The coffin concept

Originally posted 10.29.17, updated,

11.2.17:

Definitely done, but finishing touches are mostly for optimization.  In testing phase.  Today was forecasted to have a high temp of 94.  Good day to test the a/c.  As of now, 3 pm, the a/c is cycling on/off about like yesterday.  The temperature is about 80 in the other side of the room.  This side should be the same as yesterday.  Means slightly cooler.  But not noticeably cooler than the "living room", which is walled off from this room.

Still don't know what to make of it.

11.1.17:

Mostly done.  It is functional, but not entirely complete.  It needs finishing touches.  These I can do at my leisure.

Testing it now.  It is a warm day, and I am running the a/c.  Probably runs about  1/2 the time at setting number 4, which keeps it at about 77 degrees.  It was about 84 before I turned it on.

Not sure what to make of this.  Don't know whether to be disappointed or not.  I thought it would do a bit better than this, frankly.


10.31.17:

Finally began work on this.  It is maybe half done.  Need to put in sliding doors, and a few other finishing touches.

As usual, my carpentry leaves much to be desired.  But it should be functional.



the original post follows:

Don't want to put this into the off-the-grid series.  It is just a post where I think up something that I may or may not do.

Last night was a cold one.  I don't recall seeing a freeze in October before.  At least, not while I lived in Houston.  This isn't Houston, but it is in roughly the same neck of the woods.  It's a bit early for this kind of weather.

It made me think once again of how to economize on the use of electricity.  That means cutting down on the volume of space that must be climate controlled.  Climate control uses up the most energy.  If that can be limited, then the amount of energy expended can be limited as well.

The coffin concept is to reduce the size of the sleeping area to the size of a "coffin".  In my case, it may be an area that is roughly about half the size of this bedroom in the travel trailer.  If I cut this thing in half, I should be able to cut down on the energy use by a similar amount.

Easy to say, maybe not so easy to do.  I would like to just nail a few boards together and claim success.  But this may not be so easy because I also want to use passive solar.  The arrangement inside the bedroom uses up some space for this function, and I now have to work around this space.

It is also not so easy to get into and out of bed in this thing as it is.  Making it a tighter space is going to make it tougher still.

To make a long story short, or a short story shorter, I didn't get anything done today.  I did some sketches and that's about it.  Maybe I won't do anything at all.