Air quality and pressure in your room

I can’t think of anything worse than having the aircon on all year round!

Ours is on for the humid season. Most of the year is a beautiful 25 degrees.

I think I wasn’t clear I’ll call it central air/heat. In the summer AC, winter heat with whole house humidifier. Spring and fall typically nothing. Although climate change is mucking things up.

Oh no I get it, do you never have the windows open? Where do you live?

I’m in the US in New Jersey. And of course we open windows Spring, and Fall most any time temperatures are mild. This year though its been Hot so AC on alot… hoping for a cool Fall. But it’s been progressively warmer each year.

Interesting question: in my house, with triple glazing and a high level if thermal insulation, with central heating (which is dormant from some time in Spring to some time in Autumn), and with whole house heat recovery ventilation (with automatic boost triggered by high humidity from extracted areas, and manual boost at times of known kitchen or bathroom need), the windows only ever need to be opened on a few very hot days in summer in two rooms subject to major thermal gain. It is wonderful: no draughts (I hate sitting in a draught), and no need to turn music low to avoid it reaching neighbours, yet the air in the house is always fresh, with no room smells.

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Hi, my response was to living somewhere that requires AC. With a heating system such as yours i assume you dont need air conditioning. Here in North Queensland in Aus we need aircon for about 4 months, for the rest of the year the windows are open most of the time. We have security screens so we can leave them open when out. The buildings are a bit different here. Not built with the same insulation specs as more temperate climates. I grew up in the uk so am fully understanding of drafts! :joy:

Yes, certainly where I live AC is unnecessary - however with ever-increasing incidences of excessively hot weather in parts of the South of England I can understand people choosing to instal it - though even there, if designed well(!) modern buildings should minimise need through the use of screening, window direction and sizing, glass coatings, inbuilt ventilation etc. But harder fir existing homes except when doing a major refurb, and even then can be limited.

Re aircon, why is it so common in hot countries for it to be set so cold that people, staff and customers, have to wear extra clothing (bodywarmers, fleeces or coats) inside restaurants and shops - Hong Kong is one such place where that seems the norm. A blatant waste of energy - with associated cost and air pollution.

AC for me at least is about the dehumidification of the air rather than the temperature. In the UK when it does get warm, like at the start of August, it’s the humidity that I want AC for. A dry 35 degree C day is great for me. And don’t forget most of the energy required to run AC ( most usually using refrigerant) is actually used to take the water out of the hot)/wet air. Not actually cooling the air.

The idea of living without AC here is just terrifying. I have mine blasting 24/7 from May to late Oct and then with no central heating, on again from Dec to March. I know someone who does put up with Tokyo with no aircon because they are a semi professional violinist and being baked all day and humid and then cool and dry when the AC comes on wrecks expensive instruments.

Personally, I am so very averse to warm weather, despite having put up with hot humid summers for nearly 17 years, I am 3 weeks away from moving to somewhere more civilised. Where insulation and central heating are the norm; snow is on the ground Nov to April; and AC is something you use for 3 weeks of the year if you really cannot even stand a short summer (I cannot).

I disagree: an aircon unit is essentially a refrigerator, and the energy is expended in cooling the moist air. Moisture comes out of the air as a consequence of cooling, because lower temperature air is simply incapable of holding as much water, and if chilled below its dew point excess water condenses. What counts is the lowest temperature the air reaches, which is inside the unit as it passes across the cooling heat exchanger, not room temperature so the design of the unit is likely to affect efficiency of dehumidification.

A device purely for dehumidification without room cooling often is self contained, without an external heat exchanger to dissipate heat from the room, so the heat goes back into the room to have no net cooling effect, the moisture taken out through cooling of the air below its dew point internally.

As for temperature, that of course is personal and depends on what you are used to. For me 35 is intolerable, dry or humid, unless all I have to do is sit and drink chilled drinks!

Well there are two types of AC unit. I have both. Ones that cool only and dehumidification is a by product. It drops a bit but certainly isn’t controlled or monitored.

Then there are expensive units that can also dehumidify to a desired percentage. But they must of course be running in cool mode for that to work because it is still based on condensation and sending out the drip pipe. They can reach a desired humidity and temperature together. But when you hit the dehumidify button (on mine at least), the power consumption goes crazy.

Full HVAC will first dehumidify the warm moist air. The level of moisture removal based on to what temperature the refrigerant runs at. ( Let’s assume here we are not using desiccant!).
The " dry" air can then be heated if required and/ or have moisture sprayed back in to give a more comfortable RH.
Over dry and close to saturated air at most temperatures are uncomfortable.

It’s not Hifi but Sci Hifi :ringer_planet::flying_saucer:

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Surely it’s not the absolute air pressure that matters, but changes in air pressure (as pointed out by @jlewis ), so I’ve tried to control this.

The most effective method I’ve found so far is to use a pair of noise cancelling headphones when listening to the speakers (and not plug the headphones in, just use their noise cancelling mode). This does reduce the air pressure variation, but only in a relatively narrow rate of cyclic variation. This does work, but unfortunately makes garbage of the music - I’m still searching for an idea (other than an extremely rigid, and of necessity extremely heavy, sealed box lined internally to produce an anechoic chambre) that will remove all air pressure around me whilst I listen to the HiFi in complete silence!

In France there are holidays homes for people who want to be protected from electromagnetic waves from phones.

I wonder how music sound in such a room

image

If you removed the atmospheric air pressure from the room somehow, I believe your blood would start to boil and you would die quickly.

Edit: Also, sound is a change of pressure in the air. Sure, if there was a way to only retain the right changes and eliminate all others, but I don’t think there is

And sitting in front of a cathode ray monitor that works by shooting electrons at high velocities at stuff so that it lights up by emitting … electromagnetic waves. If I had no morals and were able to exploit these people, I would have an active system with 6 Statement amps

Seriously? And with a computer and CRT monitor in there generating EM radiation to reflect around inside?!

In Britain a padded cell like that generally includes room service, and the luxury of designer clothing for the occupant called a straitjacket, and the place is nicknamed a loony bin!

Maybe this thread deserves to be in Naim’s version…

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First, the reply was in jest.

Second, If you look I was referring to eliminating changes in air pressure and not absolute air pressure, so not a vacuum and my blood won’t boil.

Third, if I successfully eliminated the changes in air pressure, I wouldn’t hear anything hence “whilst I listen to the HiFi in complete silence!”

Sorry, it has become difficult to distinguish sometimes. And I know you wrote about the differentials first, but then in the last sentence it was “remove all air pressure around me”.
Lastly, I was not being really serious either :kissing_smiling_eyes: