A short list of design themes that are guiding the work we are doing with the combination of solar thermal and radiant heat gained from many years of trial and error and a fair bit of study.

1. Absolutely stop mixing potable water and radiant floor water.

I can't really lay any incidents of Legionnaires related pneumonia on domestic - radiant loops but the odds just don't justify the costs, which turn out to be minimal. I’ve had to bleed out potable floor loops at the beginning of the fall to clear air bubbles and the color of the water that comes out after being stagnant in the pipes all summer is concerning. Sediment drops out of the well water into the loops as the concrete absorbs the heat and during the summer this sediment can grow bacteria, not what you want to have spraying on you in the shower. I’ve also had to repair two systems that had leaks in the slab floor loops, with a potable loop these leaks can cause flooding, with a closed loop they just cause pressure drop and air in the pumps.

Running the floor loop through a flat plate heat exchanger with the spin pump and using the warming pump to add BTUs to that heat exchanger isolates the floor from the house and lets us drop the pressure to about 20 psi and reduce flood risk while also keeping the minerals from building up in the floor loops. Low mass “staple up” type systems don’t have the delayed heating problem we see in slabs so don’t need the spin pump primary-secondary pumping scheme. I’m partial to flat plate heat exchangers (sit in a sauna for a while and then blow on your hand, heat transfers better with turbulence and a flat plate heat exchanger maximizes turbulence on both hot and cold sides of the heat exchange) but on staple-up type low mass radiant floors we may still use coil-in-tank heat exchangers on a single pump system.

Some the slab systems are prone to overheating problems caused by adding hot water to the slab when the indoor thermostat calls for heat and then allowing that hot water to rest in the slab when the thermostat shuts the pump off allowing that heat to rise into the home too rapidly. Some radiant installers have addressed this by using one small pump to circulate the water in the floor 24 hrs a day while a second pump adds heat when called for by the thermostat. When the warming pump shuts down the spin pump keeps the heat flowing out through the concrete so it doesn’t just stop and go straight up into the room above but spreads out and is released more slowly, the down side is that the spin pump can draw as much as 60 watts 24 hours a day burning almost a dollar a week in electricity. Spinning the water in the slab can have the benefit of evening out the temperature throughout the home when the thermostat is not calling for heat increasing the virtual area of the solar inertia of a slab in direct sunlight or in the vicinity of a wood stove. It also allows me to deliberately design a slab with “hot spots” in the mud room, master bath, under the dining room table and in the “monopoly playing zone” in front of the fireplace by sending the heat to the floor in these areas first and allowing it to circulate out to the rest of the house secondarily.

Many installers use an outdoor re-set mixing valve that blends water returning from the slab with water from the heat exchanger, and responds to the outside temperature by reducing the temperature in the water entering the slab in response to the outside temperature so that as the day warms up in the morning the inside thermostat can continue to call for heat but the outside temperature sensor will dial back the slab temp to prevent over-heating while a cold snap arriving in the evening will cause the mixing valve to react by increasing the temperature of the water entering the slab to anticipate the increased energy loss of the building envelope. This adds about $800 to the cost of the system and reduces the run time of the spin pump.

2. Stick with drain-back solar thermal systems

When we look to solar to provide supplemental heat for radiant floor we immediately come up against the fact that most panels are designed to provide a majority of hot water only and really don't have much left over for floor heating during the late fall to early spring time when we would really like to avoid using the back up heating system.

Some designers have increased the size of the storage tank thinking that they can store heat during the summer for use in the winter but have run into problems with the big (1,500 gallon+) tanks relating to durability, failure of the tank liners at high temperatures and escaping humidity associated with open-top tanks as opposed to pressurized tanks.

If we have the room for the panels, we can increase the daily heating potential quite a bit by adding panels without increasing the size and cost of the tank and the rest of the infrastructure. The problem here is when the family cannot use the BTUs generated by the panels during a summer heat wave or vacation. With an anti-freeze type solar collector this can result in a condition where the heat accumulating in the panels can boil the propylene glycol back into the expansion tank and leave a coating on the inside of the water channels inside the collector panels. Since these channels are quite small (the typical 4'x8' panel holds one gallon of heat exchange fluid) any accumulation of residue can impede efficiency of the system.

We use drain-back systems due to their ability to tolerate excessive panel area to tank size by draining the panel when the tank bottom sensor reaches 170 degrees in the summer in the same way that they drain back when the panel is cooler than the storage tank. We locate the drain back tank and heat exchanger as close to the panels as possible, it does not need to be adjacent to the storage tank and it benefits from having the least rise possible from the heat exchanger to the panels.

