Vaillant ashp (my battle with).

[Dillsue]

22 hours ago, zoothorn said:

Sorry I missed that post then, will go back.

I think that is a recurring theme

[Gone West]

So many people have been drawn into this rabbit hole. No one listened to, no opinions changed. If you don't have the kind of understanding of science needed, then just accept what you are told and act accordingly.

[zoothorn]

9 hours ago, Nickfromwales said:

Why do you keep disrespecting people on here with this statement???????????????????????????????????????????????

 

Absolute and complete fecking garbage of a statement. Just untrue, non-factual, and is now wearing people down. Stop regurgitating this nonsense as it's utterly defeatist and backed up with zero facts; by your own admission here you've not once actually heated this house, so YOU DO NOT KNOW. End of.

 

I LIVE IN THE EXACT SAME HOUSE AS YOU DO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You don't own the only shit house in the UK OK!!!!! Get over it!!!!!

 

Read that 500 times, then go away, read it another 500 times, and then LISTEN ffs.

 

Before replying, read it all over again. And then one more time.

 

If you can't listen, and you refuse to accept these facts (not fiction or conjecture) and continue to refuse to accept said FACTS, then you are simply beyond help (and believe me, we've been trying).

 

10^oC is 5^oC warmer than a fridge you can keep meat in. Having the house at this stupidly low temp at night is just ridiculous.

 

Have a think if you actually came here for advice and help, or just for sympathy, as I am at the end of my tether with you ignoring what I have written, and all of what the multiples of others have written (in their spare time, for free, with only the very best of intentions).

 

You are a horse we are trying to lead to water..............

No Nick you don't. 
 

It is a fact that the 2 crap extension rooms (both attatched onto one slate stone end of the main old 4 walls comprising the sittingroom)........ have in each room, 1 small rad.

 

It is a fact that they couldn't fit anything bigger, & a fact that a small rad, in an uninsulated room, will not be sufficient to heat it. The 2 rooms I frequent most.

 

YOU have decent sized rads in -your- two most frequently used rooms. You say you have a stone house, but with your building knowledge, I'd be my bottom dollar you at the least have some insulation under your floors.
 

And I'd bet too, thst your house is made from a different stone than slate & mud mortar: my old folks cottage was sandstone, easily weathered on the outside, why? Because it's far softer. This stone type is far easier at retaining heat. Chalk & cheese, in fact chalk is close to what it was.

 

I bet too that you aren't next to a water course (my crap extention foundations are 5m away & 3m above a big gushing stream), which I think contributes cold ingress to the structure. I bet too your stone house isn't whacked down upon clay, metres away from this small river, too.

 

If you came here & spent a bit of time.. you would understand.

 

It reminds me of when I said my local climate-atmosphere was  strangley, unusually damp. No it isn't was the replies, put a humidity meter on, see? (So why is all my paper/ post for eg in it's perfectly dry letterbox limp & damp feeling? Why do my stoves get covered in rust, my metal wok does same in 2minutes flat, why did I have a physical pain/ ache for first 2 months here? Why the abundance of green mould?

 

"You don't have this, you don't have that".. "you didn't have any pain [it was in your head].. your area isn't different".

 

Yes. It is. YES...... my cottage IS unusually cold. It is a fact. Small rads.... I mean are you gonna argue "they aren't too small"??
 

Zoot

[ProDave]

5 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

It is a fact that the 2 crap extension rooms (both attatched onto one slate stone end of the main old 4 walls comprising the sittingroom)........ have in each room, 1 small rad.

 

It is a fact that they couldn't fit anything bigger, & a fact that a small rad, in an uninsulated room, will not be sufficient to heat it. The 2 rooms I frequent most.

So we know you have a rubbish house with small radiators.

 

BUT you won't even TRY running your heat pump always on for a trial period to see what is actually achievable?

 

You don't understand the term "ON" and are worried that it will cost you £700 per month to run it.  

 

Unless you actually TRY something, you will never know, and anyone entering this Rabbit hole is wasting their time just to be told by you that you are not willing to try anything and happy to live in your ice box.

[zoothorn]

2 hours ago, Gone West said:

So many people have been drawn into this rabbit hole. No one listened to, no opinions changed. If you don't have the kind of understanding of science needed, then just accept what you are told and act accordingly.

