Design Ideas please
Greetings!
I’ve been reading up on some of the more successful methods of building green lately, trying to arrive at a clear path to low energy consumption for my new home. I have to admit that I’d lost track of progress in this area for many years so I’m not able to call upon any first hand or even second hand experience in designing for the specific location. Therefore I’d like to get ideas from those who’ve been building and living with these newer methods and materials.
Here’s what I’ve got: 4 acres ~300X650deep on an east-south-east facing hillside in southern NY State. The slope is about 15 degrees, variable. The 300 feet of road frontage is at the top of the property, the road running level.
Here’s what I’d like to do: The views from this lot are excellent, rolling hills with low mountain ranges in the distance. Due to the abundant hardwood trees in the area, I’ll need to get the house up fairly high, for it’s top floor to take full advantage of the wide angle possibilities. Then too, I want to keep the house back from the road. It’s a quiet road so eighty feet should be OK.
My best scheme is to terrace the property at the top, building a three story house with only the top floor at ground level. The house would be about 20’X50′ with an attached two car garage at one end, perpendicular to the three story section. The main section could be built with three faces, slightly angled to take different looks at the view.
Top floor: kitchen and eating areas, including a covered porch on the kitchen end; living room and office; half bath; deck on the other end.
Middle floor: three bedrooms and family room; three baths; screened porch, decks.
Bottom floor: guest bedroom; bath; recreation space; outside patio and terraced lawn.
Stairways in garage wing.
Sadly, solar for direct winter heat isn’t viable in this area. Not unless there’s a super efficient system which can get by with one sunny day out of three. That’s the winter weather pattern, many years running.
One other point…the house must be a good investment, using proven materials and building methods, a place that can be marketed to a range of “upscale” buyers, people who can easily appreciate it’s energy saving features.
Although I’m open to any and all ideas about how to best use this location, I’m going to choose materials which are reasonably priced and marketable.
My retirement plans need to remain flexible so that I’m able to earn a good living, using the federal capital gains tax credit on the sale of primary homes to best advantage.
So…I’m looking for advice and suggestions regarding any and all aspects of this project, particularly energy saving methods from those of you who have first hand experience with them.
I hope this question will be useful to others who are planning something similar.
Replies
Given that you are on a "down" slope from access, probably the first best thing to do is to split automobile access and storage away from the house, proper.
That does several things. One is that you can divorce soem issues from the house (like needing to have a "pure" grade level access to parking). The auto (and related vehicles, since this is several acres, so a four-wheeler and maybe an off-road golf cart are good to think about) storage can also then be used to "seperate" the house from the road physically, too. The dimensions can also be what's needful, and not get into the push-pull of house dimensions.
Given the slope, and the views, I'd be very inclined (NPI) towards "stepping" down the slope in staggered walk-outs. That lets you "buy some of that hillside for its passive mass, too (and PAHS really might be a trick on that site, too).
You might look at anything that decreases mechanical impact as well. Composting toilets, gray water irrigation, that sort of thing, if only to minimize the impact a septic field has on the view (since it kind of has to be down hill of the house).
You might double check on using solar for water heating, as that needs less than house heating does.
Capn,
I should've mentioned that my intention, with that proposed design, was to place the top floor, and the garage level, about twelve feet below road grade, using about two hundred feet of driveway across the property for that transition. I also failed to say is that I'd planned to place the house fairly close to one property line. It's possible to do that because the house on the next property is over two hundred feet away, while the house on the opposite side is rather close to our line.
While I agree that separating transportation from living area is a very worthy consideration when it serves to enhance the property's key feature, if one considers the view to be that feature, separation isn't required.
OTOH...I've often considered PAHS for this location but never with a step down design. I'm wondering if you're suggesting that each lower level would have a short 12/12 section of roof to use for solar applications?
One of the winter weather problems in that area is ice storms. There are about an equal number of snow and ice storms, say four of each. I've lived on that property in a small cabin which was down slope from the parking area. There were numerous times when ice made it very difficult, even impossible, to leave the house on foot. I finally bought some cramp-ons so that I wouldn't get stranded. Still it was a PIA to deal with the problem so it has now become something forseeable which needs to be addressed.
My simple remedy is to access the garage directly from the house and to make the driveway passable during ice storms for a two wheel drive car with studded tires.
Still, that doesn't mean that a PAHS design couldn't be employed, just that access to it would require an interior stairway from the garage level down to the top floor.
The house that isn't there, as seen from the road. I've imagined that with some amusement, having a two car garage with an entry door yet nada mas. Just a grassy or gravel area next to it with an apparent drop off beyond.
Whaddaya think?
I've often considered PAHS for this location but never with a step down design. I'm wondering if you're suggesting that each lower level would have a short 12/12 section of roof to use for solar applications?
Well, one wild image was "full speed" PAHS, with actual green roofs for each section that would blend back into the landscaping. So, you'd follow a path of step stones of the like, turn the corner, and there's a house.
Now, my thinking was to aim the house at the views; but the orientation makes me want to make a bit of "U" or chevron shape. Or that was the quick-n-dirty brain storming. That led me to steps, and the levels above would become "bases" for decks of each superior level. That would culminate in some portion with roof overhangs at the topmost level; some extended as porch roofs, others not.
Now, those deck surfaces could also be passive collector locations. Or you could use concrete plank and really tie them into a PAHS envelope.
Now, the garage "thing" goe back to how I personally liek to disconnect them from buildings--that's a personal and a construction bias. Having the garage a bit higher, to my original thinking was keeping you out of complicated driveway answers (like pitch, curves, increasing non-absorptive materials on site to no great end). You have actually added another--ice. Much simpler to rig a cart path that subtly follows a barrier free path down to the house from the garage, than hoist around the house and drive way to suit. My thought for the garage was to make it look a bit house, or gatehouse like, as well. Still neighborly and inviting; but also, the place for cars.
See, there's another neat thing "we" can do by divorcing our cars from our houses. We can have houses that have either no main entrance, or every entrance is a main one. This can be a liberating thing to wrap the design sense around.
The "connection" I'd picture would be roofed for shelter, with a low wall integrated into the landscaping. Roof would follow in several twists and turns to reduce the visual impact. Path itself would be about 6' wide to allow cartage (man or battery-powered <g>) Now, that path & structure buy you some interesting places, cheap. Things like surfaces for WH panels, or photovoltaics & such. The terraces created in the "wind" down/up to the house give you places to shelter the house with landscaping, or berm in thermal storage, or create an impound spot for a tanakage for rainwater collection or such like.
Ok, I clearly need adult supervison, I jsut had an image of a "U" over another "U" with unequal "legs" ending in decks. Real wackiness was the entrance, in a tower with an elevator (which solves getting from cars to kitchen and retaining barrier-free [oh, if I have not perviously said so, I really think LEED/green needs to embrace barrier-free]).Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Ok, I clearly need adult supervison.
No, I just think you've been spending a lot time watching "Lord of the Rings", looking at the hobbit houses. Have you and Bilbo Baggins been hangin' out, smokin' his pipe again? ;-)
Really, thanks for putting yourself so completely into this situation and sharing your ideas. It's just going to take me a while to get my head around some of your concepts. I need to expand my old ideas to include other points of view, particularly yours. I'm certainly willing to go way beyond conventional. I just need to sketch this out and see what happens. I be back when I can respond with something intelligent.
Peter
"I be back when I can respond with something intelligent."
Disclaimer: The following should not be construed as anything intelligent.
Well, I'm back, CapnMac,
It's taken me a while to more fully appreciate the opportunity I have with this building site, to come up with something pretty unique and interesting, using PAHS principles as its basis.
I have two other lots, both in forested areas, which would be more suitable for timber frame homes. And just because I enjoy wood doesn't mean that I can't find some creative ways to surround myself with it, while living underground. Bilbo's abode had lots of good looking wood work, as I recall.
Maybe there's more hobbit in me than I know. My feet, size thirteen, are pretty big for my 5'10" frame so I'll take that as a sign. ;-)
Anyway, I've managed to release my mind from its attachment to more conventional building methods. So I'm now feeling some excitement about venturing into a design more in line with what you described.
I'm curious about stepping the lower floor out(assuming two stories). That would seem somewhat impractical because of the very heavy load on the roof. Maybe not, if that load could be transferred to columns which would reside inside partition walls/closet spaces on the lower level. Yeah that would probably work OK. I'm so not used to working with loads of this magnitude that they tend to intimidate my carpenter's sensibilities.
Am I correct in assuming that two stories underground is more practical/economical in all respects within the PAHS criteria? Or what?
Another question about the lower level. If there was an umbrelled terrace in front of the downstairs, could that area also contribute? I'm wondering about cubic feet relationships, outside to inside, and how to make a safe estimate.
I'm curious about stepping the lower floor out(assuming two stories)
Am I correct in assuming that two stories underground is more practical/economical in all respects within the PAHS criteria? Or what?
Another question about the lower level. If there was an umbrelled terrace in front of the downstairs, could that area also contribute? I'm wondering about cubic feet relationships, outside to inside, and how to make a safe estimate.
Our VaTom may be better versed in the specifics of PAHS than I can hope to be (it being ages and ages ago that I read Hait & the like.
The limiting factor in building along a hillside winds up being the "open" ends. So, a box over a box winds up with a bit too much exposed area for the ground-contact area. Ok, so set things further back. Great, but now you only have a view on 25% of the perimeter. That's usually a non-starter (especially after buying premium hillside).
That leaves a couple of options, though. Wrap a "U" (or an "L" or "T" or "S" or whatever shape) around the hill, or wrap it "into" the hill. Now, daylight, by rule of thumb will 'penetrate' about 13'; that's plenty for most rooms. Means a body can put a hallway against the hillside, too. That hallway can be a convenient spot to get the inter-level mechanicals in, too.
The trick of it is to not think of it as two walk-out basements one above the other. If only because if you are trying for PAHS, a basement wall tends to be the wrong way to do things.
Now, here that it's later on, and this has muddled about in my thinking a bit, I'm sore inclined to suggest a very definite hybrid. This would be a lower level of "private" spaces, bedrooms and the like--all afixed firmly to the hill with excellent ground contact between the structure and hill. Over that semi-ideal PAHS structure could be the "public" spaces using some sensible construction technique (from SIPS to timer to steel frame to PERSIST--whatever). These spaces could be tied together with a two story space that combined living/family type functions (or the "family room" might be a tall space with staircase-as-feature, and a separate, "away room" on the upper level; or whatever--it's your house, not mine).
Now, the trick of that would be connecting the two. The visible, architectural, part is not so tough--keeping two different systems in harmony is the hard part. But, the result might be the thing, too.
Might help if I'd remember to take my butter paper doodles and stick them on the scanner at the house, too <sigh>.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Capn,
I get what you're saying about maxing out the ground contact. I believe that I can make pretty good use of the view while making ground contact with more than 50% of the outside walls. Lemme explain.
One of the limiting factors on this property, regarding the view, is that the slope is not steep and the trees are fairly tall... both on my 300' wide lot and the adjacent lots. Of course I can and will cut and trim the trees on my property to open up the view but I can't expect my neighbors to always cooperate with my desires regarding trees on their properties. We may be able to negotiate on an individual basis but I would never build for a view which I didn't "own".
The way that works to benefit the area of ground contact is that I can't really count on more than 90 degrees of view at the elevation where the top floor of any underground home would be.
So let's say that I build a stacked 20'X60' two story, both underground, allowing about 6' of each end wall to be exposed, with retaining walls running out about 50' off each end wall, at the 6' return position.
Then I build a garage on top but to one side, beginning directly over one end wall where it intersects the retaining wall. The garage floor stops over the retaining wall but the building continues out over the retaining wall, say 12'-16', as a covered observation deck. There would also be a descending stairway in the observation deck, against the retaining wall and leading down to an entry door on the upper floor of the house.
This would allow covered access to the house from the garage, and a rather unique "front porch" entrance onto the observation deck, from where the house could be entered via the stairs. The observation deck would make the most of the view and also serve as cover for a screened porch on the next lower level.
Edited 6/5/2007 7:57 pm ET by Hudson Valley Carpenter
So let's say that I build a stacked 20'X60' two story, both underground, allowing about 6' of each end wall to be exposed, with retaining walls running out about 50' off each end wall, at the 6' return position.
Yeah, that's the same sort of "page" I'm thinking of as well.
Now, I might start with a bit less depth, say 15-16' feet; but 20' is a very good module. I'd likely, for design purposes, only overlap the upper over the lower by the width of a staircase, too.
Then, let the rooms "spring" from that to what ever dimension seems apt. So, maybe at one end, there'a "notch" that frames a view. No problem, put in a bump-out or window seat to "get to" that view. Or, maybe, "L" out to the view--the trick to not constrain the design to a predefined exterior, even though we are predefining to a degree.
Don't forget that you can use angles to your advantage, too. Maybe there's a bend in one of the contour lines or the like. Maybe as that "bend" point you set the family room, and it's 24' deep. That gets you "left/right" views the "buried" end rooms migh have less of (which can be hard to see while asleep anyway <g>).Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
The 20' dimension allows for the lower level bedrooms to have a hall along the back wall, a standard sized bath in each and standard sized BR.
Assuming that the entry I spoke of, arrived at from the exterior stairway, would access the foyer/living room...the stairway connecting the upper and lower levels would be parallel to the end wall, against the interior living room wall and leading down into the family room.
The only exterior feature to have any architectural possibilities is the garage/observation deck/front porch/entrance. That's fine with me. Nothing to distract from the great view. Just a small barn or carriage house design...something which respects the past while creating a relaxed feeling and allowing the view to take over immediately.
If the house ends up being totally pragmatic in design, I can easily live with that. There can be some nice details to make it a more personal space.
Edited 6/5/2007 9:19 pm ET by Hudson Valley Carpenter
Am I correct in assuming that two stories underground is more practical/economical in all respects within the PAHS criteria? Or what?
Another question about the lower level. If there was an umbrelled terrace in front of the downstairs, could that area also contribute? I'm wondering about cubic feet relationships, outside to inside, and how to make a safe estimate.
You've been doing your homework. Very good questions. Two stepped stories is great, two stacked stories gets real interesting from an engineering standpoint, particularly with walk-out.
Pretty sure I know how to do stacked two story, but it scared the crap out of the engineer I hired. He wouldn't touch it. Client backed off to 15' of buried wall. Still a substantial wall, but not particularly expensive.
For PAHS more ground contact is better. I cheated like hell, and suffered the consequences. <G> Next house will do the same. Sure is easy to live with.
The only way to give a good quantitative guess is to go through the calculations. Hait gives good rules of thumb, like 2' of overhead dirt under the umbrella. I have 1', from a mistaken assumption that it was a large economy measure. That, I'll correct in the next house.
Don't forget that your insulated mass extends (ideally) 20' out from the perimeter in all directions. 20' is the magic distance, half a year for heat to go that far. Volume of storage needed can't be determined until you know how much heat you need and the delta T. But even if you don't get 100% storage, you'll still likely have the best performing house in the neighborhood.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Given the slope, and the views, I'd be very inclined (NPI) towards "stepping" down the slope in staggered walk-outs. That lets you "buy some of that hillside for its passive mass, too (and PAHS really might be a trick on that site, too).
I'm certainly interested in "buying some of that hillside for its passive mass". I haven't yet read anything specific about how to do that...how much to use, how to isolate/insulate it from the rest of the soil. Can you expound on that or direct me to a good explanation? I'm particularly interested in how it might be accomplished without using a soil covered roof.
More questions later...
Seems to me you wouldn't HAVE to use a soil covered roof to use PAHS. Earth is a great insulator, of course, whatever the heat source. But it seems to me the key to making PAHS work is the umbrella that keeps water out of the soil around the building.
VA Tom? Am I right?Remodeling contractor who once visited the Glass City.
Seems to me you wouldn't HAVE to use a soil covered roof to use PAHS. Earth is a great insulator, of course, whatever the heat source. But it seems to me the key to making PAHS work is the umbrella that keeps water out of the soil around the building.
Yes, that's what I'm getting at. How the "umbrella" works. I've read the term but my understanding of how it works is very limited. Is it all about keeping the surrounding soil dry? How is that usually accomplished? What other conditions are desirable?
Your post about the umbrella got me involved in another web search for better information. For some reason, probably because I included the word umbrella, Google came up with some more pertinent information this time. This site has some good drawings to go along with the written explanations.
http://www.axwoodfarm.com/PAHS/UmbrellaHouse.html
Seems to me you wouldn't HAVE to use a soil covered roof to use PAHS. Earth is a great insulator, of course, whatever the heat source. But it seems to me the key to making PAHS work is the umbrella that keeps water out of the soil around the building.
VA Tom? Am I right?
Almost. Dirt isn't used as insulation, but thermal mass. You knew that. 2 jobs the umbrella does: insulate the thermal mass from air temps, and keep the mass dry. Dry, in that water moving through the mass will carrry away a large amount of heat with it. A further benefit with dry dirt on the outside of the house means you can save your waterproofing money. All we use is 6 mil poly in our well-drained low water-table sites.
There are lots of strategies for heat storage that don't include overhead dirt. They work. The question is always: how much heat do you need to store and how will you retreive it. More wall/ceiling/floor direct dirt contact is better for PAHS. A guy in Spokane goes to great lengths to claim his variation, dubbed AGS, is far superior to PAHS. His numbers don't show that. The comparison we once made, when climate-corrected, showed significantly less efficiency than my place. Which is not to suggest that the folks he designs houses for don't get comfortable houses, they do.
Any way you get annual heat storage is going to be better than not. Thanks for posting the link to that book excerpt. BTW, theres a moderately active forum http://tinyurl.com/2q8r6t devoted to annual heat storage. Pacific northwest interest, both there and from England are guys working on spread sheets to predict performance. I've relied on hand-cranked calculations that work but are tedious. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Hudson Valley Carpenter,
I would step outside of my normal comfort and seek higher efficency building methods. ie: ICF or SIP construction. In retirement money paid out for costs that increase will have far more impact than construction costs which will be paid for with fixed dollars..
There is another post here that shows stick building has only 2/3 rds of it's rated values.. thus an R 33 wall becomes an R22 wall.
Further if the whole area is filled with hardwood you might seek to build with sawmill wood rather than tradional lumberyard wood.. The potential savings is massive.. My home which is 5500 sq.ft. would normally have a lumberyard framing cost of around $60,000 while I built my home for around $20,000. while using the fine hardwoods like cherry maple black walnut white oak etc.. I priced out the wood in my home and if I bought it all from a lumberyard the cost would have been $830,000.00 So in theory I saved $810,000.00
You could do this as a signature piece of a career. I choose to double timberframe because my costs were so low with sawmill wood compared to lumberyard wood.. you could do that using either SIP or ICF construction. Or just single timberframe or at minimum use many large timbers as accent pieces.
Now to comment a little about putting the eating on the top floor,, you might have an issue with the wife regarding that, I'd imagine she'd resent hauling groceries up to the top floor. Most women seem to want the groceries close to the car.
I would step outside of my normal comfort and seek higher efficency building methods. ie: ICF or SIP construction. In retirement money paid out for costs that increase will have far more impact than construction costs which will be paid for with fixed dollars..
An excellent point, one which I've been considering more seriously over the last few years. Besides retirement concerns, as energy gets more expensive, an efficient home will attract more buyers.
I'm pretty well sold on ICFs at this point, just need to get a few minor concerns resolved before putting them at the top of the list.
The hardwoods on that property aren't quite large enough in girth, most of them, to be good saw logs for timber framing. They're better suited for firewood. That doesn't mean I wouldn't do a timberframe trussed roof but I need some more information about SIPs to help me see how they would keep energy costs in line. How and where did you use SIPs in your home?
BTW, perhaps I wasn't clear enough about the site. The bottom two floors would be underground on the up hill side, while the top floor would be level with the garage.
Hudson Valley Carpenter
Now I have better mental image of your concept and that does clearly solve the issue of groceries.
As for using your own trees to provide the timbers,, that would be like tearing off siding to heat the house in my humble opinion.. I was thinking that if trees are that abundant in the area there might be smaller sized family logging operations nearby that will sell hardwood at modest prices. I had a friend build a timberframe using local hardwoods and ICF's as the exterior walls and his wood costs were only $6000.00 for a 4000 sq.ft. house. (yes 6 thousand) that was all the wood used except for trim. I have some suggestion for you if you'd like to find modestly priced wood at local sawmills..
I learned a great deal about SIP's and ICF's building mine.. if I had it all to do over again I'd build with ICF's all the way to the roof line rather than use SIP's on the walls.. IN my humble opinion SIP's should be required use for roofing insulation.. the thicker the better even with deminishing returns.
