Heaters cannot keep room warm with -75 temps outside.

Started by oronnoro2, May 02, 2016, 12:24:15 AM

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oronnoro2

I have a room that's 2 walls thick, its for prisoners, however, after seeing that the room (which is a 5x5) cannot be warmed up I checked my colonist rooms, same thing. Even though the room is not being used at all the heater cannot keep it warm.

The temp outside is -75, but the heater cannot keep a room of 5x5 2 walls thick warm? Build 2 heaters per room?

Thank you,
Oron

Thane

Rough stone also seems to conduct heat really well. That and lots of heaters. Ice sheets I generally have a bank of heaters + vents + lumber for emergency campfires.

Also check your roof zone. Maybe it is unroofed.
It is regular practice to install peg legs and dentures on anyone you don't like around here. Think about that.

oronnoro2

#2
Quote from: Thane on May 02, 2016, 12:30:48 AM
Rough stone also seems to conduct heat really well. That and lots of heaters. Ice sheets I generally have a bank of heaters + vents + lumber for emergency campfires.

Also check your roof zone. Maybe it is unroofed.

Huh, never looked at the wall itself, I use granite/limestone for my walling and flooring. All the rooms are roofed as well, but this is 5x5 room with 3 walls, does the game not cound the wall thickness?


Edit:
Self tamed Thrumbo just ate all my planted trees... I feel sorry for my colonists right now. Forgot to zone the animal area, lol.

Thane

Two walls add some insulation, but the best insulation you can give are airlock doors going in and out. Door space Door. It prevent most heat loss to the outside.
It is regular practice to install peg legs and dentures on anyone you don't like around here. Think about that.

Vaporisor

For normal temps, in the 30s celsius (plus/minus) range, a single thermal unit typically can keep up and be stable in a double thick wall of most materials I find.  After that usually need to double or even triple it up.  My 7x7 cooler in a desert map with 2thick wall needed 3 AC during a heat wave.  In a -50 to -60, I have had to triple or even quad up in extreme temps, but those were much bigger than a 5x5.  I will attach a screenshot at the end of post.

One potential to use is a layered wall, similar to something like a Dewar Flask.  Those essentially are a double or more walled vessel with vacuum between compartments.  Since we cannot do vacuum, what I have pondered for when I do an extreme cold play is have key rooms isolated with enclosed hallways.  Keep the hallways warm enough so dressed figures don't freeze.  This potentially will help stabilize key rooms as the hallways now are the buffer for temps.  It would be material demanding design though.

So attached is the thermal test I did up quick in debug of two potential layouts.  The right one had more stable temperature for that specific room, running at two heaters, but the hallway itself was close to outside temperature unless I had the other two heaters running to try and crank it up.  The room on the left was a less stable room temperature, with a third heater entering high power in occasional pulses, but the hallways did not need heating.  It was kept around -30ish with no hall heaters, just through the temperature bleed.

While I cannot confirm, it seems that the mechanics follow the science of thermal conductivity where both thickness and temperature difference affects rate of heat loss.  As such, the left example is probably the best way to build where you minimize the surface area to extreme cold and the hallway acts slightly as an insulator, heated from bleed.  But end of day would need probably three heaters running for a -70 either in room, or by two in room and one hallway one per room.

If you are heating small rooms like that, I highly recommend the hallway method to insulate.  It should easily allow one heater per room to keep it from being cramped or unusable.

[attachment deleted by admin - too old]
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Altair XIII
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Vaporisor

Test number 2 for small rooms.

This one I did your five by five, marble blocks for everything.  Temperatures were able to steadily keep a 21C in room and a -22C approx in hallway with a -63c outside temperature.  When I added vents and just ran two heaters, they were not able to keep up and the vent only rooms were of course colder.

The other part is of course the outside wall surface area.  The more 'cells' connected inside the hallways, the more efficient your overall heating will be per unit of area.  If you tried doing it with open hallways, the temperature would not be able to keep up.  Imagine if you had the 2x2 room layout without closed hallway.  They cannot share their heatloss.  By double wall on the room, you are increasing your material needed as well vs just the outside wall thick containing many single walled rooms.

[attachment deleted by admin - too old]
Stories by Vaporisor

Escaped convicts!
concluded
Altair XIII
Frozen Wastes

oronnoro2

Wow, those are nothing short of amazing, I quite like the design, well thought out and tested. Thank you very much for taking the time to help me, I appreciate it very much.

