Houses With No Furnace but Plenty of Heat

[n2doc]

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: December 26, 2008
DARMSTADT, Germany — From the outside, there is nothing unusual about the stylish new gray and orange row houses in the Kranichstein District, with wreaths on the doors and Christmas lights twinkling through a freezing drizzle. But these houses are part of a revolution in building design: There are no drafts, no cold tile floors, no snuggling under blankets until the furnace kicks in. There is, in fact, no furnace.

In Berthold Kaufmann’s home, there is, to be fair, one radiator for emergency backup in the living room — but it is not in use. Even on the coldest nights in central Germany, Mr. Kaufmann’s new “passive house” and others of this design get all the heat and hot water they need from the amount of energy that would be needed to run a hair dryer.

“You don’t think about temperature — the house just adjusts,” said Mr. Kaufmann, watching his 2-year-old daughter, dressed in a T-shirt, tuck into her sausage in the spacious living room, whose glass doors open to a patio. His new home uses about one-twentieth the heating energy of his parents’ home of roughly the same size, he said.

Architects in many countries, in attempts to meet new energy efficiency standards like the Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design standard in the United States, are designing homes with better insulation and high-efficiency appliances, as well as tapping into alternative sources of power, like solar panels and wind turbines.

The concept of the passive house, pioneered in this city of 140,000 outside Frankfurt, approaches the challenge from a different angle. Using ultrathick insulation and complex doors and windows, the architect engineers a home encased in an airtight shell, so that barely any heat escapes and barely any cold seeps in. That means a passive house can be warmed not only by the sun, but also by the heat from appliances and even from occupants’ bodies.

And in Germany, passive houses cost only about 5 to 7 percent more to build than conventional houses.

more:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/27/world/europe/27house.html

[kristopher]

1. KR

[TomInTib]

2. Whoa!!!

Is this a sex thread?

"his 2-year-old daughter, dressed in a T-shirt, tuck into her sausage"

Maybe it's just me.

[BrklynLiberal]

3. Build it and they will come...

[shraby]

4. I'm wondering how healthy this is from

the standpoint of the air not being turned over which allows germs to linger if someone catches a cold, or the flu. Stale air can't be good for the health.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. … a home encased in an airtight shell …

This sort of tightly sealing up homes for energy efficiency became popular in the 1970's. Then, we learned a new phrase "http://www.google.com/search?q=indoor+air+pollution">indoor air pollution."

[n2doc]

6. Read the rest of the article- they do have air exchange with the outside

With an efficient heat exchanger. Otherwise, yes, the mold would be a big problem.

Materials need to be formaldehyde free as well.....

[Sal Minella]

11. And "The fireplace won't draw."

[BeFree]

7. That's the answer

America needs to start a crash program of retrofitting old houses to achieve similar conservation.
The savings on electric bills could finance the whole program. A program which would put millions of people to work in a matter of months.

[lostnotforgotten]

8. Minimum Wall R-Value is R-50 For New Construction In Germany

eom

[Gregorian]

9. Woah, That's insulation.

We were designing these kinds of homes in my last year of engineering. Thermal time constant. Solar gains. Infiltration minimization. Trombe walls. Thermal masses. Lots of tricks.

R-50 is not going to be cheap from a cost or a material perspective.

I don't know. I'm not really excited about anything any more. A billion houses here, a billion there. I'm just watching at this point. And shaking my poor poor head.

[lostnotforgotten]

10. I Have Friends In Germany That Live In One Of These Super-Insulated House

What A Warm Toasty Place In Winter.

I have a brand new home for which I paid extra to insulate with foam.

It still does not stay warm enough for my tastes.

We have a long way to go here in the US before we catch up with the rest of the world.

[Gregorian]

12. There's very little I can do where I am located.

I'm starting on a house I designed that is going to be made of steel. Not a good starting point. And I am in a forest, and I'm on the coast. So zero solar gains. With tons of glass. At least I'm using hydronic radiant heating. I was going to use a wood fired hydronic heater, but for convenience, I'm going with propane. It's all bad news here. And to be honest, I don't see how many houses can use the natural elements to work with them. People live in multiple story apartments, as just one example.

Although, the good hydronic boilers are so efficient that the flues are able to use PVC tubing. They're 95% efficient. But I'll barely pass the Calif. title 24 energy calculations due to all of the windows. In fact, that's the thing about the r-50 walls. If the wall to window ratio is more towards windows then the insulation is pretty meaningless.

I really wish I could go back in time. Because as I sit here, all I can say is WE ARE SCREWED. I just can't find even the slightest optimism. I even watch movies and see how quiet towns were compared to today. It's hopeless. I've even tried moving to remote places only to find they aren't remote any more.

[lostnotforgotten]

14. Yes, These Are All Reasons That I Am Building A Sailboat To Retire On

I am growing very weary of civilization as we practice it in the US.

