If you had to choose between an air-conditioned minicar or a supercar without air conditioning, which would you choose?

If you had to choose between an air-conditioned minicar or a supercar without air conditioning, which would you choose?
Kazuya Matsuo・Tuesday, January 2018, 1
I've written something similar to this before, but this time I'd like to go into it more in-depth.
What I want to say in this sentence is, "If you had to choose between a supercar that's hot in the summer and cold in the winter, or a light car that's comfortable in both summer and winter but doesn't have any special appeal, which would you choose?" Of course, to clarify the intent of this question, it is necessary to clarify the various conditions.
・Are you interested in supercars? Or are you in the income bracket to afford one?
When is the riding season?
-If you were to be given a supercar, would you be allowed to resell it?
-Is the car your main car or a spare?
Organizing things like this
Please assume that we are assuming conditions such as, "I am interested in supercars, I do not intend to resell them, and I want to use them as my main car all year round."
If you are a car enthusiast, you might think, "Isn't the air conditioner only on in summer and winter?" If you are more knowledgeable, you might say, "Even if you don't have an air conditioner, the engine heat will keep you warm in winter, so you can just put up with ventilation in summer." Indeed, it is said that the engine room of a car can exceed 1000°C. Therefore, in winter, just letting some of this hot air flow into the room will make it more than warm enough. This is why even the cheapest and oldest cars are equipped with heating equipment. In terms of ventilation, a car that generates wind by moving on its own is 100 times better than the ventilation of a house. Still, it goes without saying how tough it is to endure the current intense heat with only ventilation for about three and a half months from the rainy season (early June) to the end of September. As you can see, air conditioning and dehumidification will last about three and a half months, but heating will be needed for about half a year from the end of October to the beginning of April. The reality is that people often misunderstand this and overestimate the duration, simply thinking that there are four seasons and therefore three months of summer and three months of winter.
Next, let's compare the time spent in a car with the time spent living in a home. The average annual mileage of a car is said to be about 1 km. Simply dividing that by 24 days gives you about 24 km. If we assume an average speed of about 4 km per hour, the time spent in the car is roughly one hour per day. The time occupancy rate for the driver is XNUMX/XNUMX = about XNUMX%, but the time occupancy rate for each person in a family of four is only XNUMX/XNUMX * XNUMX = about XNUMX%.
In contrast, if we assume that the average time a family leaves the house is 13am and returns home is 24pm, the average time spent in the house is 54 hours, meaning that each member of a family of four spends XNUMX/XNUMX=XNUMX% of their time in the house, which is XNUMX times the amount of time they spend in a car.
By the way, the average lifespan of a private car is often said to be 8.4 years, and the average lifespan of a house is embarrassingly 26 years. The average lifespan of a house in Japan is significantly shorter than in other countries, but it still seems to be 6.2 times longer than a car. However, this calculation doesn't make sense to me. So I tried to think about it in a different way. I remember that I bought my first car when I was 1.5 years old. Let's assume that I drive a car from then until I'm 4.1 years old. That means I'll be driving a car for XNUMX years. If you divide this by the XNUMX years mentioned earlier, you get XNUMX cars. As for the number of houses that an average person buys, I think the most common is one house, and at best two. If we consider it to be quite a lot, we'll go for XNUMX houses, which is right in between. XNUMX/XNUMX=XNUMX times, which I think is closer to reality.
Next, let's compare the volume of a car and a house. The average interior volume of all car models was published. According to that, the average is3419.1L＝3.4㎥It is said that.In comparison, the indoor volume of an average home is approximately 300 mXNUMX. This difference is XNUMX times.
Considering these things comprehensively,
Time occupancy rate 54 times x ownership period 4.1 times x volume 88 times = 19,843 times!! This is an incredible figure that shows the importance of heating and cooling in a home is nearly 20,000 times higher.
Here, I would like to consider how car manufacturers design air conditioning. As you know, there is almost no unevenness in the sound quality of heating and cooling in the latest domestic cars. Although there are only 2 to 8 seats, no matter who is sitting where, they can even adjust the temperature individually. This allows for average overall optimization, even in mass-produced cars. In luxury cars, individual adjustments can be made according to how sensitive someone is to heat or cold. The reason this is possible is that because each product is mass-produced, engineers specialized in air conditioning design take the time and effort to conduct simulations and experiments before commercializing it.
Let's turn our attention to residential air conditioning design. Here are my findings after consulting with hundreds of construction companies:
Level XNUMX
・Leave heating and cooling planning to the home appliance retailer (like asking Autobacs for your car)
If it becomes a slightly better construction company
Level XNUMX
・Only the living/dining/kitchen area and the master bedroom will have air conditioning. In terms of a car, only the driver's seat will have air conditioning. However, this is a situation where "I don't have the technical skills to do complex volume calculations, so the initial and running costs will be higher, but I'll install a larger air conditioner so that it won't fail."
This may sound like a joke, but it's safe to say that the top two account for 98% or 99% of all cases.
Level XNUMX
・It is only when you become a construction company that puts in a lot of effort that you start to see companies that think about heating or cooling the entire house. However, the majority of these companies do not design the heating and cooling equipment to be optimally set at the necessary and sufficient capacity. In short, it is the same situation as level 1 mentioned above, where "we don't have the technical ability to do complex capacity calculations, so the initial and running costs will be high, but we'll install a large air conditioner so that it won't fail," but at least there are many companies that run the entire house with only one or two units, so the degree of "largeness" is much better than the method of level 2. These companies are not slacking off, but can be said to be quite advanced companies.
