Have They Tried This Already?
Soda coolers in takeout restaurants: why don't they have motion sensors, or timers, or something with even the tiniest bit of sophistication, that makes them able to decide that their off the clock and at the very least shut off the damn lights, preferably raise the maximum allowed temperature a bit. House thermostats have timers so that they don't bother cooling the house as much when everybody's asleep or at work; you would think the concept would have filtered down a bit. Maybe they tried it and nobody bought them? Maybe the technology wasn't quite there and it didn't work out? I demand answers.
posted by SomeJerk at 10:48 PM
2 Comments:
I imagine that some one has done the thermal cost equations (or whatever you do) to compare the cost of keeping it at serving temp versus shutting it down.
If not, I think you stumbled upon a fortune.
Dan at work made a decent point about why it's done with houses but not coolers, although I agree some real numbers would definitely help. He said that houses leak a lot more and are a lot bigger, so trying to keep them heated/cooled is very inefficient. Coolers are generally much easier to keep at temp because they have much better seals and insulation, so it doesn't require as much work per minute to keep them where you want them.
My rebuttal is that anything that requires less work to keep cold would also require less work to get cold, and would stay cool better when you shut off the compressor anyway.
Okay, time to call Mythbusters.
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