In Oregon the new building code mandates that all air ducts and air handlers be located in conditioned space. Really good common sense regulation imho.
How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
261–270 of 335 posts
Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
It’s rather pointless to go through the effort of building a house if you don’t expect to live in it for very long. So, the minimum standards should only be relevant to people building homes for sale. As to insulation, it’s very cheap to add some form of solar heating outside of the arctic but cooling always takes energy.
What you expect may be different from what will eventually happen, and since the vast majority of houses are actually built by people that intend to sell them (builders), those make the market price, and - at least now - a passive house valued 30% more than average market is not easy to sell or rent, maybe this will change, maybe not.
You can very much rent a passive house for significantly more by including heating and cooling costs into the rental price.
People can’t see what your heating bills are but they can compare with other properties that include heating.
Actual price differences at time of sale should be nowhere close to 30% not only because that’s an insane difference in construction costs but also because land isn’t free. A 200k house on 200k of land vs a 260k house on 200k of land isn’t a 30% difference in final price.
Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
#263I've been touting the benefits of Spray Foam Insulation for years. It is actually incredible how much money you can save on HVAC every year. Your Heating and Cooling equipment can be halved in size and your living space is draft free and incredibly comfortable. Mate this with geothermal and your utility bills to heat and cool are equivalent to someones Starbucks habit (maybe less). If the North American building code was upgraded to a decent performance level (spray foam, triple pane windows, etc), we could probably get away with not having to build another power plant for decades.
Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
#264While 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…
I even prefer this to a complete passive house. To be honest I don't like the air from ventilation, although that probably depends on the system.
Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
#265People fail to appreciate how much leveraged financing affects the design of houses. If you pay 100% for a house and you decide to build something only you appreciate using 10% of your budget, you will lose 10% of your investment when selling the house. If you put down 20% and have the bank finance 80%, then the same decision will wipe out 50% of your investment. This means for financed houses, "resale value" becomes the preeminent decision affecting the design of a house.
In Economics, this is known as a "Keynesian Beauty Contest" [1] where your job is to predict what everyone else predicts will be the most popular option and Keynesian Beauty Contests can get weird.
eg: It's quite possible that you might personally hate granite countertops but still feel the need to put a granite countertop in your home because you believe it will help the resale value of your home. It's quite possible for everyone in a community to all hate granite countertops but for everyone to still put granite countertops in their home because they believe everyone else loves granite countertops. It's quite possible for everyone in a community to hate granite countertops and to know that everyone else hates granite countertops and still make the economically rational decision to put a granite countertop in their house to help with the resale value.
A lot of "economically irrational" housing decisions are driven by this core transformation via Mortgage Backed Securities of a house from a consumption based purchase of a place to enjoy living into an investment asset that dominates most people's finances.
It's only in houses built for the independently wealthy that don't really care about the future resale value of their houses that a lot of the good building science expertise still lies. That's why, paradoxically, in countries much poorer than the US/UK/Aus/NZ, you see much better building quality because their finance systems are also less developed.
Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
> CO2 levels inside a building can have a stimulating effect on the body, which kind of destroys the purpose of a relaxation of a home Citation really needed.
You know where google scholar, pubmed and wiki is? Or do you want to get into a discussion about under-carboxylation and dietary intake of nutrients, and CO2 blood saturation levels? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypercapnia#Tolerance
> You know where google scholar, pubmed and wiki is?
I know them quite well but this is a conversation on HN and people should back their claims here.
Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
#267Reminds me of 'Earthship Houses' that are completely off grid, recycle their waste water to grow crops, are built using repurposed car tires and grow their own food. There is a community in New Mexico https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgUkjbMhF18 And even some in Canada https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAvY5JeMz9w&t=62s
Earthship are very low density unfortunately. Good at reducing the environmental and economical impact of the house itself but now you have to drive a car instead of living car-free in a walkable city.
Good point. I wonder what the environmental impact is of high density housing in cities vs low density (earth houses).
I think it probably does make sense for rural communities.
Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
What you expect may be different from what will eventually happen, and since the vast majority of houses are actually built by people that intend to sell them (builders), those make the market price, and - at least now - a passive house valued 30% more than average market is not easy to sell or rent, maybe this will change, maybe not.
You can very much rent a passive house for significantly more by including heating and cooling costs into the rental price. People can’t see what your heating bills are but they can compare with other properties that include heating. Actual price differences at time of sale should be nowhere close to 30% not only because that’s an insane difference in construction costs but also because land isn’t free. A 200k house…
Still it remains 60K difference, or 20 years at 3K.
Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
#269I've been touting the benefits of Spray Foam Insulation for years. It is actually incredible how much money you can save on HVAC every year. Your Heating and Cooling equipment can be halved in size and your living space is draft free and incredibly comfortable. Mate this with geothermal and your utility bills to heat and cool are equivalent to someones Starbucks habit (maybe less). If the North American building code…
Spray foam is very expensive and is not sustainable. Mineral wool/rockwool is also fairly popular but pricey as well.
Also, it's not just adding insulation. Air tightness is hard problem to address for existing houses.
Re: How to build homes with virtually no heating (2020)
#270You mean like Earthships, a modern idea decades old?
https://www.earthshipglobal.com/
What I like about Earthships is they attempt a wholistic answer to the gnarly nexus of housing access, resource use, and self-sufficiency, and do it in a simple, beautiful way.
The ideas and methods already exist; we don't need architect-designed glass/steel boxes or exotic manufacturing techniques and materials.