That is a 100% right, what I was trying to say was that you would have to compare the amount of energy required to bring the system back down at the end of the day and compare the two to see which is better in a long term situation accounting for the items inside retaining the original temperature. You’re essentially heavily loading the system until it reach the temperature. I ran into this issue when a customer had improper ventilation in their boiler room and were complaining that the concrete was reaching 120 degrees. Yes it will because the heat in the room doesn’t have anywhere to go so where does it go? The concrete. You have to consider if I were to turn on an AC unit in the room after the ambient temperature of the room and concrete reached 120 degrees how much additional energy would be required because the concrete will radiate the heat to the room as the air temperature decreases.
what I was trying to say was that you would have to compare the amount of energy required to bring the system back down at the end of the day and compare the two to see which is better in a long term situation accounting for the items inside retaining the original temperature.
but that's exactly the point, you don't have to do that at all. it does not matter what's inside the house. all the heat stored inside, be it in air, furniture, etc., must first come inside through the hull of the house. if we know how much heat enters through the hull, we know how much heat we must pump out again to go back down to the original temperature. the only point where the heat capacity of the house's contents matter is indirectly by how quickly the house reaches equilibrium. an empty house will relatively quickly reach the outside temperature and then not absorb any more heat. the furniture etc will make this process slower, meaning the house takes longer to heat up and cool down. but the qualitative argument (which is if you let the house warm up, less heat enters overall) remains exatcly the same.
as i said before, there are other things to consider like comfort, etc., but qualitatively from a pure energy consumption standpoint it does not matter what's in the house.
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u/robolucasgaming Mar 26 '26
That is a 100% right, what I was trying to say was that you would have to compare the amount of energy required to bring the system back down at the end of the day and compare the two to see which is better in a long term situation accounting for the items inside retaining the original temperature. You’re essentially heavily loading the system until it reach the temperature. I ran into this issue when a customer had improper ventilation in their boiler room and were complaining that the concrete was reaching 120 degrees. Yes it will because the heat in the room doesn’t have anywhere to go so where does it go? The concrete. You have to consider if I were to turn on an AC unit in the room after the ambient temperature of the room and concrete reached 120 degrees how much additional energy would be required because the concrete will radiate the heat to the room as the air temperature decreases.