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Comment by gruez | Hacker News Reader

That's addressed in the sentence immediately following that quote

>Heating/cooling office buildings might be more efficient than everyone doing this to their homes.

Heating and cooling office buildings AND heating and cooling homes is less efficient than just heating and cooling homes. Many people aren't stopping heating/cooling their homes when they leave, or just reduce it, or don't do it at all since there are still other people in the home.

It's almost as if the drive to end fossil fuel use and build vast mixed-use Arcologies at the end of the 70's were good ideas that conservative politicians overturned and here we are in the hell they made for us, trying to fend off their rabid supporters.

Conservative politicians ended those in urban areas, which largely votes liberal? Is this US conservative or world-wide? Because the meaning of conservative varies.

IDK about you, but in temperate middle Europe if you don't heat your house at least some when it's empty, Oct-Apr, you are going to spend way more to get it at 19-20°C when you come back. Not to mention the pipes risk exploding if you let it go close 0°.

That's incorrect. It will always cost more to maintain a temperature while away than to heat/cool when you aren't. The area under the curve of temperature difference vs. energy use is what you're optimizing for, and that curve has a higher slope when the temperature difference is high.

It's not that simple. If all of society turns all of it's home heating to max at 5pm to prepare for a 6pm arrival, we'll need to overinvest in either generating capacity or storage.

Not to mention the fact that houses aren't completely empty when the adults aren't there. Kids, pets, plants, and last but not least, pipes with water in them. All of these will die horribly in cold temperatures.

Afraid that with 30 or so years experience of heating my home, evidence contradicts you

You can't just point to an efficiency number without considering the entire system. A gasoline engine has a higher efficiency than petrol on Liter per 100km metric, does it mean it is preferred?

- What if they are two adults working from the same home vs two different office spaces. - What if you have kids or taking care of elderly at your home. They don't need heat? - What about the quality and amount of food consumed? Would restaurant/sandwich shop near your office have the same preferences for your vegetables? (e.g. not imported from the other side of world, organic, fair-trade?)

people cool and heat their homes when they go home though.

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