A free blower door test is nice. Can you get two - one before your next renovation project, and one after? Probably not...
They let this physicist play a while with a blower door:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/201 ... his-joint/
baha wrote:Brrrr...sounds too cold to me.
Another reason to oversize the PV is to have more power on a cloudy day. On those days when you can't even tell where the sun is, a modern 7 kw system will still make about 1 kw. Enough to keep the frig, freezer, and internet running.
frankthetank wrote:The 8 day cloudy stretch had little to no wind here (constant fog/stratus/drizzle). I live in a river valley so our winds are always much less (although in the spring that works to our advantage with warmer temps).
Today its in the teens, windy but the sun is shining bright. So today would be an excellent solar/wind day. My furnace has hardly run with the early Feb Sun warming the house very nicely.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Tanada wrote:frankthetank wrote:The 8 day cloudy stretch had little to no wind here (constant fog/stratus/drizzle). I live in a river valley so our winds are always much less (although in the spring that works to our advantage with warmer temps).
Today its in the teens, windy but the sun is shining bright. So today would be an excellent solar/wind day. My furnace has hardly run with the early Feb Sun warming the house very nicely.
How did your house weather the hot summer temperatures/ Were you able to stay more passive or did the A/C-fans have to run hard in the peak cooling months?
My home is in a fairly breezy spot at the corner of my community so we are the wind break for the neighbors instead of the other way around. This means significant losses to outside air even in the best of circumstances because the 1970's era construction does not have thick walls with heavy insulation, just 2x4 studs with 3" fiberglass and whatever insulation they put under the vinyl siding when they installed it. The attic fan for spring/fall cooling ensures we will never have a 'tight' building envelope but I am certain thicker walls and insulation would have made a huge difference. Unfortunately that kind of a retrofit is more cost than it is worth, better to tear down a house and just build an efficient one than to take on a project like that.
baha wrote:Tanada - Adding insulation to walls is a pain but it can be done cheap.
Inigo Montoya wrote:You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
baha wrote:Ghung - I wish you hadn't posted that pic...My wife saw it and said we are moving to the mountains Nice place! I always wanted a house built into the side of a south facing mountain, but women have this thing about windows
KJ said; .... the structure would rot. In a cold climate, there is a temperature gradient between the inside heated moist spaces and the outside cold dry spaces. Moisture transpires through the walls and if that temperature called the "dew point" were to occur in the fiberglass/wood conventional wall, moisture would soak the insulation, and the structure could form mildew or even dry rot...."
pstarr wrote:Ghung, you have accomplished a great deal. And should be proud. It is an example that is sorely ignored in modern suburbia. They build only for garage and street access, instead of toward the sun. Cheaper to run utilities a few feet less then appropriate. Makes me so mad
baha wrote:And Yes, it will cause condensation on the windows, sometimes ice. You have to wipe them down in the morning and let them dry in the Sun. Moisture is something I still need to deal with...
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