3. Never heat the solar tank with the radiant floor.

This system uses a tempering tank as a sort of thermal switch board to interface between the solar tank, the floor and the condensing gas water heater. We use a tempering tank and re-charge pump whenever we use a demand water heater to eliminate the “cold water sandwich” as well as to eliminate the pressure restriction of the heat exchanger inside the demand water heater and to improve the delivery rate of hot water to multiple users beyond the top flow rate of the DHW (a Rinnai can deliver 8.5 GPM with a flow restriction equal to 28' of head depending on the temperature of the in-coming water, we use a Taco 009 bronze circulator or eq, that can deliver this flow rate at this head restriction and avoid running the DHW at a low burner modulation which can lead to a sooty build-up on the interior of the DHW heat exchanger.) Bypassing the demand water heater also allows us to deliver hot water flow rates below the threshold of the heater to accommodate low flow shower heads. Avoiding the need for a extra low BTU flame modulation allows us to use a demand water heater with a higher bottom end (and lower top end ) so I can use a Quietside 120 ODW 94% efficient condensing gas water heater which sells for under $1,100 and vents with common three inch PVC pipe.

While it does convert a tankless water heater into a tank style system it gets rid of the un-insulated combustion tube found in the core of most 60% efficient gas water heaters and keeps us from using electricity to heat water, which in our area means burning coal at 30% efficiency. We adapt small electric water heaters for use as tempering tanks by removing the electric elements and short circuiting the thermostats that would have controlled those elements which converts the thermostats to switches which we use to control the pumps and gives us 1” threaded ports at convenient locations on the side of the tank.

If we simply connect solar water into the system as a pre-heat tank we will only flow water through the DHW when lack of sun or use of the hot water allows the tempering tank to drop below 120 degrees. But when we add a radiant floor system we want to flow the water from the tempering tank to the solar tank when there is heat available in that tank but divert the flow to the DHW when the solar tank is cool to avoid using the DHW to heat the solar storage tank as it's easier to heat cold water than hot.

In this design the thermostat in the bottom of the tempering tank turns on the re-charge pump and also sends power to the thermostat in the top of the solar tank which sends power to a 120 volt motorized three-way valve so that if solar water over 130 degrees is available the switch is open (element off) and the water flows from the tempering tank through the solar tank to re-heat the tempering tank. When the solar tank is below 130 the switch closes (trying to turn the element on) which energizes the three way switch and the reheat loop is diverted through the demand water heater. All cold water enters the system in the solar tank so any domestic water use advances hot water from the top of the solar tank to the tempering tank which helps keep the tempering tank warm to avoid use of the re-charge pump.

4. Minimize the use of low voltage controllers

We need to use low-voltage differential temperature controllers to provide the differential temperature controller “brains” for drain-back and propylene glycol systems but they seem to be vulnerable to power surges so the fewer of this type of controllers we can have in the system the more rugged they'll be in the long run.

Use molded end line sets, cut ends of grounded extension cords, to connect pumps and switches so swapping out pumps and tanks won’t require a visit from the electrician.

5. Design around easily available electric water heaters

Units with 1” threaded heating elements give you extra ports for pumps and hot water outlets. The price is usually right for 80 gallon tanks and the sources of supply are generally just around the corner. If you need more storage you can just add more tanks in series.

Coil-in-tank heat exchangers are generally not as efficient, flexible or economical as flat plate heat exchangers. Marathon high performance tanks and rubber tub-style open top tanks are readily available but there is much to be said for grabbing the biggest tank they have in stock locally and working with that.

6. Take control of pipe turbulence

Pipes are like rivers. When the water flows around an elbow there are eddies. An elbow at the top of the hot water tank starts the flow off with turbulence in it which mixes hot and cold together so you get warm water at the faucet long before you get hot. Gary Klein has done a lot of the research on residential hot water distribution. He advises that we eliminate all elbows and bull head tees in hot water lines to minimize turbulence and speed hot water delivery to the faucet.

However, when water re-enters a tank from a heat exchange loop an elbow close to the tank will add turbulence to help gentle the stirring effect of the water flow entering the tank. In the illustration we are returning the water from the demand water heater to the tempering tank through a 1” pipe nipple screwed into the tank where the electric element has been removed. This would have a 1” brass elbow on it with a 1”x ¾” bushing and a ¾” pex adapter. The water leaves the ¾” pipe with momentum but the combination of the elbow with the larger pipe diameter gives it a very turbulent and gentle flow into the top of the tank. The problem we were having was that a sudden input of water into the tank could “roll the tank” causing the hot water at the top to roll down to the bottom and bring cold water to the top where it would cool the water leaving the tank towards the owners shower. This was bad.

