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How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)

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Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)

#231

Post by throw0101a »

poseva wrote: post #207
throw0101a wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the big difference between houses built in North America and Europe is that the European houses are built using concrete and masonry which give them a lot of thermal mass which is crucial to this kind of builds. Here's a 500 sq. m. (5000 sq. ft.) house built with heating equipment that uses 1800W (the equivalent of a hair drier): * https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vul4vMFdkA The same person building his own…

I agree, you do not need concrete and brick but you also need to take into account the local traditions. For ex. building a wood house (framing or CLT) would have cost much more than concrete and bricks and was also much more prone to errors because of the builders lack of experience, at least in my area and country. Recently in Romania it really took of building houses using CLT (cross-laminated-timber) but it costs…

Wood is fairly inexpensive in North America because there are still many forests (especially in Canada).

There is nothing "inherently better" with one material over another for most applications. A good structure mostly depends on proper drainage and cladding to protect against UV rays and bulk water (precipitation), good air tightness (with mechanical ventilation for filtered, tempered fresh air), and high insulation.

* https://www.buildingscience.com/documents/insights/bsi-001-t...

Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)

#232

Post by cjrp »

Mvandenbergh wrote: post #213
ricardo81 wrote: post #103

I'm in the UK which has one of the oldest/energy inefficient housing stocks in Europe. After buying a house built in 1890 I've been made more aware how poor they can be. After replacing the old secondary glazed windows and replacing the old inefficient gas boiler, I'm moving onto replacing the front and back door, and insulating the suspended floor, walls and room in roof. The walls are solid whinstone about 600mm th…

I work on energy systems modelling and how domestic thermal performance interfaces with that - the UK has not just "one of the oldest in Europe" it actually has the oldest in the world. Many European countries had a lot more post WWII construction so at least have cavity walls (even if in many cases not filled until later).

My understanding was that cavities should actually not be filled, since they allow water to drain out. Is that incorrect?

Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)

#233

Post by rsynnott »

em-bee wrote: post #219
poseva wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Small in comparison with a typical single family homes that goes >150 sqm in my area. I completely agree with you, 99 sqm is more than enough for a 4 people family.

it depends on how you can use the space. 4 people can mean three bedrooms. in some parts of asia the average 3-bedroom flat is 150m². a few years ago i did a search in a european city and likewise was unable to find 3-bedroom apartments with less than 120m². 4 was 150m² minimum. the problem is huge living rooms that can't be divided up and repurposed to make living space for more people. work from home doesn't need a…

> I did a search in a european city and likewise was unable to find 3-bedroom apartments with less than 120m². 4 was 150m² minimum.

You simply chose the wrong European city :) Try Dublin, the city of 70sqm 3 bed apartments (in fairness, these aren't allowed under current planning regs, but there are quite a lot of old ones).

Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)

#234

Post by hyperbovine »

bogle wrote: post #173
jwr wrote: post #109

While this is at the extreme end of the spectrum, there is a much easier way to save lots of energy: just build modern well-insulated homes. I lived in California and I was appalled at the monstrous energy waste: houses are generally made pretty much from cardboard. You need to cool them in summertime and heat them in wintertime, and the energy expenditure is enormous. I now live in Poland and have recently built sma…

"About the only part of a Californian house you can't put your foot through is the front door." 'The Big Sleep', Raymond Chandler (1939). Good to see nothing's changed!

Of course nothing has changed, he’s talking about the exact same housing stock.

Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)

#235

Post by rsynnott »

mdp2021 wrote: post #191
empiricus wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Mechanical ventilation with energy recovery may be far superior, but if that means constant noise it will be an issue - to some, a radical issue." I've installed this in my house, it is virtually silent. This is for ~200m3 of clean air/hour. If I turn it on higher you can hear it a little.

> virtually silent Decibels? I have seen air purifiers publicized as exemplary silent, and people unable to bear the noise of the minimum fan speed. There may also be a matter of the exact sound - maybe some are less disturbed by (say) a hum instead of a hiss; it probably has to be tried.

While I don't have mechanical heat recovery ventilation, I've been in lots of apartments and houses that do (it's virtually mandatory for new builds here). You won't know it's there unless you're in the room that the device lives in, and even then it's not loud.

Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)

#236

Post by rsynnott »

jsiaajdsdaa wrote: post #39
mattlondon wrote: post #33

I 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…

Sounds like one of you might have a health condition. She could be underweight or anemic, you could be overweight or etc.

It's fairly normal for different people to prefer different temperatures, and to a large extent it's probably a learned thing. In particular, the idea of what normal room temperature is varies quite widely around the world.

Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)

#237

Post by [deleted] »

goodpoint wrote: post #198
poseva wrote: post #43

I'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…

> small (99sqm) Is that correct? 99 is not small at all.

[deleted]

Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)

#238

Post by rsynnott »

morsch wrote: post #128

The article shows off snazzy housing for wealthy people, but as far as I know all new housing finished in the EU as of 2021 is supposed to be built to these standards. So it's not restricted to architecture magazine, it's just regular houses. See e.g. https://www.igbc.ie/nzeb/

nZEB isn't quite the same thing as a passive house; a well-built passive house would qualify as an nZEB, but you could for instance, build an nZEB that had reasonably high thermal losses (thus not a passive house) which it compensates for with loads of solar panels.

That said, in practice most nZEBs probably will be passive houses or close; it's probably the most practical way to meet the requirements in most cases.

Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)

#239

Post by markvdb »

mnw21cam wrote: post #220
markvdb wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be super careful internally insulating an old house. This can cause _a lot_ of humidity problems if not done _exactly_ right. Very often, there is no way to do it exactly right! I would recommend you to consider breathable internal insulation materials, combined with breathable finish layers of course! Some hints. Roof (or attic floor) insulation is the most important. I imagine those have been done properly already.…

The one key rule that you should always follow is to have your water-impermeable layer on the warm side of the insulation. So, I'd recommend against breathable internal insulation, because that will make your solid wall (water-impermeable layer) colder, but still exposed to the humid inside air, and this could cause condensation on that cold wall. As an example of this, I have rubbish double glazing, and when the tem…

> The one key rule that you should always follow is to have your water-impermeable layer on the warm side of the insulation.

This very much holds true in 99% of modern homes.. except if you build your entire wall breathable. That is how we did our walls. From inside to out:

- breathable paint. Lots of conventional options available. We made a really nice casein paint with low fat cottage cheese and lime paint as the main ingredients :-)

- lime plaster. 1/3 slaked lime powder, 2/3 sand.

- 1.2m of straw

- lime plaster

Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)

#240

Post by fullstop »

jmrm wrote: post #171
poseva wrote: post #43

I'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…

People doesn't give the massive importance the isolation has. Some years ago we remodelled our home and added XPS (Extruded Polystyrene) to insulate the roof of the house. After that we use the AC only three or four days in the year, and before that we had to use it at least a complete summer month. That house is in the south-interior of Spain, so heat is no joke here. If somebody are constructing or remodelling any…

> That house is in the south-interior of Spain, so heat is no joke here.

I looked up a few areas (Ciudad Real) to see what you meant by heat, but it seems quite similar to a good portion of the northern USA. This makes sense, I suppose, given the similar latitude.

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