[diane in sf]

16. One of your best bets to deal with your windows leaking heat is to get insulated

shades, panels or multiple layers of curtains (sheers with heavier ones on top) and draw them as soon as the sun goes down. If you're in the woods you could get a super-efficient wood stove for quick spot heating and cut your own wood. I have friends in Willits who heat their whole house (2400 Sq. ft.) all winter with one stove, 2 cords of wood. And it's a hell of a lot warmer than my drafty, uninsulated flat here in SF where the weather is 20 degrees warmer.

[mistertrickster]

20. And heating with wood is carbon neutral. You're just re-releasing CO2 that was previously captured

by the tree.

IIRC, that's no different than letting the wood rot on the ground--the CO2 will still return to the air one way or the other.

[Gregorian]

23. I do have a wood stove as part of the plan.

I've used one for a long time. I love them. I really miss the old cabin in the woods in the hills above Los Gatos where I only had a stove. But this is a modern house (like an Eichler) and a wood stove probably won't heat into the back rooms that are down around several corridors.

I love the wood fired hydronic approach. I've got all the wood anyone would need.

2 cords is about what I used to use when I had a ranch in Ukiah. And that was a huge Gallagher sized 40 by 60 room with a 20 foot high ceiling. Good days.

[conscious evolution]

17. hydronic radiant heating

We use a compost pile to heat water for radiant heating in our place.
Its not the greatest for really cold weather but it works pretty weel for temps into the thirties.
The main thing is the cost.It cost a couple of hundred dollars for the tubing and pumps.It also took a few days to install the piping and a day to build the compost pile.Other than that its free heat.Even the pump is free to run.Its fed from a solar panel so even if the power goes out we still have heat.After this year the only cost will to be to build the compost pile every fall.And thats dirt cheap.Woodchips are free and it only takes one person about five hours to build it.
And in the spring we get a pile of really good soil to add to the gardens.

As far as I am concerned,it should be a requirment that new homes have tubing installed in slabs and under floors for radiant heating.Whether the water is heated with compost or more traditional methods it is without a doubt an extremely cheap way to provide heat.

[mistertrickster]

18. How do you get a compost pile to really generate heat? I'm trying to get one going

just for gardening soil, and it's been rather hit-or-miss.

Sometimes it generates heat and breaks down organic matter, but most of the time, it just seems to sit there, even after I stir it and add fertilizer to it etc.

[conscious evolution]

27. Stuff I have learned

Here are a few things I have learned that makes composting easier.
High nitrogen content is crucial.It is a nessecary ingredient for the composting process.Stuff like high nitrogen fertilizer or manure is good to add to a pile.
Don't add coffee grounds or tea leaves to a pile.While they are good soil additives for some things they also retard the composting process somehow.
You don't want your compost pile to be just a pile of leaves in a pile.You want to put in layers of fresh material with some dirt and/or wodchips.
Woodchips make great soil.It takes longer but it is worth it in the long run.In some areas you can get free woodchips from tree surgeons.They usually have to pay to dump them and will usually give them away for free or for a small fee.(we usually give the guys twnety bucks for their trouble)
It also helps to add in a little compost from the previous years composted soil.It will have a lot of the organisms that are part of the process.
Turning the pile,imo, does not seem to help much.Some people say it does.The nearest I can figure is that YMMV.
wetting down the pile on a regular basis helps.

Mind you,this is stuff I have learned on my own.Usually the hard way.There is probably places on the net with more info.

[Gregorian]

22. Excellent.

Thanks for the info. It's nice to know there are things like this that work. The guy I bought my property from has a wood fired hydronic boiler. He tosses all kinds of thing into it.

But compost? That's a new one on me. And I love it. Brilliant.

[starroute]

13. Passive solar homes were invented in the US in the 1930's

We could have had passive heating 50 years ago -- we just didn't want it.


http://wikimapia.org/4426162/1933-World-s-Fair-Homes-of-Tomorrow

Seventy years later the five futuristic houses are still standing—five of the other six fair buildings were demolished years ago. “They’re period pieces, but at the same time they’re very livable houses,” says Tim Samuelson, cultural historian for the city of Chicago. “They have a timeless quality,” enduring as examples of what people in the 30s thought “modern” would become. True, one of the architects predicted that in the future every family would own an airplane, but they were prescient in other ways—for example, the House of Tomorrow used passive solar energy to cut heating bills.

The Century of Progress fair, which sprawled out of Grant Park to cover Northerly Island, was a celebration of humankind’s ingenuity and the power of industry, rooted in the hope that innovations in engineering, architecture, and technology would ultimately lift the country out of the Depression. Efficiency of the kind seen on Henry Ford’s assembly line was stressed in the exhibits and in the running of the fair itself.


http://www.jetsetmodern.com/keck.htm

This incredible home is near Chicago, built in 1955. It's owned by a couple with a great collection of 1950s interior decorative objects and furniture. The house is a "passive solar" design by famed architects George Fred Keck and William Keck (Keck + Keck), who are widely known for their "House of Tomorrow" and "Crystal House" designs shown at the 1933-34 Century of Progress fair in Chicago. . . .