You need to aggressively shop for the forms, I've found over a 40% cost differance between good brands and a 70% cost differential between the cheapest and most expensive brands.. (Although some of the really cheap brands just scream blow out potential to me)..
Further to attract the sort of buyers you'd like it's should be absolutely manditory to build the exterior with either brick or stone. Not only is it a durable and extremely upscale thing to do. It's absolutely minimal maintinace as well, something upscale buyer prefer.
Edited 5/30/2007 8:37 am ET by frenchy
It would be easy for me to get hardwood timbers from local sawmills, conifers too for that matter. We have any number of local mills in our extended area, from the one man hobby sawyer to some pretty big logging and saw mills, further up in the mountains. There's some serious hill billies, back in the Catskill mountains, yes sir!
Anyhow that's something I've done before and could do again. I also remember the first timber frame barn conversion I worked on, many years ago. Oak was being used and I was given the job of chiseling one inch mortises in 8X8 beams. It was looking like I'd be there all summer, pounding away on that chisel, until the contractor hired a couple more guys to move it along. I haven't done any mortising like that since then. How have timber framers improved that part of the operation?
I like the idea of using ICFs, bottom to top, because they provide a lot of good answers but I'll wait on that decision until I've heard from others about alternate methods. I wonder if it's possible to combine ICFs with conventional poured concrete foundations? Could I put ICFs on top of a poured foundation?
Thanks for the clues about shopping for the best prices on ICFs. I'm part Scots so that comes naturally. ;-)
Edited 5/30/2007 1:30 pm ET by Hudson Valley Carpenter
Hudson Valley Carpenter..
Mortises? you simply use a chain morticer now,, it takes about 10 minutes or so to rough one out and depending on your skill level another few minutes to sweeten it up so the tenon goes in with a satisfying thunk..
To make the tenons, you can if you want use a skill saw and zip it off using a few cuts and knocking off the waste, or use a groove cutter which is a skil saw like thing with a dado head instead of a blade and make the sweetist tenon in the world, zip, zip, zip..
Use that same groove cutter to put a neat wire chase in the back of the beam or make a clever rabbit to set a timber along side another timber yet carry the load with both timbers..
AH! the sweet tools I've found when I made my timber frame. Big portable power planes,, big circular saws, stuff to make it possible for me to build this timberframe pretty much by myself part time nights and weekends..
I did mine in modern European manner.. that is instead of using wooden pegs to join everything I drilled holes and made some connections with lag bolts.. The advantage is that in a fire the first failure is when the peg burns thru and the joint fails.. with a lag bolt there to resist burn thru the frame remains together for hours!
IN actual construction the lag hole is covered up and looks like a peg.. that not only provides a visual imitation of traditional pegged joint but also does the wonderful thing of insulating the lag bolt from fire.. Wood actually is a good insulator in a fire you know!
I got extra clever doing this by ordering a three step drill. the first step is the pilot hole, the second step was for the shank and the third step was the counterbore that allowed the head and washer to be recessed. Sure they cost me about $90.00 each but I figure they saved about $9000 worth of labor!
Drill one hole and you're ready for lag bolts.. Then I'll make pegs and tap ithem into the holes and it will look for all the world like old fashioned (but much safer) pegged timbers..
You can of course use ICF's on top of a poured wall but why? The cheapest poured wall quote I got was over $10,000 more than I spent doing ICF's myself.. They really are as simple as putting together leggo's. (actually I've explained that when I started my house I hurt my back in a car and was bedridden, my sister in law with absolutely no construction experiance ever, finished putting it together for me. I sorta told her what to do but I was so drugged I was pretty well slurring my words and I think I fell asleep doing it)..
I got so cocky that for my second use of ICF's I did a circular wall on top of forms that I made for the footings. I poured the footings, walls and floor, etc. all at once! (oh and added a brick ledge to the outside at the same time). I put the floor joists in the forms at the same time.. Yeh there were a couple of 2x4's acting as braces simply because I knew the pump truck guy would cry if I didn't have them but in no way did I need them...
I mean I should take some pictures of it and show you.. An hour before the trucks arrived I was still putting it all together and yet they left on time and I didn't leak a single drop of concrete! No bulges, no leaks, nothing!.. The sweet part is I used every single drop of concrete and did every single thing I wanted to ! (I also poured concrete around the drains for my gutters, poured the floor of the room, and put a footing in for the cap stone on my driveway.. The last drop of cement perfectly leveled off the footings! (it took about 2 1/2 hours total time)
I had another guy around to help if there should happen to be a blow out but he spent the whole time leaning on his shovel. Mind you my total experiance is on my house!
Check Out timberwolf tools. com for a place to buy timberframing tools. (or buy mine when I finish with them, I'll sell them for 1/2 price of new)
You should take some pictures of your home. With your well written descriptions, they would make a fine thread.
Thanks for the link to the tools, and for the encouragement to look into timber framing more closely. The concept of ICF walls and timber trusses covered with SIPs is attractive to me. Gives me enough structure and wood to keep my carpenter's heart beating enthusiastically.
What spacing is possible using SIPs? I'd imagine that four feet would work but what's the maximum spacing for a 30#/sq.ft. dead load? I couldn't find that information on the SIP manufacturer's site I studied yesterday.
Of course I'd like to incorporate PAHS into this design. After all, the two lower stories would be underground on one side so it just makes sense to take advantage of what others have learned about heating and cooling in that way. That's what brought up the question about putting ICFs on top of a solid concrete foundation. 1. I don't know if any ICFs have been engineered for three story applications, two floors underground. 2. I'm not sure if ICFs and PAHS requirements work well together in such a situation.
Edited 6/1/2007 11:13 pm ET by Hudson Valley Carpenter
Hudson Valley Carpenter..
If you are using SIP's structural strength is so massive compared to stick building (it's 200% stronger than stick building) that instead of looking at wall strength you look at insulation values.. a 4 inch wall will carry all the load you're likely to have. But use a 6 inch wall to gain the superior insulation. The extra cost per panel would be under a dime a foot.. I'll try to dig thru my old papers and see exactly what they will carry.. As for spacing I did 4 feet. 8 feet is normal, 12 feet is doable and with a little careful application you could go more..
Remember you might do a timberframe so add the strength of that back into your calculations.. Simply tie the SIP to the timbers.. IF you are doing a railroad tie size timber that is capable of handling massive loads all by itself (I'd have to look it up but 30 tons per timber seems about right for vertical loading) and yet they cost about $20.00 each before they are treated. that's a 9x7x 81/2 feet hardwood.
If you want to use the thermal mass of an ICF wall to use PAHS you can although it's one of those good news bad news situations.. Good news it's better than poured walls, bad news it's not optimum.. What I would do is put the fireplace in the center of the house and use it's mass.
Yes you can do three stories with ICF's, the book they have available gives you the exact details and sizes required or you can call your local dealers up and get them to do the calcs for you.. I simply asked my local building inspector what he wanted to see and did that..
Now there are several "tricks" I've learned with both systems. The SIP manual has you putting panels up vertically.. Experience has taught me that there is a better way! Dramatically faster and yet it will afford you superior strength if,........ (actually I learned that trick from a guy who's been doing SIP's for well over two decades.)
With ICF's you dramatically reduce any chance of blow out if you simply use a little more rebar than the manual calls for.. as cheap as rebar is it's so much worth it that it's a no brainer as far as I'm concerned.. Maybe you'll have a couple of hundred extra dollars in the whole house but as that concrete thunders into the forms and shakes things around you won't worry.. With ICF's buy the forms, the concrete and use the pump truck all from the same source if possible.. My local concrete company charges a little more than the absolute cheapest I could buy forms for but they have a tech around to talk you through things, check everything out if you want them to, have manuals and video's you can watch and in general hold your hand so the process is surprisingly easy.. I did my first ICF without any of that because they were new and my most recent when they called and talked to me I felt secure enough to go without their help.. (even though what I did has never ever been done before the way I did it.. (I know it sounds terribly arrogant but honestly it's that simple of a process!)
If you'd like to see some pictures of my place go into the archieves and enter 85891.1 in advanced search.. there's some more scattered around and like I said I'll probably post some new pictures as soon as I have a free moment as I progress with the lakeside of my place..
I couldn't help noticing the part about pouring the ICF wall and footing together at one time, which seems to have so many advantages. What was your wall height and concrete thickness, and how wide was the footing?
I would love to do this too, but do you think I could get away with it with a 12' tall, 10" concrete thickness ICF wall with a 24" wide footing? There will be lots of rebar to help out.
Thanks
gerrha,
Well, The forms are really on a shaky situation, balanced across the forms. So what I did to prevent kick out from the forms, I put a topper plate over the forms abutted to the form itself.
Now I'm the worlds cheapest SOB so I used furniture grade white oak.. ;-) actually it was White oak the sawmill gave me and I hadn't found a use for yet. I ran it through my planner so everybody could see how nice it was (just to be silly) Not enough to do the floor of any room (except maybe a closet or something) so I made my forms with one inch thick boards. You can use normal 1 1/2 thick pine or whatever. My stakes I made from Hard maple, again furniture grade stuff but the boards were only about 2 1/2 inches wide. I had once thought I could use it to make normal narrow strip flooring but I liked the look of wide plank so much I eventually gave up.. I guess what I'm saying is I used scrap wood.
WHAT MADE THIS WHOLE THING WORK IS IT'S A BOWED WALL. That bow adds a lot of strength especially when you do what I did which was carefully back fill against the forms before the pour. We're talking hand shovel small amounts gingerly placed. I didn't want to take a chance on dislodging the forms off the footings. I back filled right up to within a few feet of the top. The wall couldn't collapse inward because the floor joists prevented that and it couldn't collapse outward because the backfill prevented that.
To answer your question.. yes it can be done but without the bow and back fill you'll really have to brace things well. Check with your building inspector first.. I asked mine and explained what I intended to do and he agreed to let me do it.. Just to be safe I took a lot of pictures showing all the rebar in place and as the concrete thundered into the forms.
I'm kinda tired now so I don't have the attention to soak in all the details, but a few thoughts came to mind as I skimmed the thread. Sounds like a beautiful site.
First, smaller is the best way to save money. If it were me I'd put money into quality, and size in the rooms that matter, such as the main living area. To me, bathrooms and bedrooms can be small because nothing goes on in there that needs much room. I'm also a believer in quality over size.
I can strongly commend an ICF foundation. I used it on my "dream home" in St. Lawrence County and love it in every way. The basement was the warmest, driest I've ever been in, and it had no heat other than what came off the outside of the ductwork. I also very much liked the Hardie Shingle I used, and I think it would fit the style of an Adirondack home as well. It is extremely durable, and in an area such as yours that is likely to be damp, it won't be subject to rot. If you want to show quality, then vinyl is definitely out.
Raised heel trusses are a good idea because they allow attic insulation to stay full thickness all the way to the outside wall.
I didn't quite follow what you were saying about the driveway, but pay attention to the slope not only for traction, but the direction of runoff of melted snow, so you don't create an ice streak down the driveway. Fuss over the slope and pitch to send the water away. Also think of where the plowed snow will go. Keeping the garage to the side of the driveway is good so the plow can just push the snow past the garage into the yard. Don't get too fancy with turns because in the winter the plow won't find the driveway and you'll have the edges of the grass all torn up.
Keep the kitchen near the garage so carrying groceries won't be a chore. Definitely no stairs from garage to kitchen (except the code required step or two that a garage slab must be below the door to the house).
Windows should be low-e.
If you have natural gas or propane then a decorative gas heating stove would be good when the power goes out. I had mine hooked to a thermostat set at 55° so if the power went out while I was away, the pipes would be protected from freezing. It's also hot enough to cook on in an emergency.
Here's a photo showing what the Hardie Shingle looks like. Oh, and one other thing, a roof over the door that won't dump the snow on the steps.
Edited 5/29/2007 8:50 pm ET by WayneL5
Nice entry, well proportioned. I agree that the Hardie siding is good looking stuff.
What brand of ICFs did you use? Did you do the installation yourself?
I used Arxx ICF's. The general contractor installed them. It was his first time so he had assistance from the Arxx rep.
I used Arxx ICF's.
Thanks Wayne. I've read a little about that company and hope to attend one of their seminars soon.
My next site's steeper than yours, similar entrance, but not a public road. West facing. Blue Ridge sunsets.
I'm doing a larger footprint but stepped. Top level is garage (750') and most living space (including guest suite and sound-isolated office). Lower level is majority 2 lane lap pool (no fiberglass or liner <VBG>), utility room, and what looks like a bedroom but lacks egress. Area over the lower level is mostly deck. We don't grow grass here. Or mow it.
PAHS is the only system I consider. Direct gain isn't always necessary, depends on your heating/cooling need. The whole idea is annual heat storage, from whatever heat source. ICFs are only appropriate for exposed walls, and even then inferior to insulation on the outside of concrete walls. This has been well-discussed on BT. Buried walls require earth contact.
Green folder I see, which I guess my place qualifies- for BT. I use a lot of concrete and make no apologies as I need neither a heating or cooling system. Simple commercial construction, beefed up for the earth load. Steel bar joists are very economical.
The last (similar) client house appraised 50% higher than construction cost, not entirely due to the shell. It got a standard (tiny) air source heat pump mostly to aid financing. Winters, almost no use. Summers, primarily for dehumidification. Not your climate, we have 4166 heating degree-days, 1131 cooling.
Heat loss/gain calculations will predict performance well. And tell you how you need to tweak the design. Pay attention to your climate and you'll do fine.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
PAHS is certainly appropriate to my site. However, I have several concerns about trying it this time.
The first is how the house presents itself as architecture, upon arrival. Coming upon the house from above and entering it from one end, after descending a pathway seems to lack any kind of impact. Charming perhaps, but most custom homes today strive to make a statement. "Curb appeal". It's not a big deal to me but it will be to a large percentage of potential buyers.
Second in importance is that placing the top floor underground will put it twelve feet below the level I'd planned on for a more conventional home. I will have gone to some trouble and expense, terracing to achieve the best possible view from that location. Losing twelve feet would narrow the field of view considerably. It would also make access on foot more burdensome.
Third is the flat ceiling under the bar joists. I'm not dead set against plain ceilings, particularly when there's a great view to pull the inhabitants' eyes outside but when night falls, I'd like to have something inside the place that shows structure with different textures and colors. Using SIPs over timber trusses, with some stonework in view, has the kind of appeal I'm looking for in the main living area.
What I'd like to learn from you, assuming that I go with the an above ground top floor, is whether to two lower levels, both of whose up hill walls are underground, can make use of any PAHS advantages?
Another question which I've not yet seen answered is how soil outside the PAHS structure is isolated/insulated from surrounding soil? How do you hold heat in that thermal mass?
The first is how the house presents itself as architecture, upon arrival...
Common misperception is that PAHS needs any particular architecture. Almost any house can be adapted. If I live long enough, I've got a plan to build PAHS on my other peak here. Second floor master bedroom, surrounded (360º) by roof garden. A round house with a tower. Pretty sure I could find a tenant.
You balance storage mass with heating/cooling need. Not unlike your HVAC guy determining how much heat and ac you need. But the passive part works more reliably, and considerably cheaper.
Not currently looking like it'll happen (health problems), but a GC here was thinking to build a house similar to Frank Gehry's Santa Monica place: http://tinyurl.com/2j7pa3Construction would have needed some changes, but appearance could have been the same.
Third is the flat ceiling under the bar joists.
All the shell does is provide a conditioned space inside. What you do inside is totally up to you. Post&beam? Stone? We like the look of bar joists, certainly not all do. My client's house got a coffered ceiling. With large spans, you're only limited by your imagination. Bar joists are a bargain, but not required if you really want to do something else.
For instance, put a copper 12/12 roof on my little box here and you'd transform it. But not change the way it works, other than my veggie area converted to attic. Disinterest in a green roof isn't unusual. To me, it's another good way to save money.
whether to two lower levels, both of whose up hill walls are underground, can make use of any PAHS advantages?
I convinced a friend here to put an umbrella (or cape) around his garden-level basement. His basement was considerably more comfortable than the neighbor, similar design, who didn't. Wasn't enough to totally heat/cool the house, but helped. Cost was no more than the neighbor's waterproofing.
Another question which I've not yet seen answered is how soil outside the PAHS structure is isolated/insulated from surrounding soil? How do you hold heat in that thermal mass?
You've now seen what the umbrella does. There's an old theory that refuses to die about the earth being a giant heat sink, always sucking heat out of a ground-contact house. Hait measured heat movement through dry dirt. It's that rate of movement that makes it all work. And why the umbrella ideally extends 20' from the perimeter.
I'm headed out of town shortly.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Edited 5/31/2007 7:27 am ET by VaTom
You've now seen what the umbrella does. There's an old theory that refuses to die about the earth being a giant heat sink, always sucking heat out of a ground-contact house. Hait measured heat movement through dry dirt. It's that rate of movement that makes it all work. And why the umbrella ideally extends 20' from the perimeter.
After a bit of contemplation, it becomes more clear why heat can be retained in a dry soil environment. Water passing through the soil would absorb heat and carry it away.
I recall reading a book on SCUBA diving, wherein it stated that water absorbs heat from one's body twenty-five times faster than air. That fits nicely here.
One other question: Would having a black asphalt area over the umbrella help the heat gain? The way this is tentatively working out, the umbrella area would be directly in front of the garage where it would be possible to have various surfaces; dirt, gravel, pavers, asphalt, concrete. This area would receive afternoon sun year round, five to eight hours each day.
Another question: How would a large, say 20,000gal, underground water tank be useful in a PAHS environment?
I recall reading a book on SCUBA diving, wherein it stated that water absorbs heat from one's body twenty-five times faster than air. That fits nicely here...
Another question: How would a large, say 20,000gal, underground water tank be useful in a PAHS environment?
I'm burned, but back. Combined your post parts 'cause it answers the question. Dirt's a poor storage medium. Only advantage is it's cheap, dirt cheap. It's also adequate.
Substitute a large water storage and you can finely tune your input and output. Increases complexity immensely, but also potential performance. All comes down to how many btus you need to store and how much control you feel you need. That tank could also be used for summer cooling.
PAHS is better for those of us who will trade some control for the passiveness. Now this is assuming that you're intending an active system to heat your water tank. That tank simply stuck in a PAHS mass, I'd have to do some calculating to guess how that would work. Pretty sure I wouldn't bother unless it was part of an active system.
And I do have an active system for my next place. It's antifreeze into a 600 gal tank, primarily for pool and domestic water heating. 400 sq ft of recycled collector. My first effort, but the numbers look good. Wood-fired boiler as a back-up.
One other question: Would having a black asphalt area over the umbrella help the heat gain?
You know the dirt over the umbrella is insulated from that under the umbrella. That's to isolate it from air (or asphalt) temps, both winter and summer. You could run earth tubes under that asphalt, above the umbrella, to charge the mass if you wanted, but don't forget that you don't want the asphalt to rob your heat storage at night. If you're gonna have asphalt anyhow, make it earn its keep.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Tom,
Got to comtemplating my size requirements and decided that I could get more efficient without making anyone feel cramped. So it's now down to about 42X20, two stories...as before.
The major change is moving the master BR suite to the top floor and limiting the dining area to something more appropriate.
So it's living room, kitchen/dining, Mstr BR...upstairs.
The second change is placing the two other BR/bth at opposite ends of the lower level, with the family room in between.
One question that comes up in my mind often is...how do you vent plumbing out your roof?
Have you read my description of the garage/deck/stairway concept? How does that fit in the larger scheme of PAHS engineering?
One question that comes up in my mind often is...how do you vent plumbing out your roof?
I didn't. Roof penetrations scare me. Others have done it, successfully. Requires careful detailing. Seemed to me far simpler to avoid. The bar joists have a couple of open feet to work in. Plumbing, wiring, venting are a breeze.
Have you read my description of the garage/deck/stairway concept? How does that fit in the larger scheme of PAHS engineering?
I gather there's another thread here? Or maybe I went through the past week of this one too quickly. Anyhow, all PAHS does is provide a conditioned space beneath. Holes in the umbrella want to be minimized. They leak heat. Both directions, and always at the wrong time of year.
BTW, you and Cap'nMac were discussing house depth. Mine's 30', clients' was 40'. They are brighter at the back than most houses' rooms. Determined by your windows and ceiling. Our sloped ceilings also give a very effective convection loop in the open space. Client's 40' depth was in lieu of a second story. We're also boomers (old fartz).
If you're thinking bar joists, I've found it considerably more economical to go with greater depth, lesser width, house (fewer bar joists). Obviously, floor/site plan will rule.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
http://forums.taunton.com/tp-breaktime/messages?msg=90435.32
Tom,
That's my post in this thread which describes a concept for building a slab-on-grade garage/etc. on top of the umbrella but not over the house.
