6 ms·

Contrary to what I am seeing in comments on HN, this is not just for single family detached housing. If you go to the ZERH website, under Program Requirements i

Contrary to what I am seeing in comments on HN, this is not just for single family detached housing. If you go to the ZERH website, under Program Requirements it says: Versions 1 and 2, Single Family, Multifamily, and Manufactured Homes https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/zero-energy-ready-home-program https://www.energy.gov/eere/buildings/zero-energy-ready-home... Additionally, one of the photos in the featured article has the following caption: Lopez Community Land Trust built this 561-square-foot affordable home on Lopez Island, Washington, to the high-performance criteria of DOE's Zero Energy Ready Home program that delivers a $20-per-month average monthly energy bill. I've said for years we need to go back to more passive solar design as our baseline standard because it is both more energy efficient and more comfortable for humans. It protects the environment while improving quality of life. It's a myth that you can't see gains in both areas. I'm also happy to see the caption because we need to do a better job of supporting high quality of life in small towns, not just big cities. Trends in recent decades mean small towns suck because they lack services and big cities suck if you aren't one of the wealthy. That wasn't always true and programs like this can improve and strengthen both small town and urban environments while mitigating the burden suburbs currently represent.

beebmam 4y ago
It seems unbelievably stupid to me to build solar panel based homes where I live: the northwest US. Makes a heck of a bunch of sense in CA or TX though.
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  Passive solar design is about creating a home which needs little energy to stay at a comfortable temperature. It's unrelated to generating electricity via solar power panels.
- rypskar 4y ago
  Solar is more effective in low temperatures than in high temperatures. Also northwest US is max around 49 degrees north, which is around Paris in Europe and it is normal to have solar much farther north in Europe
  - brabel 4y ago
    Solar panels are extremely popular in Stockholm, 59 degrees North and less than 1,000 km from the Artic Circle. During winter, they produce very little electricity, admitedly... but they work well in all the other seasons so they still significantly reduce electricity consumption.
    - vetinari 4y ago
      Europe is warmer than North America due to the Gulf Stream, so during winter at the same latitude, it takes less energy to heat the house. Anyway, at such lat, it is not possible to survive winter with only solar; you need additional energy source.
- Maakuth 4y ago
  The northwest US doesn't seem* to be worse than most of the Europe, where we have a veritable boom of solar power. Granted, it produces next to nothing during the winter, but the yearly production makes it profitable still. Even for well insulated house you need some heating in the north, but it can be surprisingly little. It's not like these houses are going to be built totally without network mains. *: https://globalsolaratlas.info/ https://globalsolaratlas.info/
dublinben 4y ago
What makes you think that project is relying on passive solar? In green building that concept has been largely superseded by newer standards like Passive House and Net Zero which generally rely more on air sealing and super-insulation with highly insulated windows.
- Xeoncross 4y ago
  There is going to be a lot of health fallout though as people start having oxygen depletion from tightly-sealed houses. It's important that even well sealed homes have both A/C fresh air sources as well as ERV/HRV systems that can recapture the heat/cold the house has while replacing the CO2 with outside air.
  - Karrot_Kream 4y ago
    ERVs and HRVs are generally part of these designs. Also, nothing stops people from cracking open their windows. The windows are meant to insulate well when closed.
  - schiffern 4y ago
    >oxygen depletion I wish people would stop conflating low oxygen with high CO2. Even at 5000 ppm CO2 (which "significantly impair" attention, executive function, and risky decision-making[0]), the oxygen has only dropped from 20.95% to 20.45%. This ~2.5% difference is negligible, equivalent to natural variations in atmospheric pressure. The buildup of CO2 is the issue, not the depletion of O2. [0] https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/13/6/891 https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/13/6/891
  - js8 4y ago
    Maybe put in some plants?
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - chongli 4y ago
      You'd have to put so many plants in your house that the interior would look like one of those rainforest exhibits at the natural history museum. A couple of houseplants on the windowsill won't even move the needle on CO2 levels in a house occupied by a family.
westurner 4y ago
Passive solar building design : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_solar_building_design#Passive_energy_gain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_solar_building_design#... Low-energy house: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-energy_house https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-energy_house List of low-energy building techniques: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_low-energy_building_techniques https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_low-energy_building_te... /? Passive solar home (tbm=isch image search) https://www.google.com/search?q=passive+solar+home&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=passive+solar+home&tbm=isch /? Passive solar house: https://youtube.com/results?search_query=passive+solar+house https://youtube.com/results?search_query=passive+solar+house /? passive solar house: https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=passive%20solar%20house https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=passive%20solar%20h... (Edit) Maximum solar energy is on the equatorial side of the house. Full-sun plants prefer maximum solar energy. 10ft (3m) underground it's about 75°F (24°C) all year. Geothermal systems leverage this. (Passive) Walipini greenhouses are partially or fully underground or in a hillside, but must also manage groundwater seepage and flooding; e.g. with a DC solar sump pump and/or drainage channels filled with rock. Passive solar greenhouses (especially in China and now Canada) have a natural or mounded earthen wall thermal mass on one side, and they lower wool blankets over the upside-down wing airfoil -like transparent side at night and when it's too warm (with a ~4HP motor). TIL an aquarium heater can heat a tank of water working as a thermal mass in a geodesic growing dome; which can be partially-buried or half-walled with preformed hempcrete block. Round structures are typically more resilient to wind: Shear stress > Beam shear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shear_stress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shear_stress Deformation (physics) > Strain > Shear strain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deformation_(physics)#Shear_strain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deformation_(physics)#Shear_st... GH topic: finite-element-analysis https://github.com/topics/finite-element-analysis https://github.com/topics/finite-element-analysis GH topic: structural-analysis: https://github.com/topics/structural-engineering https://github.com/topics/structural-engineering https://github.com/topics/structural-analysis https://github.com/topics/structural-analysis What open source software is there for passive home design and zero-energy home design? Round house: https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=round%20house https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=round%20house The shearing force due to wind on structures with corners (and passive rooflines) causes racking and compromise of structural integrity; round homes apparently fare best in hurricanes.
vasco 4y ago
I followed you up to the end when you say cities didn't always have more services than small towns and that life in a city wasn't that bad if you were poor. If I think of industrial era first bigger cities, this doesn't seem true? It was way bigger gap between rich and poor quality of life and I'm pretty sure cities always had more services, that's what makes them cities.
- DoreenMichele 4y ago
  I can see why you read it that way, but that's not the point I was trying to make. These days, a lot of small towns don't even have a full-service grocery store and many people who want to live in a small town have to commute a long ways to get basic essential food they need. Historically, they may also not have had a full-service grocery store, but a lot more people lived and/or worked on farms and a lot more food was sold locally, not far from where it was grown. There are essential services that have been unraveling in recent years, making it really challenging to baseline survive in a small town in a way that wasn't always true. And it should not be true that you have a gun to your head to own a car in order to have any hope of having an adequate diet. That's just seriously problematic for individuals and even potentially threatens welfare or survival of the human race. Something has gone very wrong that it's so hard for so many people to get a decent meal when we are awash in so much societal wealth, yet our systems for how it gets distributed and such have gotten so out of whack.
  - germinalphrase 4y ago
    “ a lot more people lived and/or worked on farms and a lot more food was sold locally, not far from where it was grown” But they’re not living/working on farms, nor are they living near where the food is grown. Our agriculture system is capable of delivering huge amounts of food for people (including the people who live near fields), but it’s not exactly trying to do that as doing that is not economically efficient.
  - pbhjpbhj 4y ago
    It doesn't negate your point, but here in the UK, in a village of <1000, mostly elderly people; with a couple of buses a day; nearest market town is several miles away .. people order shopping online, and some suppliers (eg fresh fish, local farm vegetable boxes) bring a van around. Even in rural areas you can get supermarket home delivery, it costs a few quid for the delivery but is considerably cheaper than car ownership. Pretty much everyone has cars though.
zoltar 4y ago
Regarding passive solar, I liked this video on the Schweikher House built during the 1930s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq-3cZ0cbws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq-3cZ0cbws

