{"id":29379,"date":"2020-12-06T12:10:55","date_gmt":"2020-12-06T17:10:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/?p=29379"},"modified":"2020-11-29T20:28:30","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T01:28:30","slug":"why-not-heated-furniture-to-fight-coronaplague","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philip.greenspun.com\/blog\/2020\/12\/06\/why-not-heated-furniture-to-fight-coronaplague\/","title":{"rendered":"Why not heated furniture to fight coronaplague?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In their righteous muscular efforts to “control” coronavirus, some state governors and city mayors have ordered restaurants shut down, except for outdoor dining. In response, restaurants have built four-sided tents filled with CO2-emitting propane heaters. It is unclear why this is different from being indoors, other than the lack of a real HVAC system. The tent sides are necessary, though, because otherwise the propane heat will blow away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why not heat the customers instead of the air?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in 2010, I wrote Heated Furniture to Save Energy?<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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>

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\u2019m 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><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There is a fine line between brilliant and stupid, of course, but could it be that coronaplague has pushed this idea over the line?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Dutch company, sit & heat<\/a>, seems to have thought of this: heated cushions that can fit into a standard frame. Serta makes a chair-shaped electric quilt<\/a> (could not survive outdoors) for only $64. A plastic chair with a built-in 750-watt heater is $900 (Galanter & Jones<\/a>; they have sofas too at roughly $6,000 and claim they are “cast stone”).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If heated chairs were mass-produced in Asia, presumably the cost per chair would be only about $100 more than a regular outdoor chair. That should be affordable for a restaurant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Related:<\/p>\n\n\n\n