People have been drawn because that is the nature of a forum GW. That's the nature of if there's one small guy on his own.. & 2 members are in discussion with him/ her, then by human nature you side with them.

 

I never moaned about the HP not heating this place --THAT was the assumption--  which led to 1, then 2, then as I state happens above, a gathering 'consensus'. All in good faith, & all I try to discuss with. But the point I was making --a moan about old stone cottages like this, which I KNOW one reason the prior owner SOLD it, was DUE TO the cold here-- was completely lost. Gone.

 

I then had to entertain effectively a new thread. Which I had no intention of (cos I knew it had no fkn chance- & still am adamant it can't: & why shouldn't I be too??) That being effectively "How to use the HP to heat a tricky stone cttg".

 

You here, are merely replying as one of the pack, the consensus, to firm up the consensus, to pick at me.

 

Like (anti) social media can be so easily used as a caveat to bully, forums can so easily be used to pick at a sole member. That, is the nature, of your reply, right here.

 

Zoot

 

 

 

 

[zoothorn]

7 minutes ago, ProDave said:

So we know you have a rubbish house with small radiators.

 

BUT you won't even TRY running your heat pump always on for a trial period to see what is actually achievable?

 

You don't understand the term "ON" and are worried that it will cost you £700 per month to run it.  

 

Unless you actually TRY something, you will never know, and anyone entering this Rabbit hole is wasting their time just to be told by you that you are not willing to try anything and happy to live in your ice box.

ProDave,

 

as I'm finally getting to grips with this stupid complicated menu/ setup controller, thanks to the patient members like Sharpener & Rick (clearly with no intention of pack mentality).. I can indeed now start to think of doing a trial run.

 

I at the least owe doing so, to Rick & Sharpener (& firey welsh Nick.. when he's not on his period). But I aint having my rads on above 10*C overnight!! That is the only caveat! 
 

Ok? Thanks for your input. Zoot

[saveasteading]

13 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

That, is the nature, of your reply, right here

That's very unfair. 

Often we give our best opinion , hurried between other issues of our day. Sometimes this can seem blunt. Sometimes there are other opinions or we might be wrong.

And often we realise that only supporting responses are wanted.

So please be more positive and patient.

Bullying it is not.

 

[Dillsue]

41 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

It is a fact that they couldn't fit anything bigger, & a fact that a small rad, in an uninsulated room, will not be sufficient to heat it. The 2 rooms I frequent most.

A hole in a wall or an open window or door is uninsulated, everything else has an insulation value even if its low. That's physics.

 

Your stone walls likely have a better insulation value than early double glazed windows

[-rick-]

Oh boy. Lots going on while I was away, not sure where to start.

 

@zoothorn I'm glad you will considering moving the controller even temporarily. I know it sounds crazy to you but I think it's quite important for the thermostat to be in that cold room. It's possible this may lead to other rooms being hotter than you want but we can deal with this in other ways.

 

43 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

And I'd bet too, thst your house is made from a different stone than slate & mud mortar: my old folks cottage was sandstone, easily weathered on the outside, why? Because it's far softer. This stone type is far easier at retaining heat. Chalk & cheese, in fact chalk is close to what it was.

 

We've gone round in circles about how you think your place is uniquely cold including statements like the above. It just doesn't stand up. I've checked, Slate has a higher ability to store heat than sandstone (they are pretty close). Earth is even better.

 

You have a misunderstanding of how this works. It's a common misunderstanding but I feel that you've struggled with your house so long it's become almost a religious belief and you just can't believe it when people say you've misunderstood. I will try again below but even if you don't believe it then please don't let that belief stop you trying something different.

 

People coming to your house express how cold it is because you've let the building go cold. Your very thick walls are very big energy stores and the temperature of them will change slowly not fast. When you put heat into the room, you heat the air first, but the walls stay cold. It takes the room being warm continiously for a long period of time for the heat in the air to slowly transfer into to the stone. If you turn the heat off then the cold in the stone quickly cools the air making you feel as if the place is just always cold.

