For some reason this map fascinates me. I know about bird migrations, but the distances shown here are enormous. Can't imagine a bird being able to fly that much.
Migration Paths
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Migration Paths
For some reason this map fascinates me. I know about bird migrations, but the distances shown here are enormous. Can't imagine a bird being able to fly that much.
Re: Migration Paths
It really is amazing isn't it!
I had a few charts here for hummingbirds, towhees, and a few others that visit our area.
The little hummers have always been one of my interests.
I had a few charts here for hummingbirds, towhees, and a few others that visit our area.
The little hummers have always been one of my interests.
Re: Migration Paths
I know some snowbirds who migrate from the Great White North down to Florida about the same time that the birds of a different feather do it. I never did see the sense of a dual residency, which is why we ended up in Missouri. Sort of a compromise.
Re: Migration Paths
One of my cousins houses was under the path of some geese, don't know what kind, but they sure dotted his roof and cars every migration season. He swore they timed it so they were over his house to let loose, hi hi.
On a side note: There was a small shallow pond not far from his back yard, still on his property.
It went totally dry one year, and he had a guy with a backhoe come out and dig that pond back out again, about twice the size it was before and over 10 feet deep in the center.
Actually, they way he had it dug, there was like a 10 foot hole in center, but closer to the back edge, then an 8 foot deep ring around that, thicker toward the front, then a 4 foot crescent at the very front of the pond.
While it was empty, he built a wooden dock from dry land out across the 4 foot deep area, with a wider deck at the end over the 8 foot deep water.
He only put a few catfish he caught from the river in the pond. Never had it stocked.
But within only a couple of years, that pond had sunfish, and other fish in it.
He figured they came from the geese flying overhead a couple of times a year.
He did put several catfish in there, and it wasn't long before he had hundreds of little ones in there.
Probably because he fed them well, hi hi.
And talk about frogs, he thought they were going to take over for a while there.
And where did the crawfish come from, I thought they needed flowing water, like a river?
We would go to his place quite often with some minnow traps to catch some small shiners to use as bait in the river.
Also sat on his dock a few times and hauled in a catfish or two.
The good old days when we had time to just sit around and lounge about doing nothing!
On a side note: There was a small shallow pond not far from his back yard, still on his property.
It went totally dry one year, and he had a guy with a backhoe come out and dig that pond back out again, about twice the size it was before and over 10 feet deep in the center.
Actually, they way he had it dug, there was like a 10 foot hole in center, but closer to the back edge, then an 8 foot deep ring around that, thicker toward the front, then a 4 foot crescent at the very front of the pond.
While it was empty, he built a wooden dock from dry land out across the 4 foot deep area, with a wider deck at the end over the 8 foot deep water.
He only put a few catfish he caught from the river in the pond. Never had it stocked.
But within only a couple of years, that pond had sunfish, and other fish in it.
He figured they came from the geese flying overhead a couple of times a year.
He did put several catfish in there, and it wasn't long before he had hundreds of little ones in there.
Probably because he fed them well, hi hi.
And talk about frogs, he thought they were going to take over for a while there.
And where did the crawfish come from, I thought they needed flowing water, like a river?
We would go to his place quite often with some minnow traps to catch some small shiners to use as bait in the river.
Also sat on his dock a few times and hauled in a catfish or two.
The good old days when we had time to just sit around and lounge about doing nothing!
Re: Migration Paths
That's the most interesting fish story I've heard in a long time. While I am an advocate of evolution theory, I have some serous doubts that some of the catfish evolved into sunfish. I am inclined to go with the thought that the bird guano left on the property contained some fish roe. Same for the crayfish. It's amazing how nature provides unique ways to propagate. The crabgrass in my lawn is living proof of that. 
Re: Migration Paths
I like crabgrass, it is the most durable grass ever invented. You can drive on it without harm, critters can water it without harm, you can try to kill it with weed killers and it still bounces right back.
And it is green, so when mowed, looks like a lawn, hi hi.
I never said the other fish came from the catfish. All I said was it was the only kind of fish he put in there himself.
All the rest came probably from the geese and ducks flying overhead and doing their every 15 minute business.
