> Whenever I leave a company I make sure everything that belongs to the company goes back to them […]
At $WORK we have the option of getting a work smartphone or having the company pay for (at portion of) our monthly mobile bill.
I chose a work device because I do not want any cross-contamination. (Others chose payment because they did not want the 'hassle' of carrying a second device (and to save some cash).)
> Even if you live in an air quality paradise, it’s not ideal for your indoor air to be the air that manages to sneak through all the little cracks in your structure.
Small cracks are also things that critters may be able to get through.
Energy recovery ventilation is the answer to this.
HRVs only deal with temperature, but then you have humidity that is non-controlled: moisture coming in during the summer, and getting vented out in the winter (too-dry air coming in).
> I think modern domestic houses its the opposite. At least in Netherlands insulation is such a strong focus, due to climate change I think, that modern appartments have terrible ventilation
The link I pointed to is all about ventilation, so just because people ignored an important component of building science, and focused on one aspect, does not invalidate it.
And while climate change is important and using efficiency to deal with it is useful, the thermal control layer is actually the least important of the four:
'Bulk' water (precipitation) and moisture can cause deterioration of the building materials (rot, crumbling), and also mold, which has its own health effects. Leaky houses can often blow conditioned air at much faster rates than thermal leakage.
> How much does implementing all that cost? What degree of benefit does it offer over simple window in situations where those concerns are negligible? What other benefits to human life could be procured with that money?
Everywhere not being LA is actually an argument for ERVs/HRVs. The weather in LA (AIUI) is fairly even and consistent and it is probably fairly easy to just open a window.
But if you're in Texas with high humidity, or Arizona with high heat, or north of the Mason-Dixon line where people get winter, it's kind of hard to open a window when it's 0 or -10 outside. If you have stale air (perhaps as measured by high CO2) what are you supposed to do?
Over the July 4, 2026, weekend it's supposed to get >90F/>32C on the east coast of the US: do you want to open your windows and let all of that heat in? Especially if you already have an AC unit so paid to run it get your home's inside temperature down?
If you have a place with ducts, you can purchase an ERV and tap into that for US$ 1000:
And even in milder climates (like LA), have the ERV suck in air from the outside through an MERV 13(+) carbon filter, and not only do you deal with things like wild fire smoke, but wild fire smell:
> I would not want to live in a city where I have to be careful letting in outside air or going outside because there's too much air pollution...
1. Not living in a city (polluted or otherwise) still does not solve the problem of letting out cooled air and letting in hot-humid air in the summer, and letting out warmed air and letting in cold air in the winter. If your CO2 is high are you going to crack open a window when it's -10 outside? Or in the middle of a heat wave (esp. if you have AC and paid to run it to cool your house).
2. Not-city living also has pollen and other allergen leakage. You're also more likely to get wild fire particulates in less urban areas.
Building tight and ventilating right is applicable in all locations and all climates.
And in the extreme case, if you believe the outside is the healthiest environment, live in a tent or under a tarp. :) Buildings were invented to have a separate outside and inside, and leaky houses reduce the effectiveness of that separation.
> I’ve lived in Australia and France and I’ve always attributed the taller size of Australians to the excellent state of their ventilation in buildings. Vents (and rooms themselves) are systematically bigger than in France
The average male height in France is 178.60 cm, while in Australia it is 178.77 cm:
> The good news is that I stopped worrying about making my house "tight" for the sake of energy efficiency. I keep some windows cracked all year and don't worry about how tight the door seals are.
The point of having "tight" houses is not (just) about energy efficiency but about air quality as well. The general mantra is build tight, ventilate right. It's why modern building codes mandate air tightness and having ERV/HRVs.
By having a leaking house you do lose efficiency because in summer the air you paid to cool goes out and the hot-humid comes in, and in winter the air you paid to heat escapes and the cold comes in. But in addition to temperature (and humidity/moisture) you also get things like pollen, brake dust, (depending on your region) wildfire smoke, etc.
By ventilating right with ERV/HRV, you remove stale air and bring in tempered fresh outside air that you filter before distributing throughout the building. Air quality is also why 'spot ventilation' is also generally mandated at certain locations like over a cooktop/range in the kitchen, and in bathrooms (where the primary purpose is not taking care of smells (though helpful), but rather moisture from showers/baths).
> There are so many rooms, classrooms, movie theaters and other places with poor ventilation where you just feel dizzy, or fall asleep, not knowing it was just due to lower oxygen levels in your blood. Raising awareness is the only real solution.
Not wrong, but it is perhaps worth noting that there are already standards for proper ventilation. Generally you're looking at 5–10 cfm/person (2.5-5 L/s), depending on the facility and purpose of the room; see Table 6.2.2.1 in ASHRAE Standard 62.1 for the US:
Maybe set up a monitor, but if the room/facility has recently been renovated and meets modern (>2013) building codes, this 'should' have already been taken into account.
> It doesn't work for cameras which are usually turned off until you want to take pictures.
The GPS almanac is valid for 180 days, so if you can save it (it's 15000 bits, ~1.8 kB), and keep time within ±20s and assuming a position of ±100km of your last fix, you can do a "warm" start with-in a minute:
A completely cold start takes less than 15 minutes.
And yes, cameras are usually turned off, but they do still trickle some power to keep the on-board clock going: so as long as you use your camera once every six months, and in the same city, there's a good chance you'll get a quick fix.
> Getting a GPS fix from the satellites alone with no internet connection or stored data takes a few hours, not seconds.
It takes less than 15 minutes (in the worst case):
> The receiver is missing or has inaccurate estimates of its position, velocity, the time, or the visibility of any of the GPS satellites. As such, the receiver must systematically search for all possible satellites. After acquiring a satellite signal, the receiver can begin to obtain approximate information on all the other satellites, called the almanac. This almanac is transmitted repeatedly over 12.5 minutes. Almanac data can be received from any of the GPS satellites and is considered valid for up to 180 days.
At $WORK we have the option of getting a work smartphone or having the company pay for (at portion of) our monthly mobile bill.
I chose a work device because I do not want any cross-contamination. (Others chose payment because they did not want the 'hassle' of carrying a second device (and to save some cash).)