About venting the plumbing...are you saying that you vent horizontally, out the front of the structure, in the bar joist space?
Edited 6/9/2007 6:58 pm ET by Hudson Valley Carpenter
Thank you. Good description, which I didn't make the effort to digest the first time. Interesting concept. No problem for PAHS, assuming you make reasonable thermal breaks. PAHS is no different from any other house shell in that respect.
Venting in front would be unsightly. I vent out sides, near the retaining walls. Which was much nearer the drains than the front would have been. As you know, gotta have slope, but that's no problem. Bar joist space allows about anything you need, including lateral.
If you don't want to see pipe coming through the wall, run it through the insulation space, under the skin, above (through) the rooftop retaining wall. Into the retaining wall (and then up) would also work. 2" of insulation outside the exposed walls here. Likely you'll want more. Your windows dictate when you get rapidly diminishing return.
4166 heating degree-days here and we do fine with simple low e dual pane lites. Neither of us bothered with window coverings, which could definitely help.
I originally used 2½" (xps) and only later did the calcs. Not a major error, but no reason to waste money. Performance was not noticeably different with 2".
Hope you're gonna give us a photo exhibit.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
In an earlier post you said that your next home site faces west. That brings up a basic question...what methods and materials do you apply to solar heat gain, or is that not very significant?
How will you use what you've learned in your next PAHS home?
Hope you're gonna give us a photo exhibit.
Of course I'd want to have a good collection of photos from such a project. And I'd be happy to share my experiences with others.
At this point I'm thinking about first visiting several PAHS homes to get a first hand impression and take plenty of photos to help remind me of what I've learned from pioneers like you. That will begin later this summer, after I get back from my current work in SoCal.
Edited 6/9/2007 10:25 pm ET by Hudson Valley Carpenter
Here, PAHS is almost as important for cooling as heating. For cooling, we obviously want no direct gain, and charge the mass in the process of cooling the house. On another list specifically about passive systems we've touched on where the mass gain comes from, direct or indirect, local to the house or remote. These are all possibilities.
I harp about calculations and have had several say they had a spread sheet almost ready, but have yet to see one. My (tedious) method is manually, from a 1975 text "Other Homes and Garbage" which reads like an engineering manual for non-engineers.
When CloudHidden here asked about PAHS for a dome client who had previously learned as much as she wanted from me, my conclusion was that while calcs were better, the only danger was slightly lower performance. (A search should locate that thread.) My stating that I cheated in a big way on the original design wasn't hyperbole. I did, knowingly. No chance of getting my wife into Hait's house. What I didn't know was how well it would work. I figured that there was nothing to lose. Now I can predict, quantitatively.
It was also instructional to have built a second house in similar style but with significant changes which illustrated better how they work. Rocket science it ain't. Nor is "failure" a possibility. Just as neither of my houses live up to Hait's performance, they're extremely easy to live in. And perform far better than any other houses around here.
Short on experience, but I have confidence that PAHS can be built into almost any new house. The first step is divorcing Hait's architecture from his heating/cooling system. I then look at heating/cooling needs and determine where those btus are coming from and going to. There are other similar methods that use much higher storage temps, allowing smaller storage and smaller earth contact. Pacific NW is the center if you want to look into it (AGS). They work, but I have no problem dealing with the volume of dirt I use. Plus, it's very cheap and simple. KISS works for me.
Just returned from a sailing trip with a friend who keeps a boat on Erie. He lives the opposite from us, high maintenance and high heating/cooling costs. We're both happy with our choices although I'm sure he'd prefer smaller utility bills. Love to visit, sure wouldn't want to live there. Pretty sure his wife feels the same about our digs. LOL I got shanghaied, missed a promising Toledo visit entirely.
Now if I can just finalize how to provide my own electricity... micro hydro
Nice chatting with you. Good luck.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Now if I can just finalize how to provide my own electricity... micro hydro
Hey, whatever happend to microhydro? Has that gone the way of the 'simple spreadsheet' PAHS calcs, or what?
If I had to wager, I'll bet the "hurdle" is in storage batteries. Micro-sized generators that can be spun off small flume wheels (or diminutive wind mills) are virtually off-the-shelf tech. What to do with the generated power, though, will probably be the eternally unanswered question.
Me, I always wanted to use wind power to lift water to a storage tank feeding a penstock driving a genset, and hang the (engineering) "inelegance" of it. Trick of that is having someplace to send the water <grrr>Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Woke you up? LOL Hijack alert.
Got a guy on another forum who wanted to know specs so I posted them. Apparently not everybody can come up with 225-350' of head.
Anyhow, I was thinking to spin a 25 kw PTO generator (3 phase, 540 rpm to the gearbox). No storage batteries. What little I've learned, from experimenting, is that I can use small input for small load, large load requires large input. So .... can I drop a little water to get what I normally want and a bunch more water when I want to turn on the large tools?
I'd like to use excess power to pump water back uphill to the storage.
Looked at windpower to lift the water, but everything I saw off-the-shelf required a vertical lift. Not easy on a mountain (or what passes for one in Va). Got a formula, but it looks kinda simple. Main question is sizing the reservoir. Room I've got, if I shove the cell phone tower over a bit. Or further up the mountain if greater head is significantly better.
Water (otherwise runoff) goes into the spring-fed stream at the bottom of the mountain. Not many years ago I could have gotten a grant for decreasing sediment in the Chesapeake Bay, 150 miles downstream. Rain we get, frequently.
Looking into this was on my to-do list when the subject popped up. Due to a fluke, I've got "free" power for the next year and a half. After that, I'd love to tell the elec coop to kiss my grits. Then, cost and land disruption knowledge in hand, I'm ready to talk to the neighbors. Should be applicable for a few hundred sites in this county. Several thousand in the state.
Not that I was looking for work. Wanna come play? PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
So .... can I drop a little water to get what I normally want and a bunch more water when I want to turn on the large tools?
Sorta, leastways as I understand it, not being a power engineer or anysuch (but know at least one to ask).
Now, as I understand it, the "ideal" thing is that you spin the genset at one rpm ever (which wanders into engineer-speak mui pronto). I gather that the "power" people prefer to have the generator spun at some fraction of max load (like 105-115% of "need"). The powerplant operator then throttles the output electrically to match what the grid "needs." This, as I understand it, is where the small/residential operator wants to have storage, as that's a convenient way to "dump" excess generation capacity. (I got a distinct impression that some microhydro installs might actually be larger than the local grid could handle, going back through the POTS meter--that is, if they were efficient.)
Now, for long-hair out-there, several of us noodled on a flywheel "spun" on "room temperature" SC magnets. Problem was, nobody could find "power" specs small enough to "translate" into "residential need." So, we either needed a 60" or a 144" or 24' flywheel with all sorts of mass ranges. And, every change, changed a raft of variables. Flywheel makes for an interesting storage unit.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Flywheel.... now you're talking. Oooh. Somehow I think that blew the budget.
By low power in I meant that I could use the higher PTO speed with lower engine rpm to get low draw. Higher draw required using the 540 PTO speed and high engine rpm. Both cases, the generator was going the same speed. Only the tractor engine speed changed.
Translated to water, I guess a small stream would do most of the time. Larger volume when the generator had to work harder. Make sense? That's what I do with the tractor.
There's a guy down the road here who used to own a couple of micro hydros, but I never got the impression he knew much about them, other than maintenance. They were low-head.
Hmmm... large University here. Might be time to bug them. Thin shell concrete engineering is something else I've been wanting. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Watt about steam power? ;-) As you may know, most large electrical generators are steam turbine driven so they must be efficient. I just googled miniature steam turbine and got numerous sites. It seems to me that it would be easier to control that output than some others, though I've no experience to back that up.
Thanks for the thought.
Steam's interesting, but burning what? Wood gas is what I've been looking at. (Was the sole automotive fuel for a whole lot of Europeans during WWII.) It'll power a standard internal combustion engine, but requires a lot of tweaking. Appears more promising for stationary than mobile.
Biodiesel I'm not gonna make. Solar's great- when the sun shines.
I'd love to buy a stirling off-the-shelf. Not overly interested in experimenting or inventing. Kinda like my taste in houses, simple and functional. Which I was hoping water power to be. Other Homes and Garbage has a chapter I need to study, but I've not seen anybody use my potential head.
Not that I've yet done exhaustive searching.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
VaTom
Bio diesel is something you don't need to "make" you can collect it.. simply visit enough resturants and bars and you'll soon have all the biodiesel (cooking oil) you can possibly use.. (it helps if you use a diesel truck in the collection)
the only deal is you need to filter out to food particals. The simplist way I've seen is a big funnel with a screen in the shape of a upside down cone. It runs from there to a genearic oil filter and then into a tank.. Once a week he knocks the food out of funnel into a bin for his hogs, (you could feed it to chickens as well) twice a year (or whenever he notes a too slow of flow) he replaces the oil fliter.
Thanks, but actually that's WVO (waste vegetable oil). Biodiesel is very different. If you'd like to tune in, there are forums on the subject.
Main disagreement is whether you want to modify your fuel, to make biodiesel, or your vehicle, for WVO. WVO needs to be heated much of the year, particularly in a climate such as yours. The preferred method is an engine coolant heat exchanger in the WVO fuel tank. Normally started and shut down on diesel. Switch to WVO happens after the engine reaches operating temp.
That's the Readers' Digest condensed version.
I found woodgas more interesting, as I live a forest. WVO availability will change as interest increases. Already happening here. Craig's list here recently had two vehicles, already converted for WVO, offered.
BTW, a centrifuge makes extremely clean WVO. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Flywheel.... now you're talking. Oooh. Somehow I think that blew the budget.
Oh, the wackiest was the "single-arm" flywheel (picture a single-bladed helo rotor). Did solve a lot of symmetry problems, though. And made for a handy way to rig both brake and governor. Though, the best home-built looked to be the bent tubing 3/4 full of dry grout mix. Lead shot is better, untill you look at how much fun it is to collect a couple hundred pouns of shot.
The low-temp s/c bearings "fixed" the eternal problem with a home-built/home-maintained off-grid lash up; the other long-life answers become cost-preventative very quickly ("Yeah, that the Machine shop? How much for a 80" silicon-bronze ball bearing raceway . . . ?")
Both cases, the generator was going the same speed. Only the tractor engine speed changed.
That's where the power engineers get in math that gets past me like it warp-field calculus <g>. "Their" normal preocedure is to size the genset to the desired output, then cipher what it takes to make that genset "go." 8" column of water 40' tall has some oomph as is, stack 4-500 gallons of tankage over that, and you have some pretty steady horsepower.
That, led some of us investigating self-sufficiency & off-grid life to look at flywheels and torque converters. A person could then have a windmill, a water slough, what ever, 'feeding' input to the flyweel. The flywheel then would be on a sprag cog to the genny (simplest answer, if least elegant).Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Oops, forgot to answer your second question.
Translated to water, I guess a small stream would do most of the time. Larger volume when the generator had to work harder. Make sense? That's what I do with the tractor
With traditional wheels, whether under or over shot wheels, the "race" to the wheel has a gate on it, so you can throttle the wheel to match the shaft output desired. With a penstock, you either "gate" the feed (sliding valve sleeve on the intake); or you simply put a mechanical brake on the output shaft. In some of the old California penstock mills, there's a block and tackle rigged to a swivel eye on the end of the shaft. To throttle, you just hoist more of the "turbine" out of the water in the bottom for the stock.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
With traditional wheels, whether under or over shot wheels, the "race" to the wheel has a gate on it, so you can throttle the wheel to match the shaft output desired. With a penstock, you either "gate" the feed (sliding valve sleeve on the intake); or you simply put a mechanical brake on the output shaft. In some of the old California penstock mills, there's a block and tackle rigged to a swivel eye on the end of the shaft. To throttle, you just hoist more of the "turbine" out of the water in the bottom for the stock.
That keeps the rpm constant? Whole lot I have little understanding of here. I was envisioning a "throttle" that added water volume when the wheel started to drag from increased generator draw. As the lights dim and the computer does odd things...
The tractor works that way (throttle) pretty successfully.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
That keeps the rpm constant?
Yep. You choose your mill site based on water velocity and volume; or vertical drop for a penstock. Penstock, though, really is just a washtub into which you lower a wheel.
Bearings, drive train "efficiency," and what to do with flood water are the big design constraints for water wheels. Already moving water has amazing energy. If a person goes down to the Brazos, it looks to be a nice, lazy, slow-moving body of water. Hard to imagine that it's 30,000 cfs of water wandering by. About 62# per cf in that 30K wandering past every second, too.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Got it. Potential is very interesting. Lot of homework to do.
Had an interesting site referenced, dealing with no-dam hydro, intended for 3rd world applications. Which isn't much different from my intention.
Thanks for helping me get on track. Sure you don't wanna come play?PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Pardon this intrusion to a fascinating thread (to me for 1) .
Regarding battery storage of generated electric power, I'm still looking for THE solution to that one as well. Lead acid cells of reasonable life are heavy, expensive, and fussy about care & feeding by what I've read. Grid tie to the local electric company is often touted for wind turbine power storage; I'm too independant for that one I think. Have yet to see the battery able to store AC as well.
Have you considered a water electrolyzer for production of Hydrogen and Oxygen?
Bury the electrolyzer and store its waste heat in the ground or preheat your DHW with it. Feed the water to the unit from the top of your mountain, the high head you have on your site could self pressurize the gases and avoid the use of compressors to fill bladders or tanks.
The hydrogen can be used for heating or cooking by combustion or for on-demand electrical power with a fuel cell. (I'm the 1st to admit I'm not too keen on that one, however, as I like the KISS priciple as well as the next person and anything I can't build or fix on my lonesome is suspect.)
Solar, wind, micro-hydro, or Mr. Fusion from BACK TO THE FUTURE all could work to supply your electrolyzer.
Someday we might even be able to drive an electric vehicle from such "home-grown H2" but I wouldn't hold my breath on that one.
I'm especially fond of the PASSIVE in PAHS, things that run forever with no maintenance input from me, appeal. (The sun was shining some time before I arrived and will in all likelyhood continue well after I'm gone. )
Ever thought about running your wood stove all year long to heat the ground around your house? Not exactly passive BUT the technology is proven and you seem to have a good suppply of firewood. Run the burner flat out all the time, keeping your flues clean & pipe the heat below ground (under your umbrella) for winter use.
Glad you found it "fascinating". We sure covered the map. Or at least I thought so until I read your post... LOL I was wrong.
In fact, I have not considered a water electrolyzer. Utilizing waste heat for the house would be difficult if it's at the bottom of the mountain, capitalizing on my water pressure. Not to mention that I really don't need the waste heat.
Which is a major area where I diverge from most who look at cogeneration. They have a large use for waste heat. Which is not to suggest I couldn't find something, but space heating isn't it.
Hydrogen for something with wheels is always interesting.
In Ontario, I'd guess your primary PAHS interest is heating. I once froze my azz camping there in August. In Va about now PAHS is working extremely well for cooling. Tweaking the system for the climate is prudent.
You're correct, firewood I've got. Vast majority of it rots, which isn't bad for the forest. Wood-heating the ground around the house would be counter-productive now. We need cooling, which heats the ground. That's the "annual" in PAHS. If I was concerned with more winter heat from PAHS, the best return would be some insulation over the windows. They account for the majority heat loss. Insulation's another passive system. Earth tubes are a great way to change the mass temp, passively.
If I burned much wood, it'd be for woodgas. Which doesn't appear to be a minimal-maintenance generator power source.
KISS rules.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
My apologies for stretching your "map" to include Ontario....
To squeeze the most out of a high head line would situate the conversion devices as low as you can get them, too true.
If your house isn't sited close to where an electrolyzer should/would be located it would make any waste heat recovery more difficult, no doubt. Lacking your need for such heat renders the proposal merely academic. (The Scott in me, however, finds it always attractive to wring the last bit from most energy transfers, especially where my own coin is concerned!)
Aside from quick blips into the 30-32 deg. C range this time of year I am primarily interested in heating as you've guessed. This week we also are in cooling mode with day-time highs of 30-32 C vs the 9-10C highs of just last week. (Three days of overcast weather required several firings of the woodstove to take off the chill for 2 days last week, however.)
July is "usually " our consistently hot month of the year with things cooling off appreciably by mid August. (Sorry to hear about your posterior frostbite!)
Yes PAHS would have a great benefit to me for heating, however, I'm also thinking that load leveling our week to week temp. extremes happening now would be as equally beneficial. (We had an overnight frost a few weeks back and I'm less able to adapt to 32 C temp swings than I used to be.)
I like the idea of wood gas or even creosote oil production from burning wood, too. Like Micro-Hydro, wood burning is a use-it-or-lose-it- proposition without some element of storage incorporated.
From personal experience of heating primarily with self-processed firewood, minimal-maintenance generation of power is definitely NOT an attribute of burning wood, agreed.
(It does obviate the need for a GYM-club membership if one wishes to perspire profusely, however!)
KISS is a kind monarch.
If I could further impose on the OP's thread (and yourself) for an involved question:The Earth tubes you use to passively alter the mass temps: Mat'l of choice? Why such mat'l?
(I'm tossing at night with thoughts of Filtration & Cleaning to prevent heat transfer reductions long term, ingress of critters, material breakdown, Condensation control, Thermosiphoning vs powered fan trade-offs, optimum dia. & use for interior space ventilation.)
Regards,
STAINLESS
Sure... that tractor can await my return a little longer.
BTW, the map I referred to was not geographic. We enjoyed Ontario, just were unprepared for late Aug. night temps. Had left the Arizona desert heading for a NYC plane to take us on our first big adventure. A new Fiat awaited us in Milano. Lasted 15 mos before our savings were depleted. Learned a lot and got some direction in our lives.
Minimal temp swings are exactly what you get with high mass. Rare for us to experience more than 3º F/day inside here. Hait mentioned how incredibly boring it was to watch the mass temp change. 7º F in a year.
Earth tubes, I actually have no experience. Fungal incubation frightened me in this humid climate. Smooth plastic is generally preferred, although a metal (copper's nice) would transmit heat better. More difficult is air speed. That's a subject current in the other forum and I'm eager to see if anyone there has some relevant numbers. I've seen some awhile back. Passive/active systems compared, I hope.
Our system works admirably. Consists of: pleated air filter, dehumidifier (used seasonally), heat exchanger, ductwork everywhere (including closets). Fans in the exchanger are sized differently to pressurize the house (leaks go out). I followed then-Canadian code of .5ACH, <700 cfm for our 20k cu ft. Overdoing it I'm told, but it's an easily affordable luxury with PAHS. And this is a moderate-risk radon area.
Exchanger below. I substituted a corrugated aluminum roofing panel for the core.
Hope your sleep improves. This isn't rocket science and failure is all but impossible.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Thanks especially for the air to air exchanger article. We share a common interest in home brew it would appear. I applaud the move to AL from plastic for the core design as well.
Green building, ( to me ) is more about conserving my own green paper photos of governmental dignitaries than it is about purchasing the latest green material hyped in the press.
The practical thought of backfilling over your insulation umbrella (assuming you did something similar to Hait with the foam insulation and the polyethylene layers) promts my question. How did you do it? (Backfill your own place that is.)
Even assuming a house of zero dimensions you still have a 40' dia. volume of earth to move without dislodging or otherwise damaging your umbrella. Given your preferred depth of 2', I make that out to just over 93 yd3.
I envision myself trying to keep the poly & foam in place as I incrementally unroll & quickly cover it with soil dumped from my loader bucket before a wind can take it airborne!
Sorry to keep you from your tractor, although I'm curious as to whether you were on top running the show or underneath keeping the show running.
Regards,
STAINLESS
The last couple of days were underneath, trying to restart the show. Would you believe 3 tractors here, all needing attention? Today's is almost ready, after I discovered I installed the tranny forks wrong. Clutch problem was the reason I split it. Still needs a wheel seal. Next up, reassembling the crawler tranny, soon headed to a new home. Then there's my pride and joy, Bertha (below) who's maybe got a fuel problem but readily handled the rocks that killed the crawler.
Far as I can tell, Hait was spot on with the umbrella. Lots of xps and poly. From the house: scrap carpet, minimum 2 layers of poly, scrap carpet, minimum 1' of dirt (2' from now on), umbrella, scrap carpet, top fill. Your carpet retailer will love you for repeatedly emptying his dumpster. The carpet has 2 functions: protecting the poly from the house and backfill rocks, and providing an over-umbrella barrier to burrowing critters. I'm told nylon is best, but we used anything available and have had no problems. I'm also careful to dispatch burrowing critters.