And it is green, so when mowed, looks like a lawn, hi hi.
I never said the other fish came from the catfish. All I said was it was the only kind of fish he put in there himself.
All the rest came probably from the geese and ducks flying overhead and doing their every 15 minute business.
Re: Migration Paths
I'm with you regarding crabgrass. It seems like a natural thing to be growing in this Missouri clay. It looks a little ratty and unkempt, but I personally can deal with that. In fact the HOA never specified what kind of grass I need to be growing on my lawn. I'm guessing crabgrass would do just fine if it wasn't for the neighbors who seem to have a huge aversion to crabgrass. If my 6800 square foot lawn was nothing but crabgrass, neighbors for miles around would be affected. That stuff is really hard to stop ... but not impossible 
I also have a favorite cure for dandelions, but there are rules about keeping farm animals in this subdivision.
I also have a favorite cure for dandelions, but there are rules about keeping farm animals in this subdivision.
Re: Migration Paths
Dad liked Kentucky Blue Grass in his yard, while I went with things like Perennial Rye for my yard.
Dad would mix annual Rye with his Blue Grass seed to give it shade while it grew, but annual Rye didn't come back.
In one of my houses, I had what was called Bent Grass, very hard to take care of. I knew I would not be in that house for long so didn't do much to the yard. I only took a year lease while away at school, but we could break the lease after 8 months if we wanted to forfeit our deposit, which was only like 250 bucks, so no big deal. You normally don't get a deposit back anyhow. He had no trouble renting to the next student who came along because his prices were fair, compared to others in the same area.
Had a neighbor at my last house who planted Zoysia. His lawn was always the last to turn green in the summer, and the first to turn brown in the winter. It looked great though. But to keep it looking great, he had to take small 3/4 inch plugs from it every year, which he would bundle into 4 inch diameter bands and resell those plugs that way for like 2 bucks each.
Dad would mix annual Rye with his Blue Grass seed to give it shade while it grew, but annual Rye didn't come back.
In one of my houses, I had what was called Bent Grass, very hard to take care of. I knew I would not be in that house for long so didn't do much to the yard. I only took a year lease while away at school, but we could break the lease after 8 months if we wanted to forfeit our deposit, which was only like 250 bucks, so no big deal. You normally don't get a deposit back anyhow. He had no trouble renting to the next student who came along because his prices were fair, compared to others in the same area.
Had a neighbor at my last house who planted Zoysia. His lawn was always the last to turn green in the summer, and the first to turn brown in the winter. It looked great though. But to keep it looking great, he had to take small 3/4 inch plugs from it every year, which he would bundle into 4 inch diameter bands and resell those plugs that way for like 2 bucks each.
Re: Migration Paths
The grass de jour in my neighborhood seems to be fescue. Apparently it's drought tolerant and grows well in poor soil. I'll admit that it does look great in spring and in fall when the weather is on the cool side. The summer heat turns it brown, but that's only its dormant state. The lawn mixes tend to have fescue and rye in abundance. The rye is easy to start and looks great in the short run, which is fine giving the fescue a chance to establish itself. Up north I had creeping fescue and liked it a lot. Saved me a lot of over seeding. And that is the problem I have with the sod here. There are bare spots. Whatever kind of fescue is in the sod grows like the Zoysia grass, in bunches. I tried growing Kentucky Blue up north on a small patch of lawn that received less than full sun. It was beautiful looking and didn't need much cutting given that it kind of laid down and was short bladed. Cutting it was an art because it was easy to injure or kill if it was cut too short. It also had a tendency to not like August sun.
Re: Migration Paths
One thing I learned right away when I moved south, was that 3pm sun can not only kill grass, but it can melt those little plastic mini blinds. Some brands will actually turn jet black as they self-destruct.
The frau did not like the fact I covered up a west facing bedroom window with drywall on the inside, and plywood and siding on the outside. We have another west facing window in the kitchen, and I placed a thermometer transmitter between the storm window and the regular window. The highest it could read was 140 and it shot up to that every day, then in the middle of summer, the case of the thermometer transmitter melted and curled up. Yes it quit working.
