We are pleased to announce we have started a content partnership with Green Building Elements, part of the Green Options Media Network. Their website is "a place where home owners and LEED accredited professionals alike can learn about advances in green and renewable building materials, current projects in sustainable architecture and progressive urban planning, and local guidelines for creating green structures in different regions of the U.S.". Today's post on Heating Your Home: Heat 101 was originally published on May 6, 2008.
Author's note: The following article on home heating is the second in an eight-part series.
Written by Chris Schille
What is Heat Exactly? If we're going to talk about better ways to heat a home, we'd better have some idea of what heat is. What you experience as heat is just the energization of the molecules in your body. Heat is the energy that gives those molecules kinetic (vibratory) energy. Obviously, your body produces its own heat through the metabolic process (burning calories); the important thing is that your environment neither inundates you with excess energy (when it's too warm), or draws too much energy away from you (when it's too cold). This begs the question, how does your environment give or take energy from you? Physicists and engineers call the process heat transfer. There are three different mechanisms: radiation, conduction, and convection. Radiation is what you feel when you stand in front of a fireplace or in sunlight. Electromagnetic waves, primarily in the infrared portion of the light spectrum, strike you and transfer their energy. Conduction is how a coffee cup warms your hand: the kinetic (vibratory) energy of the coffee mug creates a resonance with your molecules, transferring energy. Convection heats by moving a warm fluid (typically air) across a cooler surface (you). In each case, the warmer object loses energy to the cooler one. Another way of looking at heat transfer explains cooling in terms of heating: if you decide something is too warm, you cool it by finding something colder and facilitating heat transfer between the two. Strangely enough, for substances like gases (say, air), you can apply mechanical energy to drive this flow of energy. When you compress a gas, you raise its temperature; now the heat will tend to go some place cooler (indoors, if you're trying to heat, or outdoors, if you're trying to cool). When you remove the pressure, the gas is now cooler than its surroundings. Heat pumps, including refrigerators and air conditioners, work this way, more or less.
To continue reading the rest of this blog, visit Green Building Elements
Previous articles in this series: Heating Your Home: Radiant Heat, Wood Heat. Related articles: Super-Insulating Vacuum Glass