Notice no water-proofing. Unneeded with a drained site.
3 is an ideal crew. 2 to place/hold the material I'm burying with a loader. You need a small one to drive on the roof, like the one I was under today, at 4500 lbs. Soil arching is what makes it work with your roof rating.
You're right, a whole lot of dirt to move. Not to mention locate and have at hand. Client house I was well-organized but for our place I paid a guy for a full day to haul dirt to the top of my mountain and dump it. Seemed foolish, but when you need dirt...
That other forum, we've touched on earth-forming for thin shell concrete. Looks like a winner, assuming a substantial loader to move the dirt from inside to outside. Bertha could do a good-sized place in a short day, but not run on the roof (she's 23k lbs).
Thought you might enjoy the exchanger plans, even if you go with earth tubes. Upwards of 90% efficient from my crude measurements. Important to consider alternatives, as many as you can find.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Far as I can tell, Hait was spot on with the umbrella. Lots of xps and poly. From the house: scrap carpet, minimum 2 layers of poly, scrap carpet, minimum 1' of dirt (2' from now on), umbrella, scrap carpet, top fill. Your carpet retailer will love you for repeatedly emptying his dumpster. The carpet has 2 functions: protecting the poly from the house and backfill rocks, and providing an over-umbrella barrier to burrowing critters. I'm told nylon is best, but we used anything available and have had no problems. I'm also careful to dispatch burrowing critters.
Hi Tom
Great photo of you and Bertha and that big motha boulder you needed her to move.
Couple of questions about the above description. Where's the insulation and what did you use? And what's your opinion/understanding about the life expectency of the, is it 6mil poly?
Couple of questions about the above description. Where's the insulation and what did you use? And what's your opinion/understanding about the life expectency of the, is it 6mil poly?
6 mil it is. UV degradation happens quickly but if you prevent that I'm unaware of anybody predicting significant degradation. XPS was our insulation choice.
Several here have thought we'd do better with borate treated EPS, but the small amount of XPS I've dug up and annecdotal accounts on the internet all indicate there's no problem. Lots of ants here, but they don't bother the umbrella, below the top foot of dirt available to them.
Know a guy who dug up a "failed" PAHS in Oregon. That umbrella leaked, had no carpet protection, and no occupants (for a few years) to discourage large burrowers. Dome, that had no air system and was engulfed with mold. Builder had done about everything wrong he/she could have. Uninhabitable, my acquaintance saved it from demolition.
My umbrella consists of alternating layers of poly and 2" XPS. It's very important you understand that the umbrella can have bends and twists, be any shape so long as it's continuous.
Starting from the rear, ours originates 20' behind the house, goes up the roof, through the rooftop retaining wall, down the exposed walls, and out the front (and sides) under whatever's there. Periwinkle "lawn" on one side, 70' concrete patio across the front and around the other side. Even under the kitchen garden there's umbrella.
I compromised mine to preserve trees closer than 20' from the house front. Ah, another interesting thing. Few years ago during the remnant of a hurricane we had the top 50' of a tulip poplar come down on the roof. Blissfully ignorant inside. Found it the next morning. No damage as it'd missed the raised beds. Certainly none to the roof. It provided the firewood we burned the next winter.
The water-shedding (not proofing) wants several layers of redundancy. We use at least 5 layers of poly. For anybody worried, we'd use more. It's cheap insurance. I installed a standard foundation drain, never saw a drop of water. Client insisted on one also, with the same result. Both are plugged now.
Other than annually uprooting trees trying to get started in the undeveloped area over the umbrella, I anticipate no maintenance. Obviously, a lawn mower would work, but I'd rather not own one. Not a bad place for a croquet field if you're inclined. I prefer grocery-growing, still expanding the area under production. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
How careful are you about the joints where these XPS sheets abutt, Tom? Do you carve them a little to get tight joints?Huck said it first. I just agreed with him.
Jim, the insulation joints are staggered from layer to layer so we don't try very hard. No carving. LOL Remember, the whole mess gets buried anyhow. That top foot of dirt (over the umbrella) does a pretty good job of moderating here. Not particularly efficient houses at all. They just don't have any need for active heating or cooling systems.
This ease of construction is a big part of how the last appraisal came in 50% over construction cost. Reduce the man-hours and make them low-skill labor.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Well...it seems intuitive the better fit I got at those joints, the better that umbrella would insulate though, wouldn't it? I am at least thinking of using the shiplap style XPS. Maybe some type of glue between sheets? Huck said it first. I just agreed with him.
More careful installation will result in better performance, but I'm pretty sure it's a greatly diminishing return. I'd be shocked if you got a noticeable difference.
Calculations show the great majority of heat loss/gain through the low e windows. Not leakage, as they're fixed with great gaskets, just the lack of insulation of the glass. Which is addressable with shutters, that we don't bother with. I could cut my annual temp swing by 25%. That's significant, until you think about how comfortable we already are.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
My umbrella consists of alternating layers of poly and 2" XPS. It's very important you understand that the umbrella can have bends and twists, be any shape so long as it's continuous.
That post is very helpful in visualizing the umbrella. Great description. The previous post about installing the materials too.
How many layers of XPS? Do you have an idea what your total cost per square foot was for your umbrella's man made materials?
You already know climate dictates how much insulation you want to buy. 4" is adequate here. Umbrella cost was under $1/sq ft for material. Don't know current XPS cost. Pretty sure these houses aren't cheaper for insulation.
You'll need a truckload, literally. Call around until you find the best deal. I spoke with the distributors who supply the retailers. Everybody wants volume. There is large price variation.
Pretty much like anything else you use in large volume. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Umbrella cost was under $1/sq ft for material. Don't know current XPS cost. Pretty sure these houses aren't cheaper for insulation.
Thanks again Tom,
As with many preliminary questions about a newly acquired concept, this one seeks ways to justify investing time and money according to a logical formula.
Another question about the umbrella, particularly that insulation, what kind of load limits do you work with? Would you drive a 4000 lb car over it? That's about 1000 lb/sq.ft. Would that tend to crush the insulation?
My smallest tractor weighs 4500 lbs (4 tires), plus whatever's in the loader. No crushing. XPS was compression-rated. And that soil-arching thing I mentioned is at play there. Gotta admit, I did test it first.
Good place for a smallish track skidsteer if you've been dreaming about one. I don't.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
I'm lovin' this thread. I've been meaning to ask you more about your house for a while now.
I've seen your exterior close-up pictures and some interior shots, but do you have any photos of the outside showing a wider view? Or did I miss it earlier in the thread?
Hi Mike, that's what's fun about this forum. You never know who's tuned in. Or how it might affect them.
We've got a very simple bent box. Really not much to look at. Original plan was future furniture shop, my vocation (on hiatus). The (real) house is started, just down the hill. Very similar but with the features this one lacks: guest suite, indoor lap pool, isolated office, garage, that kind of thing.
Pictures... kinda hard to give much perspective as we live in a mature forest but here're a couple. Get very far away and it disappears, exactly as we prefer. You've gotta look at the roof pic, but there's a stove pipe sticking up. A buddy with a plane looked for us once, had great difficulty.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
I guess I have seen those. I forgot just how invisible your place is from the top.
This PAHS thing has my brain spinning. Thinking my future "house in the country" might look less like a barn and more like a garden....
If you were to use shades or blinds on the windows for better thermal performance, what would you use?
Invisible from the top. And all sides from 50 yds. LOL This isn't one of those ridgetop creations to be admired for miles around.
Shades or blinds? What's the effective r value of each? Including air leakage.
I'd probably use inside shutters, wood frame with foam insulation in the center, good gasketing. Ever been to Monticello? TJ had some nice ones that folded into the wall. Obviously no foam insulation or gaskets, but they worked well in their day.
Had a consultation request from a deep-pockets client. He's got a barn, visible from the master bedroom balcony, that's not working very well. Maybe 20,000 sq ft of gambrel roof, eternally peeling paint. I suggested he might not want to replace the roof with copper but instead replace the barn with something functional (it was designed for loose hay storage).
My question was what he wanted to see, an attractive functional barn or a grassy hillside. Barn, he needed an archy. Hillside, I was his guy. No decision yet. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
I have been there, and worked on a couple of places with similar shutters. That would work well with a thick exterior wall, say hay bales or concrete.
IIRC your walls are poured? Any insulation?
Yup, cast-in-place. Earth contact is necessary for the buried walls. For exposed walls, insulation on the outside is better than ICFs. Utilizes the mass better (Cloud dug that out of gov't testing, intuitive to me). I put 2½" of XPS on the outside, then did calcs. Next house only got 2", no noticeable difference.
Ummm... that's straw bales you'd want, not hay. Available structurally in some areas (no wood necessary). Tire bales are what interest me, but no baler close by.
You see this picture? My guys told me we'd never be able to fly plywood that far (18' wide between the walls), including Nicholas there on the ladder. Had a lot of fun that summer. None of us knew what we were doing, except me. I'd read a book on forming. LMAOPAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Straw, not hay...I knew that <G>
My wife's cousin bought an "Earthship" in Santa Fe, with tires ram-packed with earth for walls. I haven't been out to see it yet but it sounds interesting.
I assume tire bales are like what they use for blasting? What is their thermal performance like?
If you want an earthship, you wanna buy one, not build one. Major amount of labor in those walls. Earthships and tire houses (not necessarily the same) work similarly to our house (thermally). Two exist here, then the word got out about how much labor...
Which is what a Colo guy knew when he switched from designing houses with rammed earth tires to tire bales. Blasting I know nothing about. Bales are generally used as retaining walls, but Mikey and I think they're under-utilized. In Va, the end-user gets paid per tire by the state.
Haven't paid a lot of attention, but IIRC, the thermal properties are similar to dirt. Very little air in a bale.
Not going to buy a baler myself, but when somebody reasonably near does, I want to experiment with underground structures. Starting with non-residential so I don't have to deal with BI.
As an early underground builder here, I had to jump through some hoops even with my (basically) commercial construction. No problem anymore. Proof-of-concept helps immensely, which is where I'd head with tire bales. Was pretty funny when the head inspector did a 180º- from strongly recommending against concrete houses to telling folks to call me about how to build a very successful one. Nothing I invented, just read a bunch. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Thanks for the pictures, now I know we have more than a passing few things in common. Yellow fever I believe I once heard it called!
Yes its all too easy for me to believe that all 3 tractors need attention at the same time!
My D4D is dead with a fractured final drive casting and the Ford 4500 TLB just received 6 hyd. cyl. rebuild kits and weeks of work to bring it up to snuff for the playing around I do.
Now I've got a CV joint boot replacement staring at me from the wife's car for tomorrow so I'm hopefull that today's 32C, 65% RH abates somewhat tomorrow.
Regards,
Stainless
Yellow's good, but I'm picky about brand. Had a JD crawler once. Enough for me even though junkhound loves his. Pretty sure I'm headed for rubber-tire exclusively. Bertha's remarkably good at pushing over trees. 80' is not unusual here. She's now got bucket teeth and a stout widow-maker canopy. With the 4-in-1 bucket, she'll grab the end of a 30" x 20' oak log, pick it up, and head on down the driveway. Looks peculiar as hell sticking out in front, but works very well. Also surprisingly efficient at driveway construction. Something about that 8' wide bucket.
I'm in love.
Don't enjoy mechanicing, but I sure like what the machines do. Old Galion motorgrader lives here also. And a spare deuce-and-a-half, just in case. Here's the original deuce with Bertha wheels. Heavy things. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
a water electrolyzer for production of Hydrogen and Oxygen?
I want to remember that somebody was using PV to electrolytically either crack out or condense compost-produced methane.
I do know that the water quality effects how efficient the electrolytic "crack" is, then there's a tiny niggle in getting the gasses to neatly segreate in quantity. Which why "gas recombination" petered out as a water purification method.
I knew (or used to know of) a couple of folks who were forging on with gas storage, despite the systemic losses from needing compressors & such to tank up their 'free from solar' gas. Now, at least one of those people is taking advantage of some existing geology to augment low-quality methane and "punt" it up to a semi-decent form of propane, the better to use off-the-shelf appliances. Not a rig for making a jeremiah johnson go of it.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
From the little I've gleaned from the process, pure water is not highly conductive and its purity does affect the electrolytic crack considerably, agreed.
(I seem to remember reading that the addition of Sodium Hydroxide in small amounts increases conductivity appreciably, increasing efficiency and acts more as a catalyst than as an active component, although my school experiments never went beyond the basics.)
If high purity product was required, as it is for a fuel cell for example, I would do some serious investigation before risking the contamination of an expensive membrane in a fuel cell.
I think that the segregation in quantity might be do-able with large enough cylindrically- wound screens of 316 Stainless for the electrodes, to be separated physically (but not electrically) within the electrolyzer tank but practical experience & 1st hand knowledge has been difficult for me to obtain with literature searches on the subject. (I have seen some pretty monstrous electroplating tanks with very large electrodes and considerable low-voltage/ high amperage power sources, however.)
Another DIY project for someone to play with, perhaps?.. LoL.
It occurred to me that with VATOM's mountain top perch he could have free access to a tall column of water with which to passively pressurize an electrolyzer tank (or anything else for that matter!) This would require a small ID tube of some sort to supply the required flow of pressurized source water & the gasses evolved would then be well above atmospheric pressure and not require compressors to store or deliver at an elevated pressure. Storage becomes more efficient and delivery through a piping system wouldn't require mechanicals, another plus.
As in a large flywheel, the hydrogen acts more as a storage currency than as a product on its own. PV, wind, hydro, or any other source of DC Potential drives the electrolyzer and if you can use the waste heat (A very big if !)you seem to have a universal storage system. Using the hydrogen as a fuel release the stored energy as either thermal or electrical (or both!)
( At this point theory has to take a back seat to practicality, I've yet to run into the HD with an off-the-shelf home electrolyzer for sale!)
Time for a Rube Goldberg type to step in and take us to the next level of experience.
Regards,
Stainless
As in a large flywheel, the hydrogen acts more as a storage currency than as a product on its own
Yeah, with the caveat that hydrogen as combustion fuel has some headaches. Like middling high combustion temperatures. "Burn" temperatures were surmountable, but our noodling back in the eighties kept coming up against the storage problem. To be efficient in storage with hydrogen just about mandates compression/cryro. Or, there's headaches keeping the molecules in the actual tank, and then coping with "stray" wafts of gas around one's storage.
That pushed us towards flywheels & water tankage. Or both. We actually looked at a long-hair idea shared on the IRC, spinning water tank as flywheel. To make that work got boggling pronto. Picture this: Forty foot diameter tank about 4' tall inside, accelerated to 250 fpm. Meaningless numbers, correct. That's 1257 sf or 5027cf of water, which is a paltry 311,600#. Ah , , , yeah, 155 tons might could have some uses with angular momentum applied. 250 fpm was middling key, as that's about human walking pace on the outside. It allowed some other efficiencies for the drive train, too. Kind of cool, how many magnets a person can apply around a 125' circumference, too (skipping a separate genset, if a person were of a mind to).
Like I said, this was long-hair noodling seeking some dirty if not quick answers for out in the rough of things.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
It always seems to go back to storage with this energy thing, no?
I'm curious how you thought to couple your prime mover to your rotating water mass.
Fluid Torque converters have this annoying habit of fluid heating with any slip and I can't imagine the drive train required to accelerate that much mass without slip.
Although the cost and availability of water makes the concept attractive at first blush, I'm interested how the inconvenience of solidification of your working fluid at my normal winter temps gets overcome? The water promoted oxidation with a steel tank could be overcome with FRP as a possibility but 40' dia.! The glass man would have a heart attack!
I once gave some thought to Micro-Hydro due to some topography on my own site. Unfortunately I have only the Head, no water flow!
Lacking the stuff above ground I considered the possibility of pumped storage to a hill top for the eventual fall when & as power was needed. Using the performance of a 5hp. gasoline powered pump as a reference I roughed out the need for my tank. (I'm assuming a similar efficiency performance from a med.-head turbine & I know that is going to short change me on real-life tank but for a 1st approximation I can live with it.)
This quickly gave me an appreciation for the use of ACRE-FEET units when the Hydro-Quebec engineers looked at potential dam sites.
Even the 5hp (say 5kw for a simple number) pump is capable of 75 LPM into a head of 25 m (about 20 USgal/min @ 82'). My current house averages 32KWHR/day so 1 week of storage works out to just under 54,000 gal. required and I still had to contend with that annoyance of fluid solidification for 4 months of the year!
The world truly does cry out for a high density storage medium for electric power of low cost and low losses!
Regards,
STAINLESS
I'm curious how you thought to couple your prime mover to your rotating water mass.
That's where the 4' dimension comes in--junkyard differential & rubber tires on a frame tangental to the circumberence using a spring or strut to maintain tension/contact.
"Our" presumption was actually for a concrete tank, so that it would have mass even empty. (Also allowed for a center "hump" to always acrete the fluid mass to where it's needed most.) Another presumption was that the location would generally be south of 31ºN or so. The tank lid was to be wood, with baffles attached to that. There's enough "slip" that there's motion in the water mass to mostly obviate freezing, at least in southern climes. With the wooden "lid," ice formation just lifts straight up, generally.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
"things that run forever with no maintenance input from me, appeal."Have you seen this?http://gfxtechnology.com/contents.html#selection
Thanks for that reinvent!
No I hadn't seen that product before. The concept of gray water recovery I am familar with (theoretically), however it is refreshing to see that something practical is avaiable. GFX seems to have the I's dotted and the T's crossed with the marketing as well!
I once did the numbers for heat recovery from bath water and even experimented with passively allowing the bath to cool overnight before draining. Done in the dry winter months (when we can use the indoor humidity!) it wasn't too bad. I just had to put a little more elbow grease into the ensuing "bathtub ring" removal.!
I've since concluded that I would get more bang for the buck if I used the water for toilet flushes, assuming it wasn't too many months since the last bath!
It astounds me how much filtered & treated water gets used to flush away our wastes when so many third world countries cry out for clean water just to survive!.
I've even toyed with the idea of a gray water system to run separately from potable, however the latest low flush pressurized toilets are just too good to bother, I think.
(Now if I was to become fanatic about a lush green lawn, that might change!)
Of course local Plumbing codes don't recognize the merits of a 2 system water works the same way I do!
Regards,
STAINLESS
no-dam hydro, intended for 3rd world applications. Which isn't much different from my intention.
Which kind of describes California (19th century) style penstock races. You found a draw, arroyo, cut, whatever near a stream. Rig a siphon out of the stream and over to your fraw, and build the "pen" the raceway/stock feeds into. You may recall the story of the Gold Rush. That mill was a pen stock, 7" pipe feeding a 5'-3" pen with a 5' wheel in it--more than enough 'oomph' to run a gristmill & "4 belt" shop. The drain race washed out into what was a seasonally dry wash. The mill operations eroded the bed far enough to expose the lode of ore--rest is history.
Thanks for helping me get on track. Sure you don't wanna come play
No sweat, good to get value for all that beer run through with MS & PhD EE canidates brainstorming "off topic" . . . <g>
Ah, play, there's a long lost, near-forgotten, thing. "They" would really like it, too--whether I'd like to be ensconsed in a basement in Little Creek or Dam Neck again or not . . . luckily, my Active Solar Storage System here needs near daily attentions <g>
No promises, no lies--winning lotto ticket sure would help <g>Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Hello again VaTom,
I happened across some old notes re: micro-hydro that may (or may not!) be of quick interest. I'm sure you could look them up elsewhere.
Michell/Banki turbines are about 70-85% efficient & have a head range of 6-600ft. & average 1-3' max. in dia.
Pelton turbines are about 80-95% efficient & have a head range of 50-4000ft. & average 1-15' max. in dia.
available power P from a flow of water (in KW) = (FxHxEtxEe) / 11.8
F=Flow of water in Ft3/sec. H= Head in feet Et=Efficiency of turbine Ee=Efficiency of generating & distribution equipment (take as 60% for a good approximation)
With the hundreds of feet of head that I seem to recall that you have on your site I wouldn't hesitate to measure your flow (if I were so fortunate) and take a guesstimate as to how much power is there for the taking. 1 US gal. per sec. falling 200' into an 80% efficient turbine gives better than 1KW; nothing to sneeze at if it runs 24-7! (Storage might not be a huge issue if you have any kind of serious flow to go with that kind of head)
Enjoy,
STAINLESS
Edited 6/15/2007 9:01 pm ET by STAINLESS
1 US gal. per sec. falling 200' into an 80% efficient turbine gives better than 1KW; nothing to sneeze at if it runs 24-7! (Storage might not be a huge issue if you have any kind of serious flow to go with that kind of head)
Thank you. Guess I didn't adequately explain. There's no flow. Only storage potential. 86k gal/day isn't likely. Probably that much leaking from a couple of springs, but they're down where I envisioned the generator. Windmill sounded interesting, but they all seem to be vertical lift.
