Jul242009
Turning an 1850 home into a net-zero-heat home
Filed under Energy by david brooks at 9:49 am
Anybody who has done work on an old house knows that they have their charms - right angles are for wimps! - but that making them energy efficient is very, very hard. Homes sag, wood swells and shrinks, ants and rot and moisture wreak havoc, and the result is that filling up all the energy-losing gaps is almost impossible.
So you have to admire a man taking an 1850 house in Boston and making it super-energy efficient, perhaps even a net-zero-energy home, a.k.a. Passive House. Cnet’s Green Tech blog has a long profile of what’s called the Pratt House Project, being done by an architect who wants to demonstrate to builders that being uber-green isn’t as daunting as they might think. Here’s the key quote from the story:
“The Passive House approach is very techie, which I think is its Achilles Heel–it appeals to geeks but not the layman, the lay builder,” (architect Simon) Hare said standing in the half-finished home last month. “We can prove we can do this without hiring consultants and using software to do the energy modeling. We’ll just use precedent and established rules of thumb.”
“Rules of thumb” - that’s my kind of construction project!
A couple of neat tidbits from the story: Hare borrowed a fog machine from a local DJ to spot air leaks during a blower test (although he didn’t borrow a disco ball, alas); the floor and interior walls of made of concrete (!!) which acts as a heat sink.
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