The name "passive solar" refers to the ingenious energy efficient design. It is truly a great machine for living. The house has a flat roof and huge south-facing windows with carefully designed overhangs to let in lots of warm sunshine in the winter months, yet very little in the summer months. It has radiant heat inside the floors in part of the house, forced air in the rest. It retains the original trademark Keck window vents - all the windows are fixed glass panels, and wooden doors alongside the windows open to reveal a screened wooden vent. The vents can be left open all summer for great circulation; it is totally secure, and does not let the rain in.

[GreenPartyVoter]

24. The passive solar concept is so old, and yet it has taken so long to get in place here in the USA

"Ancient Greeks and Romans saw great benefit in what we now refer to as passive solar design—the use of architecture to make use of the sun’s capacity to light and heat indoor spaces. The Greek philosopher Socrates wrote, “In houses that look toward the south, the sun penetrates the portico in winter.” Romans advanced the art by covering south facing building openings with glass or mica to hold in the heat of the winter sun. Through calculated use of the sun’s energy, Greeks and Romans offset the need to burn wood that was often in short supply."

http://www.southface.org/solar/solar-roadmap/solar_how-to/history-of-solar.htm

Radiant heating under the floor is also ancient and just now coming back into vogue in my area.

[diane in sf]

15. There's a builder in the northwest suburbs of Chicago building similar homes

that use the body heat of the occupants and from the hot water heater, combined with good insulation, etc. The homes are very similar in price to standard homes and he's been doing this at least 10 years. He is cited in the book, Natural Capital. This stuff is not rocket science.

[mistertrickster]

19. I agree. Cutting home heating to 50 percent of today could be easily accomplished

with the right building codes and gov't incentives.

The status quo of builders-developers-realtors and their pals on the city-county councils just have no reason to want to change.

[Gregorian]

25. I used to be a roofing contractor when I live on the San Francisco peninsula.

I was also a mechanical engineer. But roofing was so invigorating. Up on houses, I would see miles of white puffs of air flowing from heaters and hot water heaters. Everyone was gone and at work, but the houses were still using energy. And the majority of homes on that peninsula are single pane. There are a hell of a lot of Eichler homes that have huge percentage of glass to wall. And these windows are floor to ceiling. Twelve feet high. Eight feet wide. Single pane. It's as though most of the San Francisco area is a bunch of breezy tents, and they're pumping natural gas just to keep them warm. Even when they aren't home.

We could do far better than creating new homes if we simply used our stinking brains. That goes for having children, consolidating trips, taking fewer vacations around the globe. On and on and on. I just watch this silliness and cringe.

I didn't mean to reply to you personally as much as address what you had to say. I've been appalled by the lack of caring for decades.

But what we're really seeing is the awakening of the human race to LIMITS. And with 8 years of dingbats, limits was a dirty word. Unmentionable. I just hope limits is what Obama means when he says "sacrifice".

[underpants]

21. Great article. I was just about to post this.

The first passive home was built here in 1991 by Wolfgang Feist, a local physicist, but diffusion of the idea was slowed by language. The courses and literature were mostly in German, and even now the components are mass-produced only in this part of the world.

The industry is thriving in Germany, however — for example, schools in Frankfurt are built with the technique.

Moreover, its popularity is spreading. The European Commission is promoting passive-house building, and the European Parliament has proposed that new buildings meet passive-house standards by 2011.

The United States Army, long a presence in this part of Germany, is considering passive-house barracks.

.......

Inside, a passive home does have a slightly different gestalt from conventional houses, just as an electric car drives differently from its gas-using cousin. There is a kind of spaceship-like uniformity of air and temperature. The air from outside all goes through HEPA filters before entering the rooms. The cement floor of the basement isn’t cold. The walls and the air are basically the same temperature.

Look closer and there are technical differences: When the windows are swung open, you see their layers of glass and gas, as well as the elaborate seals around the edges. A small, grated duct near the ceiling in the living room brings in clean air. In the basement there is no furnace, but instead what looks like a giant Styrofoam cooler, containing the heat exchanger.

Passive houses need no human tinkering, but most architects put in a switch with three settings, which can be turned down for vacations, or up to circulate air for a party (though you can also just open the windows). “We’ve found it’s very important to people that they feel they can influence the system,” Mr. Hasper said.

Most passive houses allow about 500 square feet per person, a comfortable though not expansive living space. Mr. Hasper said people who wanted thousands of square feet per person should look for another design.

“Anyone who feels they need that much space to live,” he said, “well, that’s a different discussion.”

[DainBramaged]

26. Me too, glad I looked first

What a great future if Obama designates some of the revitalization money to improving the efficiency of homes.