Build a better house
 

If I was trying to save energy I'd start by building more efficient house
using these panels

Tridipanel - Home - Eco Friendly Home | Green Homes Building | Environmentally Friendly Home

You know, I don't normally post in ecoRenovator or here because it seems to be remodeling oriented, not so much with new construction. That your post that sat for 16 days unanswered seems to confirm that.

I took a look at the link and find for instance

Tridipanel - Dome Homes - Eco Friendly Home | Green Homes Building | Environmentally Friendly Home

...which shows monolithic rather than panelized constructions. So what appeals? The panels or the tedious handcrafted finishing?

Back in the 1970s I worked on a number of types of panelized construction houses, to the point where I outfitted and operated a woodshop manufacturing 2x4 and plywood 'Pease'-style geodesic domes.

Factory built flat-pack housing is great. We built houses that went from a flat slab (w/ radiant heat) to a shell in 24 hours, closed to the weather in 2-4 days and complete in 30.

The inverse of the method you point to is foam blocks that assemble with voids you pour concrete into.

An alternative you can look into would be compressed earth blocks. All you need is dirt and hydraulic pressure. And a little Portland cement.

Unfortunately, eco-friendly houses are a tough sell to the general public, just like eco-friendly vehicles are. That makes ideas like those above take hold very slowly, or fizzle out and die altogether due to (as stated above) lack of interest.

Granite, cherry wood and stainless steel are sexy. Led lighting, foam insulated panelization, high efficiency appliances, sustainable products, xeriscaping, etc . . . . not so sexy. Buyers are looking for instant gratification, they don't want to hear about the benefits of double-insulated argon filled windows that have an ROI of fifteen years, since most people are only planning on owning a house five to ten years.

As for myself, I've always wanted to build a straw bale adobe walled house. It may never become a reality, but time will tell.

Tell me about it. I geared up for a career in geodesic dome houses and it went ... nowhere.

The last job I had in the housing industry was as estimator for an engineered roofing truss company. Yuck. I was glad when they laid me off. The more complicated and un-aerodynamic the roof the more they can raise the price of the house (with the same floor plan).

I like cobb construction, with the clay and straw mixed. Whole bales would turn into a home for badgers or other critters.

Lol, don't hate! I love working in the truss industry and have been in it my whole life, at one time or another holding every position humanly possible, and two of my kids are in the truss estimating department at my work. It's about the most stable job in the building industry, if anybody's building anything, they need trusses!

Am I understanding the product correctly in that it acts as the frame, interior, and exterior walls all in 1?

Adding fixtures or other modifications to the home post-construction looks difficult. I'd engineer a conduit inside the panels, but then it would probably compromise the insulating and structural integrity.

No time for hate, but it makes me sad that we continue down this path. Thirty-forty years of housing stock that should be pulled down and replaced.

The first time I worked in roofing trusses was in the 60s. We literally built the plant ourselves around us between orders. All summer we worked in a hot concrete box and made flat trusses when there were no customers. When the roof was up it got dark and noisy. Then the guy failed at business and as it wound down I rotated through every job in the place except accounting. I was driving the delivery truck (ten tons plus five ton trailer) when the brakes failed going up a hill. That was pretty much the nail in the coffin when he couldn't deliver his product.

The second time, in this century, the plant was part of a regional complex and there were lasers to mark the layout of the gang-nail plates on the assembly line. But there was no feedback at all on how I was doing my job before "Totally unacceptable! Clear out your desk" right at the end of the fiscal year. So I went downscale to being a clerk in a thrift store.

Anyway, if you put the same floorplan under an engineered-truss roof and a geodesic (or even Monolith) dome; the dome house will be warmer, quieter and cleaner. That's just the way it is. And you don't get blind-sided by wind loads on the gable ends.

My son bought a house with a truss roof—he went up in the crawl space to the Ethernet cabling, and swore he'd never have to to go there again. That's space he's paying for. With a mortgage.

