Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Pretty Good House

prettygoodhouse.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 339 posts

Re: The Pretty Good House

#321

Post by IIsi50MHz »

throw0101a wrote: post #281
Gravityloss wrote: post #236

Here double pane has been the standard for about a century and triple pane after the eighties. No problems whatsoever. I don't even know what's the standard nowadays. Newer windows also quiet down traffic well and reduce the drafty feeling. So there are really very few excuses to not use them. But I don't know what's the name of the phenomenon when someone who uses some primitive technology comes out with all kinds o…

> and reduce the drafty feeling. While the feeling may be similar to a draft (moving air), the actual phenomenon is radiant heat transfer. The warmth we feel is not just air temperature (which can be less than half), but also the surface temperatures: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_radiant_temperature * http://www.healthyheating.com/Definitions/Mean%20Radiant.htm If you sit near a heating radiator, fireplace, o…

The window is still a radiator. Or more accurately, will still radiate heat received from a warmer source toward a colder destination.

Heat tends towards dispersal (currently predicted, eventually, to evenly spread in all directions), so it seems wrong to say that the window "attracts" heat. Rather, it just provides lower resistance to heat transfer than the typical wall.

Re: The Pretty Good House

#322

Post by IIsi50MHz »

Gravityloss wrote: post #314
sagebird wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be some concequences if someone installed two old single pane windows a few inches from each other into a wall. IE - pseudo double panes via single panes. Would it fog up like double pane glass with a broken seal? Could you put a desiccant in there? Is there a cheap way to be able to open it if you need to? Could it be worth it because it is more repairable than a broken double pane system -- even though i…

Nothing bad, it's the way double pane windows were done here for about 60 years. My current windows right in front of me are just like that. It's impractical for triple pane, then you combine multiple panes to one frame.

Ancient Romans seem to have had double-pane windows in some places.

Re: The Pretty Good House

#323

Post by acjohnson55 »

carabiner wrote: post #11

I'm looking at building a home as a first time home owner in the next few years. One thing I'm wondering is how many headaches can I avoid if I just choose an expensive builder and not try to haggle or save a buck at every turn? I just want a 2-bedroom, 1,000 sq ft bungalow and am willing to pay 60-70% more than the average $/sqft in my city if they do a good job. I'd rather have a nice small place rather than a huge…

I'd suggest buying something that's already built, if at all possible. I'm going through a custom build myself right now, and I would definitely not recommend it unless it's the only option to get what you want and you're prepared to get very hands on.

Re: The Pretty Good House

#324

Post by dalanmiller »

muro wrote: post #182
10u152 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My house in Australia is all single glazed. But where I live summers aren’t that hot (rarely over 30c) and winters aren’t cold (rarely less than 10c overnight). I’ve considered double glazing but it makes no sense really

I was never as cold indoors as in Australia. The houses have no insulation, it's almost as cold inside as it is outside. Even if it's above 10°C in Sydney in winter, it's about 15°C indoors unless you use AC for heating. Add to that just terrible craftsmanship of walls and windows.

American in Australia - the house quality, even if the building is new(er), is absolutely shocking. I'm contributing to climate change with all the heat/cool bleed from my rental. Where I never even thought about the electricity bill from where I am in the U.S., I'm spending anywhere from $60 to $250 a month depending on season, where the anecdata average is actually 2x or 3x that.

Thankfully two or three years ago, we signed up for amber.com.au which will give you real time pricing and alerts so we can be thoughtful about usage in peak demand.

I've been tracking usage via their API for ~two years

https://flatgithub.com/dalanmiller/electricity?filename=3121...

Re: The Pretty Good House

#325

Post by hn_go_brrrrr »

Scoundreller wrote: post #181
bjarneh wrote: post #88

> Even the best windows and doors on the market perform much worse than even an average wall New windows here in Norway are often triple or quadruple glazed, and they have a pretty good R-value; so they are not that much worse than average walls at least.

Does Norway require insulation based on building profile or just walls must be X, windows must be Y? By building profile I mean, higher requirements if you want massive windows; to account for their lower R rating than a wall. Or higher requirements for a rectangular footprint vs a square footprint because the rectangle has a more surface area for the same volume. (Does anywhere take this approach???)

You're describing a prescriptive vs performance certification route. The former gives per-component minimums, the latter whole-assembly minimums. Most codes allow both, but most builders choose prescriptive because it requires less thought.

Re: The Pretty Good House

#326

Post by bjarneh »

matthiasl wrote: post #229
bjarneh wrote: post #88

> Even the best windows and doors on the market perform much worse than even an average wall New windows here in Norway are often triple or quadruple glazed, and they have a pretty good R-value; so they are not that much worse than average walls at least.

To put some numbers on "much worse" versus "not much worse": The best window I can find from the major Danish manufacturer Velfac has a total U-value of 0.82 W/°K/m² [1]. It's a triple-glazed window with argon and coatings. A typical insulated thin (100mm) wood-frame wall, i.e. the sort you'd use if you were building a summer house in Sweden has a U-value of 0.4 W/°K/m² [2], i.e. twice as good as the window above. A…

> I've only seen quadruple used in noise-reduction applications, e.g. hotel next to a busy road.

The ones we got for our house was ordered with noise reduction, but I think that basically just meant that they did not have that little valve at the top of the windows (ventil in Norwegain perhaps also in Sweedish?).

