[ST] About the lack of radiant heat in the lobby

[Carsten Turner]

Note that I was *only* referring to the inside of Arisia Storage 
itself; as well as the loading dock areas of Arisia Storage and the 
hotel (i.e. where attendees and non-logistics folks are unlikely to 
tread). What goes on in the "non-grungy" parts of the hotel (where 
attendees will be found and large trucks will be scarce) is not at all 
covered in the scope of my observations.

Your Evil Overlord,
-=>Carsten:-)

On Jan 11, 2008, at 8:45 AM, Bill Y wrote:

>
>    From: Carsten Turner <carsten at netway.com>
>
>    X-CRM114-Status: GOOD (  14.71  )
>
>    Jan, I understand where you're coming from. I spent years working 
> as an
>    EMT, and have seen plenty of examples of human stupidity at work. I 
> am
>    thankful for your concern, but I think your fears are unfounded in 
> this
>    instance.
>
>    Given that Arisia has been using propane-fired heaters of this kind 
> for
>    years without issue, I think the benefit of having heat vastly
>    overrides any danger inherent in a heating device. The big safety
>    factor at work during load-in/out is that these will be used with a 
> lot
>    of de-facto supervision. Load-in/out is typically freaking cold 
> (which
>    easily explains a chronic dearth of volunteers,) and if anything,
>    people will pay A Lot Of Attention To The Heat Source (because 
> everyone
>    wants to get warm,) rather than forgetting that we have a few 
> dragons
>    placed in strategic (and well populated) locations. Arisia runs a 
> far
>    greater risk of volunteers sustaining frostbite injuries than 
> burning
>    themselves, by a factor of "too much."
>
>    Note that I won't be involved with logistics this year, but these 
> are
>    just my personal observations from past experience. YMMV.
>
> Ahhh... OK.
>
> So it seems we have *two* issues here: heat for loadin/
> loadout, and heat for the checkin area.  Two problems may mean
> two solutions.
>
> If you have continuous (and I mean that) supervision for the heaters,
> you might be OK.
>
> But at the front desk for checkin, people are gonna drop luggage and
> coats where they may- and that may be way WAY to close (or even over)
> heaters.
>
> Hmmm... think think click click - something I do at home is to use a
> "carpenter's light" - two 500-watt halogen lamps on a pole-and-tripod -
> as a "warming zone"   The lights are about six or seven feet off the
> ground- and more importantly, are not easily blockable or tippable.
> And if it does tip- the bulb usually breaks on impact so power is
> shut off.
>
> Each of these pole-and-tripods is 1000 watts, or about 3500 BTUs,
> and also provides plenty of light for doing detailed work like
> filling out forms or reading the little CCV codes on the back
> of credit cards.
>
> Of course, they may be a leeeetle bright to illuminate the screens of
> a laptop, but in fact Penney and I do use it just that way fairly
> often.  And the kittens love them; three feet away from the lamps
> themselves (that is, the top of the couch) is noticeably warm but (as
> measured by thermocouple and IR noncontact thermometer) never exceeds
> 105 degF, which is certainly acceptable.
>
> For check-in, may I suggest that you buy a couple of these
> pole-n-tripods at Home Despot or Lowes, a spare bulb (total: abut $50)
> and deploy them between every other person doing checkin, firing down
> at them _sideways_ so as not to wash out the screen illumination..
>
> Bad Ascii Art follows where \O/ is a person facing "north" and
> a >o< is a pole light with the lights firing east and west.:
>
>
>       Incoming...Crowd...Goes.....Here
>
>     -------   -------   -------   -------
>     |table|   |table|   |table|   |table|
>     -------   -------   -------   -------
>       \O/  >o<  \O/       \O/  >o<  \O/
>
>    =========B=A=C=K===W=A=L=L=================
>
> Does this work out in terms of safety as well as warmth?
>
> And- is there 2000 watts to spare on that wall?
>
> 	- Crash
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