I had this window replaced with a special Thermopane window which contained 4 times more UV blocking gas than a normal Thermopane window. Although it still lets all the light in it used to, you feel no heat from the sun, and plants set on the window ledge do not burn, but grow rather well.
Only as an experiment I placed the same brand of mini-blinds that turn black inside this window for a whole year. It never turned black nor sagged. So that gas made a big difference. Wish I could have done it to my glass back door which also faces west. The heat coming through that glass, if we don't pull the shade down, makes the floor tiles shrink and curl up at the edges.
Sun can be a wicked thing! Can also be used for good things too, like powering up solar cells, hi hi.
The frau did not like the fact I covered up a west facing bedroom window with drywall on the inside, and plywood and siding on the outside. We have another west facing window in the kitchen, and I placed a thermometer transmitter between the storm window and the regular window. The highest it could read was 140 and it shot up to that every day, then in the middle of summer, the case of the thermometer transmitter melted and curled up. Yes it quit working.
I had this window replaced with a special Thermopane window which contained 4 times more UV blocking gas than a normal Thermopane window. Although it still lets all the light in it used to, you feel no heat from the sun, and plants set on the window ledge do not burn, but grow rather well.
Only as an experiment I placed the same brand of mini-blinds that turn black inside this window for a whole year. It never turned black nor sagged. So that gas made a big difference. Wish I could have done it to my glass back door which also faces west. The heat coming through that glass, if we don't pull the shade down, makes the floor tiles shrink and curl up at the edges.
Sun can be a wicked thing! Can also be used for good things too, like powering up solar cells, hi hi.
Re: Migration Paths
I'm slightly surprised your plants did well when deprived of UV radiation from the sun. They grow because of photosynthesis and I always figured UV light was a critical part of the process. I also have to think about the effects of UV and heat. My understanding is that the infra-red part of the spectrum is responsible for the heat. The UV will french fry your skin but you won't feel it in the process. If the IR gets intense, you will know it right away.
We only moved 300 miles south from where we started but the intensity of the sun's light here is significantly greater. They say the angle of the light is responsible for that. Up north the curvature of the earth deflects a lot of the sun's light. Not so much here, and even less where you are living. It's not hard to understand why people living near the equator have dark skin.
We only moved 300 miles south from where we started but the intensity of the sun's light here is significantly greater. They say the angle of the light is responsible for that. Up north the curvature of the earth deflects a lot of the sun's light. Not so much here, and even less where you are living. It's not hard to understand why people living near the equator have dark skin.
Re: Migration Paths
When I attended school up in Canada, although it was much colder than Saint Louis, a temperature 10 degrees below what I was used to wasn't noticed all that much. They said it had to do with the humidity, which could partially be some of it, but I don't really think that's the answer.
Now that you brought up the angle of the sun, I'm thinking perhaps this might be a clue.
Back home we would put on a coat if the temp was down around 55. Up there, it had to get down to around 45 before you really needed a coat. Strange.
I do know we get used to being in a certain temperature range, and our bodies sorta adjust to it, but I wasn't there long enough for my body to have become accustomed to the cold.
Ironically, I went straight from Canada to Florida for a job, and the temp there was really hot, yet I felt comfortable after the first day.
On a different note: Some of our greenhouses where we started cuttings had a special glass on the roofs. It was still clear, but didn't allow heat through it very much, so it wouldn't burn the new cuttings. I don't think it was any type of UV glass, but may have blocked some of the UV. Seems like the glass for those four greenhouses came from a ceramics company rather than a glass company. But I could be wrong. I just knew those four greenhouses you wouldn't burn up in, even though they never had white shading compound on them, hi hi.
Now that you brought up the angle of the sun, I'm thinking perhaps this might be a clue.
Back home we would put on a coat if the temp was down around 55. Up there, it had to get down to around 45 before you really needed a coat. Strange.
I do know we get used to being in a certain temperature range, and our bodies sorta adjust to it, but I wasn't there long enough for my body to have become accustomed to the cold.
Ironically, I went straight from Canada to Florida for a job, and the temp there was really hot, yet I felt comfortable after the first day.
