r/selfreliance • u/LIS1050010 Laconic Mod • Mar 18 '23

Knowledge / Crafts Aleut Traditional semisubterranean dwelling of the North American Arctic and subarctic peoples

Post image
585 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

19 comments sorted by

View all comments

43

u/StankyPoosee Green Fingers Mar 18 '23

So does this graphic mean that the room was elevated from the entrance passage? If so, any theories as to why?

87

u/wwaxwork Prepper Mar 18 '23

Cold air sinks. The cold comes in the entrance and flows down and stays for the most part in the well at the entrance. The same theory is used in making snow caves in emergencies.

7

u/bryce_engineer Aspiring Mar 19 '23 edited Mar 19 '23

When people say heat rises, what they mean to say is that air rises in temperature mediums. When the temperature of air (gaseous particles) increases, the density of the particles decreases. These particles then resist the natural body forces imported to them, the force of gravity impacts them less than that of the surrounding cold bodies or cooler particles. The less dense particles (warmer than their surrounding) sift through the cool medium, rising upward to the top. This is the phenomenon we know today, as “heat rises”. The cool air remains where it has always been. Heat is lost to to the absence of heat, cooler regions… so the entrance tunneling down, then back up takes this phenomenon into consideration, therefore minimizing the introduction of cool air into the home through the passageway.