20 ms·

No mention of what may well be the biggest contributor : passive houses. These regulate their interior climate without any active energy consumption. No heating

by ovi256 17y ago

No mention of what may well be the biggest contributor : passive houses. These regulate their interior climate without any active energy consumption. No heating, no cooling at all. They are extremely well insulated homes with big heat-exchangers between incoming and outgoing air. This way, incoming air is brought to the temperature of the outgoing air. No stale air and no energy consumption. They are almost exclusively new homes, as they require NASA-level insulation that is impossible to put on old, or simply existing, buildings. Also, the air-ducts and heat-exchanger needs to be engineered into the building.

ugh 17y ago
Probably not a useful solution for US climate and convenience demands.
- Mz 17y ago
  I'm sure it doesn't fit well with current expectations for "convenience" in America. But I can't imagine why climate would be an objection. Historically, vernacular architecture here did cater to local climate -- back when you couldn't just crank the AC, houses in the South did use passive solar design to help keep homes and lifestyles livably cool. Plantations had a second smaller kitchen outside the main house to avoid heating up the main house during the summer months. Modern Southerners still often grill out during the summer months and upscale modern homes may have "outdoor kitchens" equipped with a place to eat, an upscale built-in grill, prep space and so on. The deep, wrap-around porches seen on some Southern homes not only prevent summer sun from heating the main house, they also made it possible to leave windows open for cross-draft ventilation in spite of nearly daily afternoon storms during the summer and into the fall.
  - ugh 17y ago
    I was specifically thinking about the passive house designs. I think you couldn’t just take those designs and build them in anywhere in the US. Germany has very moderate climate, and I think passive houses are optimized for that. But you are probably right, you could probably design passive houses that work in more extreme climates.
    - Mz 17y ago
      Oh, well, of course design aimed at working well in Germany wouldn't work well in many parts of the US -- though there are parts of the US which likely would do fine with a similar design. It's a big country with lots of different climates and landscapes.
    - eru 17y ago
      Oh, even Germany has different climates. Though not as extreme as Texes vs Alaska. E.g. in Magdeburg we could have above 30 degree Celsius in summer, and -20 some days in winter.
      - Mz 17y ago
        I lived in Germany for nearly four years as an adult and for a time in my early childhood as well. So, yes, I am aware. Germany also was something like the world leader in recycling/environmental initiatives (or some such) when I lived there. So I am not surprised to see this green energy initiative.
    - pradocchia 17y ago
      > you couldn’t just take those designs and build them in anywhere in the US. This is the challenge of passive environmental design. Climate and topology make a huge difference in what works where. It's a built-in level of indirection: you can't take an effective design from Germany, and expect it to work well in Phoenix. You can take the design principles and (re)discover new pattens, but that's an order of magnitude more difficult.
Mz 17y ago
Passive solar design has been around a long time. I believe it was more popular in the past, when people were generally more in tune with the weather and the world around them. I think "modern" life has tended to make a lot of people somewhat oblivious to that. One reason it would need to be new construction is because orientation to the sun is part of the design which can't be fundamentally changed once it's built. However, there are passive solar things that can be added after the fact to improve on efficiency (granted it likely won't match the efficiencies you can get in new design). One example: Planting deciduous trees such that they shade the house from the worst of the sun in summer. In winter, their leaves fall off and you get free heating with passive solar. Interestingly, a discussion I saw elsewhere about "cooling towers" noted the two following tidbits: 1) Victorian housing in America had design elements like this which most people in the discussion had previously assumed was merely whimsical/decorative and 2) Middle Eastern countries, like Iran, have long used such designs as a fairly common element in housing.
- miked 17y ago
  Odd, but I've never seen the use of deciduous trees on the south side of a home mentioned as an energy regulating device. They block the sun in the summer and let it thru in the winter. Simple and effective, and nice to look at, tho someone has to clean up the leaves.
  - Mz 17y ago
    I'm not really a hacker. I'm really a wannabe urban planner/environmental studies major whose life got sidetracked by a health crisis and divorce. I imagine lots of folks in other places I hang out would have heard of this -- but, yes, it's sort of an 'old fashioned' thing and a lot of old fashioned ideas are either 'forgotten' or viewed as inferior to our modern gizmos.
- pradocchia 17y ago
  My mother's an architect who specializes in old homes and historic renovation. She harps on this point constantly. The environmental techniques of yesteryear involved design elements like you mentioned, orientation, and also siting vis-a-vis water, hills, woodlots and neighboring building. To build a house otherwise would reduce the occupants' comfort. That kind of expertise, at one time common, has now been mostly lost. Sure, you can find it in books, but to effectively apply all those principles in concert to a particular design, that is high art. Mother's architecture blog: http://jgrarchitect.blogspot.com/ http://jgrarchitect.blogspot.com/

by ovi256 17y ago

ugh 17y ago

Probably not a useful solution for US climate and convenience demands.