On a different note: Some of our greenhouses where we started cuttings had a special glass on the roofs. It was still clear, but didn't allow heat through it very much, so it wouldn't burn the new cuttings. I don't think it was any type of UV glass, but may have blocked some of the UV. Seems like the glass for those four greenhouses came from a ceramics company rather than a glass company. But I could be wrong. I just knew those four greenhouses you wouldn't burn up in, even though they never had white shading compound on them, hi hi.
Re: Migration Paths
This talk about feeling comfortable in a given temperature range brings up my pet peeve regarding media weather presenters. We all know what it means when the temperature is 55F, but what the hell is the "feels like" temperature? Then there is "wind chill" temperature and "heat index" temperature. None of them are the same as the true temperature measured on a thermometer. They justify all this mumbo jumbo by saying they take into account various factors such as humidity and wind and the gods only know what else. That might all mean something to the average person with average skin and a normal nervous system. But who has all that? LOL
I will say, however, that humidity is critical. We run a humidifier during the winter months to keep it at around 45-50%. That is comfortable for most human beings in a 74F room. When we walk into the house from the bone dry frigid winter air, we can feel the warmth, which is actually the moisture from the humidifier. During the summer the A/C unit works hard and removes most of the moisture from the air. The relative humidity drops to 35-40% indoors and I feel cold walking into the same 74F room from the hot an humid outside. I can only conclude that the amount of moisture in the air does indeed have an effect on how comfortable we feel at a given temperature.
I will say, however, that humidity is critical. We run a humidifier during the winter months to keep it at around 45-50%. That is comfortable for most human beings in a 74F room. When we walk into the house from the bone dry frigid winter air, we can feel the warmth, which is actually the moisture from the humidifier. During the summer the A/C unit works hard and removes most of the moisture from the air. The relative humidity drops to 35-40% indoors and I feel cold walking into the same 74F room from the hot an humid outside. I can only conclude that the amount of moisture in the air does indeed have an effect on how comfortable we feel at a given temperature.
Re: Migration Paths
In a way, you just answered your own question Yogi! EVAPORATION vs WIND and Humidity.
Evaporation causes a cooling affect. Any creature that sweats through pores in its skin is affected by evaporation rates.
If you are hot and sweaty and stand in front of a fan, you will cool down.
If you are freezing your ketuckus off because it is cold, you still have moisture on your skin, so if the wind is blowing, you will cool down even more.
Wind Chill is measured with a wet bulb thermometer to produce the same cooling affect of evaporation to get a reading.
The Heat Index has to do with Humidity in the air. Just like adding a humidifier to your furnace helps the air in your house hold the heat better, what you are doing is creating your own little heat index inside your house.
Both humidity and evaporation play a huge role in how comfortable or uncomfortable we are at a given temperature.
Evaporation causes a cooling affect. Any creature that sweats through pores in its skin is affected by evaporation rates.
If you are hot and sweaty and stand in front of a fan, you will cool down.
If you are freezing your ketuckus off because it is cold, you still have moisture on your skin, so if the wind is blowing, you will cool down even more.
Wind Chill is measured with a wet bulb thermometer to produce the same cooling affect of evaporation to get a reading.
The Heat Index has to do with Humidity in the air. Just like adding a humidifier to your furnace helps the air in your house hold the heat better, what you are doing is creating your own little heat index inside your house.
Both humidity and evaporation play a huge role in how comfortable or uncomfortable we are at a given temperature.
Re: Migration Paths
I'll go with the fact that the total atmospheric condition contributes to what makes a person comfortable. I have some serious reservations about assuming all humans sweat at the same rate or that the moisture in the air will evaporate off one's skin at the same rate for everybody. Nobody can say with certainty that 70F "feels like" 67F ... I might feel like 66 and you might feel like 68 and I dare either one of us to state the exact temperature not having a thermometer in hand. It's all smoke and mirrors as far as I'm concerned.
Re: Migration Paths
Man O Man do I agree with you on that!
It's a good thing I spend my days in my detached garage office where I can control the temp to some extent anyhow.
The temperature in here varies a lot in different areas of the room, but the two places I'm most concerned about is where I sit, now that area has to be comfortable.
The winter is really strange, because down at my feet the temp might me 66 while at my shoulders 77, but where my hands are on the keyboard it is 74.