I looked again at the Tridepanel website. It looks like their technology would make an [irregular] hexagon panel with 10-11° edges, that would bolt or glue together. A skylight/vertical axis windmill at the summit and your done.

redpoint5 -- At the floor-planning stage you can arrange to have wet-walls and ducting in the interior walls. Plus a doorbell and light at the entrance.

erm . . . WOW :eek:

That is certainly not the case within Europe. My parents recently moved and during both house inspections the houses were given energy ratings.

Speaking to the agent the rating plays a huge role in the sale, people will accept a higher price for a better rating, or knock down the price due to a bad rating.

I dont know about now, but in England several years ago owners could recieve a subsidy for improving the rating of their house.

Mike

Energy is cheap in the U.S., and we don't like to think about the future. 2 things that work against an efficiency mindset.

If energy were expensive, and we knew we would eventually have to work to pay off our credit cards, then it would be more of a concern.

People don't think about the future; about the total cost of ownership for homes, for transportation, or for marriages. They just want what makes them feel happy now.

That said, many utility companies here offer free home efficiency inspections along with rebates for efficiency improvements, such as better insulation, or more efficient heating and cooling systems. But, most people don't care about these things.

It's funny because it's true.

My utility company offers electricity at 5.27¢ per kilowatt-hour and still has an energy efficiency office, that offers year-over-year reviews and probably some incentives. They do it because it's cheaper to stem the tide than build out capacity.

http://factor-tech.com/wp-content/up...ship-house.jpg
Giant graphene ultracapacitor airships to become the cargo heavyweights of the future - Factor

Here is an effort from Europe that updates Bucky Fuller's air-deliverable housing concept from the 1920s. No dropping a bomb to excavate the foundation; but while the house may had energy efficiency added in deep in the design process the initial overriding concept is old, lumpy and poorly lit. Because people just know that's what a house looks like. :(

OTOH Graz, Austria has this floating in the river:
http://www.travel2austria.com/i/murinselmurisland3.jpg
http://www.travel2austria.com/i/murinselmurisland3.jpg

It's a floating bridge/civic center, not a house.

https://bmenz.com/wp-content/uploads...-1024x1024.jpg
https://bmenz.com/lifestyle/5-most-modern-cities-in-the-world

This one has a lot right about it.

• hexagon-panelized construction
• houseboat hull
• 7-frequency, edge zenith dome.
• 3 cells fused together

It is used in the article to help establish that Rotterdam is the most modern city in the world.

One of the things I was wanting to do on existing houses if I could, is to remove the siding, add a 2x2 every 16" down the wall and re sheet it with plywood then reside the house. Then go and run a couple pipes through the ground, and pipe that air into each bay on the outside to have the cooler air cool the house down?!?

Who/what are you wanting to keep cool? The building or the contents?

Might be better/easier to pipe that underground-cooled air directly into/through the house.

What I'm aiming for is to reduce heat transfer during the summer into the house from the outside!! In southern Utah my house is usually about 15-20 degrees Fahrenheit to the outside temperature, so I'm thinking that cooling that 2" space around the outside would possibly be more efficient then the whole house!! The temperature got to 115 this year, so my house would get to between 95-100 with no swamp cooler!!

What you're suggesting sounds more like a solar heating scheme. Awnings, plantings, or other ways of getting the wall shaded are cheaper and less complicated. Throw "building wall shade" into Google images for ideas that don't involve building more walls.

What I'm actually trying to do is a bit different!! If I can set up the 2" space around the outside of a 900 sqft house I should only need to let 275sqft of air through an "earth tube" to make it so the walls don't come into contact with air temps higher then 68 degrees(ground temp in my area at ten feet!!)

Also, I'm looking to do it on homes that already need renovation work!!

I've thought about doing the same thing for the roof; except without the earth tubes. Compare the areas and orientations (and overhangs).

I was told there'd be no math. :)

Have you thought about what powers the subsystem? There'd be lots of skin friction and corners. Just distributing the airflow evenly from the end of the earth tube to each and every wall cavity looks like a headache.

Stovie, You will need a radiant barrier, backed with insulation, in addition to your second wall/rainscreen.

