A Differecne in Heat

[k9brain]

When I'm heating with the NG furnace, 70°F still feels cold and drafty. I need a long sleeve shirt and prefer a fleece.

When I have my wood stove going, 70°F is hot and I'm wearing a t-shirt. Even 69 or 68 is warm and comfy.

Has anyone else noticed this? Any ideas why there is a difference in comfort level with the same temperature? Can radiant heat make that much of a difference?

 

[oldspark]

One of the things is the furnace kicks off and on and the wood burner give a nice steady heat.

 

[madrone]

Can radiant heat make that much of a difference?

yes

 

[Lynch]

yes i agree, hot air furnces suck if you ask me.
after living in homes with wood stoves then going to hot air furnce i cant hardly stand it.
cant explain it but i know what you mean, just feels warmer.

standing next to a stove is so much better than turning a dial and having blowing air threw vents.

 

[DanCorcoran]

Thermostats/thermometers measure air temperature. Your body senses warmth as a combination of air temperature and evaporation from your skin. When your forced air furnace is running, the air in the house is moving, causing evaporative cooling of your skin, hence you sense that it is cooler (call it "wind chill").

 

[szmaine]

yep, you can feel it with hot water heat too. my old house has big glommin cast iron radiators - the heat is even, gentle and long lasting. I will feel cold in my mother's house with forced hot air than mine at the same temperature settings.
Lived in a couple places w/ steam radiators , the heat is agressive and quickly overwheaming by contrast.
And all, wood stove, steam and forced hot air are more drying to the nose than hot water radaitor in my experience.

 

[RNLA]

Relative humidity!

 

[Backwoods Savage]

Wood heat is hard to beat!

 

[begreen]

Relative humidity!

Which will be pretty much identical, regardless of the heat source unless those steam radiators are leaky.

 

[szmaine]

Wood heat is hard to beat!

It warms your feet and cooks your meat.

 

[begreen]

Or in the case of some folks, it cooks their buns. :wow: :lol:

 

[szmaine]

Or in the case of some folks, it cooks their buns. :wow: :lol:

Doh, you blew it! :shut: I was shootin for a group poem.

 

[begreen]

I wasn't going to touch the cooks yer meat line with a 10 ft pole.

 

[szmaine]

I wasn't going to touch the cooks yer meat line with a 10 ft pole.

chicken ;-)

 

[begreen]

Well, more like beef...

 

[szmaine]

Well, more like beef...

:lol: just enough to prove you could have if you wanted, very good.

 

[Alan Gage]

It's the radiant heat. Same as the difference between standing in the sun and standing in the shade.



Alan

 

[Hogwildz]

I like my meat pink & juicy in the center! ;-)
Now on a serious note. I have an oil forced hot air furnace, that only gets used once a month or so to make sure it is ready as back up.
To me it merely is heating the air, which is fine while it is running, but when it shuts down, the air cools quickly and it feels cold again.
The insert with steady heat, heats the entire house, the furniture, the walls, everything in the house, so it feels to me like the air never really fluctuates like it does with a forced hot air furnace.
Whatever the facts, I do love the warmth and coziness of wood heat. I am ready for spring though.

 

[szmaine]

Relative humidity!

Which will be pretty much identical, regardless of the heat source unless those steam radiators are leaky.

Really, I don't see why. The more intense the heat source is the greater the rate of evaporation. We put steamers on our stoves and often on the steam radiators too. Used to wake up in the morning with dry mouth and eyes.
I couldn't get water to steam on top of a hot water radiator.

 

[Hogwildz]

Aside from steamers or a humidifier connected to a forced air furnace. No heat source adds or creates humidity.
It appears some do rob humidity faster or more than others. Forced hot air is the worst. Hot water radiators or baseboard seems to rob less humidity as it is not blowing the air around and blowing hot air directly into the remaining air.
Around here, dry is dry in the winter, and regardless of what I heat with, I need to run a humidifier.

 

[begreen]

Relative humidity is just that. It's based on the difference between the dew point and the ambient temperature. The heat source is somewhat irrelevant.

That said, the reason radiant heat feels so good in the winter is because the relative humidity it low in the house. 74F feels like 69F because in this low humidity environment your skin is losing moisture rapidly. That cools the skin and makes you feel cooler. Radiant heat cuts through this as long as you within range of the stove. But otherwise it's just heat.

 

[DanCorcoran]

Relative humidity is just that. It's based on the difference between the dew point and the ambient temperature. The heat source is somewhat irrelevant.

That said, the reason radiant heat feels so good in the winter is because the relative humidity it low in the house. 74F feels like 69F because in this low humidity environment your skin is losing moisture rapidly. That cools the skin and makes you feel cooler. Radiant heat cuts through this as long as you within range of the stove. But otherwise it's just heat.

Not sure I agree with your second paragraph. We have both hot water radiators and forced-air heat pumps. When I turn off the hot-water boiler and turn on the heat pumps, the same temp feels cooler. My explanation is that it feels cooler due the moving air and evaporative cooling that comes with forced air. I can't see how the relative humidity would jump up and down, depending on which heat source I'm using.

 

[begreen]

If you have moving air across your skin it will lose moisture faster and feel cooler. Tis the old wind chill factor, indoors.

A good heating system will have the supply ducts on the outside walls, blowing upward, toward the wall. This really reduces the the draftiness. If the system is multistaged, with variable-speed motors, the air movement is slight except when a large change in temperature is called for. A well set up forced air heating system should not feel drafty unless you are right over the register.

I'm not sure if this is your case, but often in warmer climates, heatpump systems are set up primarily for cooling and blow air from the ceiling downward. That's good for cooling, but lousy for heating. In old houses one can often find old gravity coal heat systems that have been converted to forced air. These system usually heat poorly and are very drafty.

 

[Battenkiller]

I wasn't going to touch the cooks yer meat line with a 10 ft pole.

10 ft pole? We want pics.

Wait... JK NO pics

 

[gyrfalcon]

I wasn't going to touch the cooks yer meat line with a 10 ft pole.

10 ft pole? We want pics.

Wait... JK NO pics

+1 LMAO.