3 ms·

i've really come full circle on the whole housing thing. At first I hated leaky old buildings, looked into passivehaus standard etc, wanting to minimising all a

by alliao 4y ago

i've really come full circle on the whole housing thing. At first I hated leaky old buildings, looked into passivehaus standard etc, wanting to minimising all air leakage. then I read about the NYC's oversized steam powered heater that allowed you to open windows during winter to achieve proper air change per hour during Spanish flu. Later on I looked into ERV systems for ventilation, which threw me down path of looking at dew point as when introducing a lot of outside air, humidity becomes an issue. now I'm convinced plenty of older buildings actually considered a lot of these things, I saw many cottages in NZ angled properly to receive the ideal amount of solar gains in different seasons which naturally ventilated and are pleasing to be in. very rare, but they do exist, and as result only a very small heatpump is required to minimally push the comfort envelope one way or another. I guess what I am saying is don't fight the nature if you can, and architecture it properly. failing that, airtight + mechanical ventilation is going to be expensive and probably impossible to hit good air quality (6ACH+)...

danans 4y ago
> then I read about the NYC's oversized steam powered heater that allowed you to open windows during winter to achieve proper air change per hour during Spanish flu. > I guess what I am saying is don't fight the nature if you can, and architecture it properly. Oversized steam heaters are exactly fighting nature, are they not? Really, every building system is a fight against nature. The idea is to exploit properties of materials and the forces of nature when you can to get closer to whatever your chosen optimum is without having to fight nature so hard. It's not even that hard build to near PassivHaus standards for airtightness these days with regular materials (I did it). It does take an intention to focus on airtightness, which most production builders don't have. > failing that, airtight + mechanical ventilation is going to be expensive and probably impossible to hit good air quality (6ACH+)... 3ACH is plenty for good indoor air quality. I got close to that once with a whole house ventilating fan that cost $300. HRV/ERV are more expensive, but they also do heat recovery and air filtration, and provide consistent air quality everywhere.

by alliao 4y ago

danans 4y ago

> then I read about the NYC's oversized steam powered heater that allowed you to open windows during winter to achieve proper air change per hour during Spanish flu. > I guess what I am saying is don't fight the nature if you can, and architecture it properly. Oversized steam heaters are exactly fighting nature, are they not? Really, every building system is a fight against nature. The idea is to exploit properties of materials and the forces of nature when you can to get closer to whatever your chosen optimum is without having to fight nature so hard. It's not even that hard build to near PassivHaus standards for airtightness these days with regular materials (I did it). It does take an intention to focus on airtightness, which most production builders don't have. > failing that, airtight + mechanical ventilation is going to be expensive and probably impossible to hit good air quality (6ACH+)... 3ACH is plenty for good indoor air quality. I got close to that once with a whole house ventilating fan that cost $300. HRV/ERV are more expensive, but they also do heat recovery and air filtration, and provide consistent air quality everywhere.