My favorite approach remains the Dome of Visions - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bn2o-xyS6M
How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
71–80 of 335 posts
Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is interesting that you insulate under the house. One of the more intriguing passive house designs I saw was one where the insulation went down 2-3m into the ground all around the house footprint. This trapped the natural ground heat within that area and fed it upwards into the house. It took about 18 months for the ground to warm up, but once it was there, the ground/house warmed itself with virtually no input. T…
We have an old house from 1988 located in Norway. Walking on the non-insulated wooden floor is very unpleasant. We will refurbish, and insulate under the floor, but it will not be anything near a passive house because of other construction shortcomings
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Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
#73I've also built a simple and small (99sqm) PassivHaus in Romania, 5 years ago. Everybody, and I mean everybody from family to friends called me nuts, but I've got my payback this winter when the energy prices went trough the roof and I'm just slightly affected. The house is elevated from the ground on 12 concrete columns so that I can insulate under the foundation beams using glass foam, insulation on walls is 30 cm…
It is interesting that you insulate under the house. One of the more intriguing passive house designs I saw was one where the insulation went down 2-3m into the ground all around the house footprint. This trapped the natural ground heat within that area and fed it upwards into the house. It took about 18 months for the ground to warm up, but once it was there, the ground/house warmed itself with virtually no input. T…
Exactly. Talking about thermal mass!
There’s also the movement of underground houses. They use the ground for cooling in summer and for insulation in winter. Also it apparently makes for great noise reduction, in spite of having lots of windows, light and views.
See the book “Recovering America: A More Gentle Way to Build”.
Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
#74I wonder how these "no heating"/"no cooling" homes work in situations like mine: my wife is permanently freezing cold, sitting around inside with multiple layers on, sometimes a blanket, and the heating on full-blast while I am walking around in shorts and t-shirt sweating? I.e. people have different ideas about what a comfortable temperature is. In my wife's example it seems like unless she can actually "feel the he…
> about what a comfortable temperature is ... it seems like unless she can actually "feel the heat" as it were, she is not comfortable You wrote it yourself... Comfort is not with the temperature (scalar quantity for C implemented roleplaying¹), it is with the "warmth", with the effect obtained in the internal environment, a quality you feel. This is why heat exchange feels ineffective compared to radiators. Sheer te…
To feel warm, radiation is more effective than temperature.
Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
#75I've also built a simple and small (99sqm) PassivHaus in Romania, 5 years ago. Everybody, and I mean everybody from family to friends called me nuts, but I've got my payback this winter when the energy prices went trough the roof and I'm just slightly affected. The house is elevated from the ground on 12 concrete columns so that I can insulate under the foundation beams using glass foam, insulation on walls is 30 cm…
It is interesting that you insulate under the house. One of the more intriguing passive house designs I saw was one where the insulation went down 2-3m into the ground all around the house footprint. This trapped the natural ground heat within that area and fed it upwards into the house. It took about 18 months for the ground to warm up, but once it was there, the ground/house warmed itself with virtually no input. T…
Really interesting. I've read about also "foundation insulation skirt" that allows you to create a warmer earth mass under the house.
To be honest this was the biggest "complaint" that others had in regards of how a built the house, the general knowledge says that the earth is warm and you don't need to insulate against it... but the earth is maybe 5-10 degree, of course warmer than outside -5..-10 but still a lot colder than what we want inside the house, 20,21 degree C.
Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
#76Checkout poroton, as a building material it is near impossible to beat - high insulation, low total cost, humidity seeps slowly thorugh the walls and termal mass is massive
Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
#77In Austria an architect build an office building completely without any heating at all [1]. And now after the first experiences he is doing it for clients as well [2]. It works.
[1] https://www.detail-online.com/article/house-without-heating-...
[2] https://www.world-architects.com/en/baumschlager-eberle-arch...
Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
#78They mention that they avoid over sealing, for local climate reasons but an interesting technique/gadget for sealing the air barrier is to vapourize some caulk type stuff in the air and force air in through a fan. As the air escapes through small holes it fills them.
Apparently without this you need to be very careful while building, while this lets you go a little faster and sort it out after.
https://www.finehomebuilding.com/2013/05/15/a-shortcut-for-a...
There's also a recent development where just slapping on some solar panels can sometimes make more sense than extra insulation, in terms of cost and return.
Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
#79It saddens me that construction quality is almost irrelevant when building a new building nowadays. The profit difference between a well-isolated passive building and one that merely meets the minimal standards, is often very small, so why bother building a passive building? My personal interest in passive buildings generally revolve around maintenance. Passive houses seem to require far less maintenance.
The houses in the article have a lot of wood and decking. New Zealand is savage on exposed timber. I have tried multiple products from expensive to cheap and have the same result on all. A deck which gets rain and faces north west needs re-coating every 6 months to 1 year. The combination of heat, UV and water is just savage.
Have you looked at modified woods like Accoya?
(50 year guarantee above ground, 25 in water)
Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like one of you might have a health condition. She could be underweight or anemic, you could be overweight or etc.
Maybe not a health condition, might just be the body's set point. There are three biological states: body is cold and needs to warm itself, body temp is right (no effort required), body is hot and needs to cool itself. I was born in hot southern climate, my wife in a cold norther climate. For me, "body is cold" is rather unnatural and uncomfortable. For my wife, "body is hot" is the same. Her internal furnace is alwa…
I'm not 100% sure of this. Totally anecdotal but... I was born and raised in a continental climate, where during winters most day you would stay between -2C and 1C and sometimes you can get -10C during nights. I remember feeling cold but it wasn't that extreme.
Then in my twenties I moved to a warmer, near the sea place where a cold winter is when you get 2/3 Celsius degrees in the coldest night and after a few years of that life, now when I go back the place where I was born in winter, I feel fucking cold (and I have special winter jackets for that).