The living room is the part of this experiment that matters most.

Outside sets the challenge. The hall shows me how the house and central heating are responding. But the living room is where comfort is actually experienced — and where the Vortex adds its own measurable layer on top.

This is the version of the NIX Heat Lab story that puts the living room where it belongs: at the centre.

Outside creates the challenge. The hall gives me the baseline. The Vortex creates the living-room surplus.

The outside sensor tells me what conditions the building is fighting against. The hall shows how the house responds through its fabric and central heating. The living room then adds a second heating layer: the Vortex.

That difference is not a perfect electrical power meter, but it is the strongest signal available in the temperature data.

This is the room where the experiment becomes personal.

The hall can tell me whether the house is broadly warm. The living room tells me whether I am comfortable.

That distinction is crucial. A house can be technically within a normal temperature range and still not feel particularly inviting. My living room is where I want the warmer end of comfort, and the data reflects that.

Across the entire matched dataset, the living room averages 20.28°C, compared with 19.61°C in the hall. It is warmer than the hall for 71.9% of all matched observations.

The average surplus is 0.67°C, but at times it grows to roughly 3.0°C.

The Vortex appears in the data when the living room pulls away from the hall.

The most useful Vortex clue is divergence.

During the main central-heating recovery, hall and living room often rise together. That makes sense: both rooms belong to the same heated house.

But once the hall reaches roughly its normal daytime level, its curve often flattens. The living room does not always flatten with it. Instead, it continues upward towards 21, 22 or 23°C.

That extra rise is the key. It cannot easily be explained by the central heating alone if the hall has already stopped responding.

The living room gains its extra advantage through the day.

At around 05:00, the average temperatures of living room and hall are almost identical: 18.83°C and 18.82°C. Overnight, the Vortex advantage has largely faded.

By noon, the living room averages 21.13°C while the hall is around 19.99°C.

By 17:00, the average difference has widened to roughly 1.32°C.

That is exactly the pattern this experiment predicts: the house reaches its general comfort level first, and then the living room becomes the warmer zone.

At night, the Vortex effect fades and the rooms move back together.

Across the latest ten complete nights, the hall cools by an average of 2.01°C between 21:00 and 06:00. The living room cools by 3.08°C.

The living-room drop is larger because it usually starts warmer. That is not automatically evidence of poorer insulation. It is largely what we should expect when the room begins the night with additional Vortex heat.

As that extra input disappears, the living room gives up its surplus and moves back towards the hall.

The Vortex can change comfort. It cannot change the weather.

Outside remains the main external driver. When outdoor temperature falls, both the hall and living room face a larger heat-loss gradient.

The lowest matched outdoor temperature in the dataset is 6.4°C. At that moment, the hall was still 19.28°C and the living room was 18.50°C.

The important question is therefore not whether the outside temperature changes — it always will. The question is how much heating input is needed to keep the hall stable and how much additional Vortex input is needed to push the living room to the comfort level I want.

The living room is warmer by design — and the data proves it.

The living room spends significantly more time at the warmer end of the comfort range than the hall. That is not accidental noise; it is a consistent pattern.

Humidity remains exceptionally well controlled at the same time, which means the room is not achieving comfort by becoming excessively dry or damp.

The current data supports the model strongly — but direct power telemetry would finish the job.

The temperature data supports three conclusions:

1. Outside temperature is the external condition that determines how hard the building is being challenged.

2. The hall behaves like a whole-house / central-heating benchmark.

3. The living room develops a repeatable surplus over the hall that is consistent with the additional Vortex heat input.

What the temperature data cannot do is tell me the exact second the Vortex relay switched on or off. For that, a smart plug with power logging would provide direct ground truth.

OUTSIDE SETS THE CHALLENGE.
THE HALL SHOWS THE HOUSE. THE LIVING ROOM SHOWS THE VORTEX.

The whole experiment in four lines.

🌦️ Outside: the main external driver I cannot change.

🚪 Hall: the central-heating and whole-house benchmark.

🛋️ Living room: the same house response, plus the Vortex.

🔥 Living room − Hall: the clearest thermal clue to the Vortex effect.

And that is why the living room deserves the starring role in this experiment.

Heating and Vortex states are inferred from temperature behaviour until direct power telemetry is added.