7. Eliminate check valves

They just seem to get jammed at half-open position and can be devilish to diagnose, even the expensive 300 psi brass gate checks with the stainless hinge pins seem to be prone to this.

8. Look out for thermo-siphon prone lay-outs

Locate the radiant floor heat exchanger below the tempering tank to keep it from thermo-siphoning heat out of the tank when the heat is off. Use a heat trap at the out-flow to the house.

9. Look out for un-intended pressure differentials

When one pipe with a pump on it is connected with a tee to another pipe with a pump on it you run the risk of creating a relative point of high pressure at that tee that could drive water through the idle pump creating flow in a place where flow is not desired. Break pump loops apart rather than rely on check valves to control this. Check valves fail at precisely this sort of low flow situation.

10. Dump the “boards”

It's important to let your systems express what they are doing by the way the pipe layouts are visually clear to a future service tech as to which part controls what process.

Mount the pumps and valves on threaded pipe directly on the tanks and heat exchangers.
Mounting all your components on a piece of plywood and then piping it across the room to the tanks and pumps just makes things more confusing and makes future service more complex. Don't layer the pipes up into a three dimensional matrix either (boy have I been guilty of this over the years).

11. Mount pumps in a vertical flow orientation

Bubbles are the death of pumps. Bubbles want to go up. Let that happen.

12. Locate air elimination devices at the point of lowest relative pressure

Bubbles drop out of closed systems between the restriction of the heat exchanger or floor manifold and the intake of the pump which is the place to locate the bleeder valve and the purge valve.

13. Use counter-spiral radiant pipe lay-out

Starting with a doubled pipe in the middle of the floor and then spiraling out towards the manifold will get the flow to the center of the room quickly and return back so that every other pipe is running in the opposite direction and is inversely distant from the heat source. Starting at one side of the room and running back and forth to the other side means that one side is closer to the heat source than the other.

14. Use equal length loops within any radiant manifold

Pipe runs have resistance proportional to their length. If all the runs on a manifold are the same length they will all have similar resistance and share the flow equally. If one of the pipes is shorter than the rest it will have less resistance and get more flow. Break 500 foot rolls in halves or thirds to make equal loops.

15. Break out pipe subassemblies for service

Let’s face it, it's a whole lot easier to chase leaks if thoughtfully placed isolation flanges and unions with ball valves allow major components to be serviced or replaced without draining and dismantling the whole system.

16. Lay off the copper

Except where the pipes are likely to get hotter than 130 degrees.
If PEX will get the job done then go ahead and use it. Threaded brass fittings are expensive but they can support the weight of pumps and valves and earn their keep.

17. Don't pan individual components, pan the whole area

Round commercial drain pans do meet code, but what is the point of “meeting code” when you have water on the floor. We make pans out of EPDM roofing or PVC shower membranes and just line the entire area with a two inch drain to daylight with no trap.

These and other details at http://www.chandlerdesignbuild.com/index.php?id=construction&t=Green%20Building%20Construction%20Details

We can do a lot to fix America’s energy future and put people back to work by weatherizing light commercial buildings and homes of all income levels including those facing foreclosure without increasing the national debt…

We can reach more buildings and save more energy for middle class and poor alike if we could write weatherization contracts that would tie repayment to the electrical bill rather than the owner’s credit or home-equity or to government handouts and all their paperwork.

As many as 60% of the homes and small commercial buildings in America could reduce their energy bill by $600 per year if they received a weatherization package that cost $5,000 or less and could be paid off with a $50 a month payment. Energy Star licensed HERS raters would filter out the inappropriate houses where $5,000 would not yield enough savings to pay back the $600 per year so as to maintain customer satisfaction.

For-profit banks could make low interest micro-loans marketed and collected through the homes electric bills. The work can be performed by existing private home insulation companies under the supervision of existing licensed Energy Star HERS raters and state energy offices. The cost would be collected through the monthly power bill, saving taxpayers the cost of the work, meaning that more work could be done, and more jobs created, over a longer period of time while saving the stimulus plan money for other priorities.

