Reading (For Dummies)

Heating

Yesterday, while in the shower, an idea came to me. We will call this moment, the epiphone. When I stepped out of the bathroom, Henry had the same idea.

You see, our apartment has electric heat. Electric heat is expensive. Our apartment also has, courtesy of the apartment company, free hot water. As much hot water as we can use, ours for the taking. The hot water heater is powered by natural gas.

Keeping in mind that water, pure, precious water, has a specific heat of about 1 joule per gram per degree celsius (that is, it takes 1 joule to heat 1 gram of water by 1 degree C), and that air has a specific heat of just .25, the geeks engaged in some hot (quite literally) watersports.

How many kilograms of water in a bathtub?

For now, we just have a rudimentary tub-filling and fan-blowing system, which steams the upstairs, and also makes it quite toasty. Future plans (ie after winter break) are to engineer a heating pipe with radiator that takes water from the tub's spicket, pumps through the hallway upstairs, and empties it back into either the sink or the tub drain.

This apartment is about to get so A-Team...