Home Lab 21

How this page works

The plan

Every room of the home is drawn with its own name and its own air temperature, and it is painted in the colour of that temperature: cyan for cold, amber for warm. The reading in the corner is the outside air. The arrows between the rooms are the air moving: an arrow points the way the air travels, and the fatter and brighter it is, the more heat it carries.

Doors, windows and outside doors

Click a door to open it, and click it again to close it. Click a window to open its own menu: there the window is opened and closed, and there its shutter is pulled down or lifted — a shutter is only worked while the window is closed. A door in an outside wall behaves like a window with no glass: while it stands open the room breathes the outside air straight in.

Extractor fans

An extractor fan is built into an outside wall. Click it to switch it on or off. While it runs it throws the room's air outside, and outside air comes back in to replace it.

Appliances

An airco, a radiator, an electric heater and a standing ventilator each carry their own menu: click one to open it. There the appliance is switched on or off, its target temperature is set, an airco chooses between warm and cold air, and the bin icon takes the appliance off the plan. Drag an appliance to move it — an airco and a radiator slide along the walls, a heater and a ventilator stand anywhere in a room — and drag the little handle in front of a ventilator to aim it. The "+" button in the corner adds a new appliance.

The sun and the moon

One marker travels the full circle around the house. Between 06:00 and 21:00 it is the sun, crossing the bottom half of the circle from east through south to west; through the night it is the moon, crossing the top half. Drag it anywhere around the circle to set the time of day. Where the sun stands decides which windows catch the light and how much warmth they let in — a closed shutter keeps it out.

Time and weather

The simulated time and the time-speed slider sit together in the corner. The slider runs the day faster; set it to zero and the clock stands still, which holds the scene for an experiment. At zero speed every indicator still answers a change at once — only the room temperatures wait until the speed goes up. The outside temperature slider sets the day's average, and the switch beside it chooses between the day curve, which rides up and down with the hours, and a steady value held all day.

Changing the map

The "Change map" button swaps the working home for its bare floor plan. While it is on, the panel adds a room, a window, a door, an outside door or an outside ventilator, rotates the whole house, and resets the map to the one it started from. Drag a room across the plan to move it, taking everything in it and in its walls along; drag a window, a door or a ventilator along the walls to move it. Click a room for its own menu — its name, its width and height, and the bin — or click a window, a door or a ventilator for its bin. Press "Done" to go back to the working home. A changed map is remembered by this browser.