eli5: Why are radiators in houses often situated under a window- surely this is the worst place and the easiest way to lose all the heat?
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Think about what insulating is doing, keeping the warm air from going outside because that’s how you lose heat, it goes outside. It can only possibly go outside by going through an exterior wall. Therefore, heat is only required on exterior walls where the heat is escaping, only to replace the heat lost. Placing it by the worst spots, windows, gets you the most even heat distribution, the heat is only counteracting the loss, and the rest of the building stays a constant temperature because the interior isn’t losing heat to the cold exterior.
Also, this is NOT true for AC, AC counteracts the hot air outside, the hot air from all the electronics, lights, stoves, etc, and it counteracts body heat. Therefore AC needs to be distributed throughout the building, and really big buildings need so much AC that many don’t need heat even when it’s very very cold outside because their internal heat from running stuff is more than they lose through exterior walls.
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