Living in China has been a nice change in my previously life but like any place in this world, it is not perfect. There are some rather irritating parts of the lifestyle here and number 2 on my hate list would be the "north/south wind" season. (I'll write about number 1 in a future post.)
First a weather lesson. Warm air can hold more water moisture than cold air. When air is forced up either by terrain or other air bodies, it cools rapidly losing water-holding capacity. In effect, water 'pours' put of the now smaller air container creating clouds and often rain. And in South-East Asia, the air from the Pacific is packed with water moisture -- during monsoon months, it brings the torrential rainfalls to water crops that feeds a billion people in China and another billion in India.
Weather lesson number 2. Solids take longer heat up and cool
down compared to liquids which take longer compared to gases. In winter, cold air from Northern China and Russia (Siberia) will blow down into the south sending temperatures down to about 5C-10C (41F-50F). It will take a long cold spell but with enough time (2-3 days), both the ground and the buildings will match the temperature of the cold air.
So when an extended cold spell from the dry northern winds is followed by a warm spell from the moist southern windows, we get thermodynamics in action. The warm air touches the cold ground and causes a huge ground fog that blankets everything. When the warm air enters a cold building, any contact with a non-insulated surface just oozes condensation. (The image at the top/left shows dew just dripping off the ceiling of my bathroom.) And with buildings in this area primarily made of concrete and tile, this hassle comes around every year.
If we were building a house from scratch, the best solution to combat this problem (and the summer heat and winter cold) is insulation. Insulation materials in the walls and energy efficient windows could effectively keep the continually shifting air out (and reduce heating/cooling costs). However, building a custom house is not a viable option for most people in China. In addition, many insulating materials we take for granted in the U.S. are harder to obtain in China. So while our home is in a more upscale gated community, our building is still concrete and tile like 99% of residents in this province.
Where our problems are exacerbated are at the windows. The condo developer put in crappy windows in all units. The window panes have metal frames that sit on metal rails and touch directly with metal jambs. Basically, there is absolutely no sealing interface between all the metal. During cold periods, I can feel cold air seeping in from the sides of the windows even when closed. These windows are actually even considered crappy by China standards as my brother-in-law's 10-year old windows have 1 inch sheaths on all sides to produce far more air-tight seals.
The 2nd culprit is our bathroom doors. Even if the windows were perfect, we usually have bathroom windows open at all times to avoid stale moist air from stinking up the place. This means the bathroom door is the true interface to our interior space. But just like the windows, our bathroom doors are metal and glass sitting in a metal door frame so it also suffers from the problem of metal on metal not producing air-tight seals.
In addition, the bottom part of the door has decorative slits that allow air to blow in. For these 2 reasons, the areas around the bathroom doors have been the most problematic during each north-south wind flip-flop.
Since it would be very intrusive to replace the crappy windows while we're living here, we will attempt the following simpler fixes first:
- Whenever the weather changes from hot-to-cold or vice versa, close the curtains in our bedrooms. The extra textile layer at the windows seems to help quite a bit as our uninhabited guest room with curtains always drawn and door always closed never suffers from condensation.
- Replace the weatherstrip seal on the bathroom door frames. The current seals are too thin leaving wide gaps all around.
- Use sealant to fill in the bathroom door slits.
The kitchen window and deck doors may be harder to find solutions for. (Our deck doors are made of glass and have exactly the same frame style as our windows.)
- Add weatherstrip seals at the sides. I don't know how thin seals can be so the potential problem here is not being able to close the windows.
- Add weatherstrip seals to the inner section in between the sliding panes. Since the panes sit on separate rails, the potential problem here would be the seals stopping the panes from moving.
Our contractor (originally hired by the developer for the build-out) is coming over in the next few days to look at the possible options. I'm confident the bathroom doors we will be able to tackle easily. Perhaps that will solve 80% of the problem and make north-south wind season into just a minor nuisance.
(Filed in china, housing)
A few days ago, I wrote about the ground fog and condensation that strikes during the months of February and March in Southeast China. To see what we could do about it, our contractor came by for a look. First... Read More
About a month ago, I wrote about the 2nd worse thing about living in China -- the north/south wind combos that make floors and walls drip with moisture. Number 1 on that list is mosquitos. Living in San Francisco, mosquitoes... Read More
North/south wind season and the cost of crappy windows
Posted by Mossy
March 15, 2010 1:38 PM
First a weather lesson. Warm air can hold more water moisture than cold air. When air is forced up either by terrain or other air bodies, it cools rapidly losing water-holding capacity. In effect, water 'pours' put of the now smaller air container creating clouds and often rain. And in South-East Asia, the air from the Pacific is packed with water moisture -- during monsoon months, it brings the torrential rainfalls to water crops that feeds a billion people in China and another billion in India.
Weather lesson number 2. Solids take longer heat up and cool down compared to liquids which take longer compared to gases. In winter, cold air from Northern China and Russia (Siberia) will blow down into the south sending temperatures down to about 5C-10C (41F-50F). It will take a long cold spell but with enough time (2-3 days), both the ground and the buildings will match the temperature of the cold air.
If we were building a house from scratch, the best solution to combat this problem (and the summer heat and winter cold) is insulation. Insulation materials in the walls and energy efficient windows could effectively keep the continually shifting air out (and reduce heating/cooling costs). However, building a custom house is not a viable option for most people in China. In addition, many insulating materials we take for granted in the U.S. are harder to obtain in China. So while our home is in a more upscale gated community, our building is still concrete and tile like 99% of residents in this province.
Since it would be very intrusive to replace the crappy windows while we're living here, we will attempt the following simpler fixes first:
- Use sealant to fill in the bathroom door slits.
The kitchen window and deck doors may be harder to find solutions for. (Our deck doors are made of glass and have exactly the same frame style as our windows.)- Add weatherstrip seals to the inner section in between the sliding panes. Since the panes sit on separate rails, the potential problem here would be the seals stopping the panes from moving.
Our contractor (originally hired by the developer for the build-out) is coming over in the next few days to look at the possible options. I'm confident the bathroom doors we will be able to tackle easily. Perhaps that will solve 80% of the problem and make north-south wind season into just a minor nuisance.(Filed in china, housing)
2 TrackBacks
A few days ago, I wrote about the ground fog and condensation that strikes during the months of February and March in Southeast China. To see what we could do about it, our contractor came by for a look. First... Read More
About a month ago, I wrote about the 2nd worse thing about living in China -- the north/south wind combos that make floors and walls drip with moisture. Number 1 on that list is mosquitos. Living in San Francisco, mosquitoes... Read More
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