 

My whole goal of this conversation is to get you to try to warm the stone walls up. This will take a lot of time and energy, but once the stone is warm then the amount of energy use to maintain that state should be similar to the other uninsulated homes we've already discussed (more than you are paying now for sure). Once the stone is warm you will find that turning the heating off for a short period doesn't lead to the room quickly getting cold (if it does you have bad drafts that need fixing).

 

 

 

[saveasteading]

13 minutes ago, Dillsue said:

Your stone walls likely have a better insulation value

0.6 for a traditional 3 core wall with lime. In normal conditions: and perhaps the internal skins still need to dry out a bit.

[-rick-]

12 hours ago, sharpener said:

I have a barn conversion with thick stone uninsulated walls like yours. It is bigger than we need (except when we have guests) so we don't try and heat all of it all the time. The kitchen diner is heated by the AGA. The bedroom is heated first thing and last thing by the two rads, but the walls stay cold. The living room is heated by the two rads only from lunchtime until we go to bed. This is not conventional but works for us so I suggest you try it.

 

I'm not sure your experience can apply to Zoot too well. He has a 9kw heatpump that will work most efficiently with relatively cool radiators. A 30kw AGA pumping out heat to the radiators at 70C will have a much easier time heating the air quickly for short bursts than Zoots heatpump.

 

On the coldest days zoots heatpump might have to be working near flat out just to offset losses meaning no spare capacity to alter room temp. I very much hope that zoots property has better heat loss numbers than these worst case calcs suggest but without a more detailled information from zoot it's the best we've got.

[-rick-]

Just now, saveasteading said:

0.6 for a traditional 3 core wall with lime. In normal conditions: and perhaps the internal skins still need to dry out a bit.

 

That would be an excellent result. When I've done rough calcs to see if his heatpump could cope I've used a U value of 2 (1.71 was the worst case wall looked at in the Scottish study I used and I rounded up to be conservative). Even with a U value of 2 the heatpump should be capable (barely) of maintaining the space at a steady temp.

[Nickfromwales]

52 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

No Nick you don't. 
 

It is a fact that the 2 crap extension rooms (both attatched onto one slate stone end of the main old 4 walls comprising the sittingroom)........ have in each room, 1 small rad.

 

It is a fact that they couldn't fit anything bigger, & a fact that a small rad, in an uninsulated room, will not be sufficient to heat it. The 2 rooms I frequent most.

 

YOU have decent sized rads in -your- two most frequently used rooms. You say you have a stone house, but with your building knowledge, I'd be my bottom dollar you at the least have some insulation under your floors.
 

And I'd bet too, thst your house is made from a different stone than slate & mud mortar: my old folks cottage was sandstone, easily weathered on the outside, why? Because it's far softer. This stone type is far easier at retaining heat. Chalk & cheese, in fact chalk is close to what it was.

 

I bet too that you aren't next to a water course (my crap extention foundations are 5m away & 3m above a big gushing stream), which I think contributes cold ingress to the structure. I bet too your stone house isn't whacked down upon clay, metres away from this small river, too.

Again you point blank refuse to listen to a word I am saying.

 

You just described my house. Single brick uninsulated 2 storey extension that equalises with outdoor temp withing a few hours, on a hill with a stream running through the centre of the property, where after a week of zero rain it's still a full flowing thoroughfare. Single glazed windows in wooden frames for the two windows, but I have put new uPVC 2G everywhere else. 4 fire places with chimney stacks ventilated to the skys, etc.

 

Absorb this information. Accept it. These are facts, not the fiction you keep throwing in my face.

 

So.

 

1 hour ago, zoothorn said:

YOU have decent sized rads in -your- two most frequently used rooms. You say you have a stone house, but with your building knowledge, I'd be my bottom dollar you at the least have some insulation under your floors

 

AGAIN, you are trying to tell me what my house is made of. Stop doing so, it's quite insulting.

 

I have CLEARLY stated uninsulated, floors, walls, roof etc.

 

So you are wrong.

 

As far as my background, it's enough to allow me to execute a 100% refurb and extend, one day, when I'm not busy working my ass off 24/7/365 to provide for 6 people on one income. This is a turd that remains unpolished as tiny improvements are a waste of time (which I don't have) and money (which will be preserved for later when doing this properly). So my choice is to pay a bit more over winter, to heat this turd, but heat it I do. As soon as a bit of sun comes out the bill starts dropping, because the stone walls are actually on a par with a PH fabric as they are nearly half a metre thick.

