees warmer than the outside temp!
On another building I found out the same with interior walls. They had poor or no caps in the top of the building and if you opened up a hole in some of the interior walls COLD just poured out. It was surprising of how cold it was.

BTW I found both of those by hiring a guy to come out with an actual infrared camera to video tape the entire building. Cost 350.00 but I was spending a lot on this 9 unit old Victorian house and I feel it was worth it. I might consider both the blowerdoor and camera to see where your heat is going. BTW I’m looking into a product called SUPERTHERM. I can’t say I endorse it but it does look interesting. It’s a bit pricy to order it to test it and that’s putting me off. However if it works nearly as well as some of the tests they post on their site (from the Navy, Independent labs,Large companies) it would be quite amazing. (2 coats on the inside of exterior walls ceilings giving an R 20) It certainly would be of great benefit to those of us with brick buildings built with no space to pump in insulation. We have in the past put up 1-2 inches of R max and wall board but that is a hassle with building out windows, doors etc.

Tim Doran

AUST/MRT/Operative

This is a classic case of the Average Uncontrolled Surface Temperatures influencing the Mean Radiant Temperature which in turn influences the Operative Temperature. Your radiant transfer to the exterior walls is huge and therfore you feel cold.

Tim D.