Right now this exact minute, dig these readings: All from thermal sensor transmitters.
Above the bank of computers, and this is with the AC set at 74 blowing over them to reach me at my desk, 96.
Between the bank of computers and my desk, in front of my desk, 82.
One foot to the right of my right shoulder, at shoulder height, 78.
On the left side of my keyboard drawer 74.
Down at my feet 80, why I don't know, its usually colder down there. And the heater wedge is not on.
I've moved sensors around a few times, but still get the same reading, so it's not the sensors acting up.
I also have a piece of cardboard over one of the AC outlets so it blows down onto the tops of the computers.
Without it, the temp over the computers often hits 100 degrees, summer or winter, don't matter.
Logically one would think the fan from the AC would blow the heat right into my face, but it doesn't. Probably because the other vent blows across the top then curls down the wall behind my back.
Now down at the house, we have a major balancing problem with the room temps.
With the thermostat set on 74, and the only cold air return under it in the hallway.
If we close the bedroom door, it drops down to 68 in there, open the door and it goes up to 76.
Same with the TV room/Den, it will drop down to 66 if we close the door, but never gets warmer than 72.
I've fiddled with the control handles on the ductwork under the floor that feeds the registers, with all the registers open, and marked the summer and winter settings to have a balanced house with all rooms the same temp, with the doors open.
What I miss most about my home in St. Louis was a cold air return in every single room, sometimes more than one. They were in the floor under every window. The outlet vents for each room was usually opposite the window, up near the ceiling. If we set our thermostat on 74, every room in the house would be 74, whether the doors were open or closed. Didn't have to make changes for summer or winter either.
Plus besides the normal furnace filters, we had an electrostatic filter we had to turn off and wipe off the plates about once every three months. Oh, Our AC system was separate from the Furnace, although it still used the same ductwork.
There were automatic baffles in the main duct from the AC, and the main duct from Furnace to prevent air pressure from one system from entering the other system. Just a metal flap that hung down inside the ductwork with a foam seal for them to land against so they didn't make noise.
Not having the AC evaporator coil inside the furnace kept our heat exchanger from rusting out. My furnace was 35 years old and still worked great. Had to replace the AC unit when it reached around 25 years old. So we got excellent service from both units.
It's a good thing I spend my days in my detached garage office where I can control the temp to some extent anyhow.
The temperature in here varies a lot in different areas of the room, but the two places I'm most concerned about is where I sit, now that area has to be comfortable.
The winter is really strange, because down at my feet the temp might me 66 while at my shoulders 77, but where my hands are on the keyboard it is 74.
Right now this exact minute, dig these readings: All from thermal sensor transmitters.
Above the bank of computers, and this is with the AC set at 74 blowing over them to reach me at my desk, 96.
Between the bank of computers and my desk, in front of my desk, 82.
One foot to the right of my right shoulder, at shoulder height, 78.
On the left side of my keyboard drawer 74.
Down at my feet 80, why I don't know, its usually colder down there. And the heater wedge is not on.
I've moved sensors around a few times, but still get the same reading, so it's not the sensors acting up.
I also have a piece of cardboard over one of the AC outlets so it blows down onto the tops of the computers.
Without it, the temp over the computers often hits 100 degrees, summer or winter, don't matter.
Logically one would think the fan from the AC would blow the heat right into my face, but it doesn't. Probably because the other vent blows across the top then curls down the wall behind my back.
Now down at the house, we have a major balancing problem with the room temps.
With the thermostat set on 74, and the only cold air return under it in the hallway.
If we close the bedroom door, it drops down to 68 in there, open the door and it goes up to 76.
Same with the TV room/Den, it will drop down to 66 if we close the door, but never gets warmer than 72.
I've fiddled with the control handles on the ductwork under the floor that feeds the registers, with all the registers open, and marked the summer and winter settings to have a balanced house with all rooms the same temp, with the doors open.
What I miss most about my home in St. Louis was a cold air return in every single room, sometimes more than one. They were in the floor under every window. The outlet vents for each room was usually opposite the window, up near the ceiling. If we set our thermostat on 74, every room in the house would be 74, whether the doors were open or closed. Didn't have to make changes for summer or winter either.