beebmam 4y ago

It seems unbelievably stupid to me to build solar panel based homes where I live: the northwest US. Makes a heck of a bunch of sense in CA or TX though.

DoreenMichele 4y ago
Passive solar design is about creating a home which needs little energy to stay at a comfortable temperature. It's unrelated to generating electricity via solar power panels.
rypskar 4y ago
Solar is more effective in low temperatures than in high temperatures. Also northwest US is max around 49 degrees north, which is around Paris in Europe and it is normal to have solar much farther north in Europe
- brabel 4y ago
  Solar panels are extremely popular in Stockholm, 59 degrees North and less than 1,000 km from the Artic Circle. During winter, they produce very little electricity, admitedly... but they work well in all the other seasons so they still significantly reduce electricity consumption.
  - vetinari 4y ago
    Europe is warmer than North America due to the Gulf Stream, so during winter at the same latitude, it takes less energy to heat the house. Anyway, at such lat, it is not possible to survive winter with only solar; you need additional energy source.
Maakuth 4y ago
The northwest US doesn't seem* to be worse than most of the Europe, where we have a veritable boom of solar power. Granted, it produces next to nothing during the winter, but the yearly production makes it profitable still. Even for well insulated house you need some heating in the north, but it can be surprisingly little. It's not like these houses are going to be built totally without network mains. *: https://globalsolaratlas.info/ https://globalsolaratlas.info/

dublinben 4y ago

What makes you think that project is relying on passive solar? In green building that concept has been largely superseded by newer standards like Passive House and Net Zero which generally rely more on air sealing and super-insulation with highly insulated windows.

