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Why did Joule do his experiment in a basement?

The difference in the temperature of the water was very small - around 0.1°Fahrenheit (0.06°C). Joule found that even his body temperature affected the results in an ordinary room. This would have been absorbed in the stable environment of the basement of his father's brewery.

The students in Oldenburg who recreated the experiment found that the apparatus would have needed two people to operate and that the person turning the handle would have expended quite a lot of energy, getting hot in the process.