jack

Yes, nearly always. It's really frustrating.

I'm interested in nutrition science and these issues arise again and again (they even link into the ACC/AGW debate - cow-generated methane, the impact of monocrops, factory farming, carbon sequestration in grasslands, etc). The latest one was just last week where I repeatedly heard on the news that eating any red meat results in a 20% increase in bowel cancer risk. The number of uncorrected-for (and likely uncorrectable-for) confounding factors in the actual study were mind-boggling, but still the media reported it as if this was something extremely serious that we should all be taking into account. The actual risks, even taking the report at face value and ignoring its shortcomings? 0.5% risk rises to 0.6% risk if you eat meat. Utterly swamped by the error bars, or just going for a ten minute walk every day, but still reported as a scientific fact about which we should all be terrified.

I take what you're saying, but I don't think "pure science" has ever existed. Science has always been driven by politics, religion, bias, genius, madness and just about every other human concept. I don't think today is that different, although I do think that the sheer volume of, and access to, media has made it very easy for all sides to muddy the waters further.

Perhaps, but that's far from being all Patrick Moore has said and done. By any reasonable definition of the word, he is controversial. As for trusting him, he's as biased as any climate researcher, if by "biased" you mean funded by those with an agenda.

I remember a year sometime in (I think) the late 80s where things like recycling and energy use suddenly became a big issue. There were all sorts of one-off TV shows about it. It felt like we'd all turned a corner - everyone was an environmentalist now, and everyone wanted to do their bit. It definitely feels like that idea has faded under the intensity of consumerism that's come to dominate since then.

With my mod hat on, and speaking to all posters, can we please stick to playing the ball and not the human? Inflammatory statements and accusations are unhelpful.

Greenpeace may well be lying, sure. It was still incorrect to say that he was "the" founder of Greenpeace. As for this: The change in his position is obviously starker given his history with Greenpeace, but I think the real controversy is not just that he's changed his mind, but that he's taken a stance with which the majority of climate (and other) scientists disagree. So my opinion remains:

I remember one of the episodes that had a lovely house but for some reason I didn't find very interesting. It was an older couple of ladies (possibly in a relationship with each other) building a small, angular wooden house on Skye. Lovely design and location. Builder was a local guy who did a great job. Everything came in under budget and ahead of time. The only drama they could even try to manufacture was around the air test, because the builder had never had one of his builds tested in this way. It passed with flying colours and that was it. I can see why they try to emphasise any issues that arise (and virtually every build has them).

Not only is he not "the" founder of Greenpeace, despite what he says he isn't even "a" founder of Greenpeace. He's actually an extremely controversial figure, and it's worth do some careful reading about him before relying too much on anything he says.

But I asked nicely!

Guys, can we please tone it down a notch?

I think the other thing is that they run on 24V so you don't need an electrician to install them.

I was talking only about IR heaters relative to, eg, fan heaters. As I said above, other than how thin it is, I can't see any advantage of this NexGen product over, eg, ordinary electric UFH mats.

IR panel manufacturers claim their products are more efficient because of how they heat. Instead of heating an entire room, you heat just the surfaces in the area where you actually need the heat. They aren't saying that their products are more efficient in the sense of more energy out per watt. I'm not saying I agree with this.

The efficiency claims are pure hype. All electrical heating is practically 100% efficient. The main advantage this product has is that it's very thin (0.5 mm).

Yes, but also because we already had a couple of cracks in our polished concrete layer and I didn't want to make those worse or add any more.

From memory, it took several days to warm up our slab from around 14°C to 20-ish when we returned from several weeks' holiday having left all heating off over a cold, dull and windy Christmas. That was only allowing a 27°C maximum flow temp. It might have worked faster with a high temperature flow, but I didn't want to heat things up too quickly.

I called your claim "extraordinary" because it contradicts basic physics (or at least what I understand of it). I didn't say you were a liar, I said that your arguments as to why there might be variations in measured O2 don't hold water, so "clearly something else is going on". Nothing you've said changes my opinion. I'm done with this thread. Apologies to the original poster for contributing to it drifting so far from topic.

Yes, exactly that.

Just because you don't see the point doesn't mean there isn't one. I'm not married, largely because my partner is firmly against the concept of marriage for socio-political reasons. Civil partnerships don't come with all that baggage.

Exactly. But none of the things you mention could possibly contribute to a 10-15% reduction (21% to 18-19%) in the amount of oxygen in the air. No-one's calling you a liar, but clearly something else is going on. You're the one making the extraordinary claims.

More than she likes the planet, it would seem.

@Bitpipe has an insulated basement and I'm sure his experience is that it doesn't overheat. I use our ASHP in reverse mode to cool the (insulated) slab on the ground floor. We have concrete floors so this is very effective. It's a far more natural "coolth" than that provided by aircon. I'm convinced that this helps keep the upstairs rooms slightly cooler too.

I've had a very quick look and can find only a single source that suggests there are significantly lower oxygen levels in cities: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/13/carbonemissions.climatechange Maybe you're right, but everything else I found talks about the dangers of all the other crap in city air, and the hypoxic effects of high absolute humidity and temperature, but these don't affect the proportion of the oxygen in the air, just its effective availability to humans.

The rate for ASHPs went up last April I think.