Level XNUMX
In reality, it has only been since 2017 that practitioners have been able to optimize air conditioner capacity at a practical level. This is because there was no practical software that could be used to consider such things. There were also no websites that explained how to do it, and almost no books or papers. As far as I know, there are currently about 10 practitioners in Japan who understand and can perform this calculation in-house. At this level, some companies will be able to achieve almost perfect humidity control capabilities, such as dehumidifying the entire building so that it doesn't get too cold during the rainy season, and humidifying the entire building in winter.
As you know, insulation will progress automatically in preparation for the mandatory high-insulation requirement in 2020. However, no "equipment guidelines for keeping the entire house cool or warm" have been provided, and there is no sign of them being provided. Now, it can be said that prominent housing companies such as Ichijo Komuten, Hinoya Jyutaku, and Yamato Jyutaku have reached level 3. And as you know, these companies are growing very fast. I know of many other companies that are aiming to achieve level 3 in the near future. As for Mitsui Home, although its performance is on a downward trend, 70% of its buildings are at level 3 (equipped with heating and cooling throughout the building). I suspect that in 10 years, achieving level 3 will probably become the norm for new construction.
It's not so simple to say that we should just install a central heating and cooling system. Many of the conventional central air conditioning systems recommended by manufacturers cost over 2.5 million yen and were very useless. However, the systems that companies are currently working on are all designed to cost less than 1 million yen, including ventilation. In any case, it is common to spend nearly 1 million yen just by installing individual room air conditioners in each room. Moreover, the running costs are high, they are an eyesore, you can easily get air conditioning sickness, the noise is annoying, and the outdoor unit and piping are in the way in terms of design and location... it's all bad.
Even if you come up with a system configuration that costs less than 1 million yen and installs it, such a system is designed on the assumption that the building has a certain level of performance. If that level is not met, there is a high possibility that you will receive a complaint that it "doesn't work." Minimum temperatures and solar radiation vary greatly depending on the region, and the shape, area, and solar radiation of the property. You need the ability to design according to these.
Also, once you are able to make the whole house warm and cool like this, the next thing that happens is that "the performance difference that cannot be denied becomes clear." As some of you may know, in Hokkaido, where whole-house heating is the norm, the average housewife knows "how many liters of kerosene does my house use in one winter." This will happen in all other areas as well. Unless you have truly insulated, airtight, solar radiation, and a good heating and cooling plan, and you live in a good way overall, you will not get good results. Until now, the performance of a house was a complete lawless area when it came to "results (actual fuel consumption)" based only on catalogs and sales talks, but now it is immediately clear. As you know, there is now social media. In the world of automobiles, sites that statistically display actual fuel consumption have already been realized for several years.
https://e-nenpi.com/enenpi/
I'm sure there will be similar websites for housing as well, but if there aren't any, I think it's okay to make one ourselves, just like Passive House Japan did when they created and published an energy-saving health map.
http://passivehouse-japan.org/ja/ecomap/
This is my pledge for this year. Over the past few years, I have been invited to give nearly 300 lectures by various organizations, and I have accepted as many as possible. I feel that about 10% of the practitioners who listened to my lectures have actually taken action. The majority of those 10% of companies are very dynamic. However, even if you are motivated by attending a lecture once, it is not enough to acquire the practical skills to make it happen. Those who become fans come to listen again and again, but since the purpose is still to "ignite motivation" for beginners, it is not possible to deepen the depth each time. In order to actually gain the ability to reach level 4, I believe that the person in charge needs to complete at least eight study sessions, with additional homework required.
Since about the year before last, construction companies have started asking us for guidance even though we have not said anything. The first two companies that contacted us have been able to learn a lot by studying over and over again over time. Currently, the other two companies have also started working on it. From this year, I think the limit will be about 10 companies per year, but I would like to accept such requests. Naturally, the number of lectures will decrease a little. If there are many requests, I would like to prioritize those who have a large impact on society and energy conservation, so I would like to prioritize companies with a large number of construction starts per year, and companies with short round trip times, so I would like to increase the number of companies that can handle it. (The cost does not change even if the scale is large.) Of course, if we are not inundated with requests, we will respond on a first-come, first-served basis.
By taking this course, you will be able to:
- Self-calculation
・Self-verification
・Self-help
・Self-managed risk hedging
・Total cost optimization
・Ability to explain objective advantages
Furthermore, "something that is easy to learn is also easily imitated." I believe that it is best to learn it now while there are still few companies that have reached level 3 or above.
I was asked to give a lecture. I have traveled around the country about 300 times in total to all 44 prefectures, and I feel that I have already reached the ears of most of the motivated builders. However, it goes without saying that there are very few builders who are brave enough to request something like this when they have not written about it themselves. Therefore, I thought that supporting motivated companies so that they can actually build many good houses would raise the level of the housing industry and lead the way, and that is why I came up with this idea.
The cost, time required, etc. are almost fixed. However, as long as the basic parts are kept the same, we can accommodate your requests to a certain extent. If you are interested, please contact us.
Kazuya Matsuo added 2 new photos.