Xeoncross 4y ago
There is going to be a lot of health fallout though as people start having oxygen depletion from tightly-sealed houses. It's important that even well sealed homes have both A/C fresh air sources as well as ERV/HRV systems that can recapture the heat/cold the house has while replacing the CO2 with outside air.
- Karrot_Kream 4y ago
  ERVs and HRVs are generally part of these designs. Also, nothing stops people from cracking open their windows. The windows are meant to insulate well when closed.
- schiffern 4y ago
  >oxygen depletion I wish people would stop conflating low oxygen with high CO2. Even at 5000 ppm CO2 (which "significantly impair" attention, executive function, and risky decision-making[0]), the oxygen has only dropped from 20.95% to 20.45%. This ~2.5% difference is negligible, equivalent to natural variations in atmospheric pressure. The buildup of CO2 is the issue, not the depletion of O2. [0] https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/13/6/891 https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4433/13/6/891
- js8 4y ago
  Maybe put in some plants?
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - chongli 4y ago
    You'd have to put so many plants in your house that the interior would look like one of those rainforest exhibits at the natural history museum. A couple of houseplants on the windowsill won't even move the needle on CO2 levels in a house occupied by a family.

westurner 4y ago

Passive solar building design : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_solar_building_design#Passive_energy_gain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_solar_building_design#... Low-energy house: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-energy_house https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low-energy_house List of low-energy building techniques: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_low-energy_building_techniques https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_low-energy_building_te... /? Passive solar home (tbm=isch image search) https://www.google.com/search?q=passive+solar+home&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=passive+solar+home&tbm=isch /? Passive solar house: https://youtube.com/results?search_query=passive+solar+house https://youtube.com/results?search_query=passive+solar+house /? passive solar house: https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=passive%20solar%20house https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=passive%20solar%20h... (Edit) Maximum solar energy is on the equatorial side of the house. Full-sun plants prefer maximum solar energy. 10ft (3m) underground it's about 75°F (24°C) all year. Geothermal systems leverage this. (Passive) Walipini greenhouses are partially or fully underground or in a hillside, but must also manage groundwater seepage and flooding; e.g. with a DC solar sump pump and/or drainage channels filled with rock. Passive solar greenhouses (especially in China and now Canada) have a natural or mounded earthen wall thermal mass on one side, and they lower wool blankets over the upside-down wing airfoil -like transparent side at night and when it's too warm (with a ~4HP motor). TIL an aquarium heater can heat a tank of water working as a thermal mass in a geodesic growing dome; which can be partially-buried or half-walled with preformed hempcrete block. Round structures are typically more resilient to wind: Shear stress > Beam shear: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shear_stress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shear_stress Deformation (physics) > Strain > Shear strain: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deformation_(physics)#Shear_strain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deformation_(physics)#Shear_st... GH topic: finite-element-analysis https://github.com/topics/finite-element-analysis https://github.com/topics/finite-element-analysis GH topic: structural-analysis: https://github.com/topics/structural-engineering https://github.com/topics/structural-engineering https://github.com/topics/structural-analysis https://github.com/topics/structural-analysis What open source software is there for passive home design and zero-energy home design? Round house: https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=round%20house https://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=round%20house The shearing force due to wind on structures with corners (and passive rooflines) causes racking and compromise of structural integrity; round homes apparently fare best in hurricanes.

vasco 4y ago

I followed you up to the end when you say cities didn't always have more services than small towns and that life in a city wasn't that bad if you were poor. If I think of industrial era first bigger cities, this doesn't seem true? It was way bigger gap between rich and poor quality of life and I'm pretty sure cities always had more services, that's what makes them cities.

DoreenMichele 4y ago
I can see why you read it that way, but that's not the point I was trying to make. These days, a lot of small towns don't even have a full-service grocery store and many people who want to live in a small town have to commute a long ways to get basic essential food they need. Historically, they may also not have had a full-service grocery store, but a lot more people lived and/or worked on farms and a lot more food was sold locally, not far from where it was grown. There are essential services that have been unraveling in recent years, making it really challenging to baseline survive in a small town in a way that wasn't always true. And it should not be true that you have a gun to your head to own a car in order to have any hope of having an adequate diet. That's just seriously problematic for individuals and even potentially threatens welfare or survival of the human race. Something has gone very wrong that it's so hard for so many people to get a decent meal when we are awash in so much societal wealth, yet our systems for how it gets distributed and such have gotten so out of whack.
- germinalphrase 4y ago
  “ a lot more people lived and/or worked on farms and a lot more food was sold locally, not far from where it was grown” But they’re not living/working on farms, nor are they living near where the food is grown. Our agriculture system is capable of delivering huge amounts of food for people (including the people who live near fields), but it’s not exactly trying to do that as doing that is not economically efficient.
- pbhjpbhj 4y ago
  It doesn't negate your point, but here in the UK, in a village of <1000, mostly elderly people; with a couple of buses a day; nearest market town is several miles away .. people order shopping online, and some suppliers (eg fresh fish, local farm vegetable boxes) bring a van around. Even in rural areas you can get supermarket home delivery, it costs a few quid for the delivery but is considerably cheaper than car ownership. Pretty much everyone has cars though.

zoltar 4y ago

Regarding passive solar, I liked this video on the Schweikher House built during the 1930s: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq-3cZ0cbws https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qq-3cZ0cbws