Building a modern home in the woods • Hacker News Board

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#201

Post by jcrawfordor » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 6:53 PM UTC

MisterTea wrote: post #115

MezzoDelCammin wrote: post #50

"The bigger issue was that the energy demands for the house, which included hot water heating for the pool and hot tub, outstripped the electrical supply we could get on a rural residential build: 400A" Am I the only one who almost spit out his coffee when reading this paragraph? I mean, building a remote home in the middle of a forest is a cool idea, sure. But then end up feeding the whole thing with 400A worth of e…

Since our voltage is 120/240 volt split phase or 120/208 open Y service (less common) we tend to need higher currents for main breakers/fuses. The old standard for a home was 100 amps whereas modern homes are built with 200 amp mains. I suppose the low cost of air conditioning and heat pumps has raised this demand. Otherwise our lighting and appliance loads have become more efficient. A 230/400V open Y service at 25…

My impression is that in many European countries much lower supply ratings are normal (like 25A, I think I've even seen 17A on an apartment with A/C!) and it's just sort of accepted that you will trip the main breaker if you run too many things at once. In the US tripping the main breaker would be a pretty crazy occurrence, we seem to always spec in order to make that very difficult to do. I wonder if one difference is the safety margin applied considering the long trip time for breakers in a light overload condition... if you have say 100A service you could pull 150A for a decently long time before the main trips, perhaps for the runtime of some appliances, and over time that could lead to heat problems.

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#202

Post by mholm » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 6:54 PM UTC

yongjik wrote: post #158

Fiahil wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"low impact" for North Americans, maybe... No wonder that we're at the begining of a climat change disaster.

I doubt most North Americans need a 400A connection. (How much wattage is that? 48kW?) I live in an ordinary single house in a boring suburb in the bay area, and on hottest days, if I have to use the A/C, the oven, and the dryer at the same time, maybe it would push it over ~10kW. Maybe once in a year.

> Bay Area

Most places in the US experience much harsher seasons than the Bay Area.

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#203

Post by bee_rider » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 6:56 PM UTC

Fiahil wrote: post #101

antisthenes wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of cognitive dissonance required to say "we want to limit impact" on one hand, and to run a 400Amp electrical connection to heat your hot tub and pool in Canada, is staggering.

"low impact" for North Americans, maybe... No wonder that we're at the begining of a climat change disaster.

I'll not defend our wasteful habits -- we really are screwing up the world over here -- but still, most North Americans don't have electrical outdoor heated pools. In a rural, fairly chilly area... that's really something.

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#204

Post by asjldkfin » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 6:57 PM UTC

Splendor wrote: post #185

asjldkfin wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see anything in OP's comment about second mansions or the homeless.

You've already changed your argument from "they never said anything about that" to "okay they said it but I think they were making assumptions". Log off. Go touch grass.

By "go touch grass", I assume you're probably a younger person. You certainly have the reading comprehension of one.

I'd re-read this thread carefully and then take a moment to consider: is this really a hill worth dying of embarrassment on? You can always just walk away.

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#205

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 6:58 PM UTC

claudiulodro wrote: post #25

The way to do this if you're not wealthy is to get a cheapo plot of land on the Oregon/Washington coast ($<100k for up to .5 acres) and put a manufactured home on it. It's way simpler, cheaper, and the construction on manufactured homes has improved a lot over the years (they're framed with 2x6s to survive transport, and this makes them sturdier and better insulated than most traditional houses). I did it and it's be…

[deleted]

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#206

Post by thatfrenchguy » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 6:59 PM UTC

mholm wrote: post #199

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who lives in the US, yes, 400A is insane.

It's entirely reasonable if they have a tankless water heater + electric heat. The amount of powerdraw that can be required during a shower means I would trip a 200A circuit during the winter. Average powerdraw would certainly be much lower, but you have to prepare for the peaks. Adding in an electric pool heater, more square footage to heat, and probably a fancy electric range, means you could hit 400A somewhat easi…

In a newly built 2500sqft house you should need a lot less than 200A for this, it should have almost perfect insulation.

That, and tankless water heater are stupid, frankly.

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#207

Post by subpixel » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 7:00 PM UTC

This reminds me a lot of time I spend reading Dwell magazine a decade ago.

Since that time, I've moved past the point where building such a house is impossible for me financially, but I've also moved past the point where such a house is attractive to me.

I saved up a lot of back issues of Dwell thinking I'd refer to them when building a dream home, and in a move a few years ago I threw them out. It felt exactly like what I imagine throwing out an adult magazine collection might feel like - oddly relieving.

Like airbrushed nude photos in Playboy (showing my age, I know), grand home schemes of all kinds are a pursuit of perfection. But nothing is perfect, or stays that way very long, and the higher your expectation and expense in relation to objects-as-happiness, the greater the disappointment.

I really am a sucker for innovative architecture, but for me, innovation is about dealing with constraints, not conquering nature and heating your pool at all costs.

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#208

Post by sdze » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 7:01 PM UTC

No Costs listed. Didn't read it.

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#209

Post by jcrawfordor » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 7:01 PM UTC

jakewins wrote: post #41

Aeolun wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

400A?! My house can make do with 60A, and my previous one with 40A Do they use 350A to heat a swimming pool? Talk about a waste of energy.

Are you in EU? Recall North America uses 120VAC, so a 400A service is equivalent to 200A in the EU

NA uses 120VAC at most loads - but service is 240V split. So 200A service in NA is the same as 200A in the EU. Of course this is confusing since we often talk about 120V loads, e.g. a 15A electric kettle in the US is pretty lame compared to a 15A electric kettle in the UK.

The 120V outlets are approximately equally split between the two legs (which you could view as -120 to 0 and 0 to +120), so one way you could view it is that 200A service in NA allows for about 400A of 120V load. But then larger loads are usually across both legs and you have to account for imbalance so it doesn't work out quite that simply. And then there are "weird load" like dryers, which commonly put the heating element across both legs but the drum and blower motors across only one, resulting in some amps on both legs and some more amps on only one of them.

And while we're at it commercial buildings often run the lighting across both legs for wire gauge economy. So there's a lot of nuance on the load side. But on the supply side it's all 240V either way (well, kind of, could be 208V in case of a wye supply, but that's not common).

Re: Building a modern home in the woods

#210

Post by thatfrenchguy » Thu, Feb 03, 2022, 7:01 PM UTC

First comment from my partner was “I don’t know if this is the Parasite house of an Apple Store” :-).

But really, so many weird decisions here that make no sense: why would you put your kid’s bed next to your bedroom in a new build? Why the bathrooms next to the bedrooms for your kid? Why cement floors and no floor heating? How did you end up at 400A/96kw of service (my car charges slower than that!). Why not building a indoor pool instead of a outdoor one? Feels a lot like your architect and contractors saw you had too much tech money and not enough common sense.

That, and the fake pretending to care about the environment when you live in the middle of nowhere and have a heated outdoor pool with 96kw of service in Canada is just astounding!