Plus besides the normal furnace filters, we had an electrostatic filter we had to turn off and wipe off the plates about once every three months. Oh, Our AC system was separate from the Furnace, although it still used the same ductwork.
There were automatic baffles in the main duct from the AC, and the main duct from Furnace to prevent air pressure from one system from entering the other system. Just a metal flap that hung down inside the ductwork with a foam seal for them to land against so they didn't make noise.
Not having the AC evaporator coil inside the furnace kept our heat exchanger from rusting out. My furnace was 35 years old and still worked great. Had to replace the AC unit when it reached around 25 years old. So we got excellent service from both units.
Re: Migration Paths
My father-in-law, bless he departed soul, was a mechanical engineer for a major printing press company. He had an interest in many things mechanical and was a wealth of information when needed. I could never understand why, but he had a preference for radiant heat as opposed to forced air. His reasoning was that it counteracted exactly those temperature variations that you describe.
I've seen two types of radiant heat systems. One has radiators along the outer walls of the house, typically associated with the location of the windows. They could be turned off or on, but I don't think there was anything else you could do with them. The others had radiator pipes built into the flooring. That kind of made sense to me, but I think you needed a concrete floor for that to work. Radiant heat is counter intuitive to my concept of thermo-dynamics, but the theory says it should work as it does. That is to say, hot air rises up naturally. Thus if the heating elements are placed strategically, there will be a flow of warm air from the floor to the ceiling, where I presume it cools down again to start the cycle over.
This same "hot air rising" idea says forced air should enter a room from the lowest point and the cold air return should be at the highest point. Air conditioning is exactly opposite so that it's not easy to design a perfectly climate controlled room that is simple to build. The problem with all climate control systems is the introduction of hot spots, such as banks of computers. We had a server room at Motorola, probably 25' x 25' and you can't believe how much heat all those power supplies can generate. There were air conditioning ducts directly above some of the server banks blowing cold air down onto the machines that were still running hot. I'm not talking sissy A/C units you would find in the average household either. I'm talking iceberg size monsters that could barely keep up the pace ... and that was in winter. Anyway, the only thing I can say was good about radiant heat is that it was quiet. Never heard the boiler come on. It's like a hurricane when our furnace ignites in this forced air house of mine.
I've seen two types of radiant heat systems. One has radiators along the outer walls of the house, typically associated with the location of the windows. They could be turned off or on, but I don't think there was anything else you could do with them. The others had radiator pipes built into the flooring. That kind of made sense to me, but I think you needed a concrete floor for that to work. Radiant heat is counter intuitive to my concept of thermo-dynamics, but the theory says it should work as it does. That is to say, hot air rises up naturally. Thus if the heating elements are placed strategically, there will be a flow of warm air from the floor to the ceiling, where I presume it cools down again to start the cycle over.
This same "hot air rising" idea says forced air should enter a room from the lowest point and the cold air return should be at the highest point. Air conditioning is exactly opposite so that it's not easy to design a perfectly climate controlled room that is simple to build. The problem with all climate control systems is the introduction of hot spots, such as banks of computers. We had a server room at Motorola, probably 25' x 25' and you can't believe how much heat all those power supplies can generate. There were air conditioning ducts directly above some of the server banks blowing cold air down onto the machines that were still running hot. I'm not talking sissy A/C units you would find in the average household either. I'm talking iceberg size monsters that could barely keep up the pace ... and that was in winter. Anyway, the only thing I can say was good about radiant heat is that it was quiet. Never heard the boiler come on. It's like a hurricane when our furnace ignites in this forced air house of mine.
Re: Migration Paths
One of the houses I lived in had hot water radiators, even in the garage. I really liked how well that house heated.
I also lived in an apartment for a short time with steam radiators. Hated those things! Noisy too.
Do you remember a big red square picture frame with a yellow sun in the middle, radiant heat unit?
I hunted on-line to find it, but couldn't. I bought one of these things for under 20 bucks back in the 1960s.
It was not warm to the touch, but would make you feel warm in a room.
Not just the side of your bod facing it.
It did not have anything more than an on/off switch on it, and used almost no electric.
