Western NY is not exactly the sunniest area of the country, and the winters are cold. Will passive solar be practicable or would a goal of solar tempering be more achievable? And then there is the whole question of thermal mass - is it better inside the thermal envelope or part of the thermal envelope as with ICFs? In Western NY, would a wall structure with extra insulation (SIPS or a flash and fill 2X6 wall with 1.5 inches of foam board on the outside) be a better choice than ICFs? I would think one would definitely need a heat source to back up the passive solar or solar tempering, but with high enough insulation and proper sealing, it would not need to be a very big system, so a small wood stove might work.

-Rosalinda

Posted By Rosalinda on 08 May 2011 10:36 PM
And then there is the whole question of thermal mass - is it better inside the thermal envelope or part of the thermal envelope as with ICFs? In Western NY, would a wall structure with extra insulation (SIPS or a flash and fill 2X6 wall with 1.5 inches of foam board on the outside) be a better choice than ICFs? I would think one would definitely need a heat source to back up the passive solar or solar tempering, but with high enough insulation and proper sealing, it would not need to be a very big system, so a small wood stove might work.

-Rosalinda

Mass is always better inside the insulation envelope. That mass does not need to be part of the wall system. It can be floors, trombe walls, a thermal chimney or a masonry heater. It also could be water. I personally like the idea of a trombe wall combined with radiant tubing and solar water heaters. This could be heating the wall even on cloudy days. This is however an active system not a a passive system.

I have a small wood stove in my semi-passive home but would not use it without a source of combustion air (sized to the load) and the indespensable energy recovery ventilator (ERV). Generally the the more insulation you have the tighter the house will become and the more conscern I have for indoor air quality (IAQ).

Nor can one depend on a small wood stove, or any solid fuel fired appliance unless somehow automated or attended as the larger the mass the longer it will take to heat it up (say after coming home from a 10 hour work day or a weekend with the kids). Some form of automatic heating should be incorporated in every occupied building regardless of hour passive or massive it may be.

Posted By BadgerBoilerMN on 09 May 2011 07:03 AM
I

Nor can one depend on a small wood stove, or any solid fuel fired appliance unless somehow automated or attended as the larger the mass the longer it will take to heat it up (say after coming home from a 10 hour work day or a weekend with the kids). Some form of automatic heating should be incorporated in every occupied building regardless of hour passive or massive it may be.

Hence the option of the masonry stove, you fire it once or twice a day and it radiates the heat the rest of the time.

Crude but effective. If you are there once a day it makes sense. Most of us are not. If retired and house bound, soapstone and other high-mass heat storage makes sense, but few find themselves willingly in this condition. It reminds me of milking cows.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the "technology" and appreciate the nostalgia, but it lacks the comfort control most my customers require. I find this especially true for home on a large scale than say a one room cabin or where bathroom, sleeping kitchen and office temperatures don't fit with the typical lifestyle. Cooking, showering and even watching television can dramatically add to the flux and with a steady uncontrolled output may make a room or an entire house too warm for comfort.

But one can always open a window I guess.

Posted By BadgerBoilerMN on 09 May 2011 08:03 AM
Crude but effective. If you are there once a day it makes sense. Most of us are not. If retired and house bound, soapstone and other high-mass heat storage makes sense, but few find themselves willingly in this condition. It reminds me of milking cows.

Don't get me wrong, I understand the "technology" and appreciate the nostalgia, but it lacks the comfort control most my customers require. I find this especially true for home on a large scale than say a one room cabin or where bathroom, sleeping kitchen and office temperatures don't fit with the typical lifestyle. Cooking, showering and even watching television can dramatically add to the flux and with a steady uncontrolled output may make a room or an entire house too warm for comfort.

But one can always open a window I guess.

So instead of opening a window you turn on the air conditioning exactly what people going with passive are trying to avoid. The good thing about mass is that it buffers that flux and more often than not negates the need to open the window or turn on the air conditioning.

