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Zero energy ready homes are coming

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Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#281

Post by bluGill »

danans wrote: post #247
loandbehold wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complete nonsense. Power lines last 100+ years with little maintenance. Roads may need to be repaved after 30 years, but it's only fraction of the cost of building them from scratch. Stop promoting StrongTowns nonsense, his analysis were shown to be completely off base.

Their infrastructure lifetime numbers may be overly pessimistic, but nothing in your statement rebukes Strong Towns' thesis that the maintenance costs of infrastructure for sprawl were not realistically projected or accounted for.

Suburbs have existed for more than 100 years, and the inner ones have been boxed in that long. They have a proven history of fixing and replacing things.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#282

Post by kQq9oHeAz6wLLS »

bluGill wrote: post #274
Johnny555 wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can find a way to convince Americans they don't all need a yard that can easily fit 6 (japanese) houses, we'll be well on our way. I think we are on our way there, most new developments around here have houses that are nearly the size of the lot, with a tiny back yard and smaller front yard, and little room between houses. Developers get more money by making lots small and houses big, so there’s little incenti…

Most people don't use their yard. They don't have more than a few flowers in the garden. 20 minutes with a push mower is enjoyable exercise but they wouldn't want it to take longer.

The yard isn't necessarily there to be used in the way you mean. Often the yard is a buffer between you and your neighbor. Your noisy neighbor who smokes, swears, and plays the most disagreeable music at the highest volume late into the night. Any distance is helpful.

My big problem with cities is the people.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#283

Post by stouset »

johnweldon wrote: post #249
tshaddox wrote: post #246

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. The fact that people dump their sewage into the creek instead of paying for proper sewage treatment/disposal suggests that there's something desirable to _them_ to do the easier and cheaper thing. Of course! The problem is externalities.

I think your comment is a bit misleading. Dumping sewage into a creek is an externality that is bad. Someone preferring to live in a suburb does not mean they're generating externalities at that level. The very reason I pushed back on the comment was because of this black and white thinking. Saying > The fact that people dump their sewage into the creek instead of paying for proper sewage treatment/disposal suggests…

> Someone preferring to live in a suburb does not mean they're generating externalities at that level.

They are, but those externalities are simply not as straightforwardly obvious.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#284

Post by surfmike »

pchristensen wrote: post #159
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…

No one is questioning that people want to live in suburbs. People object to the government power preventing any additional development in these low density areas. These areas are desirable, but economically uncompetitive.

Re: "economically uncompetitive"

Here's a list of US counties by per capita income:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_counties...

Lots of suburban countries here— Arlington, Fairfax County, Marin, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Westchester, from the ones I know at least. The only two that seem quite urban in the top 15 to me are New York County and San Francisco County.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#285

Post by stouset »

rcme wrote: post #276
tshaddox wrote: post #246

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. The fact that people dump their sewage into the creek instead of paying for proper sewage treatment/disposal suggests that there's something desirable to _them_ to do the easier and cheaper thing. Of course! The problem is externalities.

Do people prefer to dump sewage in creeks? The GP said people live as close to their ideal as they can within their means. Generally, people with the means to afford sewers or septic tanks choose to use them.

Generally, we've enacted laws that prohibit people from dumping their waste into the surrounding area.

GP is suggesting that we start to perceive extremely damaging low-utilization, ponzi-style suburban development in a similar manner.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#286

Post by kortilla »

xyst wrote: post #64

I just see this as another subsidy for single family housing developments. The home may be "zero energy ready" or whatever greenwashing term they want to use. But the fact is they are spending that energy in driving from the sticks (in some cases >20 miles away) and back, driving from their home to the grocery store and back, driving to areas of interest (ie, parks, restaurants, doctors appointments). All of this is…

> American housing is a Ponzi scheme

This is shockingly dumb. Please lookup the definition of a Ponzi scheme.

First, you do know that when you get a house you actually get the house, right? That’s the value residents extract from the house. Whether my parents could resell their house was only relevant when they needed to, big shocker, move to a different house in another area. Apart from leaving something for inheritance the re-sale value was irrelevant to the utility. That’s antithetical to a Ponzi scheme.