Rube Goldberg, where are you?
When we were land-shopping I had that good-flow/high-head dream. Lots of property with flow around here, but just about never with much head. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Sorry I missed that little detail no flow's a no go.
The exercise isn't totally futile; now, you've got a handle on the magnitude of storage req'd vs. KW output.
Wind turbine is still an option if you're he**-bent on pumped storage, & want to use the heavy metal you've collected to scrape out a holding pond. (You did mention that you had the real estate IIRC.) A vertical-lift water pumper is probably out, agreed.
There is the option of an electric pump at the level of your leaky springs to be run by an electric windmill located at the peak. Unfortunately the long cable run from the wind turbine to the pump rules out DC due to excessive Voltage drop at low DC voltages (unless you have secret access to some cheap and large dia. conductors!) A better bet would be AC transformed up @ the wind end and back down @ the pump end.
Transmission lines improve in efficiency the higher you go in voltage (until they start arcing during a foggy day that is!)
This is starting to look complicated again, no? Maybe that flywheel concept of CapnMac's is worth a go-round. Where's that da**n FLUX CAPACITOR when we need it?
Regards,
STAINLESS
Exactly why I throw this stuff out for inspection. Somebody always knows significantly more than I do. Saves futile searching.
Electric windmill is problematic unless I do a lot of clearing. Trees tend towards 80' tall up here. And, as I explained to the satellite TV guy, I prefer the trees. He ended up climbing one.
Wire's pricey. Instead, just installed another meter on an outbuilding that was insufficiently powered. Then they bumped my monthly minimum by a factor of 3, before I got my first bill. Grrrrrr.....
<sigh> Well maybe somebody will eventually show me an automated woodgas producer. Or a better source for biodiesel. Hey, I'm not picky. Just insist on minimal maintenance.
Heavy yellow metal and real estate I'm not short on. Got anything else I can drop off the height? Gravity seems like a winner.
Thanks for the help.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
I'm getting the impression that if the answer were any less involved , you would be telling me what you have already operational to supply your electric needs!
I'll have to admit that I'm not all that altruistic, I'm hoping that others will step in, point out the error of my suggestions & help point me in the right direction also. (I'm sure you have noticed that my suggestions do not spring out of a wealth of experience actually living with these Blue Sky ideas & reporting from 1st hand knowledge!)
That is the reason that I consider your PAHS information to be much more valuable than mere conjecture, it is experience.
TALK is CHEAP but whiskey costs money!
Regards,
STAINLESS
Let me try this again, now that the electric grid is stable ...
I'm getting the impression that if the answer were any less involved , you would be telling me what you have already operational to supply your electric needs!
You've got a point. But I only browse, still subscribed to the funny-fuels lists.
Happy to leave the inventing to others. When I first read Hait, it struck a chord. Was raised on the Arizona desert with a lot of defunct mines. The traditional reservation houses were more comfortable than the house I lived in. So my assumption was that even with major cheating on Hait's principles I'd get something better than most here, plus eliminate normal exterior maintenance. Worked far better than I dreamed.
92º out today, 72->73º inside. Pretty easy to live with.
What I don't have is a passive dehumidification system. The two choices I know of are earth tubes and air wells. Both have a dearth of information for humid climates. So I went with a dehumidifier (in the air system), but later found that a heat pump water heater is the cat's meow. Free dehumidification as a byproduct, all we need this time of year (later, will need help). Our unit paid for itself in just over one season, 5 years ago. http://www.energy.wsu.edu/ftp-ep/pubs/building/res/ht_pmp_water_htrs.pdf
Altruism strikes me as a false concept. We all get something in return.
Nice chatting with you.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Thank-you for the link. Seeing as how the information is on a university website, gives it much credibility in my book.
(I'm always more suspicious of information that originates from a source that is likely to benefit directly from my belief in whatever it is they wish to enlighten me about!)
I've had a fondness for Heat Pumps for some time now & have even went to the trouble of getting a quote for a well-water to air system for the place we now inhabit. I spent about 1-1/2 hrs. with a co. rep. who came out and helped me perform a well draw-down test. Unfortunately for him & us our well just doesn't have the delivery volume to support his water to air Heat Pump.
I am thinking strongly about a hybrid sort of system, however, to help overcome that at another property that I hope to build a house on, someday.
I have a 5000 CDN. Gal. steel tank that I'm thinking of burying and using as a cistern to store rainwater for irrigation & toilet flushing. I had the thought to incorporate some homebuilt solar heat collectors to provide preheating of our DHW with excess BTU's dumping into the cistern by way of a heat exchanger loop. With the addition of a heat exchanger loop from a heat pump, I'm thinking that I can store heat from central AC/dehumidification operation in the tank and use it as a source for winter heating also. Even an outdoor wood burner could tie in with its own loop!
Imagine a outdoor burner of mega proportions built of recycled firebrick in the shape of a dome. Now put some good sized doors on this thing so you can load it with a forklift of skids or the odd stump or two. Run your chimney straight up and bury the whole shebang in a goodly sized dome of sand. Now imagine a long spiral of flexible copper tubing incorporated in the sand pile (but not too close to the firebrick) and cover the coils with another couple of feet of sand. Now insulate the heck out of the thing and cover it with poly & more sand. Run some glycol in your coil and feed the BTU's to your cistern with a small circulator pump, Stainless Steel, of course!
Run your burner flat out & heat up your sand pile. Only run your circulator when you can improve on the temp. of your cistern.
Sand I have lots of, the site almost never puddles in even the worst of downpours.
Just need a source of cheap XPS or even EPS to make the whole thing viable on a shoestring budget.
I'm enjoying the chat, likewise!
Regards,
STAINLESS
My complaint about that heat pump site is they don't play up the byproduct benefit (cool dry air). I've dealt with sellers of ground source heat pumps here (as consultant). Don't understand the cost, but they're consistent. Payback is never (here), far as I can see, unless you have a house that needs an abnormal amount of heat.
Have I got a deal for you!
Until you find all that firebrick, how about a wood-fired boiler that once was backup to solar for 7 apts? Takes a 4' log and has the largest ash drawer I've ever seen. But no forklift loading. I dragged it home thinking it would be great for pool heating in the next house. Load it once a week!
Then I spoke with a boiler guy who pointed out that I'd never be able to use enough heat to keep the fire going, given my housing preference. It's still here, having scared the crap out of every interested person so far. 6' tall, maybe 3' wide, and you definitely don't want it on an F150.
I know, I know. A PAHS guy trying to unload a large boiler... <G>
The solar system was 480 sq ft of collector. Tank was too much trouble, but the collectors and hardware are here, awaiting installation on the next house. Backup is now a much smaller boiler. Actually, I figured on only using 416 sq ft as that's adequate for the pool and DHW. Only bothered to bring home 4 of the heat exchangers. Had to unplumb them.
Happened into a 600 gal high pressure tank, walls 1/2". Overkill, but just the right size for my system. Removed from a local factory, had something benign going through it. None of this stuff ever comes my way at exactly the right time, but I learned long ago that you want to grab when it's available.
Which made the tank guy happy when he asked if I had any interest in an air compressor. Would you believe 500 psi? Not in my shop. It's the only compressor I've seen where the head was too large to sit on the tank. Backup, in storage. Did I mention that I sometimes want to pull a lot of current?
How much room do you have there? I figure I save way more than my tax burden by avoiding storage fees. Disposing of refuse I can understand for that proposed burner, but otherwise, it's a whole lot simpler to let passive dirt (sand) do the heating. Unless, of course, you really like fires...
Appears we put everybody else to sleep.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Thank you for the offer & the discourse! Due to storage , transport & preference issues I'll respectfully have to decline just the offer. (Always open to further discourse!)
Amen to the missed opportunity issue! I've had to fill up an outbuilding long before I had completed the interior to store some of those once-in-a-lifetime deals that came along.
The thought to the burner was to provide a central source of BTU's for a number of structures, 2 of which are conventionally framed, (more or less!) with the house not yet designed. The though was to use the outbuildings as a spring board for the house.
Sounds like the household is just starting to catch up with me now so I'll have to leave this post unfinished & get back to you.
Regards,
STAINLESS
Sorry about the delay in finishing the last post. I had wanted to compliment you on the 600 gal. tank. That was a good get! I'm pleased to see the inclusion of solar in your future as well.
If I read you correctly, you are in command of some 480 Ft2 of solar heating panels. As I am currently researching on how to home brew my own, I am interested to know the details of their construction.
If I could beg a few indulgences; what are the materials of construction? (Insulation, glazing i(f any & how many panes), air or H2O system, collector panel material, main case material, etc.
This sort of stuff gets me up in the morning rather than puts me to sleep. (Although I would also have to admit to thinking about such ideas while I sleep!)
No need to respond in the next solar day, I will be unable to access I'net for next 2 days.
Regards,
STAINLESS
No need to respond in the next solar day, I will be unable to access I'net for next 2 days.
You're assuming I won't have forgotten by then... <G>
These panels are the good old-fashioned copper ones. Had antifreeze running through them, as I'll do. Need to pressure test them all but know a guy who worked on the original installation who mentioned repairs are simple. 15- 4'x8' flat panels, complete with elevation braces. Haven't taken one apart to check insulation. Honest-to-goodness solar glass on the fronts, aluminum frames. It was an expensive system, sold to a private institution caring for wealthy disabled adults.
System replaced with an oil boiler, replaced with air source heat pumps. Reflecting management changes.
My interest was only in a couple of the panels but management insisted on a bid for everything. Apparently nobody had much interest. Only later did I learn that my few hundred dollars included all the pumps, valves, exchangers, and tank (if I wanted to dig it up). Even a pair of circulator pumps. IIRC, I dragged home 4 liquid/liquid exchangers if you'd like one. Unlikely anybody ever bothered to disconnect the others if you'd like the last 3. LOL I can still get you in.
Before I got the surplus advertised for sale, DW asked the golden question. Why was I planning to burn wood in a boiler to heat the pool when we had all those solar panels? Oops... <blush> Change of plan. By then I'd already located a smaller boiler. Guess if I never use it, it won't wear out. Getting expensive though, altogether I'm close to $1k invested.
Around here there were/are scads of defunct solar systems left over from tax credit days. When the credits ended, so did the installing companies, and anyone to do service. Result was lots of hardware available cheap if your timing was good.
For instance, I traded a driveway re-grading for anything I wanted from 8 townhomes' solar systems. Panels were already gone, but I got a lifetime supply of pumps and liquid/air heat exchangers. Didn't bother scavenging but half the units. The remainder is still there for anybody interested. Now that I think about it, probably should go back just for all that copper pipe. Pretty sure I have enough for my system, but scrap value's amazing.
Same GC who got me in there talked me, sight unseen, into hauling off water tubes (1'x8') that increased mass in another townhome project. Kalwall product that I have no idea how to recycle. Maybe 30 of them left that I haven't been able to talk anybody into taking. A few got cut up and used in water gardens as planters.
This bounty is part of my being a long-standing repository for building materials that are a little too good to land-fill. Stuff comes, stuff goes. Major relief when I found a new home for all the windows from a local church. Butt-ugly bumpy yellow glass, 4'x4' sliders. I've moved tons of windows and doors.
Last pile of windows (paired double-hungs with storms) were in amazingly good shape. Used a couple in my lumber shed but got tired of looking at the rest. FreeCycle showed up huge interest and universal no-shows. Frustrated, I set one out at the end of my driveway with a sign saying $10, more available.
Figured if I asked for money, maybe somebody would steal what I couldn't give away. Nope, guy came up that 1/2 mile to pay me. And took the rest, same price. So I threw in some passage doors and enough rope to tie the whole mess onto his pickup. He was one happy pig.
Put out the word if you want to be inundated. Helps to have a large truck.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Sorry for the delay, thanks for the reply!
Seems like you are all set for solar heating, I wouldn't get too concerned over the 1K investment; I'm sure you will recoup that in less time than it takes to install the stuff!.
Copper tubing? Dia.? Spacings? Header with branches or 1 spiral wound coil per panel? Single pane glazing or double? Air space between plate & glazing? How large a space? How is the glazing secured to the frame? I know! I Know! QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS, QUESTIONS.
A very large Thank You is overdue for all your time and the wonderful offers you have advanced. (Ruefully the distance & trouble with border crossings are off-putting.)
My congratulations on doing so much more than just talking green; IMHO you are living greenly! Capturing used items as you have done, captures all the energy put into producing them. (Which in the case of Aluminum, Copper & Glass is considerable!) I'm also thinking that bartering goods for services without the interchange of the folding stuff is "green" conservation at its best!
Up here we have GST, (Goods & Services Tax), & PST, (Provincial Sales Tax) which total 14%. The average middle income earner has a marginal tax rate (Federal & Provincial combined) of about 30% to earn the stuff before you can spend it!
A penny saved is much more than a penny earned if you are able to do your own labour on things.
Jack of All, Master of None.
(PS, I think you will agree that we have hijacked & monopolized this thread for longer than we deserve; any suggestions?)
Sincerely,
STAINLESS
I have a suggestion.Continue on. Please. Just because we're not all chiming in doesn't mean we aren't enjoing the discussion. You know those folks who sit on the side of the classroom and appear to be paying no attention? Well, we may not say a lot, but we sure enjoy letting all these ideas run around in our heads while others talk. I'll try to interupt just often enough to let you know I'm still here, okay? I'm pretty sure others are there, too. Mike? You still out there brotherman? Reinvent? Frenchy?Steady on.Huck said it first. I just agreed with him.
I'm pretty sure others are there, too.
Huh? Say WHAT?
I find that I've all but forgotten that this was your original post & I have yet to contribute anything regarding your OP.
Regarding design ideas: since I understand that your site is not level & you are contemplating living spaces at several different levels might I suggest that you give a small thought to an elevator rough-in.
If the home will be marketed to more mature, (read wealthy) purchasers, the thought of a retirement home with its own elevator can be a plus. I have had some advice that the cost to add such a feature to a home not initially designed for it can be considerably higher that way. (Yes I have considered that this is a GREEN BUILDING post & the only thing green about a residential elevator is the colour of the money needed to pay for it!)
Perhaps the addition of an attached solarium could help offset that indulgence with something more environmentally friendly. I've often thought that looking outside at the snow fall while relaxing in an in-ground hot-tub from inside a green-filled solarium surrounded by young lovelies (flowers that is, for you decadent ones!) is a way to beat the grayness of winter's depth.
Hot tub to be heated by solar panels, of course!
Sorry about the multiple hi-jacks.
Sincerely,
STAINLESS
Oh pure one,
Thank you for your thoughtful contribution. Butttt...multiple levels plays into my personal plans for keeping the metabolism up.
As regards snowy vistas from a hot tub, that's been on my list of extravagant extras, ever since first installing a redwood tub in someone's backyard, many years ago.
Not to worry about hijacking threads on BT. The associative processes which accompany people who are able to function independently make for very entertaining reading, no matter how far they may stray from the original question.
So, more power to ya!
snowy vistas from a hot tub, that's been on my list of extravagant extras
Well, have you checked out the nice folks at Snorkel (http://snorkel.com/index.php)?
Now, these are really soaking tubs, but the quality it tough on the stick you try to beat it with. Being wood-fired, a person can make the case for the tub being very sensible, if not entirely green, in that you only heat it when you need it, and with a renewable heat source (and the heater is Al, a recycable material).
I've installed a few, never was smart enough to order an extra for myself (idiot). The coopering is pretty impressive for something that comes flat-packed, too.
Shoot, just actually looked at the site I called up just for th url, they've got some cool stuff, even gas & electric heating. Still no great light kit, though (I still want them to make staves with a beveled hole bored through for a lens, so a person would use fibreoptiocs for both daylight nad artifical light).Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
That wood fired one's a nice option, semi-portable too.
I currently have two complete bathroom suites in storage, each of which includes a spa, so one of those will be used for the Mstr bath in my next house.
bathroom suites in storage, each of which includes a spa, so one of those will be used for the Mstr bath in my next house. bathroom suites in storage, each of which includes a spa, so one of those will be used for the Mstr bath in my next house.
Well, that's cool. Only thing better would be to see what a plumber would swap you for, for one of them (I find bartered things to have a green "elegance" to them).
One of the few extravagances I'd invest in with a lottery win would be a dedicated ofuro-style bath. Until that time. and after saving up for electrical work, insulation work, plumbing work and proper siding. then I can start saving up for a soaking tub <grin & sigh>Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
I enjoy barter, labor for labor mostly, though I haven't done much of it recently.
I've learned to do plumbing so I won't likely be trading for that service. And...I have at least two more houses to build in the next few years, part of my retirement income plans, so the bargain stuff I've put away over the years is just waiting for the right spot to open up.
HVC, sorry to realize you might consider yourself a "decadent one"! (Maybe decadence is merely in the eye of the beholder.)
Oh Pure one? (I do like to think I have the ability to distinguish between Virgin Metal & just a common ore!)
Is it just a metabolism you are planning on keeping "up"?
After reading CapnMac's post re:temps. this time of year, I had the thought to suggest the inclusion of a cistern for irrigation purposes, in your home plans.
Just now, our poor excuse for a lawn has lost almost all of its "greenness" both figuratively & actually. Since we are on a well system with no cistern, I am loathe to squander any water to irrigate grass.
No rain for 3 weeks, with daytime temps hovering around the low 30's C gets one to thinking about such basics. I've read of some pretty enormous cisterns from where the Capn, hails from. Perhaps he could endorse or nay-say such a suggestion.
And then again, your site may have ample precip. this time of year.
I feel the power, I just can't always use it to best advantage!
Sincerely,
STAINLESS
Edited 6/26/2007 11:04 pm ET by STAINLESS
The cistern idea is one which I've been considering, ever since I lived in an old house which had one. I started a thread on that question here, a few months ago.
It's a natural for the garage foundation, don't you think? I wonder if such a cistern could be used as part of the PAHS umbrella, assuming that the garage would be above the main living level but not directly on top of the house?
I've been thinking that I could collect water from two sources, in two separate tanks...the roof and the driveway. The driveway will come down onto the property so it could be plumbed with a catch basin for that purpose. The collection area would be at least twice the size of the roof.
The way I understand it, a cistern must not have any common wall with a living area. I'm unsure what other code requirements there may be...like minimum distance between one underground wall and another.
I was once hired as a union carpenter to build forms for large above-ground tanks at a sewage treatment facility. The only special material used was a rubber/neoprene seal which was embedded in the footing, centered where the wall intersected. It wasn't a big deal to install and it apparently did it's job admirably.
How about a round above-ground pool as a cistern where you are? I installed quite a few of those, back in the seventies and eighties, as a sideline to my in-ground installation business. If I don't build a cistern under the garage of my next home, I'll almost surely install a round above-ground for that purpose, perhaps with a deck above it. They can be covered to stop evaporation, using inexpensive floating bubblewrap. They aren't difficult to build, just need a level site, and they can be dis-assembled and re-installed, if that's desireable. Installing a center drain would allow the plumbing to work better for irrigation.
Edited 6/27/2007 12:05 pm ET by Hudson Valley Carpenter
Yes HVC I do think...that the garage foundation is a natural for an underground storage system. I'm guessing you will need to go to 3-4' for frost protection for the footings anyway, and VaTom would probably agree with me that if you've got a big yellow toy on site anyway, you could excavate the entire section for not much extra green.
Depending on the soil conditions/ suitability, ability to schedule, site conditions etc. etc. etc. you just might be able to shift your excavator spoil pile to provide your soil cover for your PAHS umbrella in one fell swoop.
Parking garage floors are being constructed on a daily basis with much more load demands than mere residential, VaTom with his Steel Bar-Joist roof has been pointing us all in the right direction for some time now.
CapnMac's multiple redundancy is not a bad way to go either, I would imagine that there would be a considerable cost savings on your bar joists if you could design & build your cistern with internal dividing walls which could serve the purpose of sectioning your storage areas and providing an intermediate support for the floor deck which will finally cap it all off.
I see no reason to believe that the water in storage could not be used for thermal storage as well, (provided it is protected from freezing) The thought just occurred to me that in-floor-radiant in the garage would be a good way to leverage the insulation you would need above the cistern & provide a much more comfortable resting place for the family buggy/s.
Sectioning would allow you another benefit if you were considering solar collectors: by insulating some sections from others you could plumb in some heat exchanger coils and have tanks with varying temperatures. As the collector output winds its way into the 1st tank it would tend to heat that one up the most, the next tank in line could then receive the cooler water (which still has appreciable BTU's for a heat pump to extract) and so on until the return water to the collectors is quite cool. This would reduce the requirement for a high flow rate circulator pump. Slower flow speeds give more time for heat transfer (provided that incoming return water is sufficiently cooled before hand.)
