A lot of cars have heated seats. When the seat heater is on, most drivers will set the interior temperature 3-7 degrees lower than with the seat heater off. Why not apply the same technology to houses?<\/p>\n
Imagine being at home in a 65-degree house. Even in a T-shirt and jeans, it would probably be comfortable to walk around, stir a pot on the stove, carry laundry, scrub and clean, walk on a treadmill while typing on a computer (as I’m doing now!). However, if one were to sit down and read a book, it would begin to seem cold. Why not install heat in all of the seats and beds of the house? And sensors to turn the heat on and off automatically? In a lot of ways, this would be more comfortable than a current house because the air temperature would be set for actively moving around while the seat temperature would be set for sedentary activities.<\/p>\n
The cost? Let’s say $50 per seat or single bed. Assume that a typical house has 6 rooms, each of which has an average of 6 seats or beds. Round up to 40 and multiple by $50 and we’ve added $2000 to the capital cost of the house. \u00a0If an average house costs $2000 per year to heat and lowering the thermostat by 5 degrees cuts the cost by 15 percent, it will take roughly 7 years to pay back our investment (assuming nominal cost of electricity). Maybe not the most dramatic way to cut down on our burning of fossil fuels, but it is one that would increase our comfort level rather than reducing it.<\/p>\n
What am I missing?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A lot of cars have heated seats. When the seat heater is on, most drivers will set the interior temperature 3-7 degrees lower than with the seat heater […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n