View Single Post
Old 10-06-2009, 02:08 PM   #29 (permalink)
GreyWolf
Sober
 
GreyWolf's Avatar
 
Location: Eastern Canada
I've also peed in a wetsuit... it does work, and the natural flow of water through the suit dilutes the urine relatively quickly. It's not unsanitary. But a teakettle of warm water down the neck of the suit before you enter the water works better.

As for the refrigerator/empty house issue, there's a lot of confusion among the energy efficiency experts because they don't have consistent sets of assumptions (I worked in a related field for 15 years). The heat absorbing mass of a house (i.e. whether it's empty or full) has absolutely NO impact on the amount of energy required to heat a house over time. Thermal storage schemes take advantage of the COST of energy at different times, not the total amount of energy required. It's the same, and is governed by the surface area of the house, the efficiency of the thermal envelope, and the ambient weather conditions.

A refrigerator is the most efficient heater in almost every home that doesn't have a heat pump. It uses a heat pump (condensor & evaporator coils) to pump the heat from what you put inside it back into the kitchen. Relatively little energy is required to do this. You get the same effect by filling a fridge as you do with filling a house. You create thermal storage. A full fridge will stay cooler longer because of the cold (lack of heat) stored in the stuff in it. Overall, filling a refrigerator makes it consume more energy in pumping the heat back into the kitchen.

As for peeing when you're camping, most of the arguments here miss that fact that the human body is not a static one. It is working to maintain a thermal differential against the cold. The more mass you have, the lower your surface-to-volume ratio (and likely the higher your level of insultation). This equates to more efficient heat retention. The extra amount of urine in your bladder would be inconsequential in this equation... BUT peeing is like pouring hot water down the drain. You've expended energy in heating the water, and it's going right down the drain. In the case of urine, although you don't have to reheat anything (the mass is gone), you are losing some heat you've already generated. But given that the body is thermally dynamic, the actual loss is again likely inconsequential.
__________________
The secret to great marksmanship is deciding what the target was AFTER you've shot.
GreyWolf is offline  
 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360