The answer, of course, is that there is no significant setback penalty for massive buildings, counterintuitive or not

Toddm, you confuse "typical" with "always" and thus misrepresent the research. All of which occurred in some specific location(s) and nowhere will you find any credible statements indicating that it is true in all climates. Setback is ineffective in areas where the temperature is always reasonable. As you agree, passive thermal mass is ineffective when/where it is always too cold or too hot. While such conditions exist, almost all places in the US are a mix - but towards which extreme varies greatly.

was analyzing results from actual buildings constructed by ORNL

Except that they wrote "predicted".

Mass is always better inside the insulation envelope.

Unless you consider setback and/or response time - then maybe or maybe not.

I am not sure what sure what "people going with passive are trying to avoid." whether it the high cost of energy, the dependence on foreign oil, the perceived complexity of modern HVAC systems or professional advice of any kind.

It may be that most do not know that "air conditioning" is more about dehumifying than cooling and opening a window has little effect on a truly high mass structure.

Posted By BadgerBoilerMN on 09 May 2011 09:45 AM
I am not sure what sure what "people going with passive are trying to avoid." whether it the high cost of energy, the dependence on foreign oil, the perceived complexity of modern HVAC systems or professional advice of any kind.

It may be that most do not know that "air conditioning" is more about dehumifying than cooling and opening a window has little effect on a truly high mass structure.

I think you have spoken volumes with those words. You don't understand that people wish to lessen their need for using all those things. They wish to work with their environment and not rely on ongoing mechanical intervention.

Oh, those people! Well, when they trade in their cars for sandles, I will understand.

Posted By BadgerBoilerMN on 09 May 2011 10:51 AM
Oh, those people! Well, when they trade in their cars for sandles, I will understand.

What is the point of that kind of attitude? I got the same thing from the Contractors when I went with SIPs instead of framed walls. People are here to learn and share ideas not be put down because their choice is different than yours.

It is a flippant, non-technical response to a similarly emotion-based statement in an otherwise technical conversation.

I think people are here to learn how to save energy, ( perhaps favorably impacting the environment and their pocketbook) and be comfortable all at once. If they think that using technical information or professional HVAC people is not GREEN, they are obviously confused.

As to your analogy of SIPs, it is a bad one. SIPs are a very technologically intense product, the use of which I promote and support.
By contrast the regressive, foggy headed, promotion of an atmospheric fireplace (regardless of its mass) is misleading, if people are convinced by anecdotal witnessing, that all you need to go “off the grid” is a good passive design and a fireplace.

jonr makes the scientific point to my satisfaction.

Sips are no more technical than framed walls . They all deal with loads, insulation and air infiltration. They just handle it different ways.
Just as a well designed masonry heater can be just as technical and handle the heating needs in a way that is not atmospheric.


My analogy was to point out that those who are making money off of one system often denigrate others who chose to go another way.

Go ahead show me the science where your way of heating is better than going solar for the majority for the OP. I am willing to learn. So far all you have said is that the " modern" way of instant on and 1 degree control is better.
That to me seems to be a lifestyle choice and has nothing to do with what the OP wants to explore.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/denigrate

I don't believe anyone criticized you or your argument unfairly. We simply challenged your questionable assertions. One can live underground, or in cave in fact, and enjoy all the benefits of your high-mass theory. Most of us simply choose not to. As all HVAC system are highly sensitive to local and construction methods, most of your argument is of little use to those considering Masonry heaters.

Again you are arguing for your choice instead of dealing with the OP's wants.

Local constructions methods may not be what the OP wants. If I had gone with the local construction methods I would be in a framed house with an wall Rvalue of <20.
I am not arguing for masonry heaters. It would not be my choice. I hate chopping wood. I do however see the benefits in the right situation and design.

I don't think I mentioned local contruction methods. It is the weather that dictates effective construction methods. If the OP "wants" something that will not result in his ultimate goal, it is to the professional to correct him for his own sake.

I rarely see anyone bragging about their mistakes after they have invested money and emotion into them.