The government could work through state energy offices to implement the project by facilitating the loan contracts and bundling them into securities for re-sale to banks and investors. Since the loans would be secured by the electric grid connection and would not result in a cost increase to the electric consumer the banks risk (and interest rates) would be low and the program would be applicable to people with bad credit, renters, small businesses, and even homes with no equity or in foreclosure. Once the loan was paid back (or if energy prices increased) the savings would go to the consumer.

The idea has been published at much greater length as a blog by Fine Homebuilding Magazine: http://finehomebuilding.taunton.com/item/4860/a-modest-green-proposal

Many people have contacted me for clarification as a result of the Fine Homebuilding article; my responses to those questions are below:

If the savings are there for the taking why aren’t homeowners already doing it?

There are several factors at play here. First, many are unaware of the magnitude of the opportunity esp. in envelope improvement and are unwilling to spend money for an energy audit and would rather just blindly keep paying too much for energy.

When they do hit the home equity line or savings account for energy upgrades they tend to get sold on 20 SEER heat pumps and tankless water heaters without consideration of envelope opportunities that would have a better payback (like putting a V-8 in a car with four flat tires.) Or they add insulation to their attics without air ceiling the ceiling plane first (adding insulation to a wall with an open window.)

Many of us see our home equity loans as “emergency money” and annual bonus money as “fun money.” Neither of these categories lend themselves to duct sealing, energy audits, and insulation upgrades. They just aren’t sexy enough to attract discretionary spending.

Finally many of the homes and light commercial properties that need the most help aren’t owner-occupied. They’re rentals, and landlords are singularly un-motivated to spend time and money to reduce their tenant’s energy bills.

So we need a system that gets people into an energy audit and weatherization package that is no money down and no net change in monthly cost to the occupant with no impact on that sacred home equity line. There is a socio-economic component to energy policy here that must be taken into account. The default option is to continue to waste fuel living in a drafty, uncomfortable home with unhealthy indoor air.

Is it necessary to require the utilities to handle the payments?

We need an alternative way to encourage weatherization projects. Even though these investments can pay for themselves people are resistant to making the investment. People in Washington seem to be focused on giving weatherization away to the poor or giving tax credits to the middle class. But there is no need to spend tax money on something that will pay for itself and the issue becomes more urgent when we are talking about borrowed deficit spending. We need to get the best bang for our tax dollar that we can especially when the plan is to let the kids pay for it.

But we shouldn’t expect the utilities to do more than insert the information flyers to targeted neighborhoods in their monthly statements and forward the monthly payments to the state energy office for processing. They can get some benefit from the good press of playing along with this plan to reduce demand for their products but the people who really stand to profit are the insulation and weatherization contractors who will do the work.

Can we design it so the loans provide significantly greater payback than the payments?

In many cases this will be the case. But I don’t think it makes sense to exclude a building from the project due to the fact that the savings are only just equal to the payment. As energy costs go up the savings will increase. I think a case can be made that participation in the program should be extended to buildings where the break even point is at a 15% increase in energy cost. But I agree that there will be unhappy customers if the savings are significantly less than the cost.

Each building will need an energy audit before and after.

This is an important part of the plan. In many cases though the first energy audit will not include a blower door and duct blaster test. No point in testing a house with open gaps in the ceiling and floor and duct work in an advanced state of decay. Every house will get a post weatherization test showing what has been accomplished and what other options the owner might take to continue the work beyond the scope of this program. The weatherization contracts should also give the State Energy Office access to before and after energy bills for research and monitoring purposes.

The post weatherization HERS rating may become valuable if the house is offered for resale as many areas may soon require an energy disclosure when listing a house for sale as they require a termite report now. The raters providing these reports would be licensed by DOE Energy Star and follow up sample auditing of their work would be performed by the state energy offices on an annual basis similar to the way the pesticide applicators get spot soil samples taken annually to verify proper pesticide application.

Who’s going to pay for all these energy audits?

The people with the most to gain from this program are the insulation and weatherization companies who will be doing the work. They would hire the licensed HERS raters to go into neighborhoods to line up as many weatherization contracts as possible. The cost of this auditing and sales push would be covered by the companies doing the work but the auditors would be licensed and third party verified for quality assurance.

What happens to the monthly payment if the house goes into foreclosure or is sold?

The weatherization payment goes with the electrical connection to the next owner in the same way it does now and similar to arrangements made for buried propane tanks. If, on purchasing a house, you decide to switch to a different propane company you would need to buy out the contract on the buried tank. If a seller wants to convey a house un-encumbered by the weatherization contract it would need to be paid off at the closing. If the electric bill goes un-paid the power gets shut off and the payment goes into default until the bill is paid and the power turned back on.

