Zero energy house in Boston

[begreen]

House lab designed to use no energy right in Boston.

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[EatenByLimestone]

In the world of super insulation, is this that big of a thing?

Good insulation and windows would take care of lighting, and good amount of heating and cooling. Solar water heating is proven technology and can heat the building quite easily. PV can provide the electricity. I must be missing something here.

 

[begreen]

There are several homes that meet this goal around the world. This was a 1940's building that was completely retrofitted and updated. It houses the Harvard Center for Green Buildings and Cities. They have combined the best practices in a single dwelling. What makes this lab house unique is the amount of instrumentation, ventilation automation and a solar chimney to promote good natural convection. Consider it an urban big data house. It doubles as a research facility as part of Harvard for student study and research. It will be interesting to see how this house does on an annual basis and in winter.

There are several research projects possible listed here:
http://harvardcgbc.org/research/

 

[maple1]

In the world of super insulation, is this that big of a thing?

Good insulation and windows would take care of lighting, and good amount of heating and cooling. Solar water heating is proven technology and can heat the building quite easily. PV can provide the electricity. I must be missing something here.

I'm thinking it would not be an easy task to heat a building that size with solar thermal to a degree of comfort in this part of the continent in the winter when daylight hours are quite short and cold night time hours are quite long - no matter how well it is insulated.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I'm thinking it would not be an easy task to heat a building that size with solar thermal to a degree of comfort in this part of the continent in the winter when daylight hours are quite short and cold night time hours are quite long - no matter how well it is insulated.

See, I'm not certain on that. After tuning the boiler for my house for optimum efficiency, I dont think houses need anywhere as much heat as we generally make available to them. My old boiler was 110k btu. That was for around 900 sq ft of house. Way oversized. As old boilers wore out, I think 20k btu or so of capacity was added just in case. I finished off the attic, making the house around 1500sq ft. I insulated the walls and improved the windows. Nothing fantastic, but not unlike many other houses.

I replaced my boiler when it broke. I did a ton of research and heat loss calcs and I couldn't get over a need of 45k btu. After I installed the boiler (modulating and condensing) 13k-45k btu, I noticed it was still short cycling. I ended up cutting the temp of the water to the point it was only putting about 22k btu into the house at -9F.

How many other houses have boilers and furnaces that are way to big and short cycle? A building that was gutted and sealed with closed cell foam, new windows... built for efficiency, it shouldn't need much.

Get some passive heat from the windows, solar heating, add the heat that many bodies provide, computers, and you might have trouble not keeping it too hot.

 

[blades]

you get the placed all sealed up and then you need a air exchange system with heat recovery. and those things are not all they are cracked up to be.

 

[begreen]

you get the placed all sealed up and then you need a air exchange system with heat recovery. and those things are not all they are cracked up to be.

Done right a good heat exchange system can be great. I put a commercial sized unit in a large photo lab. It helped us exchange the air in the 17,000 sq ft facility 7 times an hour. This was a photo processing plant that didn't smell like one. All the darkrooms had fresh air supplied and the people that worked there loved it. By recouping waste heat from the processors the building heating needs were kept reasonably low.

 

[Ashful]

How many other houses have boilers and furnaces that are way to big and short cycle? A building that was gutted and sealed with closed cell foam, new windows... built for efficiency, it shouldn't need much.

All you need to do is turn on the news on a record cold day in January, to realize most houses have undersized heating systems. Tons of local stories about people unable to keep their house comfortable, when the mercury dips below zero for more than two days, here.

I know someone building a passive house, and it is quite a feat. No thermal bridges, which creates some interesting challenges for door knobs, door jambs, etc. Even the peephole in the front door is an issue.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Are these houses in reasonable physical condition?

I used to have to drive over the Hudson River and up a steep hill into Troy, NY for work. I used to love it on really cold days, because every one of the mid 1800s brick buildings were spewing steam from their chimneys. It was quite a sight!

These houses were not in the best of shape, and probably lacked any insulation beyond the air space between the inner and outer brick walls.

I think one of the few taxpayer funded programs I could truly get behind would be a credit on taxes for every dollar spent on insulation. Ideally, I'd love to see no restrictions on income, 1st, 2nd home, rental, etc. Insulation added saves energy. I think that's something that doesn't need class warfare. Besides the environmental benefits of this, I'm sure a case could be made for health benefits, and economic benefits as reduced heating and cooling costs lead to more disposable income.

Sorry if I got off topic.

 

[Ashful]

Are these houses in reasonable physical condition?

The passive house of which I am speaking is a multimillion-dollar affair. New build.