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Old 06-27-2012, 10:01 AM   #11 (permalink)
jtbo
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Join Date: Apr 2011
Location: Europe
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheMarkofPolo View Post
I recommend going to their project section: Sustainable Green Buildings: Current Projects & Events | Learn More

There are photos from projects around the world. Unfortunately, many of the link names and photo details don't match (Corner Cottage project goes to the Fife, Scotland photos for example).
I would say that links on that page are seriously messed up, now if houses are built as well as that web page, that is impression what page visitors might get and that can't be good for business.

I wonder how they deal with humidity and radon, then those rubber tires are something you don't want to live next to as even they are old, they still emit those nasty vapors, rubber is decomposing all the time, given enough time it becomes brittle, that is because stuff they are made is releasing those vapors:
Toxic Vapors Emitted From New Tires | eHow.com
Sand etc is not blocking any vapors, might slow down, but really does not stop, that is case with radon too, it is gas that comes from ground, not all areas here are radon areas, but at every area building must meet radon specifications, which can be more or less demanding depending from the area.

Usually this is done so that underside of a house is ventilated to outside and below insulation of floor there is vapor sealing.

We have cellars here that use same principle as earthships, earth keeping them from freezing, like caves etc, temperature is nicely below +5C whole year, quite damp places, that require gravity based ventilation to control that dampness.


Then there is law about indoor air, air needs to be replaced 12 times in a day, yes, that is madness, but that is what new buildings must comply with, that is difficult to achieve without ventilation by electric fans, that run constantly.

Our wind average is below 4m/s here, so wind power is not very plausible , sun is not shining at winter, so no electricity from sun either, which sucks.

Then there is challenge of rain water, rain water is lacking minerals so it is considered to be not so good for drinking, 2nd problem is with bird poo and I guess that is related with salmonella etc, but water collected from roof of house should not be drank as it might contain that, it is however ok to use in garden etc where I use it.

Wastewater is regulated also, none of that is allowed to let into nature, there is regulations how efficiently that should be processed until it can be released and that is probably cleaner than many places have their drinking water. I don't know what is english term for most common system, but it is field where there are different kind of gravel etc and is based on bacteria and filtering so it cleans water in multiple stage process. There are also machines for the job, but those are expensive to use and not very popular.

There is very little freedom left in building, that sucks too.

But I consider those regulations bit artificial impossibles, but perhaps good to know that here all housing is rather green compared to many other places, I know that in central europe it is not rare to release waste water directly to river, here you would get fines from such.

As during summertime we can get below 500 hours of sunshine (whole summer and at mid summer sun is set only for hour or two), that means also that because of cloudy rainy weathers there is limit how much sunshine you can actually store, 150kWh/square meter is maximum during June and July, that is in a month and it is less with other months, total around 5-6 months depending bit from location is what you can get usable solar power maybe something below 500kWh in total per square meter and it can be lot less when there is cloudy summer like what we have now, today max temp +13C, no sun again.

So there is limit how much earthmass you can heat with sun, it might be less than what you would need to get over that long winter time when you need heating, considerably longer.

This sawdust insulated house of mine is however rather good in there that sun is heating this rather well, which cuts months from heating bill, also at autumn that large concrete base heats month or two so I don't need heating until october/november. Even it is now very cold for summer, this well designed system seem to keep indoor temps at tolerable level without heating.

Also extra insulation I put to upstairs bedroom seem to work well enough, I keep around +10C at downstairs as I don't use that much and that keeps upstairs heated too for most of winter.

There are trees so that it will not be awful hot when sun happens to be visible but there is not so much shade that it would cause problem with sun heating the house at spring as leafs are not on those trees.

This house does not meet modern regulations but as this is old enough it does not need to.

Our lapland is special case then, from November to March there is no sun at all, it just does not rise, huge amount of snow and very very cold, even during the summer it is not very warm, even sun does not set at all, just goes quite low and it is very cloudy naturally, to build zero energy house there would be silly, midday is not much different from midnight, so lights are constantly needed, man was never meant to be in these conditions.

edit: This is what I'm curious about, put such containers under ground and use vacuum pipe solar collectors to store heat in them, still cost would be quite a bit, but maybe possible to get such price that it is possible to invest to enough large to collect energy for winter, one could up solar collector capacity with poper storage so that even at poor summer there would be plenty of heat collected, also no need to build new house or anything of such drastic
http://www.ecogeek.org/power-storage...r-renewable-en

Kind of similar idea to store heat into ground, but for me this technology looks more feasible even at very extreme conditions.

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Last edited by jtbo; 06-27-2012 at 11:52 AM..
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