 

The only "period" I am going to be on, is a sabbatical from this thread, as your level of disrespect is quickly becoming immeasurable.

 

Stop telling me something that you are guessing, and getting wrong, repeatedly.

 

[-rick-]

42 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

I at the least owe doing so, to Rick & Sharpener (& firey welsh Nick.. when he's not on his period). But I aint having my rads on above 10*C overnight!! That is the only caveat! 

 

I have no confidence we can get your place warm during the day if you let it cool down like this overnight. Frankly I think it's a waste of time to try and help if you are not willing to consider higher. It might be possible that this will work during the shoulder months (ie, now) but it won't work during the winter.

 

If you want to have 10C overnight then you would need to accept that the temp during the day won't be much higher.

 

If your concern is noise, then that can be dealt with separately. With my bedroom door closed I can't hear my boiler running 2 meters away, I'm sure it's possible to arrange that for you as well.

 

Even maintaining 10C overnight when its 0C outside will involve the heatpump working overnight. So setting 10C isn't a way of limiting noise. It's just a way of never being warm.

 

 

[Dillsue]

38 minutes ago, saveasteading said:

0.6 for a traditional 3 core wall with lime. In normal conditions: and perhaps the internal skins still need to dry out a bit.

That's way lower than I though but still meaningless to @zoothornas a numeric value.

[Dillsue]

1 hour ago, zoothorn said:

It reminds me of when I said my local climate-atmosphere was  strangley, unusually damp. No it isn't was the replies, put a humidity meter on, see? (So why is all my paper/ post for eg in it's perfectly dry letterbox limp & damp feeling? Why do my stoves get covered in rust, my metal wok does same in 2minutes flat, why did I have a physical pain/ ache for first 2 months here? Why the abundance of green mould?

All those damp issues will almost certainly be due to you not heating the place adequately. When you breath, wash or the plants in your avatar respire, moisture goes into the air. If the surfaces in your house are cold the moisture will condense as water and you'll get all the issues you mention. Again that's physics.

 

All of those issues will cost you so that cost needs to be set against the cost of paying extra to heat the house.

[Nickfromwales]

6 minutes ago, Dillsue said:

All those damp issues will almost certainly be due to you not heating the place adequately.

Why did you say "almost certainly"......  

 

8 minutes ago, Dillsue said:

All of those issues will cost you so that cost needs to be set against the cost of paying extra to heat the house.

Living this way will shorten a persons life. 

[zoothorn]

46 minutes ago, Dillsue said:

All those damp issues will almost certainly be due to you not heating the place adequately. When you breath, wash or the plants in your avatar respire, moisture goes into the air. If the surfaces in your house are cold the moisture will condense as water and you'll get all the issues you mention. Again that's physics.

 

All of those issues will cost you so that cost needs to be set against the cost of paying extra to heat the house.

Dillsue. I mentioned the local atmosphere. I specifically didn't  mention the air within my dwelling. I made absolutely sure to distinguish between..

 

..but STILL an assumption is made. That I am talking about the air within the house. No. I am talking about an aspect many know around here. I used the word locale. The words local atmosphere. All lost, to assumptions.

 

What is effectively being said by yourself here, is that once I warm my house up, the US mail aluminium postbox ((those tight fitting door ones, without any water ingress, or I would get a consistent patch on m6 envelopes- no- no rainwater, whatsoever, is getting into it, or I'd know having had it 9 years where it is)).. what your saying, is once I heat my house, the letters in this postbox -located on a timber post, outside, my front door- will then be normal-dry. Will be crisp & normal. Won't have the saggy limp 'damp' feeling to them, as they do.

 

As you can appreciate this is absurd. I was talking about a local aspect, one to which a very competent house-renovator said (who looked intelligent dare I say the retired lecturer type), who said, of this strange damp atmosphere.. & his word.. "microclimate".

 

Why I include this phenomenon, aspect, whatever the hell it is, is because I know there is a causal LINK between IT & the near impossibility of heating stone cottages, in this locale.

 

When Bear Grylls hauls his needy ex-celeb out of yet another watercourse, the 1st thing he says/ dies, is "take off your wet clothes". Because there is a causal link between wet, & cold.

