Well after 17 years of planning finally going to build our new home. New to this site. great info.
It will be a 2700sq ft modified ranch in upstate NY. There will be a loft and a walk out basement with two rooms downstairs. We are 4600ft off the road in one direction, and 1000ft off another road in the other direction. (Crossing a significant creek so we had to go the longer way with the driveway).

I have the stone driveway in (yes it was a major project)
I put the water line in myself with my John deer. Took most the summer:):):)
Electric will be coming the otherway.

At this point planning on ICF for the foundation
Radiant heat for the basement floor only.

Looking at geothermal

Planning on Solar in the future. We live on a knoll and will have an ideal expossure for the solar.

M

Got a zip code? (For weather and 99% heating design temp data).  On new construction it's often cheaper to spend the money on a high-R/low-U building than going with mid-tonnage geothermal.

And at under 3- tons of peak load there are now high efficiency ductless and hyrodronic/radiant air source heat pump solutions that can deliver the heat even into negative single and low double-digits-F. (Yes, even in "upstate" NY.)

Thank you. 14514. Certainly want as efficiant of a house as we can. The windows will be the biggest issue I'm sure. We have great views so that will be something we will have to balance,

The 99% design condition in nearby Rochester is +5F, so you're well within reach of a ductless air-source heat pump. If you go that route you'd have to think carefully about siting the outdoor unit on the heat pumps to guarantee they don't get buried by roof avalanches or drifting snow given the lake-effect potential, but this is do-able, for far less money up-front than a geo solution.

On new construction in that climate the "pretty good house" compromise on "whole wall" R value (all thermal bridging of framing averaged-in), is R10 foam under slab (you'll be putting in at least R15 if you're heating the slab), R20 basement walls (a given, with most ICF walls ) R40 above-grade walls, and R60 attic is usually a good balance for comfort & cost, and would put most 2700 ranch houses somewhere around 1.5-2.5-tons heating @ +5F range if you pay some attention to windows.

For the big sweeping views fixed/inoperable U0.2-0.25 windows may make sense, but know that every square foot of U0.25 window loses as much heat as 10 square feet of R40 wall. With an interior temp of 70F and an exterior temp of +5F, a 6' x 10' U0.25 window loses 825 BTU/hr. It doesn't take very many of those to add up to a large fraction of the heat load. By contrast a clear unbroken 10' x 20' section of R40 wall only loses 325 BTU/hr. Be judicious about size and placement of windows.

For other windows, keep them big enough for daylighting and code-required egress issues, and use casement/awning windows for their tighter air seals and better egress & ventilation area to window area compared to double-hungs and sliders. Where it doesn't much matter, be a bit stingy on window area, and use fixed windows rather than operable windows for better air tightness.

A pretty-good R40 stick-built wall is 2x4 26" o.c. with damp sprayed cellulose or open cell foam (~R10, after thermal bridging) with 4.5-5" of foil-faced rigid polyiso on the exterior of the structural sheathing, held in place by 1x4 furring through-screwed to the studs by timber-screws 24" o.c. (to minimize the thermal bridging of the screws.) The siding then gets hung on the furring, which may take ring-shank nails for some siding types to get sufficient retention with only 3/4" wood, but this is commonly done with both fiber cement and wooden siding. By venting the thin cavities between the furring both top and bottom the siding stays much drier, which is VERY good for extending the longevity of exterior paint. With about 2/3 of the center-cavity R outside the sheathing the sheathing & studs stay warmer/drier, and would not accumulate wintertime moisture AT ALL in your climate even if the interior gypsum leaked air (but seal all electrical & plumbing penetrations anyway), and an interior side vapor retarder is neither necessary or desirable.

For more details on that approach, see:

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/video-how-install-rigid-foam-insulation-outside-house

and

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/musings/how-install-rigid-foam-sheathing (< lots of links to more details are in that blog piece- look at them all.)

