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Zero energy ready homes are coming

energy.gov

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Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#211

Post by AnthonyMouse »

TheCoelacanth wrote: post #194
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact that so many people choose to live in suburbs, or the "sticks", suggests that there is something desirable to _them_ about living there. A major reason for the preference is the lower price per square foot in the suburbs than in higher density areas. They can't afford that much space in the city, which in turn is so expensive because the amount of high density housing is artificially limited by zoning. You…

The market has decided. High-density is better. If it weren't, then it wouldn't be so much more expensive.

That argument doesn't work either. If you pass a law restricting the supply of A and then notice that A costs more than B, it could as easily be because of lower supply as higher demand.

If you want to know what happens in a free market you have to let a free market happen.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#212

Post by Syonyk »

G_z9 wrote: post #185
Syonyk wrote: post #28

When you've confused "per kWh cost" with "energy to the house delivery costs," this sort of stuff sounds good on paper, but it doesn't fundamentally solve the problem that in the winter, homes use a lot more energy than they can generate, and in the spring/fall, they will generate a lot more energy than they need. I've got a large ground mount solar install I put in a few years ago (15.9kW nameplate, though mostly ea…

If you had a modern well insulated house you could heat your house with a hair drier in the dead of winter in climate zone 5. If your stacking up to 4mwh then your house is not really a good example.

I mean... that's all our energy inputs, including pumping water from a fairly deep well, almost all our transportation miles (300-400kWh/mo), heat, hot water, etc. It's a ~7 year old manufactured, 2k sq ft, 2x6 exterior walls, pretty tight (blower door and ducting tests have concluded "Nothing to fix here"), though I'm still running down a few weatherstripping issues on one of our doors.

A 1800W hair dryer running constantly is 1.3MWh/mo, and this isn't 4MWh/mo, it's since about Nov, on a colder than usual winter. I'm right on the north end of Zone 5.

In any case, I've yet to figure out how to get our heat pump outdoor unit from freezing up in icing fog, but neither is it worth $20k to put a ground source unit in right now.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#213

Post by paganel »

Baeocystin wrote: post #118
paganel wrote: post #89

Crazy how the Americans try to create "zero energy homes" (whatever that means) using basically wood structures. Wood is a very, very bad heat insulator. The best proven heat insulator when it comes to building a home is earth itself, that's why for hundreds to thousands of years dug-out huts have been the norm on several continents, for different cultures/civilisations. Granted, you cannot build a macmansion-like ho…

Almost half of Americans live in an earthquake zone. Wood is a hell of a lot safer than masonry or rammed earth in such conditions.

> Almost half of Americans live in an earthquake zone

Apart from CA and maybe some other parts further North where is that earthquake zone? Seriously asking.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#214

Post by coffeebeqn »

fwlr wrote: post #53

So it seems in practice the main way you achieve this certification is to dramatically cut heating losses by using a lot of insulation and make the house essentially air-tight. Obviously you can’t have an air-tight house for very long, you need fresh air. So you have explicit vents for incoming and outgoing air, and you run the incoming air (which is fresh, but not the temperature you want) through a heat exchanger w…

Don’t forget moisture. Many many places you can’t just have a sealed up system or you get mold immediately.

Insulation and a heat pump is pretty much as good as it gets right now

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#215

Post by AnthonyMouse »

johnweldon wrote: post #201
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact that so many people choose to live in suburbs, or the "sticks", suggests that there is something desirable to _them_ about living there. A major reason for the preference is the lower price per square foot in the suburbs than in higher density areas. They can't afford that much space in the city, which in turn is so expensive because the amount of high density housing is artificially limited by zoning. You…

> A major reason for the preference is the lower price per square foot in the suburbs than in higher density areas. I think that's a big part of it, but also people choose suburbs and rural living for reasons more to do with quality of life rather than cost.

Which is fine. The proposal isn't a law against low density housing, it's to remove the laws against high density housing.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#216

Post by johnweldon »

bkettle wrote: post #200
johnweldon wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally speaking, people will always choose to spend money living as close to their ideal as they can, with the resources they are able to give toward it. The fact that so many people choose to live in suburbs, or the "sticks", suggests that there is something desirable to _them_ about living there. I.e. the same spending power required to live in a house in the suburbs, or rurally, could usually be used to live in…

"Happy City" by Charles Montgomery brings an interesting angle on the typical urban planning story by focusing largely on how we can plan cities and communities to maximize happiness. In the book, he discusses that people have this "ideal" of moving to the suburbs, owning their own house, etc, but then the long commutes, isolation of living in a car-dependent neighborhood, dangers of living among high-speed cars, etc…

Well said - I don't fully agree, but I agree that an automobile centered world is sub-optimal, and fuels our feelings of disconnection.

I'm fully on-board with working to make suburbs more self-contained and walkable. As others have said, the issue may be zoning and regulations.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#217

Post by rootusrootus »

xthrown1 wrote: post #209
rootusrootus wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Right now you're forcing me to pay for your fetishes. Popular claim made without sourcing any facts.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090820161325.h...

So 15 years ago, urban dwellers had higher incomes and therefore paid more income tax, and as a result there was a net flow towards rural areas. I wonder if they'd prefer to be paid less.

But the discussion was about suburbs. The number of people living in rural areas is by definition low enough to not be a meaningful concern.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#218

Post by loeg »

Syonyk wrote: post #158
loeg wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you use pipes for?

The physical structure. Replace the wood in my designs with welded hunks of old steel pipe and you have his design.

Thanks. I'm perplexed why you would need to weld pipes in this application if a wood structure is also suitable.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#219

Post by zamnos »

rootusrootus wrote: post #207
xputer wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Your points require a very specific definition of suburban. Many cities in the western US are almost 100% suburban, but if that gets brought up the goalposts move.

Is that really a city though? Wouldn't that more accurately described as a big collection of suburban sprawl? I don't have a particular people/sq mile/meter figure in mind, but if it's not dense enough to justify public transportation and for it to be comfortable to live without a car (ie a single train/bus/tram per hour doesn't count), I say we don't actually call it a city because it really isn't.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#220

Post by paganel »

turtlebits wrote: post #138
paganel wrote: post #89

Crazy how the Americans try to create "zero energy homes" (whatever that means) using basically wood structures. Wood is a very, very bad heat insulator. The best proven heat insulator when it comes to building a home is earth itself, that's why for hundreds to thousands of years dug-out huts have been the norm on several continents, for different cultures/civilisations. Granted, you cannot build a macmansion-like ho…

Earth isn't a great insulator either, which is why insulation is used. Earth is good for thermal mass, which is another thing.

Yeah, maybe I used the wrong word, as I'm not a native English speaker, I meant it as good at keeping the heat in during winter and the cold air also in during summer.

And for that the houses made (partially) out of earth itself are pretty good. You have to be careful not to allow water infiltrations, but other than that those houses are pretty durable, even against earthquakes (my grandpa from my mother's side used to live in one).

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