Oh man, Badger, I am sure going to hate coming home to this cave. http://www.flickr.com/photos/58061641@N06/
And when I crank open the windows to listen to Friends Creek 300 feet below, I'll be thinking Ackk! Humidity. Following the deer's progress browsing on the hillside below, moving with them along my 40 feet of window walls, I'll be thinking... well...

Hey, do you think there are more important things in life than the psychrometric chart? Is it possible?

As for the engineer whose biases aren't very well supported at all, Burch's paper apparently doesn't exist as bits and bytes, but I'll track down for you if I must. ASHRAE members will find it in Vol 90.2-1984. But here is my analysis of how he arrived at his conclusion that the nighttime setback penalty in massive homes is "very insignificant." Setback works because lowering the temperature of the home reduces the difference (delta T) between inside and outside temps and thus slows heat loss. To the extent that massive homes cool less overnight, they would be less effective. At 30 degrees outside, for example, a massive home that cooled 5 degrees overnight, from 70, would get roughly 83 percent of the benefit of a conventional home using a 10 degree setback. At 10 degrees outside, the massive home would get roughly 92 percent. So there is a climate component: The farther north you live the less difference there is.

But there is one more factor at work here: thermal lag. In my house, it takes roughly 8 hours for a temperature event on one side of the block to make its way through to the other side. This time shift is still working at 10 degrees even if the dynamic benefit of mass is not. So the coldest point of the morning, say 5 a.m., won't be felt inside until 1 in the afternoon. Granted, thermal lag won't make a huge difference, but not much is needed to turn 92 percent into "very insignificant." More importantly, when I roll out at 7, I am working against the ambient temperature at 11 p.m. the previous day.

Still, you'll need major output to recover in a timely manner (while working against the time lagged ambient temps from 11 to 7). Conventional hvac means gross oversizing and inefficiency. Heat storage requires space you just won't find in a house buiilt on slab on grade. (At some point, jonr, you might acknowledge this fact.) So it isn't surprising to me anyway that masonry heaters are the auxiliary heat of choice among folks who have built passive solar homes, live in them, and hold very well supported opinions as a result. My aux heat is a $2,300 wood stove boiler bought on eBay in the UK and plumbed to a radiant slab. And, no, I am not interested in starting that argument again.

The sad fact is that, if I'd listened to the professionals here rather than doing my own research, what you see on Flickr wouldn't exist.

If you makes you feel better, I agree that some homes do not have space for a large water storage tank - or a masonry heater. But water uses far less cu feet for the same amount of thermal storage.

To the extent that massive homes cool less overnight, they would be less effective

Exactly, 1/2 the setback achieved is even less than 1/2 the btu savings (because temperature declines so slowly in a high mass building). Perhaps you want to explain how you turned well under 50% into 83-92%.

The Burch study is being mailed from a document retrieval firm in France. I'll be back to you.

BTW, a house without a basement has the same living space of one with a basement. It's the backroom area that gets squeezed beyond belief. My house is an homage to Frank Lloyd Wright's Usonian designs which he meant to be haute architecture for the masses. The otherwise fanatical owners of the genuine article raise a single complaint: no storage.

One big advantage to large setbacks and boiler systems is they allow for longer runtimes for the boiler and more efficient cycles.
2 years ago as an experiment, I set my house up to go to 63 deg at 5-7 am and again from 4-6 pM and set it for 50 deg the rest of the time. The boiler then only fired twice a day for nice long cycles. House rarely got below 58. Compare this with firing once per hour to maintain a 1 degree set point.
This past winter I basically just burned wood instead when I needed it. To me it is much simpler, If I feel cold, I start a fire, if it is sunny, the house heats itself. If I get up and it is 58, I put on slippers and a fleece. I think we often make this stuff way to complicated.

I don’t necessarily buy the argument of no basement unless there is other storage space. My house is ½ basement workshop and ½ traditional living space. I should have built the shop bigger and the living space smaller. Lets face it all you do in a house is sleep, shit, shower and eat. How much space do you really need for that? A workshop on the other hand, needs space.

Cheers,
Eric