In the face of dangerous heat waves this summer, Americans have taken shelter in air conditioned cooling centers. Normally, that would be a wise choice, but during a pandemic, indoor shelters present new risks. The same air conditioning systems that keep us cool recirculate air around us, potentially spreading the coronavirus.
Virtually all manufacturers today build their “durable” white and brown goods with planned obsolescence. They are designed to fail instead of designed for the longest possible lifetime. Concurrently, most now come with 1-year warranties, or longer warranties as a marketing gimmick, with some of the purchase price put aside by the bean counters for the inevitable failures. The reason for all this is increased profit.
Mid-August. A great time for four researchers from Climate Central to publish their new report on urban heat islands—areas with high daily urban vs. rural temperature differences. Almost anybody over 60 will tell you the organization of leading scientists and journalists is right on. My city’s stats are just above. … [continued]
For Earth Day this year, Jeff Flowers of Living Direct introduced a detailed infographic showing a few things homeowners can do to cut energy use around their homes, save money, and help re-green the earth. Earth Day is essentially every day for us, so we’re just getting around to sharing … [continued]
World temperatures are rising, resulting in increasing mortality from heat stress. Or to put it another way, more people are dropping dead because it’s too damn hot. Unfortunately this is nothing new in Australia. Dropping dead from damn hotness has always been popular in these parts. Here in South Australia … [continued]
Toshiba Home Appliance of the Toshiba Group has introduced the world’s first voice controlled air conditioner – the Daiseikai VOiCE NDR Series. There are 13 models with a variety of functions and colors. As with most Japanese A/C units, it is meant to be mounted on the wall and controlled via remote control. Having lost my remote control countless times, the voice activation feature seems pretty handy. From Toshiba’s point of view, they developed the voice command system to introduce simplicity and an intuitive user interface to a multifunctional and potentially confusing home appliance.
Japan’s Consumer Agency has published information relating to 11 separate air conditioner manufacturing companies, regarding inappropriate energy usage rate displays. The eleven companies (who remain unnamed as of yet) conducted A/C capacity tests and calculated energy use to display to the consumer, who is generally unaware of how much air flows through the unit or how much energy is used.