Mz 17y ago
I'm sure it doesn't fit well with current expectations for "convenience" in America. But I can't imagine why climate would be an objection. Historically, vernacular architecture here did cater to local climate -- back when you couldn't just crank the AC, houses in the South did use passive solar design to help keep homes and lifestyles livably cool. Plantations had a second smaller kitchen outside the main house to avoid heating up the main house during the summer months. Modern Southerners still often grill out during the summer months and upscale modern homes may have "outdoor kitchens" equipped with a place to eat, an upscale built-in grill, prep space and so on. The deep, wrap-around porches seen on some Southern homes not only prevent summer sun from heating the main house, they also made it possible to leave windows open for cross-draft ventilation in spite of nearly daily afternoon storms during the summer and into the fall.
- ugh 17y ago
  I was specifically thinking about the passive house designs. I think you couldn’t just take those designs and build them in anywhere in the US. Germany has very moderate climate, and I think passive houses are optimized for that. But you are probably right, you could probably design passive houses that work in more extreme climates.
  - Mz 17y ago
    Oh, well, of course design aimed at working well in Germany wouldn't work well in many parts of the US -- though there are parts of the US which likely would do fine with a similar design. It's a big country with lots of different climates and landscapes.
  - eru 17y ago
    Oh, even Germany has different climates. Though not as extreme as Texes vs Alaska. E.g. in Magdeburg we could have above 30 degree Celsius in summer, and -20 some days in winter.
    - Mz 17y ago
      I lived in Germany for nearly four years as an adult and for a time in my early childhood as well. So, yes, I am aware. Germany also was something like the world leader in recycling/environmental initiatives (or some such) when I lived there. So I am not surprised to see this green energy initiative.
  - pradocchia 17y ago
    > you couldn’t just take those designs and build them in anywhere in the US. This is the challenge of passive environmental design. Climate and topology make a huge difference in what works where. It's a built-in level of indirection: you can't take an effective design from Germany, and expect it to work well in Phoenix. You can take the design principles and (re)discover new pattens, but that's an order of magnitude more difficult.

Mz 17y ago

Passive solar design has been around a long time. I believe it was more popular in the past, when people were generally more in tune with the weather and the world around them. I think "modern" life has tended to make a lot of people somewhat oblivious to that. One reason it would need to be new construction is because orientation to the sun is part of the design which can't be fundamentally changed once it's built. However, there are passive solar things that can be added after the fact to improve on efficiency (granted it likely won't match the efficiencies you can get in new design). One example: Planting deciduous trees such that they shade the house from the worst of the sun in summer. In winter, their leaves fall off and you get free heating with passive solar. Interestingly, a discussion I saw elsewhere about "cooling towers" noted the two following tidbits: 1) Victorian housing in America had design elements like this which most people in the discussion had previously assumed was merely whimsical/decorative and 2) Middle Eastern countries, like Iran, have long used such designs as a fairly common element in housing.

miked 17y ago
Odd, but I've never seen the use of deciduous trees on the south side of a home mentioned as an energy regulating device. They block the sun in the summer and let it thru in the winter. Simple and effective, and nice to look at, tho someone has to clean up the leaves.
- Mz 17y ago
  I'm not really a hacker. I'm really a wannabe urban planner/environmental studies major whose life got sidetracked by a health crisis and divorce. I imagine lots of folks in other places I hang out would have heard of this -- but, yes, it's sort of an 'old fashioned' thing and a lot of old fashioned ideas are either 'forgotten' or viewed as inferior to our modern gizmos.
pradocchia 17y ago
My mother's an architect who specializes in old homes and historic renovation. She harps on this point constantly. The environmental techniques of yesteryear involved design elements like you mentioned, orientation, and also siting vis-a-vis water, hills, woodlots and neighboring building. To build a house otherwise would reduce the occupants' comfort. That kind of expertise, at one time common, has now been mostly lost. Sure, you can find it in books, but to effectively apply all those principles in concert to a particular design, that is high art. Mother's architecture blog: http://jgrarchitect.blogspot.com/ http://jgrarchitect.blogspot.com/