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re: sizing a heating system
18 jun 2000
news quotes:
>the autonomous house.
>
>article from the times 17th june 2000...
>the four-bedroom detached house is so well insulated that the sun shining
>through the windows and into the conservatory, together with the body heat
>of the occupants, keeps it warm in the winter...
hard to believe, in the cloudy, cold uk. does it have any backup heating
systems? gas logs, coal or woodstoves? a heat pump or electric heaters?
how much heating fuel has it actually used since 1993?
with no backup systems or fuel consumption, i'd call it a solar house, but
wonder how much heat internal electrical usage contributes. and was it
comfortable? was it less than 10 c (50 f) indoors for more than a few days
per year, requiring lots of traditional english indoor cold tolerance?
>the massive brick and concrete construction stores heat through
>the long periods when it is not sunny.
for a week or two? that seems unlikely. back of the envelope calcs
suggest to me that you'd have to stack it full of bricks indoors to
make anything close to that happen. with lots of airspaces between
the bricks, very few windows, and airtight hyperinsulated walls.
a couple of weeks ago, the philadelphia inquirer published a story
(written by someone paid by a metal framing association?) that said
houses with steel studs had "no air leaks" and "lower utility bills,"
compared to wood-framed houses, even though the oak ridge national
lab web site shows that steel stud walls conduct more heat than wood.
nick, almost correctly quoted in today's inquirer:
...though sustainable building is a good idea, it appears to have veered
away from energy-efficiency and more toward natural materials and fibers,
feng shui, and so on.
the [british] ecological design association publishes a slick periodical
that recommends calming interiors, incandescent versus fluorescent lights
[more natural], and no metal bedsprings, because they interfere with
the earth's magnetic field and can cause serious illness...
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