I will definitely be using these designs.

Thank you,
Oron

makapse

my 11 x 11 sun lamp farms needs 6 heaters to maintain 21C when the outside temp is-90 .
Also, have you considered that even when you have double walled the room, there is only a thin roof separating the room from the outside cold?Tynan has implemented this and it shows that deep mountain rooms are insulated a bit more due to the overhead mountain

oronnoro2

#8
Quote from: makapse on May 02, 2016, 02:01:33 AM
my 11 x 11 sun lamp farms needs 6 heaters to maintain 21C when the outside temp is-90 .
Also, have you considered that even when you have double walled the room, there is only a thin roof separating the room from the outside cold?Tynan has implemented this and it shows that deep mountain rooms are insulated a bit more due to the overhead mountain

Ya, the roofing is also the problem, without being able to really do nothing about it thickening the walls just uses more mats.

I've managed to use 6 heaters with 2 11x11 rooms connected to keep my place warm, however, the temp outside I think was -65. So not quite as cold as yours.

http://postimg.org/image/a34yam8wx/

Vaporisor

Oh, roofing thickness now has some effect as well?  I knew about the mountains having more stable temperatures, but I thought that was just that it was cooler/warmer while in the mountains and of course more insulatory?  These were some small tests for theories I had in my brain for my next forum lets play I am planning, so wanted to give them a test.  Capturing the heat bleed though really does seem to be efficient.  A double wall internal and double wall external stands to reason that it could be even that much more stable.  Good for if you have those solar flare or other catastrophic event.

Makapse, got a screenie of your grow area?  I am curious to see.  I quit the debug map I was on, so no longer in a test map.  I wonder how a two thick compares to one thick, gap, one thick.  Hrm...
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Escaped convicts!
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Altair XIII
Frozen Wastes

b0rsuk

I know it's way too early (5500) to think about this, but do consider switching to fueled generators later on when you get Comms Console and some income. They double as heaters. My current Boreal Forest base only needed 2 before multi-analyzer.

I haven't played ice sheet since alpha12 I think and I'm itching for another game. Cold biomes seem much more interesting and balanced than warm ones in Rimworld. Suddenly all events, especially drop pods, become meaningful.

keylocke

@op : does each room have it's own vent?

can you post a screenshot?

iirc, temperature is distributed per room. there's a loss of temperature transfer per each new room beyond the room where the heater/cooler is attached. there's also a temperature loss the larger the total room space and the total connected rooms space.  (temperature is usually better transferred via open doors or vents. preferably vents)

oronnoro2

Quote from: keylocke on May 02, 2016, 05:43:43 AM
@op : does each room have it's own vent?

can you post a screenshot?

iirc, temperature is distributed per room. there's a loss of temperature transfer per each new room beyond the room where the heater/cooler is attached. there's also a temperature loss the larger the total room space and the total connected rooms space.  (temperature is usually better transferred via open doors or vents. preferably vents)

I've changed the layout of my base since my post and have taken the advice of the few individuals here to better my rooms and a few other buildings which has made things much better.

As for the prison room, that room was special, the hope it gave the prisoners that it might be warm because it had a heater made it into a torture room... In all seriousness though, I've added flooring, which I though I already had. Some rooms in my game had snow even tho I've added flooring, which is why the room was loosing heat even tho it was several walls thick.

As for the colonist rooms they wore 1 wall thick and had flooring, however, they wore loosing heat anyways. I was more at fault here for thinking there might be something wrong with my heaters and that I was gonna lose my colonists, which is why I made this thread.

I guess if you want your colonists to live, create a room in a room and that will help quite a bit.

Thank you,
Oron

Vaporisor

#13
Great to hear!  My favorite part of this game and lets players is seeing how others do things so be sure to keep in touch.  I havent had an extreme ice sheet yet, not to that level of cold!
Stories by Vaporisor

Escaped convicts!
concluded
Altair XIII
Frozen Wastes

keylocke

Quote from: oronnoro2 on May 02, 2016, 01:54:32 PM
Some rooms in my game had snow even tho I've added flooring, which is why the room was loosing heat even tho it was several walls thick.

wait.. snow from footprints or snow from an "unroofed" section?