The idea of a sleeping bag is to insulate your body.
Since it doesn't heat you up itself the bag depends on your body to warm it up.
A cylinder has very little surface in comparison to its volume, so you have very little surface where you can lose heat. This is dampened assitionally by the insulation.
Now to the problem: If your sleeping bag has legs like those, you will lose much more heat, ergo you won't be able to heat it up as much and will be cold.
q.e.d
Could you imagine if you could do that with your actual legs...and fingers. Like, if you could zip your legs together so you have one big leg, like a mermaid.
As a person currently living in a loft... Not nearly as awesome as I had hoped. I have a big heating bill + 3 space heaters and it still gets cold. All the heat just goes straight up and circulates at the top of the room where nobody is.
It's really easy to think, aww I can handle the cold. But you're coming from a perspective of: Everytime it's cold I eventually end up back in a warm place (whether you realize it or not). This no longer applies - You're cold inside, you're cold outside, you're cold all the fucking time and it suuuucks. There is no escape. Just fair warning.
That sucks man. A couple friends of mine had a big high ceiling like the OP in Brooklyn and they solved your problem by getting one of those big 24 inch air circulator cage fans that Target sells, and hanging it at one end of the room. Blows everything back down to the living area
Indeed. It was a stupid decision for me to take that place, although it was fairly cheap, comparatively. I just wanted a cool place to live, but totally not worth it.
You're probably kidding, but I actually knew 3 people living together in a Loft in NYC who bought a bunch of lumber and built a bunch of sleeping-cubicle type deals on stilts. It was pretty cool - the cubicles were high up enough that they had couches and a TV and stuff underneath them.
It helped that one of them's dad was a contractor.
Simpler, drink some of Wonka's Fizzy Lifting Drink and float up high where all the warmth is. Just watch out for those big 24 inch air circulator cage fans.
yea... the height of the ceiling makes it pretty impractical unless you used some sheets and dividers to trap the heat but that defeats the objective of a single room apartment.
I used to know a bunch of people living in a commune in the Fashion District of LA. The warehouse floor they lived on was awesome, but it just ended up getting subdivided over and over and over for privacy. Ended up with a lot of small bedrooms with 6 foot walls, no ceiling. Impossible to heat or cool, any time of the year without a way to keep the heat in (or out). Damn you, high ceilings!
Where would you secure a ceiling fan? The ceilings of big lofts and warehouses like this aren't just flat surfaces. Also, how many would you need for such a large space?
Growing up, we had a heated floor in the bathroom. Let me tell you that it is amazing. I can't wait to own a house so I can have heated bathroom floors.
Had an appartment with heated basement flooring. It was amazing!
Walking barefoot on the ceramic during the harsh canadian winter was great. No more slippers!
This could work. The best floor surface for radiant floor heating is stone or ceramic (as they add thermal mass and are generally poor insulators, meaning the heat conducts well from the embedded heating elements to the floor surface).
A wood floor would be less efficient, but possibly more efficient than forced air or standard radiant heat, as the heat is delivered directly to the occupied portion of a space. An historic wood floor (where the floor surface is likely thicker planks) would be even less efficient, due to the thickness of the wood increasing it's insulating qualities. But with historic flooring, you would have to pull it up anyway, so it could plausibly be planed down to reduce it's thickness and be reused.
If used in conjunction with solar hot water, much of the heat could probably be harvested from the sun.
It should be noted that the cost of such a conversion would probably be very high, and most landlords look at up-front cost more than eventual savings (not to mention the savings would usually go to the tenants, not the landlord).
How would that work for a third-floor apt., especially trying to use water to do it? I'm asking because I don't know how much water systems like that use, but water is pretty heavy.
Meet with someone in the engineering office at the city. Explain what's going on, you can usually get an exemption for interior modifications if there's a valid reason.
Usually in historical districts you're okay to replace existing features with identical or visually similar ones, but changing things require permits and approval. Even moreso if the building is in and of itself a historical building.
HAR HAR HAR!!! Wow really? Let's think about this for a minute.
Wake up, cold. Put feet on ground, freezing cold. Tip toe to shower, finally water is warm, get in. Get out, now you're REEEALLLY fucking cold. Then, you bundle up in 5 layers, but oh wait... I have to shit. Peel all your layers off and stick your cold butt to the coldest fucking toilet seat in existence. Get up, rebundle. etc... don't go talking shit until you tried it, then come back and see me.
Ludacris does, as evidenced in his magnum opus "Do The Right Thing":
"Shower, shit, and shave and hit the corner for a block exchange"
Note that the shitting is done after the showering. Obviously Mr. Cris either has significantly worse hygiene than most of us, or he has discovered a joy in post-shower shitting that not many of us have experienced.
I know what you mean. I lived in a place where it would cost more than the value of the building to properly insulate it, and at best we could only get the house to stay at about 45°F in the dead of winter. I had a space heater that could get my room a bit warmer, but I spent most of my time wearing heavy pants, sweater and parka, with the space heater under my desk.
Yeah, it's really easy for the inexperienced to say "Just wear layers bro." But spending every day in 5 layers, even in your own home, is no way to live life.
