4 ms·

Insulation and air control are absolutely key to efficient heating and cooling, regardless of where you live. We built a stand alone guest house a few years a

Insulation and air control are absolutely key to efficient heating and cooling, regardless of where you live. We built a stand alone guest house a few years ago. Insulated the entire envelope with closed cell foam to R25 in the walls and R60 in the ceiling. That means it loses or gains very little heat, but also means it exchanges very little air with the outside. It's heated with an 18,000 BTU air source heat pump, although for temps above 0C, just the heat of occupants does the job. To keep it dry and maintain fresh air, it has an outside air circulating system fitted with a heat exchanger. Highly efficient and comfortable down to -20C outdoor temps. Needs supplemental resistance heat when the temps are below that, but that's at most two to three weeks a year here in the upper Midwest. Solar panels make the whole thing carbon neutral in operation, averaged over the year. Unfortunately, retrofitting existing housing that was not designed to be tight to this level of insulation and air infiltration is enormously expensive, if possible at all. We're getting there, one improvement at a time on our main house, but it takes a lot of check writing.

BizarroLand 4y ago
If your home is sealed tight, then you should consider either an ERV or HRV system as well, depending on the humidity of your environment. They blow air out of your house and replace it with fresh air from outside, which a fan could do, but they include a heat (and moisture, in the case of ERVs) exchanging plenum so that you don't lose all of the energy that you put into conditioning the air in your house. They're a little spendy in the $1,000 range, but if your issue is the inside air is too humid and moisture is building up on the walls and windows, it's a good system to use for comfort. You can also get a whole house humidifier / dehumidifier set for roughly the same price, but that doesn't provide fresh air for your house so I would only suggest that if your air cannot maintain the 30-50% humidity levels that are most comfortable for you with the ERV/HRV system.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  They described having an HRV: "it has an outside air circulating system fitted with a heat exchanger."
walnutclosefarm 4y ago
That's what "an outside air circulating system fitted with a heat exchanger" is.

BizarroLand 4y ago

If your home is sealed tight, then you should consider either an ERV or HRV system as well, depending on the humidity of your environment. They blow air out of your house and replace it with fresh air from outside, which a fan could do, but they include a heat (and moisture, in the case of ERVs) exchanging plenum so that you don't lose all of the energy that you put into conditioning the air in your house. They're a little spendy in the $1,000 range, but if your issue is the inside air is too humid and moisture is building up on the walls and windows, it's a good system to use for comfort. You can also get a whole house humidifier / dehumidifier set for roughly the same price, but that doesn't provide fresh air for your house so I would only suggest that if your air cannot maintain the 30-50% humidity levels that are most comfortable for you with the ERV/HRV system.

sokoloff 4y ago
They described having an HRV: "it has an outside air circulating system fitted with a heat exchanger."

walnutclosefarm 4y ago

That's what "an outside air circulating system fitted with a heat exchanger" is.