A key decision/feature to decide up front in a foam-over is whether you mount the windows "innie", with the glass at the structural sheathing vs. "outie", with the glass out at the siding, which determines where the flashing goes, and whether the housewrap is between the foam & structural sheathing or whether it's between the furring & foam.

With any timber-framed house caulking the framing to the sheathing at every stud-bay, as well as between doubled-up top plates, and between bottom plates & subfloor, subfloor to rim joist, rim-joist to foundation sill will the the CHEAPEST efficiency upgrade you can ever do for a house, since these are often difficult or impossible to air-seal after the fact. When building a foam-sheathed wall on an ICF foundation, place the foundation sill such that the exterior foam on the sheathing aligns with that of the exterior foam of the ICF (or maybe 1/4" to the exterior of the ICF foam for clear drainage) for an excellent thermal break.

An R60 attic in cellulose weighs about 2lbs per square foot, but is pretty cheap and easy to do with "energy heel" trusses that can accommodate 18" of insulation depth. The truss chords need to be able to handle the dead-weight load, and if it's a long span you may need to tighten up to 16" o.c. spacing rather than 24" to meet the chord loading if they under-engineered the truss. If the trusses are 24" o.c. you may want to screw 1x furring across the chords 16" o.c. so that the gypsum can handle the load with out sagging too. There are high-strength half-inch gypsum out there rated for 2.2lbs per square foot insulation loads, but 16" o.c. furring would give you some margin without having to go to heavier 5/8" goods.

All great information. Thanks. Had not really considered an air-source heat pump. I will look into it. My micro climate (where the house will be) is colder by several degrees then the other areas. I have gardened up there for 17 years and pay great attention to that. From what I have read on the Canadian gov site, I would be boarderline for an air-source pump. Again I will check it out.
All great info, so I appreciate it.

Dana1 wrote "A pretty-good R40 stick-built wall is 2x4 26" o.c."

Did you mean 2x6, 24" o.c.?

ChrisJ

Posted By ChrisJ on 14 Dec 2012 08:20 AM
Dana1 wrote "A pretty-good R40 stick-built wall is 2x4 26" o.c."

Did you mean 2x6, 24" o.c.?

ChrisJ

I think he meant standard 2X4 @ 16" oc construction.  Then a bunch of exterior foam to bring it up to R40.

Posted By arkie6 on 14 Dec 2012 08:51 AM

Posted By ChrisJ on 14 Dec 2012 08:20 AM
Dana1 wrote "A pretty-good R40 stick-built wall is 2x4 26" o.c."

Did you mean 2x6, 24" o.c.?

ChrisJ

I think he meant standard 2X4 @ 16" oc construction.  Then a bunch of exterior foam to bring it up to R40.

Yup!  Thanks!

(I really need an editor sometimes...)

It doesn't really matter if the site is on the colder shady hollow type micro-climate.  The Mitsubish H2i series will still deliver 100% of it's rated heating output down to +5F(-15C), falling somewhat linearly to about 70% of full rating at -13F (-25C).   The popular 1.5 ton version puts out a bit over 20,000BTU/hr nominally, falling to a bit under 15,000BTU/hr @ -13F. I had one of those installed at my mother's house, but her design temps aren't as cold as we're talking here, but they're also used as the primary heating on a deep energy retrofit project I was advising on in Worcester MA  where the 99% outside design temp is also +5F. 

The Fujitsu Halcyon series and Daikin Quaternity series have similar low-temp heating performance (and sometimes higher efficiency), but they don't bother providing heat output ratings for them below -4F (-20C), though they clearly could.   They continue to work at lower temps, but the output isn't specified or guaranteed.  LG and Sanyo have some pretty good low-temp units too, but Mitsubishi seems to have the larger distribution & support resources in my area. (YMMV).