My situation is somewhat special since I have a very old house (built around 1850) made from a timber frame construction (timmerkoja in Sweedish I guess?). So the walls were extremely poorly insulated, basically just some wool (or something similar, not 100% sure what it was) between the beams as they were put on top of each other during the build. Regular boards where added on both sides of the timber frame, but no additional insulation until we renovated the house.

The 50 year old punctured double glaze windows - that came with the house were not doing too much in terms of insulation either.

Any insulated wall will probably be better than windows, but at least here in Norway, there are a bunch of old poorly insulated houses, with double glazed windows as most everyone got these things installed when they came out:

https://www.h-vinduet.com/

Husmorvinduet (housewife windows) was popular since they were so simple to clean; and electricity was cheap until quite recently I guess. But any wall with actual insulation will probably beat windows for insulation; although newer windows are not as terrible as the once were.

> so I wanted references for companies that actually sell things in Scandinavia

I guess they are manufactured elsewhere; but I think the ones we ordered was delivered from Røros-vindu, but I could not find any info about actual R/U-value for the windows on their website. Just some info about what types of gas they contain and so on.

Re: The Pretty Good House

#327

Post by sgt »

dalanmiller wrote: post #324
muro wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was never as cold indoors as in Australia. The houses have no insulation, it's almost as cold inside as it is outside. Even if it's above 10°C in Sydney in winter, it's about 15°C indoors unless you use AC for heating. Add to that just terrible craftsmanship of walls and windows.

American in Australia - the house quality, even if the building is new(er), is absolutely shocking. I'm contributing to climate change with all the heat/cool bleed from my rental. Where I never even thought about the electricity bill from where I am in the U.S., I'm spending anywhere from $60 to $250 a month depending on season, where the anecdata average is actually 2x or 3x that. Thankfully two or three years ago,…

Why did you move to Australia? You must be out of your mind. Kidding, just wondering.

Re: The Pretty Good House

#328

Post by jaclaz »

checkyoursudo wrote: post #161
Keyframe wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure where you are, but prefabs, especially panelized ones are popular choice recent years in europe. Customizable layouts, fast to build, affordable, great on energy consumption, better in earthquakes etc. Downsides would be that foundations and roof are built the same as traditional build, have to be careful what you nail through the walls (US people will be familiar with it since drywalls..), and statics-wise…

> fast to build Although, note, the final time to turnkey may not always be much faster, depending on the market conditions. The traditional builders told us about 24 months at current lead times. The modular builders told us 15-20 months, but two separate modular builders told us that anyone claiming less than 18 months is probably lying and reality is closer to 24 months even for modular.

Only to confirm that anything between 18 and 24 months for building a house is plausible, anything less is usually "wishful thinking", there may be some particular exceptions, of course, but my (close to 40 years) experience in the field tells me that whenever someone tells you 12 months or so they are forgetting half of the things needed or they are overly optimistic.

And, to respect an 18 months timeline, you need a supervisor and accurate site and construction planning and a bit of luck, if any of these lack, it is going to take 24 months +.

Re: The Pretty Good House

#329

Post by jaclaz »

mnw21cam wrote: post #238
switch007 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! I pleaded with the window company not to put vents in the new windows, as my house is already very draughty. They said it’s the law. They are cheap and poorly designed so they let in lots of noise too. And I had to tape them off because of the draught they let in even when closed.

A house does need ventilation. It's incredible how quickly humidity and carbon dioxide build up in an enclosed space from just breathing. The carbon dioxide is bad for you (reduces your ability to concentrate), and the humidity will have to condense out somewhere (on the coldest part of the house, which will usually be the windows, but wherever it is, it'll help mould to grow). However, getting that ventilation using…

Nowadays, with lots of places being converted to be more "energy efficient", the interventions are typically:

1) huge thickness thermal insulation on the exterior

2) double/triple gaze (airtight minus the small built-in ventilations) windows

3) NO added mechanical ventilation

The bets are on on how long it will take for people to realize that if they do not vent manually the house humidity/mould will form.

This has already happened for houses built some 10-15 years ago (the first houses built as Class A or Class B) that - even if newly built - did not usually provide mechanical ventilation.

There are on the market since a few years small "in-pipe" mechanical ventilators, including a heat exchanger, basically you make a 100 or 120 mm hole in the wall and put in it a pipe that contains the vent and heat exchanger, they are very suitable to install "as an afterthought".

Trouble is that they work on "alternate cycle", i.e. they suck air from the inside for - say - 30 seconds (warming the heat exchanger), then they push air from the outside for another 30 seconds, and they may be (or become) noisy, new models have built-on timers to be able (as an example) to switch off at night if in bedrooms or switch off in the evening in the living room, etc.

Re: The Pretty Good House

#330

Post by reef84_ »

jq-r wrote: post #272
darkwater wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea behind is surely that, but it doesn't mean they can screw things anyway... the difference is that they will be accountable by law for it (which is an important difference, especially if compared to the world of THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS")

I guess in theory that would be true, but in practice ( at least where I live ), there is no accountability. So yes, doctors, lawyers, architects/engineers etc, get all the prestige and social status, without the downsides. There was an exception though, like 10 years ago where the doctor was removing a patient's appendix and damaged major artheries. The poor patient lost the leg and the other one is not functioning…

>Doctors (and similar) don't get insurance against damages at all. Why would they?

More sarcasm, I assume?

Post reply on HN