Use the hottest water tank for your DHW and size it's volume to provide you the Delta T you like the best for your shower. If the tank volume is too big vis a vis your collector output, you could never get the temperature high enough for anything more than a cool shower. (Which may be acceptable to you with your enhanced metabolic rate due to the indoor soaking tub & multiple stair flights you might have to chase someone up and down!)
An above ground storage pool would be a logical expansion of the half-azzed system I have in place now. A series of stock watering tanks now collect roof runoff for use in watering our garden.
Unfortunately the spring has been a dry one without sufficient rainfall to fill them up in the last 3 weeks. A complication also exists with the rapidity of season change. We have gone from sub zero temps. to above 30C in less than 2 months. I would either have to provide some serious insulation to allow a semi-permanent installation or just accept that I would have to set it up just as soon as the spring thaw allows to give me enough time to collect enough rainwater for the dry period that could show up merely weeks later.
Underground storage over a more lengthy (say year to year) period would be a more permanent answer.
As you can probably guess by now, I can easily spend 2hrs. planning a 15 min. project.
Sincerely,
STAINLESS
if you've got a big yellow toy on site anyway, you could excavate the entire section for not much extra green.
Depending on the soil conditions/ suitability, ability to schedule, site conditions etc. etc. etc. you just might be able to shift your excavator spoil pile to provide your soil cover for your PAHS umbrella in one fell swoop.
Ideally, this all comes together in one plan. It takes a very large pile of dirt for PAHS. I was way short here, to the point of hiring a large dumptruck for a day delivering dirt to the top of my mountain. A lot of dirt. Felt pretty foolish, but the other choice was to remove a lot of trees and dig a hole.
The next time was better. We ended up with surplus... But that mostly was from the client insisting on a 2 story excavation prior to the engineer consultation. Which resulted in abandoning the 2 story plan. Then I got to figure out how to fit it into a too-deep excavation. Nobody notices now, but it certainly wasted substantial money.
Which all boils down to: plan well and follow the plan. Simplifies things immensely.
As you can probably guess by now, I can easily spend 2hrs. planning a 15 min. project.
Sometimes you save several hours of aggravation by doing that. Not to mention bodily injury.
He says, having left a 15' post dangling from a comealong, one end soaking in 3' of used motor oil.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Yes HVC I do think...that the garage foundation is a natural for an underground storage system. I'm guessing you will need to go to 3-4' for frost protection for the footings anyway, and VaTom would probably agree with me that if you've got a big yellow toy on site anyway, you could excavate the entire section for not much extra green.
A four foot foundation wall makes sense from the practical POV, as does an eight footer for the same reason. I'll have to see the engineering specs to know how that works financially. The deeper ya go, the more rebar they want in the pour.
As this home is meant to be sold, there's a limit to what I'll invest in low priority items.
Still, a four foot deep cistern should be well within by budget constraints. Splitting it in half or quarters, with an additional wall(s) in the middle would provide two positive features. One, I could separate the two water sources and two, I could use corrogated steel sheets, placed on top of the walls, to support the concrete garage floor.
This is common practice on steel I-beam buildings, galvanized corrogated steel floor supports. They span some pretty surprising distances, permanently supporting many tons of concrete.
There may be a big yellow something in my future. Or somethings. A 4X4 backhoe might make sense as a purchase for a year or two, if I can find a younger person to sit on it and dig eight hours a day.
If I'm able to plan all my excavations and stock piles carefully enough, I might rent an excavator for a week and run double shifts on it. Me for a couple hours early, a hired guy for eight hours and then me for a few more hours late in the day. Then I'd just rent a small dozer for a day or two, go at the backfill and grading in the same way.
There are a lot of ways to approach earth moving. I'm not really interested in owning a machine, if I can avoid it. I got the romantic machine operator kid stuff out of my system when I installed in-ground swimming pools for several years. It was sometimes more efficient for me to rent a machine for a day and dig the pool myself. More often than digging, I rented small dozers or diesel powered skid loaders to do the backfill. That was the most fun because it was only a few hours work and the results were gratifying, seeing the pool completed.
I see no reason to believe that the water in storage could not be used for thermal storage as well, (provided it is protected from freezing) The thought just occurred to me that in-floor-radiant in the garage would be a good way to leverage the insulation you would need above the cistern & provide a much more comfortable resting place for the family buggy/s.
This is where it gets real interesting for me, and where I have very little factual knowledge. Thermal storage in water is easy enough to understand intuitively but that's where my knowledge stops. The winter weather patterns in that area are pretty poor for solar collection...two days of clouds for one day of sun...many years running.
Sectioning would allow you another benefit if you were considering solar collectors: by insulating some sections from others you could plumb in some heat exchanger coils and have tanks with varying temperatures. As the collector output winds its way into the 1st tank it would tend to heat that one up the most, the next tank in line could then receive the cooler water (which still has appreciable BTU's for a heat pump to extract) and so on until the return water to the collectors is quite cool. This would reduce the requirement for a high flow rate circulator pump. Slower flow speeds give more time for heat transfer (provided that incoming return water is sufficiently cooled before hand.)
Use the hottest water tank for your DHW and size it's volume to provide you the Delta T you like the best for your shower. If the tank volume is too big vis a vis your collector output, you could never get the temperature high enough for anything more than a cool shower. (Which may be acceptable to you with your enhanced metabolic rate due to the indoor soaking tub & multiple stair flights you might have to chase someone up and down!)
OK, this is where you and I part company professor, my butt being relegated to a seat in the back of the class. I freely admit that I've neglected my education regarding heat pumps, how they work and in what ways they can be used. I do have some basic knowledge of radiant floor heat, heat exchangers and such but that's about it. If you would be so kind..to supply a link or a good search phrase, I'll go get my brains informed and up to speed...so that I can at least ask some relevant questions. Thanks for your kind indulgence.
An above ground storage pool would be a logical expansion of the half-azzed system I have in place now. A series of stock watering tanks now collect roof runoff for use in watering our garden.
Unfortunately the spring has been a dry one without sufficient rainfall to fill them up in the last 3 weeks. A complication also exists with the rapidity of season change. We have gone from sub zero temps. to above 30C in less than 2 months. I would either have to provide some serious insulation to allow a semi-permanent installation or just accept that I would have to set it up just as soon as the spring thaw allows to give me enough time to collect enough rainwater for the dry period that could show up merely weeks later.
So what you're saying is that you don't want to leave water in your stock tanks over the winter because you're concerned about damage from freezing and expansion, right? Or what? I'm wondering why it's not common practice to leave water in a stock tank to freeze. Millions of above-ground pools are left about 2/3rds full in very cold climates, all winter. The only limiting factor is the external plumbing parts which will certainly break if filled and frozen solid.
BTW, don't forget what I said about a floating bubblewrap pool cover for your stock tank. Stops evaporation, a considerable loss in very hot weather, as you must know.
Underground storage over a more lengthy (say year to year) period would be a more permanent answer.
As you can probably guess by now, I can easily spend 2hrs. planning a 15 min. project.
Underground yes, definitely provides a better all around solution. It might even be worth planning a new shop or garage, just to take advantage of the up sides of having that under the floor.
And as you can probably guess, I'm either a very fast typist or one of the world's great procrastinators. I won't discount my early training at an old Underwood but that doesn't answer the question entirely, if any question remains. ;-)
I'm wondering why it's not common practice to leave water in a stock tank to freeze
That's what I'm used to seeing in the Texas Panhandle. Top of the tank is open, so, ice that forms, can just push "out" of the tank. You crank a little slack out of the windmill, just so it cranks every so often, that brings water up the pipe and into the tank. Which keeps the plumbing from freezing up, and usually wears a hole in the ice. (Few things as odd as seeing a clearly unhappy beeve just not enjoying drinking with all that cold hard stuff about.)Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
The top of the Morning to you, HVC!
It looks like we have a lot of ground to cover this morning so I'll cut to the chase. (Please pardon the clipped thinking & writing style to follow!)
Before we begin, however, just need to get one thing out of the way here, "romantic, machine operator kid stuff" OUCH! , I resemble that remark! Nuff said!, we move along. "Machine on site" does not presuppose ownership on your part, not cogent to the concept of costs, & scheduling etc. Whatever floats your boat!
"neglected my education on heat pumps"
Lecture hall on thermodynamics.
Disclaimer: The following is not meant to imply anything to any one & I'll not spend any time proving any statement. (Study Hall would be the place to do that on your own!)
Heat is nothing more than very small bits of matter moving back & forth. More bits in motion, means more heat. The faster they move, the higher the temperature.
Heat transfers from something to something 3 ways, Radiation, Conduction, Convection.The transfer speeds up when the differences in temperature (Delta T) are greater, & slows down when the "somethings" approach each other in temp.
Even water that has just become frozen has heat, the bits only stop moving when the temp. drops to -279C (absolute Zero)
A refrigerator or an AC unit can be considered as one way heat pumps, they "move" heat from one place to another. (Feel the coil at the back of your fridge when it is running, it is warmer than room air. The heat that warms it up is coming from the cool interior.) If we could reverse the refrigeration cycle we could heat up the inside of the fridge using heat in the room to make the inside fridge temperature much higher than the room air. ... That is what a heat pump is, a 2-way machine for "moving" heat from one place to another & back again (if you should change your mind)
The "moving" word is important, not "creating". Run electrical current through a baseboard heater and it "creates" heat, getting hot @ slightly less than 100% efficiency if you compare it's input to output.
Compared to a baseboard heater, a heat pump is more than 100% efficient!; using the same amount of electrical current it can "move" more heat into your house than the baseboard heater can "create". Due to its ability to reverse its heat moving direction, it can also give you AC operation when you need that, too. The difference in efficiency is significant. It can save you money.
Heat pumps can come in many forms, some work with air, some with liquids, some with both. They can "move" heat from a tank of water (or the air) outside your house, into your house and in so doing they can "concentrate" the heat and create higher temperatures than their inputs "see". A large tank of water @ 10C can have a lot of heat in it, and can provide heat @ 30C by using a heat pump to "concentrate" the heat into a smaller "something." (Think of a magnifying glass "concentrating" the suns rays into a small spot & causing a piece of paper to start burning) Even more interesting, (perhaps?); a large block of Ice @ 0C could still be a large source of heat and heat up your house using the appropriate heat pump.
You can heat or cool air, water, or even water & air at the same time with these machines. You can cool your home's air while simultaneously heating your DHW (Domestic Hot Water) with the heat you take out of the air! (Search the word Desuperheater on Google for how that can happen.)
A Ground Source Heat Pump (GSHP) can move heat into, (or out of) the ground & into (or out of) your house using liquid filled pipes. You could coil those pipes up & put them into a large tank of water and move heat into (or out of) the water for your house as well. If you insulate the tank well enough you could store heat in the water during the summer and take it back out during the winter. Remembering that a heat pump concentrates heat means that the temperature of the water does not need to be all that high to heat your house. 5C water temp. can be plenty.
You can also heat up water in your radiant floor heating coils with the heat you move out of the water tank, "concentrating" it into a usable temperature for your comfort.
Heat does not rise; it "moves" from a higher temp. place to a lower temp. place. Hot air rises in still air because it is "lighter" than cold air (in the absence of a fan that is!)& floats upward.
Lecture Hall is now closed.
I like books. I like one by Dan Holohan. He explains radiant heating quite well, I think. I haven't checked, however, searching FHB archives & Google with some of the words used above may net you something more.
I destroyed one of my stock watering tanks by forgetting to drain it 1 year. I didn't take any precautions to avoid the expansion problems. (That's life in a microcosm, if you don't take precautions!...) Low temperature Ice in a large tank can take a long time to thaw out enough to be usable for irrigation, I think. It would be worth some experimentation, however.
Sincerely,
STAINLESS
OK...you've certainly expanded my knowledge. Not unlike your example about how heated molecules move faster, a few of my brain cells seem to be heating up a bit, in their attempt to catch up with the rate of vibration necessary to acquire real understanding. I'll continue applying friction up there and see where it all leads me.
Please take no offense from my description of how I resolved certain romantic notions about operating earth moving equipment, held onto lovingly since childhood.
I remember reading and re-reading a library copy of a young adult book called "Bull Dozer" at the age of about ten. It was about a guy who, starting with nothing, slowly built a small excavation business. The self made man who did it the hard way. Not a bad example for a ten year old.
Interestingly, I often asked guys of my generation who dug swimming pools for me all over the country, if they had read that book when they were young. In almost every case, three out of four, they remembered the book very well.
The problem with heavy equipment is that, if you want to have it around waiting to be used when it's needed, you really have to own it. But if you invest twenty-five grand in a machine, a fairly minimal amount for a decent backhoe, you have to have work for it to do or it's not earning it's keep. The depreciation, even if it's low, added to the loss of earned interest on $25K make it a luxury item, unless it performs a valuable service on a regular basis.
As previously explained, there are good strategies for minimizing rental charges and getting maximum work accomplished. In the end, it's sometimes better to plan carefully and hire a local excavating contractor to come in by the hour with the best machine for the job. A big excavator can dig and move so much dirt that it can make a standard backhoe look like a toy. With a good operator, there's nothing like having one of those doing an excavation.
Barter with neigbors is sometimes possible too. I had a loose agreement with one neighbor of mine for a few years, allowing he and his family to hunt deer on my property in exchange for a very favorable rate when I needed him to come over for an hour or two with his backhoe.
What often works better for a homeowner with a woodlot, lawns and gardens is owning a medium sized farm tractor with a PTO and a few implements. That's probably what I'll end up with...something to do the day to day stuff, or weekly stuff.
Happy CANADA DAY (& upcoming July4th as well) to you HVC!
No offence given, none taken! (Just yanking your chain on that romance thing....with the possible nudge that big yellow ownership means different things to different people.)
As you are secure in your non-ownership position and I have no absolutely, unreservedly, no issues with your reasoning or from whence you cometh, I am equally secure in my ownership position. Different strokes for different folks!
As I said & truly meant NUFF SAID.
I was interested to see your possible inspiration for a start to your career. Books have been a prominent part of my inspiration in life for as long as I can recollect. Try: Jonathan Livingston Seagull or The Man Who Planted Trees for 2 such very quick reads that have influenced my life.
I especially appreciate the time you (& others) spend to explain why you hold any particular opinion. That's not to say that unsupported opinions are of zero value to me , just not so golden as to positions more fully explained. I can't critique or more importantly apply opinions to my own situation until I can synchronize with the rationale behind them and I am unable to do that with many opinions. (Perhaps that is why I am critiqued as being so long winded. ) I believe in Quid Pro Quo. If I give or receive something (like an IDEA or usable opinion) I feel it important to exchange something of equal value. Please believe that a different opinion is NOT useless to me if it is explained!
Now back to the cistern concept.
The thought has surfaced that using cistern storage water for thermal storage may be in conflict with its use for irrigation. (You can't heat or cool water that has been pumped out to be used for watering the garden!) How do we get to have & eat the cake at the same time?
Sincerely,
STAINLESS
Oh Canada! Thanks for reminding me in time to offer my respects. I spent two memorable summers at a canoe camp in western Ontario, as a teen-ager. That and my occasional association with Canadiens have left me with a very positive impression of y'all.
In all honesty, reading between the lines of my last post, it's easy to tell that I still covet ownership of a small bull dozer. And, who knows, I may end up with one for a year or two, if I can buy a good one at the right price.
Irrigation is only required for a few months. After that there should be plenty of time, in the north east anyway, to refill the cisterns before winter. I'm imagining ten thousand gallons or more in storage over the winter. I'm also imagining being able to raise the temperature of the stored water via solar collectors to same or higher than the thermal mass of the umbrella before winter weather sets in.
Does that connect well with your concepts regarding heat pumps?
And how about if we consider the cisterns to be a separate system, installed for use with a more conventional home, like ICFs? Assuming that the cisterns would be properly insulated, how well would they work with heat pumps under those conditions?
Today is THE DAY! All day celebrations @ the municipal grounds then fireworks @ dusk.
Thank you for the respects, HVC.
Regarding input temps for the heat pump,a mfg. I researched, limited input temps. to 24C, oddly enough they didn't want the source to be too hot! If the temp. of the tank water isn't critical, ie. you are not going to use its heat directly to produce DHW then sizing it to a solar collector is not critical.
If, however, you need the water to reach a design temp. then you have to have a match between collector output & water volume & insulation level. It does get a bit technical but essentially if your solar panel can't produce enough heat, your water doesn't get hot enough.
It takes 1 BTU to heat 1LB of water up 1 deg. F. I have seen a rule of thumb of about 2 US gal of storage for each ft2 of collector. Your site conditions can modify this due to many, many things. (We can brainstorm this if should want to!)
If the tanks are thermally connected to the ground then they will reach the temp. without adding any heat, on their own. It just takes time. How much time is not easy to anticipate. However we ware now circumventing the P in PAHS (as VaTom will be quick to point out), if we introduce this active aspect of adding heat to the PAHS umbrella with mechanicals.
Under more conventional settings (as your ICF example) adding water storage will complicate things somewhat compared to PAHS for several reasons. At first blush it seems that you are essentially adding complications for the only payback of having a more compact storage mass, if you don't intend to use the water for irrigation that is.
The insulated cisterns would work well enough with the heat pumps per se, however now we have to worry about freezing the water if we draw out too much heat during the winter. Not because Ice has no heat but because the expansion forces generated by the ice formation can rupture the container for the water.
Another level of monitoring & control becomes needed.
I like the engineering principal KISS (KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID!) which is why I like the Passive in PAHS.
So now we are back to a smaller volume tank for DHW heat storage, a larger tank for irrigation water, & PAHS for more general house heating. Perhaps more complicated to design & build but hopefully simpler to run.
Sincerely,
STAINLESS
I'm a long time believer in KISS, mainly because the human factor, succinctly described by the final S, is also subject to Murphy's Law.
If my life has proved anything, it's that Murphy's Law is not only quite real but that's it's results can be observed in any and all aspects of my daily life. It's manifestations may not be specifically predictable but their inevitability certainly is.
To be fair, as excited as I am by all that PAHS has to offer, that method is probably not going to be my choice for the next house I build because my financial plans dictate that I sell that one soon after the two year period of occupancy, dictated by US Tax Law, is up. I need to subject all potential building plans to scrutiny for their sales worthiness to a range of buyers and their bankers.
What I'm seriously considering at this point is subdividing that property, top to bottom, then building the second house as my initial full-on PAHS effort. That will give me plenty of time to investigate the subject on a full scale, three dimensional basis.
This is not to say that I've decided against applying certain proven aspects of PAHS in my next home, just that I'm still evaluating many materials and building methods which are very new to me.
Thanks again for your very helpful descriptions. I'm slowly getting my head around a lot of these subjects so I'll wait until I can make more sense of how they might be applied to my aims before trying to formulate another question.
Edited 7/1/2007 10:46 am ET by Hudson Valley Carpenter
To be fair, as excited as I am by all that PAHS has to offer, that method is probably not going to be my choice for the next house I build because my financial plans dictate that I sell that one soon...
Prudence is always appropriate. We were very pleasantly shocked when the client PAHS appraised so high. NFS for any reasonable amount, but nice to know.
If you consider utilizing active solar, be sure to speak with Mike Smith first. Lots of experience.
OTOH, my approach is to not concern myself with "most" buyers and settle for a probably longer time on the market awaiting "my" buyer. Sometimes that longer market time doesn't materialize. Higher sales price does. That's what financed me here. As always, identify your market.
Got yet another email this morning from a would-be home buyer looking for someone to build a similar PAHS on her land. Steady trickle of interest. She mentioned she found me from a list by some guy in Montana http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SolarHomes/plansps.htm News to me.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
I'm not surprised people are seeking you out, Tom. The more I look into PAHS the better it looks. And there just doesn't seem to be much information available - case studies, anecdotal evidence. Frankly, I'm surprised I never even heard of it before meeting you here at Breaktime. Clearly it takes a leap of perception to consider living "underground". But once a person gets past that hurdle, things begin to click and PAHS as a heat system certainly seems logical. For whatever reason there seems to have been about a 20 year hole in the developement of alternative buildings/energy sources - maybe caused by the collapse of the tax incentive driven boon in the 80s. I sure hope we can get back on track, though. Clearly what we are doing isn't working very well.Huck said it first. I just agreed with him.
Clearly it takes a leap of perception to consider living "underground".
When that comes up, and it's common, I suggest looking up. You see what? Your ceiling, just like here. My ceiling probably doesn't look quite like yours, but it easily could.