Key to making ductless work economically and maximal comfort is to design the layout for point-source heating.  With large picture windows in a living/dining area you'll definitely need a ductless head in that space, but if you can reduce the heating loads to the rooms doored-off from the space you can often keep the other rooms within 5F of the common area by how you route the ventilation ducting, with supply-only ventilation in the common area with the mini-split head, and exhuast-only registers in the remote rooms, supplying the ventilation to those spaces by jump ducts/grilles etc into the common area.  Leaving the doors open to the common area can also helps.  This approach works surprisingly well if you pay attention to the room-by-room heat loads, and minimized the numbers of ductless-heads necessary.  Many homes do very well with just one head per floor, even in places with design temps in negative single-digits. 

With multi-split configurations where one outdoor unit serves multiple heads the installed cost rises by ~$1500/head, so it pays to do at least a little bit of thinking about the point-source heating aspects of the floor layout (more open archways, fewer doors) and the room-to-room heating & cooling loads.  With sub U0.25 windows and R40 walls it's a lot easier to get there than with code-min.

I would lean towards geothermal, Daikin Altherma or Daikin Inverter Ducted like systems for better room by room control.

Visit a true high-R house heated with mini-splits on a mid-winter morning and you may change you're mind.

Spending the money on the low-loss building buys more comfort than geo, and the power use is less, despite the somewhat lower efficiency. A $5000 2 ton minisplit (or a pair of 3/4-1 tons) can heat quite a bit of "pretty good house" even in upstate NY without heat emitters in every room. Most Net Zero houses in New England heating with mini-splits have ~R40-R50 walls, and one ductless head per floor. Most don't have sweeping view windows unless it's on the south side with some engineered passive solar gain. I'm still waiting to see ANY quotes for geo (any size) come in under $20K in my area, and most (even smaller ones) are over $30K. The difference between a $30K minimalist GSHP and a $5K mini split buys quite a bit in of ultra-low-U window and exterior foam.

Daikin Altherma's aren't cheap either, but it's a way to get cushy radiant floors and domestic hot water.

A two ton GSHP using well water and no ducting (say a closet in the middle of the house) should be < $5K installed. But I agree that it very well may not be.

I agree with Dana 1 , My main complaint on these 30k dollar systems . Is on a Earth friendly basis , money has a carbon footprint ,spending 500,000 on a 2100 sq ft home with all the LEED point items puts alot of dollars into the economy which ultimately has more carbon trail than spending less on better performing items with less costs.

Been reading much more on air-source heat pumps.
Why are air-source heat pumps so uncommon in our area. There seems to be many more geothermal instals.
Do you think it has to do with venders, government programs, or some other reason?
If I want to go see a geothermal set up it is easy. Can't seem to even find anyone around here with air source.
But I have only been looking since "Dana1's" post.

High profit margins :-).

What's in the basement that you want the radiant for? Or is it more that radiant on the main floor starts getting more expensive?

We will have two bedrooms downstairs with a walkout basement. So wanted it comfortable. Would like it under the first floor, but yes it starts to get expensive.
Does any one have links of what the units of ASHP look like in the house?

http://www.greenbuildingadvisor.com/blogs/dept/guest-blogs/installing-ductless-minisplit-system
if you go back to the main page of GBA & type minisplit heat pumps into the search box you'll find many more articles about these.

the main reason you haven't heard about these? First, the Mitsubishi Hyper Heat is a new product around here; while heat pumps have been around for decades, the ability to extract heat from very cold outside temps is a new development. The other and probably the main reason is because they have relatively small heat output so you'd need a bunch of them in the average house. in a superinsulated house the heat need is much smaller do two or three usually will surfice. They also didn't have the political wherewithall to get into the rebate program.

MAC for a ASHP, the only thing in the house is the air handler that goes in a closet.

When you start doing radiant and something else, things start getting expensive. Have you considered using an insulated concrete form for your first floor as well? That would get you into radiant there, too.

I thought about it. The contractor is not too keen on the idea, We will get a bunch of wind so I thought it might be stronger.