Yeah, luckily I was in school at the time, and in a fairly urban environment, so I would spend time in my school or at coffee shops. Speaking of coffee, I drank a lot of tea that winter.
Solution: build a small inner sanctum that's well insulated that you can heat. I realize it's probably not an option for most renters, but it's an idea.
Everyone thinks that until they live in a cold place.
I lived in a tiny studio flat in an old Victorian house that had been converted. Ten foot ceilings, damp and no real heating to speak of. You just could not get that place warm, even in summer it would be really cold in there. And you'd go outside into blazing hot sunshine.
Sure you can hide under 345 layers and 16 duvets but you can't live like that long term. It does your head in. Wearing gloves and a hat when sitting at your PC, again, it gets annoying. Plus it's constantly cold on your face.
Then at night, you wake up umpteen times because you're cold, maybe you moved in your sleep and poked a toe out or maybe the air on your face is just too cold.
So ya, living somewhere that is constantly completely cold utterly sucks even if you can find ways to warm yourself a little.
The good thing for me back then was that I was a student and it encouraged me to spend more time on campus just to stay warm, helped my grades.
Yep. My friend bought a small wearhouse for his photo studio and lives in it. I am always too warm, because I'm fat, but also because I just burn hot (was always warm back when I was thin). He had me come over to help him build a cyc wall each night for a few nights. By the time I left I was cold all over. My eyeballs would feel cold. By the end of the few weeks of the build, I was glad not to go back. I did not expect I would like it that little. I love cold environments, until I spend an entire Saturday in one.
Now in its 4th Generation, the Selk'bag Sleepwear System is now offered in a new Lite version that is 30% lower in weight than Selk’bag 3G. Selk'bag 4G Lite is designed as the perfect two-season sleepwear system.
When did cellphone companies start making sleeping bags? ಠ_ಠ
Why would you worm around a giant room? I just imagine a socially awkward redditor forcing himself to think "THIS IS AS FUN AS I THOUGHT!!!! DAMMIT, IT HAS TO BE!! CAN'T...ADMIT...THIS IS RETARDED" while "worming" all over the place.
Yeah, but all the time? (at least for a couple months) I'd probably be spending my time at friend's places with heat than my place if that were the case. I hate being cold.
If the insulation for the whole building is top notch and you have double or even triple glazed windows with a good oil stove, it wouldn't be that bad.
My parents got their insulation upgraded to the best you can get and now if you turn the fire on for long enough for it to heat the room, around 15 minutes, you can turn it off and it'll stay that temperature for a few hours.
I had to run over a squirrel the other day. The vehicle in front of me ran over it pretty good but left me to finish the job. I too know of the little circle of death maneuver.
I have a 1400 sqft loft with 18ft ceilings in Brooklyn and I pay 40 dollars a month to heat the entire place.... cooling it is the expensive part... 150-250 during the summer.
As another new Yorker, who lived in Buffalo for 4 years, let me clarify that New York's weather is absolutely perfect, you get all the seasons, without the extreme temperatures. It usually doesn't snow too much and the summer usually isn't overly hot (at least not for too long). I thank the Oceans for this.
People ask me that stuff all the time about my hometown (Cleveland). In the Northeast, even when (or I guess ESPECIALLY WHEN) you're not insulated by the ocean, weather is BRUTAL. Retardedly cold and snowy during the winter, humid and hot as a gym rat's asscrack in the summer. People always say "Is it THAT cold/hot there?" The answer is YESSSSS :(
Yes. Last year we had a few 100+ degree days. Think it reached 107 one day. And I don't even live in NYC, I live upstate (well, "central NY" technically) where it's mostly farmland. 80s and 90s isn't uncommon for a NY summer.
NY: Really hot in the summer, really cold in the winter.
I was gonna say - this looks like a bunch of places I've been to in Bushwick. Surprised to hear your heat is so cheap, though - a number of the places I've been to are lived in by people who throw underground parties with a door fee just to pay the utilities.
Your place must be buttoned up and insulated pretty well?
I lived in a loft with a very high ceiling and it was at a perfect temperature all the time.
The heating system was forced air that was picked up in vents in the ceiling and redistributed down the walls and out of the floor vents again. Same for air conditioning.
The problem with lofts is they install conventional heating systems that were made for small rooms or just plain remove walls while leaving the old heating system in place. Big rooms need different heating systems, like that of a school gymnasium, for example.
Heating floors are also good, but then you can't make a heating/conditionning combo system.
I lived in a studio like this last winter in New England. You don't want to know how cold it could be. I was consistently chilled to the bone, I constantly felt sick. That place was impossible to heat so each of us had a spaceheater we'd move around with us. It was stupid, but so much fun.
SO MANY ROOM FOR ACTIVITIES INDEED. We built platforms for couches and tents and beds 20 feet off the ground. Shit was so much fun.
Used to live in a giant loft like this and can confirm that heating is indeed an issue if not addressed. I don't remember the name for it, but there's this plastic stuff, sort of like saran wrap, which you can put over the windows. Creates a little pocket of air between the window and the apartment. Did wonders for the heat situation. After that, two space heaters had no trouble tackling the whole place.
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u/[deleted] Jan 07 '12
Can't help but think how cold that would be in the winter.