When I put on my second story addition, I used 2"x6"s with a hybrid foam (1" to 1.5" sprayed on the inside of the exterior sheathing) and high-density blown-in fiberglass insulation (to fill the rest of the cavity). I wrapped the exterior with an aluminized radiant vapor barrier then I put on 1"x2" furring strips on 16" centers to attach the exterior siding. The second story was cantilevered all the way around. I put a strip of soffit vent under the air gap. Heat from the gap exhausts to a similar gap under the roof deck, then out the ridge vent.

With that arrangement, I keep the whole house cool with the same high efficiency window-mount swamp cooler that cooled the original space. I do need to boost the flow for the cool air to reach the second story.

In Ivins, your walls (except the south and west facing wall) would be the least of your concern. Most of your solar heat gain comes through the roof. A whole house radiant barrier with an air gap and a second skin, properly vented, can nearly eliminate solar heat gain (not counting the windows, which is another subject). Add decent insulation and you protect your interior from the exterior ambient air temperature.

I don't know if you can avoid using at least a swamp cooler to stay comfortable in 100+ days. You might be able to do something more "passive", i.e. using a solar chimney to pull air through pads in the basement.

Earth tubes can be pricey to install and I would caution that you might have some pathogenic fungus issues to deal with in Washington County, specifically, Coccidioides immitis, which is endemic to the area. If you want to go with some sort of low-grade geothermal, a liquid to air system might be cheaper to install and safer to use, but would need a pump and fan. You could use it to pre-condition the intake air to your cooler or heater.

You could just move to Cedar City or Veyo (or Brian Head), at least for the summer, and save the bother.:)

Free beard-utilizing the earth tubes is pretty simple when the house has a crawl space!! You just run the tube to the crawl space then drill 2" holes through the side into each bay!! I'm looking into ways to do slab on grade homes, I think I'd bury a a 275-500 gallon tank underground and run salt water throw some copper tubes running across the top of the wall?!?

Acparker- if I do earth tubes I'm planning on utilizing the dirt I dug out for making them!! Kind of like a rammed earth wall, but using 20% concrete for strength(and maybe some salt rock to inhibit roots growing through it?!?) that should drastically reduce the overall cost!! At my parents house we're needing to replace the plywood on the whole thing, so instead I'm planing on running some 2x2's up every 2' and cutting holes over the soffit toilet air through there!! I had a thermometer up there and it got to about 160 when it was 105 outside!!

Phrasing?

The crawlspace air is potentially reeking of Radon gas.

There's nothing magical about 1x2 sleepers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_envelope_house

See also Buckminster Fuller's Chilling Domes

acparker's solution is genius.

May I suggest a water-to-water-to air heat exchanger? If I was building that's what I would do:

Drill a ~8-10" hole 20ft deep.
Sink a ~8-10" capped PVC pipe maybe 18ft long with a box on top for maintenance
Insert a copper pipe double helix secondary water pipe into the PVC
Put the water-to-air equipment wherever convenient.

Drilling a hole is easier than cut and fill trenching. The PVC is a passive tank. The copper pipe contains the working fluid. I saw this proposed in Pop Mechanix, minus the obvious improvment of the double helix.

I know there's the risk of radon gas, which is why I'm trying to get the air to go around the outside so that it won't go into the home directly!! And I don't want the crawl space being open to the house itself to prevent the risk of creating a "chimney" effect if the house catches fire!! A lot of people don't know just how much having a airspace on the outside of your house to allow air through can reduce your necessary cooling!! On new construction my dad, brother and I try to do soffit vent all the way around the house with ridge vent, and the attic won't get more then maybe 5 degrees Fahrenheit over the outside temp drastically reducing cooling costs!!! What your talking about with the pipe is something else I'm looking into for interior cooling, but right now I'm mostly working on the "envelop" cooling possibilities for now!! I really think
That having the "envelope" around the outside will naturally cool the interior!!

I don't disagree (sorry about the Radon), but failed to point out that the water-to-water-to-air system is a heat pump not just a cooler.

I understand! I'm trying to see what I'd need to get it so that it raises the ground temperature by the end of summer and reduces it by the end of winter you know?!?