Second, anyone can build more housing and there is tons of land to keep building in 90% of the country. That doesn’t work in a Ponzi scheme if the real value that sets the price is margin that can be captured by builders.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#287

Post by Xeoncross »

dublinben wrote: post #271
DoreenMichele wrote: post #208

Contrary to what I am seeing in comments on HN, this is not just for single family detached housing. If you go to the ZERH website, under Program Requirements it says: Versions 1 and 2, Single Family, Multifamily, and Manufactured Homes https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/zero-energy-ready-home... Additionally, one of the photos in the featured article has the following caption: Lopez Community Land Trust built thi…

What makes you think that project is relying on passive solar? In green building that concept has been largely superseded by newer standards like Passive House and Net Zero which generally rely more on air sealing and super-insulation with highly insulated windows.

There is going to be a lot of health fallout though as people start having oxygen depletion from tightly-sealed houses.

It's important that even well sealed homes have both A/C fresh air sources as well as ERV/HRV systems that can recapture the heat/cold the house has while replacing the CO2 with outside air.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#288

Post by bluGill »

dahfizz wrote: post #265
londons_explore wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a problem as long as your grid does dynamic minute by minute pricing. When the price of power drops to zero in the spring/fall, you can be sure there will be plenty of people lapping it up to smelt aluminium, make glass, make steel, make cement, liquify air, make hydrogen, etc. When the price of power is high in the winter, companies will swoop in with gas turbines, power cables from other places, and extr…

> Power hungry industries will become seasonal or migratory too. Electricity will have to become orders of magnitude more expensive for this to be true. After you've bought the building, the smelter, and the guy to operate it, the cost of electricity to smelt aluminum is negligible. Its never going to make sense to leave all that idle if the cost of electricity bumps up a few cents.

I work for a.company that melts steel. Cost of electric is a very large issue. We pay workers extra to work overnight shifts when electric is cheaper and shut down during the day. We also shutdown for annual maintenance in December when Christmas lights raise electric costs.. not one that melts metal, but I know one plant runs 5 months and does maintenance the other 7.

Note, the above is as of 10 years ago. Now wind provides most electric so hours may be different to account for that.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#289

Post by JeremyNT »

closeparen wrote: post #259
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…

> the same spending power required to live in a house in the suburbs, or rurally, could usually be used to live in higher density living, closer to urban centers Have you seen what condos cost? This is not true. Homeownership in walkable neighborhoods is basically reserved for plutocrats.

This is the strange/sad truth.

Clearly walkable neighbourhoods are highly desirable, and in the US people pay a massive premium to get them because they are so scarce. Yet, for some reason, new construction in the suburbs is all disconnected and almost never walkable.

There's a huge disconnect between what people want and what developers are actually building. The kind of density that leads to walkability seems to only occur in older and already expensive areas with infill development, never green field construction further from an existing city center.

Maybe it's impossible to build new walkable areas in the US.

Re: Zero energy ready homes are coming

#290

Post by DoreenMichele »

dublinben wrote: post #271
DoreenMichele wrote: post #208

Contrary to what I am seeing in comments on HN, this is not just for single family detached housing. If you go to the ZERH website, under Program Requirements it says: Versions 1 and 2, Single Family, Multifamily, and Manufactured Homes https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/zero-energy-ready-home... Additionally, one of the photos in the featured article has the following caption: Lopez Community Land Trust built thi…

What makes you think that project is relying on passive solar? In green building that concept has been largely superseded by newer standards like Passive House and Net Zero which generally rely more on air sealing and super-insulation with highly insulated windows.

You are correct that they are viewed as different systems and tend to rely on different strategies:

https://ecokit.us/passive-solar-design-vs-passive-house/#:~:....

To me, it's almost a matter of semantics.

In passive solar building design, windows, walls, and floors are made to collect, store, reflect, and distribute solar energy, in the form of heat in the winter and reject solar heat in the summer. This is called passive solar design because, unlike active solar heating systems, it does not involve the use of mechanical and electrical devices.[1]

The key to designing a passive solar building is to best take advantage of the local climate performing an accurate site analysis.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_solar_building_desig...

I think of passive solar as the umbrella term for such strategies. My understanding is passive house comes from a German project. It shouldn't surprise anyone that strategies which work well in Germany differ from strategies that work in warmer climates.

There are also traditional building approaches in Middle Eastern deserts that keep the entire city at bearable temperatures. They historically built on a plateau, oriented streets to be cooled by prevailing winds etc.

Both in Mexico and Iran, they have passive air exchange systems that help cool homes. Stairwells in Victorian American homes have similar features and likely served a similar purpose and were probably not merely ostentatious.

If you know a better umbrella term for this approach, I'm open to suggestions.

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