The problem with them was, they only lasted for about 3 month and then quit working.
My uncle Herbs first house had radiant heat in the floors. The nice part was, the floors were warm on bare feet.
But if you sat at a desk with your feet on the floor, your feet would just keep getting hotter and hotter.
He always mumbled, heat is supposed to rise, so why is the top of my bald head cold, hi hi.
My crazy uncle Andy used the coils off the back of old refrigerators in his driveway before he poured the concrete.
He ran heated oil through them with a pump if it was supposed to snow.
It did work up until the temp dropped below around 10 degrees, then it did nothing, hi hi.
Albeit, it did save him from shoveling a lot of snow over the six years he did live in that house.
I tried something similar using heat tapes under a sidewalk. Didn't do diddly, except run up the electric bill.
I also lived in an apartment for a short time with steam radiators. Hated those things! Noisy too.
Do you remember a big red square picture frame with a yellow sun in the middle, radiant heat unit?
I hunted on-line to find it, but couldn't. I bought one of these things for under 20 bucks back in the 1960s.
It was not warm to the touch, but would make you feel warm in a room.
Not just the side of your bod facing it.
It did not have anything more than an on/off switch on it, and used almost no electric.
The problem with them was, they only lasted for about 3 month and then quit working.
My uncle Herbs first house had radiant heat in the floors. The nice part was, the floors were warm on bare feet.
But if you sat at a desk with your feet on the floor, your feet would just keep getting hotter and hotter.
He always mumbled, heat is supposed to rise, so why is the top of my bald head cold, hi hi.
My crazy uncle Andy used the coils off the back of old refrigerators in his driveway before he poured the concrete.
He ran heated oil through them with a pump if it was supposed to snow.
It did work up until the temp dropped below around 10 degrees, then it did nothing, hi hi.
Albeit, it did save him from shoveling a lot of snow over the six years he did live in that house.
I tried something similar using heat tapes under a sidewalk. Didn't do diddly, except run up the electric bill.
Re: Migration Paths
The first apartment I lived in had steam heat radiators. That was the best heat ever. The downside was it put too much humidity into the air and the windows stayed frosted almost through the entire Chicago winter. LOL The thought of one's feet getting too hot from the heated floors never occurred to me. My feet are too cold to begin with and I pictured most of the sitting rooms to be carpeted anyway. I doubt that I'll ever have a home with radiant heat unless I build it myself. That's not likely at my age.
The wall picture that made you feel warm sounds pretty interesting. I have to wonder what the principle behind it was. Since it is no longer in existence, it probably was a fire hazard. There is this, but I don't think it's the same thing you are talking about: https://www.totalhomesupply.com/11200-b ... LMAN127HVP
The wall picture that made you feel warm sounds pretty interesting. I have to wonder what the principle behind it was. Since it is no longer in existence, it probably was a fire hazard. There is this, but I don't think it's the same thing you are talking about: https://www.totalhomesupply.com/11200-b ... LMAN127HVP
Re: Migration Paths
I preferred the hot water radiators because they didn't add moisture to the rooms like the steam type did from the bleed valves. Also they made no hissing noise, hi hi
I found a similar patent for the darn thing, and viewed several other cited patents, but still have not found the exact one I'm looking for. Almost all of them I did read said they were radiant heat, but I don't remember the surface of this picture frame unit ever getting hot to the touch.
I did find another wall hung radiant unit that used a plastic screen but you couldn't tell it was a screen by looking at it.
But didn't give much information to know how it worked or what powered the heat output.
I'm thinking possibly it was some type of infrared unit, but I'm not sure.
I've seen the wall hung heat-pump units that look like picture frames. Expensive little devils.
I found a similar patent for the darn thing, and viewed several other cited patents, but still have not found the exact one I'm looking for. Almost all of them I did read said they were radiant heat, but I don't remember the surface of this picture frame unit ever getting hot to the touch.
I did find another wall hung radiant unit that used a plastic screen but you couldn't tell it was a screen by looking at it.
But didn't give much information to know how it worked or what powered the heat output.
I'm thinking possibly it was some type of infrared unit, but I'm not sure.
I've seen the wall hung heat-pump units that look like picture frames. Expensive little devils.