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.
It goes to how many obsolete structures we have from an energy standpoint. When we had a remodeling business, I sometimes pointed out the long-term costs people faced when refurbishing old structures. Many had a "This Old House" mentality, and wanted the charm of living in, and recycling, old structures, but didn't want to pay the costs of doing it right.
We found that foaming the walls and adding vapor barriers in the attic, along with a lot of blown-in attic insulation, was the most cost effective solution. Still, a lot of work and costs there. And adding air conditioning to an old leaky structure can be a horrible mistake, especially in humid environments. Condensation in the walls can destroy those buildings in a few years.
As for attic fans, etc,, wonderful things excepting the security issues a lot of people fear from leaving windows open. I grew up in the South with attic fans; cool the house at night so it stays cooler during the day. Times were different then, and crime wasn't such an issue. And we've always had dogs keeping watch.
Our house was over-built to modern standards in terms of insulation and sealed walls/ceilings, but was largely designed to be open to the outside, allowing prevailing winds to waft through in the summer. Over-hanging eaves allow plenty of winter sun in for passive heating (more effective than I ever dreamed or calculated), and provide shade in the summer, eliminating radiant solar heating in summer months, for the most part. All windows are opened in the spring and stay open until fall, especially the high windows in the open living area that allow hot air out. An older picture from the south here:
Prevailing winds come in from the NW (left) and cool the whole house in summer. We grow seasonal vines to shade the west side in the evening. The master suite has a small AC unit for any nights that get sweltering, but doesn't get used a lot. The entire north side of the house is earth-bermed.
Of course, not too many people have six years to build their own house, or are in a situation to design a house like this, but I see most homes that are built more for aesthetics than function. If more homes were properly designed to be site-specific, and form followed function, they would be cheaper to live in and would require far less energy. A home like this also requires occupants to be involved in managing things and a willingness to adapt to seasonal changes; open and close windows and thermal curtains as conditions warrant, etc.
Easier to tell Alexa to turn up/down the thermostat, eh?
I've designed a few houses based on the concepts I used, mostly smaller homes, and hope to build one for my daughter in a year or two. We have a perfect south-facing site about 1000 feet from our current home. We may even build the smaller home for us and give this house to daughter and her kids. The prime directive is that all structures on the property be off-grid, passive/active solar, and no loans associated.