How hot is your house ?

[Nukem]

I should invest in white / metallic reflective type blackout blind. The one I have is thick black cotton.



My mum is far to concerned about how the house looks for her to ever let me do that

Go buy some window smoke treatment Amazon.com: Gila CS78 Glare Control Residential Window Film, Smoke, 36-Inch by 6-1/2-Feet: Home Improvement Or something like it

Then do the foil inside of that... this way the neighborhood won't get an eyeful.

 

[PP Mguire]

Go buy some window smoke treatment Amazon.com: Gila CS78 Glare Control Residential Window Film, Smoke, 36-Inch by 6-1/2-Feet: Home Improvement Or something like it

Then do the foil inside of that... this way the neighborhood won't get an eyeful.

You can actually still see the foil through that type of stuff. I had it on one window. Put it there before I did all the windows with foil/insulation/drywall.

 

[Joe C]

Note, I said BRICK house.

Now, we also have an attic, which has a door entrance in two locations to get into it, as it's split in half due to the vaulted ceiling in the living/dining areas.

the brick works as an amazing insulator and expels a lot of heat very slowly, so it could be 20-30F hotter inside at 2:00AM.

You can go to the outside wall of my room in the living area and feel the heat off of the wall it's so hot in here.




But with the way the economy is, only my room is cooled with a unit, the other rooms have box-fans in the windows forcing air in at one side of the house, and out at the other side, we can tolerate the 100F days, but not a room that hits heat levels that rival that of death valley. Thankfully, manufactures make water/rain resistant box fans now in days because people put them in windows and will keep them running even if raining in the window it gets so hot here.

Actually, brick makes for a horrible insulator. It's the reason you can feel the heat radiating off the wall and why it's so hot in your room. The more density an object has, the less efficient it is. Insulation is very light and "airy" in order to slow the heat transfer
As you can guess, insulate behind the brick (companies can inject foam behind the wall) and ventilate the attic
R-value of Brick, Wood, Fiberglass, and other Materials « Home Improvement Topics . com

We are having a decent day weather wise

 

[C0RR0SIVE]

Ignore the R value, then consider that brick can block cold winds much better than most other exterior materials, then consider that it can hold cold and heat better than most of the better materials throughout the day. As in, a cold brick stays cold till fully heated than thin vinyl would. Same with heat till cooled.

Insulator, not really, but the fact it retains the amount of thermal energy it has longer than most other materials makes me consider it an insulator to an extent.

BTW, our walls are fully insulated, and pink-foam board was put into place instead of plywood in some sections, so we have some very good insulation, which in some ways (my room especially) can be bad in the summer, but great in the winter.

 

[Joe C]

Whatever.
I was only posting some facts.
Brick makes for a poor insulator

Think of bricks like cpu heatsinks. Cpu heatsinks are designed to give off as much heat as possible. That means that a heatsink is a very bad insulator (you do not want any type of insulator for a cpu would you?) It absorbs heat very quickly and expels quickly too. The density of a brick is like that of a heatsink. I piece of wood heated to the same temp as a brick would hold it's temperature longer than the brick would. Why? because the fibers in the wood have empty cells that slow down the heat flow through it.
I'm not sure how I can get you to understand this concept. The R value is the value placed on that object based of how well a temperature can pass through it, the higher the R value, the better resistance it has to let heat/ cool pass through it. You can't say "Ignore the R value" because the R value is what it's all about

 

[Oreo]

Ignore the R value, then consider that brick can block cold winds much better than most other exterior materials, then consider that it can hold cold and heat better than most of the better materials throughout the day. As in, a cold brick stays cold till fully heated than thin vinyl would. Same with heat till cooled.

Insulator, not really, but the fact it retains the amount of thermal energy it has longer than most other materials makes me consider it an insulator to an extent.

BTW, our walls are fully insulated, and pink-foam board was put into place instead of plywood in some sections, so we have some very good insulation, which in some ways (my room especially) can be bad in the summer, but great in the winter.

Anything with a high density will retain heat for a long time. A 4 inch thick wall of steel instead of brick would take many hours to cool down and heat up. That has nothing to do with whether it is a good insulator or not.

Because when it gets cold in the winter it also means it doesn't get chance to heat up quickly if and when the temperature does rise.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

We generally keep the house at 76 although I personally find that to be uncomfortable, I would much rather have it at 70 or less.

 

[Joe C]

The higher density the faster it will transfer heat, meaning that 4 inch solid steel wall will loose heat faster than a 4 inch solid wood wall.
If you took a 4x4 square of solid steel at 80 degrees and a 4x4 solid square of wood at 80 degrees, and stuck them both in a 30 degree fridge, the steel will get colder faster. let's say we left them both in there over night so the wood square would be 30 degrees too. Take them both out and set them outside on an 80 degree day and the steel square will loose it's temp faster and get warmer quicker than the wood square

 

[Oreo]

The higher density the faster it will transfer heat, meaning that 4 inch solid steel wall will loose heat faster than a 4 inch solid wood wall.
If you took a 4x4 square of solid steel at 80 degrees and a 4x4 solid square of wood at 80 degrees, and stuck them both in a 30 degree fridge, the steel will get colder faster. let's say we left them both in there over night so the wood square would be 30 degrees too. Take them both out and set them outside on an 80 degree day and the steel square will loose it's temp faster and get warmer quicker than the wood square

Are you sure ? Steel has a higher heat capacity in volume than wood. It requires more energy to heat up, and thus (I think) releases it's heat slower.

 

[PP Mguire]

Are you sure ? Steel has a higher heat capacity in volume than wood. It requires more energy to heat up, and thus (I think) releases it's heat slower.

If metal released heat slower we wouldn't have metal heatsinks.