Global Warming is over.

[herbivor]

Yo, have you seen this? http://www.gizmag.com/net-zero-active-house/26769/



Seems right up your alley.

Yeah, I'm into that stuff. Look up Passivehaus when you get a chance. Also check out the solar decathlon. Those houses are pretty cool too.
My insulation is going in as we speak. Using R-13 batt with a reflective heat shield in the walls. Using 1" closed cell foam with R-19 batt and a reflective heat shield between the rafters to yield an R30 in the roof. Exceeding the code required R values yields diminishing returns. The key is making it air tight, keeping the HVAC within the conditioned space and having a properly designed system and ductwork that uses minimal energy consumption.

My system will be a two stage 16 SEER heat pump with electric strip auxiliary heat, energy recovery ventilation, and HEPA + UV filtration. Straight hard pipe for the supply and return with flex duct for the branches. All of the air in the house is recycled through the filter every 15 minutes. This is the best bang for the buck system in my area. We analyzed, natural gas heat, geothermal and radiant heating, along with spray foam insulation in the walls. None of those had a ROI or were more efficient. Heating and cooling costs were estimated to be nearly half of what I was paying. Not bad considering Im dealing with an old house with a fixed orientation. The energy guru I'm using said had I done the same house except built it from the ground up using modern materials and proper air sealing techniques he could have gotten my average heating and cooling bills down to about $25 a month on a 3100 sf house using Code minimum R-value insulation. Instead they will be around $70. I'll take pictures of the heat shield tomorrow. I don't know anyone else who uses it, but it's pretty sweet.

[rwh11385]

That's awesome! We've decided against buying a new/bigger home. Going to refinance this one to a 10 year. Thermal Windows, more insulation, and eventually more efficient HVAC/water heater and solar panels.

How un-American of you, lol. But that sounds really smart. I just finished a bathroom remodel project and have a few other things to do before listing mine in a year or so. I hope to find something with an open kitchen/dining/family area, maybe one less bedroom, and space on roof for solar panels.

The biggest thing on that house for me was all the natural lighting.


I have pretty standard 1960s size windows which are double-pane, but a lot smaller than the amount of light I grew up with. I changed office buildings from one where a small fraction had access to 4 foot windows to where there's 12+ feet windows all around and the impact on mood has been huge, so I definitely get the benefit of natural lighting. I'd love some skylights at home and the house looks nice as heck.



Yeah Herbivor, my school came in second place overall at solar decathlon 2011. And I also know that an engineering projects group partnered with Habitat for Humanity to help design more energy efficient homes and inform people about them. It's definitely cool to have the effort and concern, and innovation and intelligence, go into more efficient homes. We as a culture seemed to have grown (in the housing bubble) to larger and more grandiose like our SUVs instead of what made sense. Now more people than a decade ago are thinking about energy efficient housing, programmable thermostats, better windows, etc.

I've seen some designs that were crazy and impractical, and not personally interested in a shipping container home (maybe a garage though...) but being graded on market appeal for solar decathlon helps move people towards making solution that people would actually like and improve things. The house in gizmag looks awesome and I think people would be happy to live next to it, as well as live in it and benefit from intelligent design.


side-note: I read that a lot of the extreme home make-over families end up going broke trying to pay for the energy of their larger homes or the higher property taxes. As much as it is nice for a show to turn their struggle into a spectacle for American viewers to watch in exchange for an improved house, wouldn't it make more sense to have a house that they can live in sustainably? Just highlights how our culture is sometimes a bit weird about housing. I think it's good to want to help people, but can't they do it better?

Like Pitt's "Make it Right" - only more attractive like the gizmag house:

http://archinect.com/news/article/53424586/first-frank-gehry-home-completed-by-brad-pitt-s-make-it-right-foundation

(that's actually one of the better looking ones...)


Your system sounds cool man. This winter has had some brutal heating bills.

[herbivor]

side-note: I read that a lot of the extreme home make-over families end up going broke trying to pay for the energy of their larger homes or the higher property taxes. As much as it is nice for a show to turn their struggle into a spectacle for American viewers to watch in exchange for an improved house, wouldn't it make more sense to have a house that they can live in sustainably? Just highlights how our culture is sometimes a bit weird about housing. I think it's good to want to help people, but can't they do it better?

