So some parts of construction techniques and building materials have improved significantly. However, when comparing the framing lumber used today to what was used in the 60s, I'm shocked that new construction doesn't fall over the first time the wolf huffs and puffs.
The purpose is to prevent buildup of harmful gasses and VOCs (everything from CO2 to CO to regular out-gassing of furnitures, etc) that can become dangerous if not cycled regularly.
2120: The environment is all full of poisonous gasses from the people of 2020. Each house needs its own air purifier to make the outdoor air safe to breathe.
> the first Cordis hotel on mainland China boasts something that is genuinely rare in big Chinese cities: clean indoor air.
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/27/china-clean-a...
That's the case in much of the world already... I live in area where there's tons of smog in the colder months and consider installing a system for bringing in filtered air from the outside, so that I won't have to open windows for the 6+ months smog period.
One reason is efficiency. In the Bay Area, it's common when the daytime high temperature is 80–90˚F for the nighttime low to be 50–60˚F. You can set your thermostat to 76˚F until sunset, then bring in outside air to cool down to 68˚F or below by sunrise. You get cool air when you're trying to sleep and avoid running the AC in the night or morning.
I'm getting my furnace & AC replaced today and was sad to learn I couldn't get one of these. The fresh air intake has to be at least 10' from the furnace flue vent, and that isn't practical with my home's design.
But there is also typically fresh air requirements to bring in some percentage of fresh air.
And lastly the HRV/ERV mentioned in the other comment is typically more a residential thing from what I've seen but that's totally a thing I want in my next house.
I was describing my home renovation project to someone who lives in Brazil. I don't how true this is for that entire country, but she said that it's very uncommon for Brazilian homes to have insulation.
I live in a modern house in Northern Europe, and we don't even turn our heating on until it gets below freezing. Because we have good insulation, only then it starts to drop below 22C (72F) inside.
...sigh. I really hope it doesn't go this way.
Hot days are getting hotter and much more frequent. Snow is getting rare. We had a yearly ice skating event that never happens anymore because there is no ice.
Weeks of 30C weather are getting more common while not long ago, hotter than 25C was considered exceptional.
It’s like daily temperatures are just shifted +5 degrees within 2 decades.
It’s not just my gut feeling, there are plenty of statistics
The whole comment is hyperbole.
- predicting what council rates (US has Land tax I think?!?) might turn into when the town realises it will be half underwater...
They can be, and there's lots of modern construction techniques that are really good (search term "building science").
One big problem is that a lot of stuff is still built to "minimum code" which just isn't that great. On top of that, sloppy construction work can significantly undermine what is done. In my own house I've fixed several simple things, like missing insulation around vents and holes cut too big (or created by a hammer, rather than cutting).
Here's a good walkthrough of a house under construction showing lots of problems typical to any subdivision (non-custom) build: https://youtu.be/OmU2N_Q732A
1,000 cubic feet of natural gas is a bit over 1 million BTU. That converts to 297 kwh of electricity.
that 1,015,000 btu costs:
$38.61 in electric
$11.85 in natural gas
(Of course if you start with a fossil fuel, turn it into electricity, and then pipe that into an AC unit, the overall efficiency will be dropped by the efficiency of the power plant, but it's still somewhat made up for by the advantages of heat pumps)
> From 1990 to 2013, U.S. shipment-weighted efficiency for residential split-system A/Cs increased from 9.5 SEER (~2.2 COP) to 14.9 SEER (~3.8 COP).
https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2016/07/f33/The%20Fu...
Yes, the hot side will spit out all of the heat extracted from inside, plus the energy from the compressor operation, so indeed energy is conserved.
I echo that AC is quite efficient. Far more efficient than traditional heating. There's a misconception that hot areas are less environmentally friendly due to AC. The opposite is true.
Hot areas are only 25 freedom units hotter than humans prefer. Cold areas have months of 50+ temperature difference.
The misconception persists because heat uses gas, which is 5-10X less expensive per BTU of energy than electricity. So it might be cheaper to heat cold areas than run AC in hot ones, but its much more damaging to the environment. Plus, hot climates are using a lot of renewables these days which impacts the environmental friendliness of electric but not gas.
I expect migration to the sun belt to accelerate, at least in the US. It makes a lot of sense from environmental perspectives. In some southern cities there's already long stretches every summer where daytime AC use runs on 70%+ renewable energy.