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Comment by tw98521358 | Hacker News Reader

Seems like it would be the last thing I’d burn for warmth…

Then I guess you know how desperate they are.

Depends on how much they have. Bulk used clothes can be had for incredibly cheap, to the point where it can be cheaper than wood. And after decades of people building up old worn out clothes you will have a lot of relatively worthless cloth material. There are places in the world where burning clothes isn't uncommon at all because they receive so much clothing waste from the rest of the world attempting and failing to not throw them into landfills.

Sadly it’s increasingly polyester/nylon/spandex and such. Cotton would be pretty clean to burn, but would burn very quickly.

There's only so many you can put on at once, and they're one of the cheaper things people own these days.

You can still use them for insulation.. I doubt polyester or cotton would burn very long.

Don’t need them to burn for very long, cotton should have roughly the same energy density as wood by weight. Burning bags of cold clothes that don’t fit isn’t that bad of an idea.

Negative teens is brutal, even a well insulated house loses a lot of heat if you want it comfortable but there’s a big range between uncomfortable and dead. -15f to 30f is the same difference as 30f and 75f.

> same energy density as wood by weight

which means they'll provide a few minutes of heat at best. You'd be better off using them as blankets or letting some water freeze them into scoop shapes and turning them into makeshift shovels.

They also aren't going to burn nearly as cleanly as wood, meaning the burn will be far less efficient.

Depending on the size of area that you're heating, getting from -15 to 30F will take at least a solid hour of burning cleanly.

It isn’t going to be clean burning, but the clothes are presumably bone dry which helps.

Really though it’s not about how good an energy source this is, but just how much old junk people have. I have seen people toss several hundred pounds of old clothes that don’t have any real value. It’s the same with old books they don’t burn that well but when you have a half a ton you might as well burn em vs toss them in a landfill.

If they had several hundred pounds of old clothes they can build a gigantic pillow fort and huddle together in the middle with a candle. This would be better than burning the clothes, as I assume they have enough food.

A pillow fort doesn’t keep liquids above freezing so you have something to drink.

Insulation doesn't provide warmth, it only reduces the rate of heat loss. If it's already so cold you are looking for things in your home to burn for heat, using clothes to insulate it (rather than burn them) isn't going to help.

But that's not the point, the dire situation with little support is the point.

You don't insulate the house; you insulate your body. If you're at the point of burning clothes to heat the house, heating the house is already a lost cause unless you have a lot of clothes.

But they would burn terribly, clog your chimney, and are more effective when worn.

It just seems to me that they would be more effective if worn. Even if they don't fit, cut them up and stitch up gloves and cover-ups.

I’m not asking this to be condescending, but have you ever felt cold?

My hands lose all dexterity entirely in winter. With sufficiently cold weather my hands are either cold, stiff, and in pain, or I’m wearing gloves that are too bulky to be useful for anything other than crudely gripping large objects or swatting things away. These people are experiencing cold beyond what I’ve ever experienced, so I can’t even begin to imagine how much worse it is.

If people are burning things for warmth, they are absolutely not going to be holding a needle.

well the article cites -20 I assume based on area F so ~ -7C

...really -7C is cold beyond what you ever experienced ? It's not too bad. I'd imagine the main problem is if those temperatures are rare just nobody have proper clothes to handle it

-20 F is -29.6C

-20 C is ~ -7F

No, what I did is 20F to ~ -7C

I hate that fucking stupid unit

But yeah, that's "my face hurt being outside" kind of bad ;/

Yeah, i had to burn furniture once in a slightly similar freeze situation.

In a survival situation, do what you have to do. That being said, I suspect you really do not want to be next to a modern-furniture fire. Almost certainly full of the worst glues, insecticides, anti-flammables (ha), etc.

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