Like Pitt's "Make it Right" - only more attractive like the gizmag house:

http://archinect.com/news/article/53424586/first-frank-gehry-home-completed-by-brad-pitt-s-make-it-right-foundation

(that's actually one of the better looking ones...)


Your system sounds cool man. This winter has had some brutal heating bills.

Our company was involved with one of those Extreme Makeover houses. It was rediculous. A $500k, 3500sf new house next to old 1960 ranch houses in a depressed neighborhood that averaged $120k. Stuck out like a sore thumb. And of course nothing innovative about the house. The family's energy bills probably put a good dent in their paycheck. That show is such bullshit, as was the experience of being involved.

[Farbin Kaiber]

Speaking of Extreme Home Makeover, the house done local to me ended up having to open a Montessori school IN the house to cover costs. AND it sticks out like a sore thumb, the house maxed out the property lines in an older downtown area, six feet from the sidewalk, and eight on each side of the property line. Total overdoo. IIRC, there isn't even a "backyard".

[rwh11385]

That'd annoy me. Sometimes intentions and results on delivery are not one-in-the-same. [Cough - like many of our government programs or policies - cough]

Herbivor - I looked up the one from the Christmas Special and there's a vacant lot across the way and a no trespassing sign and a gravel road down the way... why would you put a 4000 sf house there??

In good news, Habitat for the past couple of years has been the sixth largest homebuilder in the US - building more than Ryland or Beazer. Imagine how we'd all be better off if all the effort and money spent suing lenders for not providing sub-prime mortgages was put into Habitat and teaching fiscal responsibility. They are reasonably sized and affordable for their owners rather than impractically oversized for making impressions / getting attention. That shouldn't be the aim but we as a society seem to care about the show and not its actual impact.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304871704575160312975375930.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304017404575165840903285032.html

Back in the boom, the makeovers got a little out of hand because of competition among home builders aware of the free publicity that came with the show and who tried to outdo previous projects.

The average size of current makeovers is 2,800 to 3,000 square feet. A 2005 episode featured a house in Lake City, Ga., that became a 5,300-square-foot English castle boasting five bedrooms, seven bathrooms, five fireplaces and an outdoor kitchen.

Tracy Hutson, an interior designer who has been with "Extreme Makeover" since the beginning, says homes are receiving more earth-friendly products, such as low water-flow toilets and solar panels, curbing the giant electricity bills that caused a hardship for some families. "I think our hearts were in the right place, but we just got carried way," says Ms. Hutson. "It can be extreme without being the biggest house you've ever seen."

It would be impressive if they spent more on making the houses feasible to be kept and cheap to own, instead of showing off at the expense of those supposedly being helped.

[Q5Quint]

Yeah, I'm into that stuff. Look up Passivehaus when you get a chance. ....
My system will be a two stage 16 SEER heat pump with electric strip auxiliary heat, energy recovery ventilation, and HEPA + UV filtration. .......The energy guru I'm using said had I done the same house except built it from the ground up using modern materials and proper air sealing techniques he could have gotten my average heating and cooling bills down to about $25 a month on a 3100 sf house using Code minimum R-value insulation. Instead they will be around $70. I'll take pictures of the heat shield tomorrow. I don't know anyone else who uses it, but it's pretty sweet.

Energy guru? You mean mechanical engineer?

Most of the stuff you put up I agree with, but the radiant barriers are a little wonky and the Mitsubishi minisplits now go above seer 21 now and are cheapy cheapy. They have ducted versions too.

pm me your email and I can send you a little case study we did with a LEED house for a local architect.... 2300sq ft and $1084 total energy cost their first year. She did 5.5" of open cell for r20 inside walls with 2" of eps on the outside(code here is 2x6 walls in the mountains). 5.5" open cell on the roof deck. 16 seer 9.5 hspf heat pump (ducted, all ducts inside). 2 4x8 solar thermal penels running her water heater (which she turns the breaker off from march-december as the solar fills it up).

