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Swedish Couple Builds Greenhouse Around Home

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Re: Swedish Couple Builds Greenhouse Around Home

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you express it the wrong way round. The windows cannot be opened, because that way they can be made better for thermal isolation, which is obviously a major design criteria in cold climate.

It's more like you got lost in the comparison spiral. Formal interpretation of my phrase: cost of heating with unlocked windows > (permalocked windows + ventilation system). I live 55°N in Russia so I know that from practice, but we don't lock the windows throughout the summer because the cooling would cost around the same as heating in winter, just one or two opened windows in the night for convection and curtains i…

No, you are the one missing the point. Modern building design is based on an (ideally) thermo-proof house, minimal heating and carefully controlled ventilation. In the winter, the warmth of inhabitants plus some minuscule floor heating is enough to keep it warm. In summer, thermal insulation and shading keeps it cool indoor. The goal is to make the indoor temperature passively independent of the outdoor temperature. Nothing to do with cost optimization.

Re: Swedish Couple Builds Greenhouse Around Home

#174
post #129

they won't need the greenhouse for very long. in a few years it'll be warm enough to grow figs outside without the greenhouse

You're being downvoted, but there are places here in the Netherlands where figs are doing well where they didn't 20 years ago.

Re: Swedish Couple Builds Greenhouse Around Home

#175
post #173

In The Netherlands 'kaswoningen' (Greenhouse Houses) have been build in 2002, 2005 and 2009 in the city of Culemborg. See: http://www.eva-lanxmeer.nl/over/nu/woningbouwprojecten/kaswo... (in Dutch)

The article mentions that a Swedish architect also built one in 1974: http://bengtwarne.malwa.nu/natureH.html

Re: Swedish Couple Builds Greenhouse Around Home

#176
post #151
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We'll build the dikes another few metres taller. Shrug...

You seem to be missing the point. It’s not just about building higher dikes. It’s about the ethical soundless of pissing tons of CO2 in the wind just because you can’t be bothered to wear a sweater. (What does that inscription next to Leidseplein say?) Edit: it’s also not just about higher dikes in NL, the effects of that CO2 goes well beyond the Dutch border. It’s Global Warming after all... global. The cognitive di…

Ethics are subjective

Re: Swedish Couple Builds Greenhouse Around Home

#177

"In Stockholm, Sweden, where winter lasts 9 months out of the year", according to what crazy-ass definition? 3.5 months is a common length of winter for Stockholm, according to the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute.

The (crazy-ass, yes) definition is in the article: the period the house needs heating.

Yeah, I noticed they mentioned needing heating for about that long. But, really, they didn't explicitly call that winter. Nor should they.

Re: Swedish Couple Builds Greenhouse Around Home

#178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is possibly true, depending on the details of their lifestyle. On the other hand, the article talks about their use of composting toilets, recycling water, etc. So they may well not be engaging in the same high levels of water consumption as typical modern families in developed countries. So I remain unconvinced that a warmer environment automatically and without exception translates to high humidity and mo…

I think you've been here long enough to know that a phrase like "automatically and without exception" is likely a poor interpretation of what the parent poster meant with "standard household activity". I was born and raised in Florida. In Miami I lived in a 1950s house designed w/o A/C and with effectively no insulation. In Tallahassee I lived in a 1970s house designed for A/C. But we didn't have money, so we didn't…

I think you've been here long enough to know that a phrase like "automatically and without exception" is likely a poor interpretation of what the parent poster meant with "standard household activity".

I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't. It doesn't matter how I phrase it, people will have a problem with my real point and will have a problem with me giving first-hand testimony from my life.

So I tried to avoid that. It didn't help.

I slept in a tent for nearly six years. I'm back in housing, but I still don't live conventionally. I'm in a hundred year old building with no AC. But I have no upholstered furniture, no mattress, a minimum of bedding.

When other residents are desperately trying to create a cross breeze to cool off their too hot room in summer, I'm usually fine. With no cardboard and no upholstered furniture, my room is not too hot.

So I tried to use specifics from the article itself, like the composting toilet. Toilets are one of the ways modern families go through a lot of water each and every day.

I know my lifestyle generates less heat and humidity in my home compared to other people in the same building as me. I also know most people act like my first-hand experience doesn't count.

I'm routinely downvoted for making such observations, no matter how I try to phrase it. I'm routinely told I'm making stuff up, that's anecdotal, it doesn't count, I need a study or something.

I've seen men here on the leader board give similar personal anecdotes and get treated like they're brilliant. Tokenadult used to tell stories of opening the shades on his windows when he was a young man living in China to use solar power to heat his room and giggling about management accusing him hiding a forbidden heater.

But my first-hand observations are not similarly respected and oohed and aahed over for their insight. Instead, I'm routinely attacked and dismissed.

After a decade, I'm pretty damn sure it isn't my phrasing. It's my gender and general lack of credibility for reasons wholly unrelated to my intelligence, veracity, etc.

It's open contempt for me as a person. And I'm quite fed up with it and even more fed up with being told it's somehow my fault that I'm subjected to this double standard.

Re: Swedish Couple Builds Greenhouse Around Home

#180
post #173

In The Netherlands 'kaswoningen' (Greenhouse Houses) have been build in 2002, 2005 and 2009 in the city of Culemborg. See: http://www.eva-lanxmeer.nl/over/nu/woningbouwprojecten/kaswo... (in Dutch)

This is my favorite one, built by the Hjertefølgers family in the Artic Circle:

https://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/family-cob-hou...

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