What do you mean by saying that people of all income levels are too hand-to-mouth to afford a $5,000 weatherization package, doesn’t hand-to-mouth imply low income?

Welcome to America. Many people with $100,000 plus incomes are solidly middle class but chronically live beyond their means due to bloated home equity and credit card debt etc. Many of the relatively new McMansions they live in were built to the lowest code-legal standard and would benefit greatly from $5,000 worth of weatherization. Our energy problems are not limited to low income homeowners and the solutions won’t be either.

Where is the money going to come from and what’s in it for the lenders?

This proposal does ask the federal government to send more money for staffing to state energy offices. It does not ask utilities to loan money to their customers or for anyone to make zero interest loans. However, since the penalty for not making your monthly weatherization payment is that you get your electricity shut off the loans are very low-risk. State energy offices should be able to bundle quantities of these $5,000 micro loans into securities that can be sold to banks and other investors at an attractive interest rate that would be included in the monthly payment. The electricity companies could also earn a small processing fee for their trouble but would also gain good press from their participation.

What’s wrong with just continuing the time-honored practice of offering free weatherization to low income homeowners and tax credits to the rest of us for doing this work?

Beyond the issues of tax farming and the fly by night operators who promote shoddy work for tax credits what we need to do is grow an industry here, not just weatherize two million buildings. When we give something away, either through direct subsidies or tax write-offs, we de-value that thing in the marketplace. We create a sense of entitlement in the consumer that makes it difficult to sell that same item on the open market for a price that reflects its true value. This undermines the industry.

The solar industry has been crippled by a feast and famine reality caused by being so dependant on tax subsidies for its survival. An alternative financing strategy doesn’t undermine the value of the work. The beneficiaries of this program are paying full price for the work they are getting done, it’s just being financed creatively. By nurturing an industry we can better take advantage of economies of scale and make the service available to rich and poor and renters and small businesses alike without impacting the national debt. Why should taxpayers pay to subsidize something that pays for itself?

Won’t this create a huge new bureaucracy?

As it stands, state energy offices are chronically underfunded and need more support. They would be asked to partner with the Department of Energy, Energy Star and BPI to implement this project with training help from the existing community college systems. The money to do this would come from our taxes but the money to do the work would be paid for by the beneficiaries. We are not so much creating a new bureaucracy as leveraging what we already have to solve our nation’s problems as economically as possible. Most importantly, since these are not gifts, there is no income, need or credit verification required. It’s just a contract to have work done for a fee on a payment plan. Much less paperwork.

Why not the 2030 Stimulus Plan being promoted by Architecture 2030?

This plan and the 2030 plan can certainly co-exist, but I have 30 years of experience building high performance buildings and the 2030 plan is based on the assumption that it is pretty easy to make a building perform at 30% better than code and that 50% better is also easily attainable. My company just built a house that had a 9” thick ICF foundation, solar water heating and radiant floor with tankless propane backup, passive solar glazing, 6” foam in the walls, 8” foam in the roof and 37” overhangs for summer shading. It was still only 35% better than code. I know that 50% better than code is attainable in new construction but to make it wide-spread in renovations and to spend $96 billion a year in deficit spending in pursuit of this goal seems unrealistically optimistic to me.

I like this idea and want to help, what can I do?

Obviously, plenty of you are already finding my e-mail address and phone number thanks to the miracle of Google. So I thank you for your enthusiasm and ask that you lose the phone number. E-mail is fine, Michael@ChandlerDesignBuild.com will get to me.

But what I will tell you all is to contact your government representatives, including your state energy office and your governor’s office. Some utility companies are very receptive to this as well. If you are a member of NAHB spread it within your HBA and to your contacts at National. The building industry has benefited greatly from the recent bail-out, we would do well to promote a low-cost initiative for a change. What you can do is spread the word.

What’s next?

It does come down to dollars and cents on many levels and so long as coal and oil are subsidized such that it is cost effective to burn 100,000 BTU of coal to deliver 35,000 BTU of electricity we will continue to have a problem.

Let’s put a resource extraction tax on coal, reduce the tax subsidies on oil and divert those resources to support the solar industry instead.

Instead of end user tax subsidies on weatherization and solar let’s put the subsidies at the front end of production.

Let’s subsidize the production cost of solar and weatherization components and raw materials and let market forces drive innovation and push the price down for all consumers, not just the ones who need a tax break.

