• Who am I?

    I am Qrystal; or at least, that's my dot-name! Har har. (My name is really Crystal, but that's not as internet-searchable; hence, switching the C for the little-used letter Q.)

    I am here because I enjoy writing. I do this mostly for myself, but I also have a passion for helping others learn things from the things I write. Now that I am done my Ph.D. in Physics, I am stepping away from academic research so that I can indulge in some creative ways to share my knowledge and inspire the appreciation of scientific thinking in others. I am also working as a tutor, which is one of the jobs I've most enjoyed doing in my life so far.


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    • Heating and Cooling Degree Days

    Posted by Qrystal on November 26, 2008 at 17:36.
    Category: Concepts. Tags: data, finances, weather.

    To analyze your building’s thermal efficiency, it is useful to review historical temperature data, particularly the heating and cooling degree days.  To that end, I just found an incredible website: DegreeDays.net, where I found a table showing my local daily heating degree days, with various baseline temperatures, so I can analyze my heating costs and determine how much of an improvement we made on our house by adding insulation in the basement. Fun fun! :)  We don’t do air conditioning, but if we did, we could also check our electric bills versus the local daily cooling degree days.

    The site also has an excellent article discussing the details of what can go wrong when using degree days to make estimates, and for more information on the subject, here’s a friendly and accessible knol discussing how and why to use degree days at all.

    I’ll definitely go back to this site to get more data in the future!

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