The next major hurdle is roofline, with the assumption that mine is required. Not at all. Simple to place yours (or anybody's) on top of my house. House would function the same, except for my rooftop veggie beds. House exterior would be transformed. Vinyl siding? <shudder> No physical reason not to.
I've been a little surprised that so many have heard of PAHS. Not the fact that they've never seen an example. I hadn't either, but didn't mind taking what I considered a tiny risk. How bad could it be? I understand immensely more now about how PAHS works than I did then. The second house, with it's distinct changes from mine, educated me. Performance was almost identical. I also did a lot of number-crunching to figure out what was going on. Including understanding ac and dehumidification.
It'd take somebody with far more commercial interest than me to popularize PAHS. I've been approached for spec houses, work with a particularly interested Maryland archy, and turn down at least 2 would-you-build-for-me requests/yr. Sent a note to Jon Blakemore about the current one. Don't know if he's interested. The potential client sure is, her land being a reasonable commute for him.
I also suggested she join BT and advertise her interest here. Not to mention that there's a lot of old posts to peruse. NOVA GCs I'm really not that familiar with, other than Jon.
Trying to cover all bases, I also told her about Cloud's recent involvement in case she finds domes interesting. And yes, I've been corrected about calling them "domes". <G>
Happy to do some consulting, but mostly I'm trying to spread the word. Very glad you heard it. Wasn't me who brought PAHS up in this thread. Awareness is good.
Working one month every year (typically) to pay for ones creature comfort strikes me as a major waste. Certainly unnecessary. Now if I can just convince someone to build PAHS that looks more like conventional housing...
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Well I'd sure be interested in signing on to work on a project including a PAHS system. I have a few good years left in me and some freedom to travel before the grandkids arrive...4 or 5 years probably. After that, though, it will be back to the old "hey, wanna play catch?" mode for me. Man, I sure miss having kids around.
Huck said it first. I just agreed with him.
LOL... surely you're not licensed in Va? She needs a GC.
I view these opportunities like when I was approached about an Aspen house for a wealthy tennis pro who used to live here. One of the many famous faces. At the time, I was running the cabinet shop for the house designer.
If I wanted to work in Aspen, I'd be living there. Same for northern Va. OTOH, if it's an interesting enough house... I can ask if she's got kids, but not quite this early in the conversation. <G> She didn't ask me to build, not local. Wanted GC referrals.
Do you remember the old FineHomebuilding articles about Jersey Devil houses? Design/build, will travel. Always fascinated me. And one house (FH cover Oct/Nov '85) near SF was a major influence on me.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Prudence is always appropriate. We were very pleasantly shocked when the client PAHS appraised so high. NFS for any reasonable amount, but nice to know.
Yep. I've been involved in other markets where I learned that owning something unique might suit me to a T but it wasn't universally coveted by those who were buying.
I once owned a used homebuilt bi-plane, a Starduster One, bought at a very favorable price. It was a wonderful experience, flying a small open cockpit plane with great handling qualities, something that I enjoyed for five years before that plane's limitations made me look for something more conventional with which to continue my aviation adventures.
When I advertised it for sale, it quickly became clear that there were only a small number of pilots in the market for what that little sportplane had to offer.
Although I eventually got a fair price, the buyers knew that they had a strong negotiating position, simply because of the time the plane had been on the market.
I also owned a custom pick-up truck for a few years. That one was even more difficult to sell. It took a year, sitting on a friend's lot, and I just did recover my basic investment. That's better than most guys do with custom cars.
I know we're talking apples and oranges but I take personal experiences as indicative of how I might learn to avoid similar problems in the future.
I also take my sweetheart's desires into account. That's prudence of another kind.
One step...at a time.
of some pretty enormous cisterns from where the Capn, hails from. Perhaps he could endorse or nay-say such a suggestion.
Largest I personally worked on was on the Colorado River, about 10" less annual rainfall west of here (in the 20-26" range). For that project, the porches all had a perimeter wall to define a 30-52" deep, rat-slabbed, "crawl space" into which 500 gallon (US) collapsible bladders were installed to collect all rainfall. Porches totaled about 2300sf, vice 1550 for the house, too. Nice mix of roofed, shaded, and open, too. Room for eleven bladders, installed eight.
Still nag them to set up a 7+4 and use the four for graywater. Soap in the graywater seems to be the toughest hurdle there.
Now, I don't know near enough about HVC's climate and extremes to do more than speculate on whether run-off conservation would be a good thing--or just an on-going engineering headache.
After all, consider the "allure" of a nice, sun-soaked, patio which is actually a 24" tank of water, with full ground contact for the tank. It teases for being a solar storage mass, or as pahs insulation, or as . . . until it gets cold and you have to design in expansion area for when some of the water freezes. Or what happens if it does not rain, and the tank is only part-full, and then, it goes below freezing . . . <sigh>Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Now, I don't know near enough about HVC's climate and extremes to do more than speculate on whether run-off conservation would be a good thing--or just an on-going engineering headache.
The summer climate is typical of the north east, meaning that we usually get a lot of rainfall but we also have hot spells without rain when both lawns and gardens really need irrigation to thrive, even survive. As I'm planning on having both extensive lawns and multiple gardens, flowers and vegetables, I'll need to have plenty of rain water stored for that purpose.
As I mentioned in a previous post, if I find that the under-the-garage cistern idea isn't workable, I'll happily install one or more round above-ground pools to hold water collected from both my driveway and the roof of the house. At about 10,000gals each, they should protect my concerns adequately.
After all, consider the "allure" of a nice, sun-soaked, patio which is actually a 24" tank of water, with full ground contact for the tank. It teases for being a solar storage mass, or as pahs insulation, or as . . . until it gets cold and you have to design in expansion area for when some of the water freezes. Or what happens if it does not rain, and the tank is only part-full, and then, it goes below freezing . . . <sigh>
If you were to install a one piece vinyl liner, instead of the bladders you mentioned, you could put in a bottom drain and be able to pump out the tank.
A cistern under-the-garage but within a PAHS umbrella strikes me as having lots of potential as a thermal mass for solar collectors during the winter. As the temperatures of summer rains are always cool, they wouldn't have any adverse effect on a PAHS's ability to cool the house. Might even help a bit. But that's just speculation from a rank novice.
If you were to install a one piece vinyl liner, instead of the bladders you mentioned, you could put in a bottom drain and be able to pump out the tank.
Oh, it works, and well enough. A body spends some time thinking about that "custom made" (and "custom seamed") liner, and the future, some, too.
Maybe I'm a pessimist, maybe I've done one too many remodels, maybe mebbe bebbe . . . Down to I used to have a source for MilSpec bladders straihgt from the factory, and limiting a person to only the one 500 gallon leak, cheap, had/has some appeal. That, and having wrestled neoprene connectors on to install backflow prevention between bladders for the belt & suspenders of isolateing water by bladder, too . . .
Or, it's a ship reflex, to always have more than the one great huge tank. Dunno.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
I'm a little late to the party here...I have given some thought to building a multiple tank or cistern system to feed high or low temperature water into a heat pump. My yet do it. However, one thing that needs to be considered in building a cistern that will hold heated water or, indeed, any water system that might hold somewhat warm water and which people may be exposed to droplets from it, is the possibility of such a system being contaminated with Legionnaires disease. From the CDC on legionella:"An estimated 8,000-18,000 cases occur each year in the United States, but only a fraction of these are reported. Most LD cases are sporadic; 23% are nosocomial and 10%-20% can be linked to outbreaks. Pontiac fever has been recognized only during outbreaks.
Death occurs in 10%-15% of LD cases: a substantially higher proportion of fatal cases occur during nosocomial outbreaks. Pontiac fever is a self-limited disease that requires no treatment.
Transmission -Inhalation of contaminated aerosols from devices such as cooling towers, showers, and faucets, and aspiration of contaminated water. Person-to-person transmission does not occur."http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/legionellosis_t.htm "Since legionella is widespread in the environment, it cannot be prevented from entering water systems. However, the risk of an outbreak developing can be reduced by taking the following precautions:Hot and cold water service * cisterns and pipe work should be designed so that water is not allowed to stand undisturbed for long periods;
* cisterns should be well covered to prevent the entry of dirt, debris and vermin, and should be periodically inspected, cleaned and disinfected;
* water temperatures between 20°C and 45°C should be avoided by insulation of cold water tanks and pipes in warm spaces, and by storing hot water at 60°C and circulating at 50°C. Where there is a risk of scalding for the very old, and young children, thermostatically controlled taps may be needed;
* only water system fittings and materials which comply with water authority by-laws should be used (certain materials, eg leather, some rubbers and plastics, support the growth of bacteria and should not be used)."
Thanks Casey,
I had forgotten how that disease might enter a system closed system, like an undergroung cistern. I appears that even the original idea of collecting water for irrigation might jeopardise people living in the adjacent house.
I wonder if starting to collect water in the spring, for irrigation use in the summer would present an opportunity for this disease to manifest? I'm thinking that the cistern could be left open during the fall and winter months, just letting water from the roof run through it, then closed in time to collect rain water in the spring and early summer.
My other options are open top tanks, one or more round vinyl-liner above ground pools, installed outside, perhaps under a deck. Is that a safer method of storing irrigation water?
I may have made the threat appear worse than it might be. I think the disease carrying water has to be formed into small dropletts and inhaled - like in a shower or from the mist of a cooling tower. People with strong immune systems might suffer from only mild symptoms if at all. Still, there probably are slight risks in water with some organic content sitting for longer periods of time with temps in the range to foster microbe growth. I am thinking about having a couple of water tanks to use for fire protection and possibly use them as heat sinks for a heat pump, but am no longer thinking about having the warm water from such a tank feeding into the sinks or showers. Not sure how practical it would be to have two tanks, one alway above the critical range and one always below. Also don't know what it takes to "pasteurize" water in a hot water heater after it has been sitting for a while in an intermediate temperature tank that might have had conditions supporting the growth of legionella.
On the water power thing: HomePower magazine has from time to time had articles on small hydro power systems for homes - some commercially available, most home brewed. Only rarely do I buy an issue, so I don't know what they have been up to lately. Their website used to have a lot of information but I haven't checked it out in several years. The website is at:http://www.homepower.com/
For wind power, there is a company in San Francisco that is reportedly exploring a vertical wind turbine. As I will be building in an area that is designated a scenic area, I need for any wind generator I attempt to install to have as small of a visual impact as possible. Plus, I like bats and would prefer to have the ones in my area not get konked by whirling propeller blades... Unfortunately, they are not yet in production mode and expect at least a year before they are.I seem to have lost the web page for the Blue Green Pacific , but an article on them is at:http://greenvolts.blogspot.com/2007/01/building-integrated-wind-turbines.html
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/06/24/BUG3OQK6MJ1.DTL&hw=blue+green+pacific&sn=001&sc=1000I have purchased a very small windmill that a neighbor had stuck away in her garage unused. It looks like the old fashioned flat steel multi-bladed windmills and is about the blade assembly is about six feet across. The thing about it that is different is that is powers a small air compressor rather than an electric generator. The idea is to put a perforated section of pipe at the end of the air line and stick this on the end of the water pipe in the well. The rising air bubbles then lifts the water up the pipe. Supposedly, the deeper the water pipe, the better it works. I still have it sitting in the original packaging, so can't give any report on how well it actually works.I just did a quick Google search and was surprised to find a number of websites discussing windmill aircompressors for wells. Didn't find one for my specific model, however. http://www.agr.gc.ca/pfra/water/wind_e.htm
Might as well toss in another topic of interest here, under the heading of collecting stuff off the roof. I'm going to be able to orient the garage roof of my next house due south so the possibility of building a roof mounted photovoltaic system looms big. One of the more attractive uses of electricity collected using those means is to charge batteries in cars of the near future.
As I understand it, from a recent PBS special, photovoltaics will soon become efficient and economical enough for the average home owner. So I figure that I should build my garage with the intention of catchin' some rays and running some vehicles.
Anyone care to comment?
Why not? As long as you're thinking alomg those lines, what could it hurt to prepare the building, with an eye for future technology you believe in?
Huck said it first. I just agreed with him.
Yes I will comment... ATTA-BOY!
PV is a pet love of mine. The ultimate passive electric generator. No noise, no sight obstruction for neighbors to complain of (if roof mounted), no maintenance (other than periodic cleaning or snow removal), no noxious exhausts, very simple permitting process, ie: no environmental assessment etc.
Unlike most electrical generation systems they can be installed in any size configuration & added to incrementally as funds permit. (Think of what it would take to add just 10% capacity to a thermo-nuclear plant; far more than 10% of the initial cost.)
Not particularly efficient, not cheap, not for everyone.
I believe it was a Canadian company near Toronto that had developed a roofing material incorporating PV cells. (Since bought out by a US firm I believe)
I think the European community is far ahead of North America in their use of PV. I seem to remember a piece about a combined Solar Heat Collector sandwiched with PV cells to be used on a roof. From what I've read about PV, they perform best when kept cool, the heat collector portion uses the heat of the sun to run a heat exchanger loop and in so doing allows the solar cells to run cooler & raises their efficiency. A win-win for maximizing the use of your roofing real estate. Heat & electricity from the same installed area.
As in most alternative energy systems, it always seems to come down to energy storage, what do you do for power when the sun doesn't shine or the wind blow?
Sincerely,
STAINLESS
As in most alternative energy systems, it always seems to come down to energy storage, what do you do for power when the sun doesn't shine or the wind blow?
Lithium batteries are making their way into daily use, powering cordless tools and many smaller items. It would seem that they hold some promise for future use in larger formats.
In any case, personal transportation is a very obvious application for electrical power. As a cyclist, closely involved with recumbent bikes * over the last five years, I can easily forsee a time when comfortable bicycles with strong auxiliary electric motors will replace many economy cars as daily commuters...for pennies a mile.
More to the point, it takes very little imagination to foresee a time when hybrid cars will be re-charging their more efficient, longer-lived batteries from roof top PV panels on their own garages. There are photovoltaics in use now by NASA which are many times more efficient than those being produced for general use. The NASA technology is very expensive but it's just a matter of time before methods and materials are found to manufacture them for much less money.
In other words, there are economic forces at work which need no psychic to predict the outcome for the average home-owner and/or fan of cheap personal transportation.
* http://www.bentrideronline.com
Edited 7/8/2007 3:40 pm ET by Hudson Valley Carpenter
I may have made the threat appear worse than it might be. I think the disease carrying water has to be formed into small dropletts and inhaled - like in a shower or from the mist of a cooling tower. People with strong immune systems might suffer from only mild symptoms if at all.
You certainly got my attention. I'm now only considering using the cistern water for irrigation and possibly as a thermal mass with a heat exchanger and a heat pump, if that's possible. No direct human contact.
I had initially believed that I might be able to use cistern water collected off the roof for doing laundry and flushing toilets but I'm not sure whether that would be approved.
I'd like to have all those options but I'll settle for a system that makes it possible to irrigate lawns and gardens during dry spells.
Well I'm sure glad you brought it up. We have a low well output at our new house so the well driller suggested an above ground holding tank that we then pump water out of.
Are we in danger of bacteria growth in that tank? Huck said it first. I just agreed with him.
The wheat farms in Eastern Oregon that I worked on in summers in high school all had cisterns and the water was not particularly cold. I never heard of anyone getting sick with anything that had the symptoms that are now ascribed to legionnella. Of course, we didn't have showers, just a hose from a barrel on a stand sitting in the sun - there definitely were no atomized droplets. So, I don't really know, I think the risk wouldn't be all that great but you probably want to talk to the county sanitarian or well expert.
Thank-you Jim, for that most gracious response.
Because this is a public forum I do get concerned that others are unable or unwilling to get a word in edgewise due to my long-winded posts.
You are quite right to remind me that silence does not signify disinterest, all the time!
I have many farming neighbours who can be short on talk but long on wisdom!
The act of thinking can be infectious, too! The more who get involved, the better things seem to become.
Steady on? : That seems to be a term I've heard used by more than just a few British acquaintances I've made. You wouldn't, by chance, have ties across the pond, would you? (Not to be nosy, just curious. If out of line with such a personal question, just ignore the question. I can sometimes take some hints with only 2 or 3 smacks along side the haid where it hurts the most!)
Sincerely,
STAINLESS
Edited 6/25/2007 3:24 pm ET by STAINLESS
"Because this is a public forum I do get concerned that others are unable or unwilling to get a word in edgewise due to my long-winded posts.
You are quite right to remind me that silence does not signify disinterest, all the time!"
Well, the thing is, anyone is free to read and respond to (or not) anything on these forums they want. If they're disinterested, they will go read something else. If they want to get a word in edgewise all they have to do is type something and click "post", right? It's not like you're stopping anyone.
I'm just glad to see people passionate about ANYTHING. Someone busts your chops for that, the heck with them. They're just showing their own character.
"Connections across the pond"? Not for 8 or 10 generations. But I'm a fan of language so I probably picked that up from a sailing buddy of mine...who just lost his Dad...come to think of it I'd better send him a note instead of jabbering with you. Later. Huck said it first. I just agreed with him.
LMAO... seems we haven't offended many. Or they've been politely quiet. (zzzzz...)
I'm more cheap/lazy than green. They just coincide here. While I dodge the local reporters that well-meaning friends occasionally alert.
Partly to do with zoning, which I generally ignore. This is a hoity-toity county (Evan Almighty filmed here), lots of money (elsewhere). Gonna take min $2m to get a house in the new development second property over. Median house should be more like $4-5m. Yeah, they want a junk transfer station next door... Developer didn't want to talk about a cell tower anywhere on that 2300 ac. I did (on my considerably smaller spread).
My plan is to work hard enough to be comfortably lazy. House has definitely gotta take care of me, not the other way around. We have somewhat expensive tastes. Did I mention I was cheap? Not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Cincinatti cousins here this weekend, first time for her. Totally dependent suburbanites who got the nickle tour. Mostly went over their heads, but they did ask some good questions. Hadn't thought much about it but it appears I'm down to roughly 1 mo/yr of gainful employment. Thought I was doing well in Denver when I whittled it down to 9 mos (while still living as we chose). Apparently the relocation worked. Certainly much happier living here.
I digress.
See if I can get into one of those collector panels today. Heavy damn things. Might be the copper.
BTW, after-tax income/consumption is the only thing that counts. Our system is working pretty well for me so far. So long as I don't want to qualify for a mortgage on one of those several million dollar homes.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Dear VaTom,
I hope you will not burn valuable daylight hours just to answer a few questions about your solar collectors. Chatting with you during leisure moments is one thing, encouraging you to spend time on something you don't need to do is another!
Please preserve your discretionary hours for something more worthy & get back to me when & if you get a round tuit.
I just read the outside mercury & we've hit 33 C in the shade. (I have the luxury of scheduling my own time today & have elected to stay out of the heat where I'net access lives today!)
The odd thing about work for me seems to be that I work myself harder on projects & endeavors of my own choosing than I ever worked for the man. Although it still tends to be a 4-letter word when it comes to repetitive, soul-destroying things that just have to get done, I generally am happier with work now than when I was full-time employed.
I tend to agree with you that after-tax income is the true measure of worth. Unfortunately many are not in the position of being able to solve many of life's hurdles on their own without putting in extra OT at their regular job to cover some emergency costs.
I've often found it ironic that a neighbour can pass me on our concession road where I'm picking up some free firewood because he is too busy getting some OT to cover the cost of something like a new furnace because their old one just died unexpectedly!
A few ways to be rich: you can either spend little or earn a lot.
Working some OT on the weekend for the privilege of bumping your tax bracket to the 50% range so you can pay another 14% in PST & GST to have someone do something you may be able to do for yourself seems self defeating. (I know that sometimes it is unavoidable, though.)
While I'm feeling so philosophical, perhaps our general standard of living could IMPROVE if we didn't have to spend so much of our time working to pay for, maintain and ultimately dispose of & replace so often the very things that are supposed to make our lives easier!
BUT I DIGRESS ALSO!
Sincerely,
STAINLESS
just read the outside mercury & we've hit 33 C in the shade. (I have the luxury of scheduling my own time today & have elected to stay out of the heat where I'net access lives today!)
Made me look, it's only 28º DP 23º (82ºF/73º) today--but we've been a t-storm all day, too. Last week was a tad ugly though--stayed in the 33-35 range the whole week, with Heat Indexes in the 37-39 range; flat out ugly weather and another three months of it to come. The present conditions (that 28/23) will be our 0800 conditions until October or so.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
CapnMac, 3 months?!!
I hope its a dry heat!
Any thing over 25C is beyond my tolerance for abuse & by the time we're up to 30C I'm all but simmering in my own juices!