 

What I am suggesting here, is the same. That the air, is unusually damp. It is not in debate. It just is. Here. In this locale (IE in the local area). Unless I have 5x dehumidifiers on full pelt all through the cottage 8 months of the year, and THEN THEN THEN put the HP on as is suggested... it will .. not.. work.. here. I promise you this to be true.

 

I cannot nor is it practical to run 5x dehumidifiers on here near permanently, to dry the air, to THEN make the environment right for -any- CH system become useable. This is what I'm saying, constantly, but here in more detail. This is what I'm up against. 

 

The pain/ awful debilitating ache I had to get used to over 2 months, physiologically, had zero to do, specifically, with my cottage as a source of it, that you assume. No. It had everything to do with the local area air. You can say bllx all you want. But that is the truth. 
 

A more detailed reasoning, for my firm knowledge, of why it is so unusually hard, to heat cottages of this nature, around my vicinity. I told about a friend over the hill, same grumble. Others we all grumble about it, just a caveat of 'living in paradise' as it often looks to be around here etc. I told of a lecturer looking chap (he was obviously intelligent from the chats we have) using the word that -I- also have used before, "microclimate". It is not bllx. I am therefore suggesting, that it massively affects how any CH system, can perform, in my cottage. Of a permanent reason why it's so impossible here.

 

Zoot

Edited 2 hours ago by zoothorn

[-rick-]

10 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

Why I include this phenomenon, aspect, whatever the hell it is, is because I know there is a causal LINK between IT & the near impossibility of heating stone cottages, in this locale.

 

This is bollocks.

 

Here are some cold hard numbers.

 

Maximum possible humidity is 100%.

 

Assume your outside air is saturated (100% humidity). Assume its 10C outside.

 

If you heat your indoor space to 20C the air, holding exactly the same amount of moisture will be at 50% humidity, which is perfectly fine for an indoor climate.

 

No dehumidifiers needed, just heating the house to 20C vs the outside air of 10C. If the outside air is 0C then you only need to heat to 10C to get the humidity down to 50%.

 

This all assumes you aren't introducing more humidity into the air (which of course we all do as living beings) but the point stands. To solve humidity issues in a house, warm it up.

[JohnMo]

3 minutes ago, -rick- said:

This is bollocks.

Yep. We had rain for nearly month, mostly at or near 100% humidity, (in fact the year we have high humidity outside) house stays at 40% humidity, not by magic, because its heated. 

[zoothorn]

1 minute ago, -rick- said:

 

This is bollocks.

 

Here are some cold hard numbers.

 

Maximum possible humidity is 100%.

 

Assume your outside air is saturated (100% humidity). Assume its 10C outside.

 

If you heat your indoor space to 20C the air, holding exactly the same amount of moisture will be at 50% humidity, which is perfectly fine for an indoor climate.

 

No dehumidifiers needed, just heating the house to 20C vs the outside air of 10C. If the outside air is 0C then you only need to heat to 10C to get the humidity down to 50%.

 

This all assumes you aren't introducing more humidity into the air (which of course we all do as living beings) but the point stands. To solve humidity issues in a house, warm it up.

Rick,

 

it is not bollocks. Assumptions, are the only thing that is bollocks, frankly.

One thing that you cannot avoid, is opening the front door. This introduces the damp air I talk about. You cannot say that is bollocks. Furthermore, it is strongly suggested, to ventilate rooms alot. Especially so, ironically to me it seems, in wetter areas. Imagine a holiday cottage, out in a heavily wooded steeply hilly locale: this example, the home owner woukd be almost press ganged into ventilating regularly.

 

Here, the homeowner is in a Catch22. He has a holiday cottage innevitably the door opening-closing many times a day, & he ventilates the windows. He by nature, introduces the very damp air, in big quantities. He cannot avoid it. 
 