The house was so tight I had to order a smaller ring for the blower door. Like a 6" hole or something crazy. She had a erv for ventilation and a fancy high efficiency washer/dryer.

Anyway- the $25 a month seems a bit low when you have a cooling season, and the 70 seems a bit high when you can have 90 total when it is 20 degrees for 3 months straight. After doing energy modeling so long it is always interesting to see what the 'gurus' say and then what actually happens~ all you people that keep the windows open when it is nice out really screw up our numbers :-P

I think asu placed somewhere in the solar decathlon a few years ago but that was after my time, but same program. I don't agree with 'science project' ideas when there are so many proven things out there.

Currently we are doing some neat earthbag and strawbale stuff.... and it is interesting enough that I want to go back to school and do more writing/ research on it. There is almost no information out there at all except the 'magical gurus'. Luckily NC department of insurence released a code update to allow straw-to-code here so I am planning a workshop in the backyard to test it out.

I am doing a fundraiser with our local habitat group to get some solar systems up on their roofs. Those folks there can use the savings more than most.

If it makes anyone feel better we just finished a 600k$ bathroom addition/remodel. The people with money still have it, and they still only use that house 2x a year for about 6 weeks.



Is it really any wonder why we have gas and oil subsidies?



Thanks Obama!

This page explains it pretty well: http://priceofoil.org/fossil-fuel-subsidies/




I think odd market magic aside- using sources of energy from within your own country seem like a better idea than shipping out billions of dollars to buy oil. My state spends a shitton importing coal from west virgnia so we can pollute the hell out of my mountains and so I can not eat my own fish due to mercury poisoning. That is just plain dumb.

[herbivor]

$1000 a year on 2300sf seems high for a house so tight unless that includes electricty use in addition to heating and cooling. Don't understand why only R-20 in the roof (5.5" open cell) since Code is R-38? Up there, unless you had 2" EPS on top of the roof deck as well. Anyway, the "energy guru" is Harry Boody with Energy Innovations. he's not a ME, but may as well be. Do you know the guys at Home Energy Partners, Isaac Savage? Sounds like you do what he does. He built Straw bale houses out west before starting his company about 10 years ago. Glad to see you're into this stuff. If only the public was a little more knowledgeable about it.

[rwh11385]

Links dudes?

I know how to use a psychrometric chart and the basics but need to read up more.

[herbivor]

Links dudes?

I know how to use a psychrometric chart and the basics but need to read up more.

www.buildingscience.com is a good start for some basic understanding. The hard core energy modeling and calculations is pretty complicated and requires either a mechanical engineering background, or some fluent understanding in sophisticated modeling programs. I tried to get into it, but my darn structural engineering job keeps me too busy. There are several companies that provide energy consulting, modeling, and HVAC design, which is hugely different then what normal HVAC contractors can do or provide. If you ever decide to replace your mechanical or build your own house, you should definitely consult with a company that does that stuff. Worth the extra money in my opinion.

[rwh11385]

Thanks. Yeah probably buying next summer, but possibly building at some point. Definitely understand big leap from hvac contractor and a ME specialized in hvac systems.

I bet ASHRAE has a lot but don't know if it is free.

[Kershaw]

http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0328-hance-climate-missing-heat.html

just ran across this article. seemed interesting.

[Fusion]

I lol'd. I like how they never brought that up until they (now) need it.
I'm not questioning whether or not the data is decisive or manipulated for AR5, rather the way and schedule in which data is brought forward.

So it would make sense to rename this thread "Global warming is over, either that or that fucker's hiding somewhere".
And this just proves the whole witch hunt aspect of this entire retardation and religion.

[herbivor]

I lol'd. I like how they never brought that up until they (now) need it.
I'm not questioning whether or not the data is decisive or manipulated for AR5, rather the way and schedule in which data is brought forward.

So it would make sense to rename this thread "Global warming is over, either that or that fucker's hiding somewhere".
And this just proves the whole witch hunt aspect of this entire retardation and religion.

[gwb72tii]

you deny warming has stopped?

[Fusion]

GW crowd is running out of "warmth" so along comes the conspiracy theory card