Sure makes that PAHS concept more interesting to me with such a real-world example of why moderating temps. throughout the year can be so important.
If I could just save up this thermal stuff for about 6 months it could come in real handy when we will be about 30C below zero for daytime highs.
Sincerely,
STAINLESS
CapnMac, 3 months?!!
Easily. Our daily highs were hitting the 80s(F) back in March; it's "80 by 8(o'clock)" & "90 by 9" time-of-year, now. (Moderated this week by a "tropical wave-like structure" which has collapsed into the seabreeze boundary along the coast to give us near a solid week's worth of overcast mixed with rain--highs only around 90 in other words.)
I hope its a dry heat!
It's not. This county is in a 36" annual rainfall syncline, while geographically defined by two river valleys, with an elevation only around 300 MSL; uh, that's oh, 90m or so. "Damp" often fails to adequately describe this place I live. The nominal seasons of "Spring" & "Autumn" are definable by having weather that passes through the DP twice a day instead of only once. Not quite bayou, down in that last 100'/30m of elevation; but neither with the amelioration of a seabreeze, either. But, if a person found a way to power things from just humidity, this would be a great place to build one's fortunes <g>.
Any thing over 25C is beyond my tolerance for abuse & by the time we're up to 30C I'm all but simmering in my own juices!
There's a joke about how we use "dry rub" in cooking here, because most every thing is already marinaded (and half-baked).
Shoot, I'm so damp-adapted, I can barely tolerate the Dallas area, a mere 200'/65m more elevation, but half the RH. Going to Lubbock (3200'/1000m ASL) is really tough, especially when "damp" there means hitting an RH of around 20%--that's tougher than I've been in some time.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Regards CapnMac,
I was much interested to see how much our climates have in common & how much they diverge.
Today we hit 36C, no breeze, full sun, high humididex. The heat finally relented, we are now down to 26C @ 69%RH. Sorry to hear that you have to suffer through the same high RH inferno that drives me indoors.
How do you cope? (Especially considering your extended hot period vis a vis our location)
Cold I can deal with by adding layers, I get more productive at cooler/dryer conditions: but once your're down to the skin to beat the heat what's left to take off?!! (Rhetorical question as I actually stay completely covered & just sweat it out)
VaTom is looking for a passive way to dehumidify: the only two ways I could come up with off the top of my head were condensation methods using cooling systems and desiccant systems using chemicals. (None of which are truly passive.)
Any ideas floating through that storehouse of knowledge?
(I've had it explained to me that the most important purpose of the body is to carry the brain around!)
Sincerely,
STAINLESS
How do you cope?
Well, primarily you do as humans do, and adapt. That means finding a "pace" for just about every activity. That means learning how to sweat just enough, too--since it's so damp evaporative cooling stops being effective quiclky.
Personally, I really try to eschew "hiding" in the a/c; to me, that just makes it worse for those times when you do go out in the weather (like for the Fourth, or off to the lake and the like. If one's "heat conditioning" is defined by the tiny space between one's car and the office or house, you are at a grat and insidous risk for heat injury.
Given the cost of utilities, I also run a much higher "room temperature" than others do, too. I have fans all over the house to 'steal' a few extra degrees of cooling. I go through fluids thoroughly, too, up from a "normal" sort of 2L/dy to 3-4 (I also have that military hydration habit, too, for better or worse.) A soaking tub, though can be areal luxury, either warm or cool. Cool is better in the afternoons, seems to help "bleed off" heat "in the blood." But, after dark, say 2030 or so, 95-105º for a stretch can really seem to be a relief. Man, I want a soaking tub again. <sigh>
And, it's tough sledding, no two ways around it. I just got the weather repeater from the other room. flipping the C/f switch here at 2250, it's reporting 29º @ 60% outside, and 26º at 49% indoors (the a/c last ran about 55 minutes ago, and it's muggy wanting a bit of attention here presently). Dialing back to F, that's 85º&78º; this morning's low was 77 at 0730, it hit 91º vice a predicted hig of 88º. Looks like the great long line of showers parallelling I-35 will keep tracking SSW to NNE and pass us by, from the radar on Weather Channel.
Unlike higher elevations to the west of here, the shade is not much relief, except in not absorbing solar gain directly. Attics are miserable; period, end-of-sentence. The remote in the attic is reporting -7, which means it went over 130, 132 where it gets wonky.
So, you bear and abide. I've strung xmas lights on the house in the first few days of December and been mosquito bitten in the 76-78º temps. This year, that turned around to be 54º--surprise.
But, there are some benfits. If you go browse the Photo Gallery, I put up some of my wildflower photos from this season, which runs March to April. About 15 March, we had a hot spell, where it got to around 78º or so. Same time of year can be only in the 60s, too.
Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Edited 6/28/2007 9:19 am by CapnMac
I hope you will not burn valuable daylight hours just to answer a few questions
Too late.
Hey, days are long now. Squandering a few hours isn't such a big deal. Not that I did. Turned out there's no reason to pressure test. All the lines connected to the lower manifold burst. Reasonable to assume that the rest of the panels are also. Not a difficult repair.
Below is a pic of the extruded aluminum that holds the glazing, which turns out to be the majority of the weight. There's a U shaped (maybe EPDM) gasket that wraps the edge of the glass. Manifolds are 1" copper, pipes between 1/2" copper (10/panel), covered with a thin copper sheet. How the sheet's attached to the pipes isn't apparent, maybe glue. They protrude slightly above the plane of the sheet. 1/2" air space between them and the glazing. Insulation is 1/2", looks like polyisocyanurate, on the sides. Back insulation appears to be thicker. That's riveted. Sheet of what looks like vinyl between the pipes and the back insulation.
Very nice hardware.
Mike Smith has depth of experience with such things if you want to know more. He'd likely even know who sold these collectors. Helped me immensely with my last major recycle, 3500 sq ft of insulated translucent roofing panels. Those were really interesting, a definite grab if you ever have the opportunity. A peek at their original application below. Tractors'll love it.
And regarding wasting daylight... Karma being whatever it is, a couple of local rednecks I hadn't seen in years happened by when I was inspecting the damage. Little interest for them. But by the end of the afternoon I had a much-needed replacement carburetor for my Linkbelt crane and a few extra dollars in my pocket. They were smiling broadly at the catalytic converters (from a pair of junkers here) and the pile of tire rims they got from me.
Catalytic converters come off real fast with a cordless sawzall (they always carry one) and a loader bucket to lift the vehicles. OSHA-approved, of course. I didn't ask who they were selling to.
Even better, they're a potential labor pool if/when I come up with other possibilities like the razing of the 5000 sq ft pole barn whose material is now providing me tractor shed framing. Both have worked with me in the distant past, ended well. But more importantly, they have access to a population I generally don't. Guys who know how to work (if limited specific skills) and prefer temporary employment.
Last time I saw Anthony he was on the run: "Ah'll do mah time when they catch me." Turned out to be a couple of years. Bobby's had his name in the paper a time or two also. Just good ol' boys. Who didn't mention my wearing a Harvard Business School cap. Maybe they didn't get it.
Networking is good. Livlihood for them.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Thanks hugely for the info. & the pics. I can almost feel the creative juices starting to flow!
I'm impressed with the roofing panels, too. (Ya gotta love clear-span framing for the big toys!; if you're able to go the way of the original user, that is.) By the way, I can certainly endorse the close quarters drill I spotted on the solar panel photo. (Was my choice of XMAS gifts from the DW a few years back & I find myself reaching for it all the time, even when its compactness isn't truly required). Can't tell from the pic., did you go with the 3/8" or the 1/2" chuck?
I would have to agree with you after considering your description/photo of the solar panels, very nice hardware! Those things are built like the proverbial brick sh*t-house! Obviously designed with no expense spared and assembled to last for decades. I'm willing to bet that the burst piping is due to operator error & not a design flaw. Shouldn't be too big a deal to repair.
Now that I've got a basis to start some reverse engineering I'm thinking of starting to accumulate a load of used downhill skis I have been spotting at some of the local recycle places. $5 a pair and of sufficient length and width to form a case that would match some storm windows I might be able to liberate from their current owner.
My thinking is that if fiberglass is able to withstand the abuse of a speedboat hull it could probably function reliably well in the static load conditions of a flat-plate solar collector. The skis' sandwich construction is much thicker than a boat hull and I'm not much concerned about the snazzy graphics on the top side of each ski being different from the rest, I can either assemble them so the logo is inside, or just paint them.
I think the insulation value of the foam cores can't hurt either. The AL extrusions your panels are constructed of are certainly the cat's as-...(meow that is), however my chances of lucking into such material are slim to nil!
I may have to spring for some high grade insulation for inside the case, however, I'm not sure that EPS or XPS can take the sustained high temps. that a collector is capable of. I've read suggestions that indicate that a press./temp. valve similar to those used on DHW heaters can be a good idea. On hot days, if a circulator pump fails, you can make steam with these things!
Sincerely,
STAINLESS
You're most welcome.
The translucent panels were damaged in removal so I reduced the span to 4'. 50 psf live load required here. I'd never seen such things. Extremely light weight and stiff. Stress-skin panels ( 2 3/4" thick) made of very thin aluminum and FRP skins. I was told that the insurance bill for replacement was well over $100k (slight hail damage).
What amazed me was their using butyl for weatherstripping, which leaked. Then they came in with cases of silicon caulk. The EPDM gaskets I used have performed flawlessly. http://www.conservationtechnology.com/
Didn't know close-quarters came in 1/2" but I'd very rarely have any need. The pair I own do a lot of work. Cordless and I have never gotten along. Occasionally a PITA, like when I installed the translucent panels on my lumber shed (below). But once the cord was up there, no climbing down to change batteries.
The burst pipe was undoubtedly a result of running wornout antifreeze. Common, when these systems got abandoned from no available service. One of the reasons I don't like to see tax credits.
Good luck with your collectors. You've reconfirmed my preference for recycling over constructing (except houses). <G> Leaky sliding door lites are a great glazing source. Just watch out for scratches. Always free here. I flopped 4 over one of my raised veggie beds last fall. Nothing died, down to 9º. Did scratch one, which later fractured, shovelling snow off it.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
VaTom,
Thanks for the link especially. It has now been added to the growing list of Favorites in my browser. A company right up my alley so to speak.!
I don't think you need have much concern over the 1/2" chuck option on the Milwaukee, I rejected the 1/2" in favour of the 3/8" size & haven't been sorry. The applications needing 1/2" chucks usually require high torque & two hands on the drill anyway, I've found.
Congrats. on the roofing mat'l., passive daylighting & a roof over your toys, all in one!
Sincerely,
STAINLESS
Thanks for the link especially
Most welcome. I neglected to mention that the techs there are extremely helpful. They're the ones who steered me away from butyl. They had it available, no problem, but assured me it would leak in that application. Exactly what I'd already seen.
And inexpensive. Great folks. PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
They were smiling broadly at the catalytic converters (from a pair of junkers here) and the pile of tire rims they got from me.
Catalytic converters come off real fast with a cordless sawzall (they always carry one) and a loader bucket to lift the vehicles. OSHA-approved, of course. I didn't ask who they were selling to.
Am I slow to appreciate the implications here? You do know that catalytic converters contain platinum, a small amount? Is that the wink-wink, nudge-nudge in your last paragraph?
Actually, I don't know much about catalytic converters. Knew there was a valuable metal in there somewhere.
What I do understand is what these guys will do for a buck. If they are able to sell the converters as is for a good return, more power to them. More likely, they're in the business of extracting the good parts.
That's where we part company. I look at time involved and overhead cost to make my "business" decisions. There are a lot of enterprises they engage in that seem pretty pointless to me. For instance, I'm happy to give away defunct motors that they're eager to pull the copper windings from, then burn off the insulation. Not very profitable if you place much value on your time. Plus I'm picky about what I breathe. They think I'm a peculiar "rich" guy. Correct, by their standards.
The not-asking part was an acknowledgement of sovereignty. Networking is not public information. Proprietary. Once made the mistake of asking about moonshine during a marijuana-growing discussion. As in, who was. They were polite in their correction of my ignorance. You don't ever ask about stills. Oops
OTOH, they're going to pay me for the hulks they removed the converters from (when I've removed what I wanted). Previously I've been happy for free vehicle pickup and disposal. Part of it is the social contract, cemented with cash exchange. This time the cash came to me.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
The not-asking part was an acknowledgement of sovereignty. Networking is not public information. Proprietary. Once made the mistake of asking about moonshine during a marijuana-growing discussion. As in, who was. They were polite in their correction of my ignorance. You don't ever ask about stills. Oops
ROFL. Oops. Yup, yer a-treadin' on sacred ground there friend. Corn squeezin' is as close to religion as some hill folks ever get. Actually, it's more about not wanting a new part in your hair.
Sad that the liquor lobby has such a strong influence on our federal laws and their enforcement. But then again, we wouldn't have NASCAR if it weren't for them revenuers. "NASCAR, a by-product of independently distilled beverages." There's a little P.T. Barnum behind many an American enterprise. "This way to the egress!"
I just searched Google for "revenuer stories", came up with some really interesting hits, historical and very funny.
On another list specifically about passive systems we've touched on where the mass gain comes from, direct or indirect, local to the house or remote. These are all possibilities.
Sounds like a good place for me to gather more info. Would you provide a link to that list, please?
I harp about calculations and have had several say they had a spread sheet almost ready, but have yet to see one. My (tedious) method is manually, from a 1975 text "Other Homes and Garbage" which reads like an engineering manual for non-engineers.
I'm just looking for very rough estimates at this point. Like; if we're talking about a stacked 20X40 two story, two thirds of the exterior wall in contact, 250sqft of glass.
I have to admit that "heating degee days" confuses me. Like most beaurecratic terminology, the phrase has no discernable logic. That Ps me off to an unreasonable degree so my ability to grasp the concept is pretty limited. It's a personal limitation which was born early on in public schools and has never subsided.
Anywho, here's a link to the National Weather Service's page on that subject. If it ain't too much trouble, perhaps you could provide me with the data I need from said page. The closest city to me is Binghamton, NY, a pretty accurate example I believe.
http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/cdus/degree_days/
No chance of getting my wife into Hait's house.
There's another question, "what", as Freud famously asked, "do women want?" Or...what percentage of women and/or men are willing to sacrifice edifice for energy efficiency, even with it's Kermit-the-frog-like green connotations?
BTW, is Hait's book still the "bible" for PAHS or just the old testament now? Has the experience of people such as yourself raised old concepts to a more sophisticated level of discourse? What other books or articles are worth reading?
Short on experience, but I have confidence that PAHS can be built into almost any new house.
My experince in living underground is limited to various adventures in caves. But my intuition says that you can't be wrong, as long as certain basic principles are applied correctly.
This very useful conversation makes me wonder if anyone in the PAHS community has ever proposed an annual gathering of owners/builders? Also, what other forums and web sites exist which seek to disseminate factual information?
I have to admit that "heating degee days" confuses me.
Me too. Not too sure that half the ASHRAE types are jsut guessing, most of the time <g> (or couldn't prove it otherwise).
HDD is the number of days and the number of degrees, too; and the average temperature and 65. So, you take the High and the Low for a given day, and then test for above or below 65. If below, cipher that for the day under HDD. Sum all the days, and there you are. So, if H = 50 & L = 38; avreage is 44. 44 , 65 = T, record 21 for that day. If it's greater than 65, put it in the CDD row.
My experince in living underground
Ah, well, theoretically, PAHS means not having to live underground; typically means living under soil, but that's because dirt cheap dirt is cheap insulation. You are living in contact with the earth, not necessarily burrowed into it. Or, that's the "ideal" of it.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
http://paccs.fugadeideas.org/paccsforum/viewforum.php?f=3&sid=da9f2b1f9698c693d09ba862e21bdd0d is a sporadically active forum specifically for passive heating/cooling systems. The host, Manu, surprised me with that page on my house. Registration required for posting, archives open for all. I'm unaware of a better exchange of information. You won't find many actual examples. There are a couple of YahooGroups that I subscribe to on similar subjects if you are interested (OrganicArchitecture, MalcolmWells) but they are long on talk, short on real information. Extensive archives, neither list very active at present.
As Cap'n pointed out, 65º is the target temp for heating. "A degree-day accrues for every degree the average outside temperature is below 65º for a 24-hour period." It's simply a convenient way to compare climates. Not much else works. Not particularly useful when designing a house, other that when talking with someone elsewhere.
I always grab Other Homes and Garbage first. Binghamton is 6451 city, 7286 airport. Substantially colder than here (4166), which is precisely what you need to know. Calculations require monthly averages, but as your interest is "rough averages" it's mostly important to know where I'm referencing my experience.
Hait's Missoula house has 8125 heating degree-days and better performance than we get, in a climate considerably colder than yours. See how degree-days aids the conversation?
We've got more glass (than your proposed 250 sq ft) in our 1600 sq ft (20k cu ft), and accounts for the majority of our heat loss. Which is where DW came in. She envisioned "underground" as a dark cave, and balked. You've seen the photos. It isn't. I intended solid doors but ended up with standard sliding door lites in both. There's a heating/cooling penalty but that's one of the great things about PAHS: great flexibility.
That 65º? It's our lowest (unheated) house temp, happens late winter. Which is typical, independent on climate. Presumably you're going to have better r (or u) windows. We're substantially over-glazed for peak performance. Makes my wife happy, not a problem. If we bothered with window coverings I could greatly improve performance. We don't.
You don't have to sacrifice "edifice for energy efficiency". What is required is proper planning. How far you want to go with that planning is up to you. As I mentioned, you won't fail. It's a continuum.
I've been urged to write an follow-up to Hait's book. Particularly as I diverged on many of his points. Might happen someday. Don Stephens, the AGS guy, always says he's working on his book, but no indication of when it'll be available. He also never gives out any quantitative information, at least to non-clients. He also is totally confused by degree-days, preferring to assume everyone live in a climate similar to Spokane, Wash.
That leaves you with the original book, hardly a "bible". I read the book and it struck a chord with me. As I built without conventional financing, I was free to do as I chose. After 2 houses, I knew Hait was correct, for heating/cooling. How far you want to go is up to you.
Me? As that web page says: His philosophy is simple: "a house should keep you dry, warm in the winter, cool in the summer, have no exterior maintenance, be cheap to build, and cost nothing to operate." PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Tom - what's this acronym "AGS" you've referred to a couple times now. "Don Stephens"? ("Spokane" I know - we're moving my youngest and her soon to be hubby there this weekend).
Huck said it first. I just agreed with him.
Edited 6/11/2007 11:03 pm ET by jimblodgett
Annualized Geo Solar. http://www.greenershelter.org/ is Don's web site, complete with PAHS bashing. Very strongly "greener than thou", so be warned. I've got some hilarious quotes of his if you get into it.
Good idea (AGS), not unlike Pine and others, unfortunately Don thinks that the best way to sell is to denigrate the competition (PAHS, which nobody is really selling). When we compared houses he was exuberant, until I climate-corrected. His performance then didn't look so good, inferior to what I have, which is much inferior to Hait's.
Primary difference between AGS and PAHS is storage temp and his lack of substantial overhead dirt. The latter necessary if you refuse to use concrete and steel (on moral grounds). Oh, and you apparently have to be a client to get any quantitative information, which has caused him no small amount of embarrassment on alternative lists.
PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Thanks, Tom. I'll tell them you sent me <g>.Huck said it first. I just agreed with him.
Tom,
Thank you for your patience with so many novice questions. You've given me a lot to think about. Thanks also for the link to that PAHS forum. It looks like a fine place to learn how others are doing. It should also keep me from pestering you, for a while anyway. ;-)
Peter
You're welcome Peter. I visited that forum today. Been awhile. The new faces are very interesting, particularly Joe Anderson.
You won't find much experience, other than me, but there are some interesting folks there. Pestering is part of the experiece. Just wait, your turn will come. <G>
Build a better house. For you and the environment.PAHS Designer/Builder- Bury it!
Robert Knight is a Blue Hill, ME architect, whose work I admire.
He sells a collection of stock plans from a collection called Lucia's Little Houses.
One of them might give you some ideas for your hillside manse, and it can be seen here http://www.knightarchitect.com/LLH/KA/A_Tall_Place.pdf
You can always run up the river and do some photography at the Frederick Church "Olana" home. Nice ideas there for something on a hilltop overlooking the Hudson and its valley. Especially if you like the Moorish style, with a minaret.
Robert Knight is a Blue Hill, ME architect, whose work I admire.
Looks interesting, indeed. Thanks.
You can always run up the river and do some photography at the Frederick Church "Olana" home.
I've seen that place on scenic flights along the river and wondered what it was. That's one of numerous unique homes and horse farms I enjoy looking at along the Hudson.