Edit: Context behind this question is because my parents always tell me to shut the windows all the way and I kinda feel like I’m suffocating… literally… (it’s Winter here)
Like I just struggle to breathe with windows closed…
So I’m just curious, how do y’all not suffocate while trying to keep house warm and spend less on heating?
Live in a hot weather climate here in Tucson; windows are never open because of the effort required to open them shut them. The AC does its job just fine
During winter, having them open for any significant time would risk plumbing freezing. During summer, it’s usually a matter of opening them at night so the coolness lasts through the day.
I open at least one door so that my cat , bitches can watch “Bird TV” through the screen door, usually in the mornings while the outside temperature is nice.
I unfortunately live in Texas, so we’ll reach fusion temps outside in April or May.
Yes, my cat’s name is , bitches.
Must be weird to be calling for your cat if they ever escape 👀
Daily, all year roun,for a short time.
Let me introduce you to Stoßlüften.
Oh wise German Airbender, what do I do if I live in a small apartment with no windows across from each other to create a cross draft? My windows in are in two rooms on the same side of the apartment. Save me from ventilation sin!
For real tho if you have any ideas I love fresh air and would love to hear them!
Open them both and then the door, would that help?
Fans are fine, actually, we are not the koreans! You might get a stiff neck from the Zug, but no fan death, probably.
As a foreigner living in Germany, I just knew this would be the main response. Germans LOVE to air out rooms
This foreigner made a video out of their experience
(I was looking for a different one I thought they made, but this is where I ended up.)
Stoßlüften!!
(aside from rooms having ac, those don’t need it)
Stale air contains high levels of CO₂, which can make you feel tired
Oh… no wonder why my circadian rhythm is fucked up… I feel so tired in the day and now its 1AM and I’m wide awake… 🫠
isnt also the lack of sunlight too during winter makes you depressed, less VITAMIN D more depression.
Lpt: if your residence has central heating/ac and was made within the last 50 years then your house is probably getting sufficient airflow.
Central heating, no AC.
Heat is not carried by air, but by those pipes with hot water running to radiators… so I don’t know if there’s any airflow.
Built before 1978, might have lead paint under there… but it was painted over once before we moved in so its probably lead safe(? I hope lol, i’d be lame to lose a few iq points to something stupid like lead)
Ah, then no forced air through ventilation ducts to move air around.
My current house doesn’t have vents either, but I have fans that move air around the important bits that get occupied the most. With my dogs needing to go out, and work, the doors are open enough, and there’s enough leakage to not worry about co2 levels. Except my wife sometimes trips the sensor in the hallway when she takes a long bath while burning multiple candles…
How old is stoßlüften? I know people that are always opening windows and telling their kids to go outside to “blow the stink off” and while they have german ancestry it would be from over a hundred years ago.
I try to open my bedroom window as little as possible because the air outside is usually poor quality and I have an active air filter monitoring my room and removing crud from it. I LOVE living in a car centric city in a country who’s government has been partly captured by oil companies and dealerships at all levels.
I like to think the plants I have in my room help with the CO₂, but I don’t feel they make that much of a difference.
same here. you probably need alot of plants to make a difference, or larger ones. monstera, dracaena, rubber tree fig
Sadly my upstairs and downstairs neighbours are chain smokers. They close their windows and the balcony doors and I get all the (pot) smoke. Why does Germany have so many smokers?
Neat, that was a fun read! I’ll have to try it!
Dies ist der einzigste Weg.
This is the only way
Wenn schon, dann auch the onliest way.
I open the windows during winter even when it’s like -30c, at some point the air gets stale and circulation is needed. The stuffy air also makes my headspace feel weird, like something is irritating me but I can’t tell what it is.
Then at some point I open the windows, I also run a huge fan to circulate air around.
German here: yes. 24/7
LÜFTEN
Austrian here: STOSSLÜFTEN!
In the winter I have no control over the heat. My radiator has a direct line to the pits of hell. So the windows are open all winter long. They are open in the spring and fall as long as the temp inside will be comfortable. Closed in the summer because AC.
When we taste the air is a bit a stale, we open the all the windows and sliding doors to exchange the air during all seasons.
Antarctican lumberjack, don’t open the windows or doors in winter, check out the window in summer if any trees have sprouted (none so far).
Still too much! I haven’t migrated everything to Linux yet (poor me).
How to install Linux in my house?
Can I do “sudo circulate air” without losing warmth?
Yes, but rather without sudo.
(real example )
Hehe
Also, Linux is really quite nice nowadays 😉
My building is on an old chiller system, so my AC is off ~5 months out of the year. My windows are open the entire time, and I usually have fans set up too to try and keep things cool.
When my AC is on, absolutely never. It is hot here like 7 months out of the year.
Paris here, we sleep usually windows (slightly) open, yes even now in winter
Windows open just a bit in winter is wonderful. Such good sleep!
I rarely ever open windows unless someone asks me to. I get a lot of complaints during the summer of how hot it is indoors, but I adore the heat.
I adore the heat
Satan is that you?
I’ve been called a great many things over the millenia and that is one yes
A lot less than I want and need to. My social anxiety is ridiculous with small stuff like this, just opening the windows easily gives me anxiety because I hear people outside. It sucks but I often manage to do it for a while before I have visitors, just so the air fresher.
Almost never. I lived in a bad neighborhood for too long, so I doubt that habit will change.
bad neighborhood
I remember when I was in China we used to have 防盗网 (“Anti-Theft Nets”) all over our windows… I mean it also prevents us kids from falling out of windows I guess.
I remember my old apartment in Guangzhou, there was a sofa next the the window, the TV is on the opposide of the sofa. And behind the sofa was the window, that looked down straight to the alleyway (not a street, cars can’t get in, the main road is like 10-20 minutes of walking distance away)…
Like sometimes as kids you play around and climb the sofa and then the top of the sofa (like the thing where you lean you back against) is the same height of the window.
So you could accidentally play around and if the window was open, you could, you know how kids be, peek out the window out of curiousity and fall out and die.
Like the only thing standing in the way is the Anti-Theft Net thingy.
This is what it looks like (random image found online):
I was always told to “be careful or you can fall out of there and DIE” and jeez… kid-me got so terrified of heights.
The stairs also have a bare-minimum concrete/cement barrier, you can get drunk, accidentally hop over it, and fall down to your death…
Come to think of it you could literally murder someone and pretend they accidentally fell. (Russian Dissidents have joined the chat 👀)
I remember when I visited one of my aunts apartment… it was like 16 floors high in the middle of Manhattan… OMG I got so scared… but I wanna look outside the window but I immediately just feel like I have a panic attack like “OMG what if I fall out?”…
I remember having a sleepover there with my family and literally every moment awake I was like Window = Scary
But yea I asked my parents “why not install those like we had in China”, but apparantly most cities in the US have city ordinances against these things, you need a permit for it… and then since it’s not the norm in the US, you’d just get targeted since people would think: “Ooh they must be rich / hiding a lot of valuables” so yea we don’t have those anti-theft nets here in the US.