This is me. This is identical to me. I do ventilate regularly, & nop in-out the door to my workshop countless times a day, but by the same token, know I'm introducing the very air which dehumidifiers expend huge energy, to dry. It is an absurd, infuriating situation. But one we (not just me- we all know this phenomenon as a fact of living here) know we cannot avoid. Because we live in this locale. This vicinity. This local area. Put a huge great Simpsons dome over the vicinity, dehumidify the air, then...... we have YOUR vicinity. Then our CH systems work normally. Then my clothes never always feel wet putting them on (always- even summer this never chsnges). My clothes armpits don't rot away in some bizarre turbo'd way Ive never, ever known before in my life. Then when I have a hottie on it wouldn't leave sone weird wet sweat patch on my clothes when I take it away. I could go on with eg after eg till the cows come home. Then our post is nice & crisp (this is the clearest example, simplest to explain). Like you just -expect- yours to be. 
 

We just contend with it. And I know whatever anyone on here says, that it is a MAIN cause of WHY it is so difficult to just feel 'normally dry' here, let alone warm the air which inevitably comes, in, from outside! 

 

That is not bollocks, that is absolute fact.

 

[-rick-]

54 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

it is not bollocks. Assumptions, are the only thing that is bollocks, frankly.

 

What I explained is proven science. If your idea of how something works doesn't match well established science then either you've made a major discovery and are in line for a Nobel Prize or you are wrong.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humidity

 

 

54 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

One thing that you cannot avoid, is opening the front door. This introduces the damp air I talk about. You cannot say that is bollocks. Furthermore, it is strongly suggested, to ventilate rooms alot. Especially so, ironically to me it seems, in wetter areas. Imagine a holiday cottage, out in a heavily wooded steeply hilly locale: this example, the home owner woukd be almost press ganged into ventilating regularly.

 

And? In winter the outside air may have a relative humidity of 100%, ie, it can't go higher. The amount of moisture in inside air assuming you warm the building is almost always higher than the amount of moisture in cold outside air (because humans breath). If your building is at 20C and you open the door, let in a load of cold, moist, air and then close the door you most likely you will either keep the internal moisture level the same or LOWER it. You will also lower the temperature, but if the building fabric is up to temperature (as I am suggesting) then this temperature will return to the previous one very quickly.

 

1 hour ago, zoothorn said:

Here, the homeowner is in a Catch22. He has a holiday cottage innevitably the door opening-closing many times a day, & he ventilates the windows. He by nature, introduces the very damp air, in big quantities. He cannot avoid it. 

 

This is not how it works, the amount of moisture in cold outside air will not introduce moisture, if anything the opposite. You misunderstand humidity.

 

54 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

This is me. This is identical to me. I do ventilate regularly, & nop in-out the door to my workshop countless times a day, but by the same token, know I'm introducing the very air which dehumidifiers expend huge energy, to dry.

 

No. Dehumidifers are generally there (in the UK) to remove moisture introduced by human activities. Washing, breathing, etc.

 

In countries where the outside air is hot and humid and they use internal air conditioning to cool the temperature your description would be right but not in cold UK.

 

54 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

It is an absurd, infuriating situation. But one we (not just me- we all know this phenomenon as a fact of living here) know we cannot avoid. Because we live in this locale. This vicinity. This local area. Put a huge great Simpsons dome over the vicinity, dehumidify the air, then...... we have YOUR vicinity.

 

If your microclimate has 100% humidity during the winter that isn't significantly different to my climate in london where its about 80% humidity in winter. My inside humidity is 45% even though the outside humidity is 80%. How? I heat my place. I don't have a dehumidifer.

 

54 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

We just contend with it. And I know whatever anyone on here says, that it is a MAIN cause of WHY it is so difficult to just feel 'normally dry' here, let alone warm the air which inevitably comes, in, from outside! 

 

If you have a warm house you will feel dry*, the warmth 'dries' the air (the amount of moisture in the air stays the same, its the relative humidity that changes).

 

* Assuming you open the windows regularly to blow away any moisture from breathing/washing/etc or have mechanical ventilation.

 

54 minutes ago, zoothorn said:

That is not bollocks, that is absolute fact.

 

It's a complete misunderstanding of how things work. It may feel comforting to have the excuse as to why you are cold but that's all it is, a story you tell yourself. I understand this is difficult, especially when others around you say the same thing, but this is the thing with stuff like this the comman man in the street understanding of the way the world works is often wrong.

 

Our modern world wouldn't exist without the scientific understanding of how humidity, heat transfer, etc, works. People cleverer than us have figured this out decades/centuries ago.