This makes no sense

[slowfox]

So, it's a bit chilly in our office this fine morn.

The heating engineer's just been round with his snazzy laser-pointer-thermometer thingy, to reassure us that we're all not actually freezing, and in the process, explained the philosophy of the heating installation we're enjoying.

And it goes like this: the panel radiators around the walls, which have just been fitted with thermostatic valves, run off recovered heat from the air-conditioning system. This is considered a supplementary system to the panel-heaters.

What panel heaters, we wondered, in a state of collective perplexity.

The ceiling mounted ones, came the answer.

Huh. OK - that'd be the ceiling mounted panel heaters that we can't see because of the polystyrene-tile-based floating ceiling that we have, then? Thought as much...

Aside from the fact that hot air isn't well known for falling downward, there's also the slightly odd design decision of then placing an insulating barrier of polystyrene betwixt what little gravity afflicted thermal action might be headed our way and us poor code monkeys.

And all this topped off by a radiator system running off the recovered heat from the air-conditioning, such that when the air conditioning is working hard, the radiators are warm (positive feedback loops FTW!), and when the air-conditioning isn't running, said beasties are stone-cold.

Comments

[glittertine]

And I wonder why we can't pull off Copenhagen.

What. How. Do these people have brains. This makes no sense OMG why, world.

[slowfox]

Panel heaters. In a ceiling. Above a layer of polystyrene tiles. Genius.

*headdesk*

[yvi]

...

What?

(Although I do feel the need to point out that gravity doesn't play that big a role in hot air going up :P)

[slowfox]

Maybe I should have said 'gravity aligned' or 'gravity synchronous'? :-P

[schnurble]

re heating panels: The mind boggles

re gravity: in my opinion, gravity is the big source for hot air going up and not just anywhere - because cold air is heavier and gravity makes it go down, it displaces the hot air and thus the hot air has no other choice than going up :o)

[yvi]

Well, if you put it like that :P I was thinking 'density' and only then 'gravity'. My brain is only capable of thinking as far as the first layer today ;)

[stripped]

Last building I worked in was brand new when we moved in. We THOUGHT this meant we'd get decent heating. Except, they installed all the duct work before making the floor plans. Then they put the server room DEAD CENTER of the floor I was on. And since everything was linked... (you can see where this is going, I'm sure...) this resulted in cold air blowing constantly out of our vents all winter.

The temperature in the office was technically 69F which ought to've been bearable, but the windchill from the cold air blowing and the fact that all exterior walls were floor to ceiling windows... and it was an open floor plan except for the server room... yeah, we wore sweaters and fingerless gloves.

Now I work in a basement, and every time my hands warm up I go check to see if they turned off the A/C to my server room. Pesky A/C setups from the 70s are really not meant to handle basement server rooms!

[slowfox]

I think we're a couple of decades behind you people in the colonies in terms of the sophistication of A/C in the workplace... I've worked in a fair few buildings - most of them don't have A/C (we don't in this office - the residual heat that we get through the radiators is courtesy of an installation for elsewhere), and those that did never really had it working properly.

Our old server room was this big, airy monstrosisity of a converted attic, and the A/C was always fighting a losing battle to begin with, but we nontheless kept on adding server after server, and calling out engineer after engineer to try and wring out some final scrap of power from the dilithium crystals until they cannae take no more, Cap'n.

[owl]

I have not met the corporate heating system that actually did make sense. They tried to make ours work the same across all the floors of the building. After two days of cold gales throughout the building, Systems conceded defeat. This winter they have decided to provide us with company-branded indoor fleeces, rather than letting the temperature go beyond alleged 21 degrees.

[slowfox]

This winter they have decided to provide us with company-branded indoor fleeces

Did you go for the red or the navy in the end?

I still think fleecing you guys up, rather than going for a sort of accommodating tempertature in the office is a bit cheap, mind!

[owl]

I played it safe and went for the navy.

To be fair, the building did come with one of those fancy modern aircon systems that don't really work preinstalled, and apparently getting it to be warm everywhere would take a dedicated oil rig to fuel it, or somesuch, and if it comes down to a choice between heating an keeping your job, well. Plus at least it's cool in summer, unlike the previous building. You can put on extra layers, but there's not a lot you can do when you're already down to a thin shirt and you're still too warm.

[aome]

In other words, I should have sent you some warm fingerless gloves?

[slowfox]

They probably would've been useful! Colleague S was wearing his coat all day, done up, too... as (bad) luck would have hit, his desk is in the definite 'cold spot' of the office, and it was uncomfortably chilly there.

[carolanne5]

You'd think the UK could master heating, we get lost of practice. I don't think I've ever worked anywhere with decent heating, but your place takes the biscuit, ceiling mounted heaters? Dumbfounded.

[slowfox]

ceiling mounted heaters?

It takes an uncommon mind to think of such things...

[linaelyn]

The... wait...

Okay, but...

Um...

*boggles*

I got nuthin'.

[slowfox]

I'm almost prepared to stake money that no-one's got a heating set-up quite like ours...

...although I'm equally certain that there are even worse set-ups, somewhere, somehow.