Our power grid is at the limit of expansion but instead of replacing the grid we can shift to a distributed model of electric production.

Let’s put solar PV on all government buildings and build PV shade structures on parking lots to turn them into electricity producers that put the electricity into the grid closer to where it is being taken out.

Let the cost of conventional energy rise gradually through elimination of subsidies to change the payback equation.

I’m not running for public office so I can say that I think gas should be $3.75 a gallon and coal-fired electricity should be much more expensive than it currently is.

Use government investments to deliberately nurture and build a sustainable alternative energy industry.

Control the flow of government infrastructure projects (solar office roofs and parking lots, micro-cogeneration projects) to even out the demand in the alternative energy industry to change the boom and bust cycle to a steadily expanding market.

Invest government money in open-source research to drive innovation. The possibilities in solar, quiet wind, micro-cogeneration, and electric vehicles are unimagined as yet.

Here are some photos from the copper top we did the other day. The Geocel 2310 Brushable tri-polymer sealant from ABC supply is the best for gluing copper to MDF underlayment. We had set the last piece and had it clamped when we discovered we were 1/4" out of registration. loosened the clamps and gently slid it to rights. Try that with contact adhesive!

Copper tops are not green, but it's an inexpensive way to do a counter top that looks cooler than Formica. It's soft and rustic and ages to a pretty cool patina. A local bar had a tenderizing party when they put in a new top and gave out hammers and let the patrons hammer on it.

Total cost $150 for the two 3x10 16oz copper sheets, 50 bucks for the glue, and the regular set up for Formica, and six or seven hours for two guys to fold it all in.

Rolling out the 3' x 10' 16 oz copper sheets

Scribing the shape of the top onto the copper

Make the plan then cut it out, dotted lines are folds, solid are cuts

Notching the under fold area ahead of time

The inside corners need a fillet

The fillet has ears that get tacked up under the top

Fillet installed and ready for the top

Setting the crease with a rubber hammer

Working a radius into the corner with the round shaft of a chisel

Working the edge with a hard chunk of southern yellow pine

Starting the under fold using two chunks of yellow pine

Test fit in the studio cabin

The finished fillet and cut out for the farm sink

The finished out-corner

Finished studio kitchenette

One of the big advantages so far to being part of the Green Building Advisor team is that I finally got invited to Joe Lstiburek's Building Science Summer Camp this year. This is an invitation-only gathering of 200 of the top building scientists in America. Of course I didn't get invited as a scientist but as a member of Peter Yost and Dan Morrison's new Green Building Advisor project, so technically I was there as a "journalist". But the experience was absolutely amazing none-the-less.



Me and Joe Lstiburek at "The Club House"

Summer camp is largely an indulgence-of-curiosity project for Joe. He just looks at the Building Science community and asks himself "who is doing interesting research these days?" and calls them up and offers them a chance to speak about what they are passionate about. The talks can range over a pretty wide area. We had a guy from Johns Manville talk about how the fiberglass insulation of today is different on a micro-structural basis to the fiber glass of five years ago and why that matteres. We had Pierre-Michel Busque talk about water envelope penetrations in Western Canada and various pressure assisted rain screen strategies being used successfully to keep walls dry. And, we had Ron Anderson from the National Renewable Energy Lab talk about the work they are doing in the reconstruction of the tornado ravaged town in Kansas to value engineer advanced energy performance into the new homes that are going up there. He says they have found a way to get to 58% better than code at neutral cost, balancing energy savings against increased mortgage costs, and that with a 40% increase in fuel costs they can get to 90% better than code at neutral cost.

After the lectures we all would reconvene at Joe and Betsy's house for feasting and drinking and science discussion and debate until late in the evening. There was a significant contingent of folks from Alaska, where they are really getting hit hard by the global warming problem. As the temperatures rise the pack ice that used to protect the out islands in the polar seas is coming in later in the season so the shores, which are a composite of sand and permafrost, are getting exposed to fall storms that they never experienced before, and the islands are just melting into the sea. I spoke with people who were working on the social and logistical challenge of trying to relocate entire villages of people onto the mainland. While building durable, healthy, "green" and energy efficient housing for these people who have been living a subsistence life on remote islands is enough of a challenge the social implications are very knotty. Many of the elders would just prefer to sink into the sea with the rest of their way of life. The ethical and moral complications are mind boggling and the folks who are working on them are awe inspiring. To bring home the reality of what they are dealing with, they brought along a gift from the community, raw bow fin and beluga whale and seal jerky with seal oil dip. I couldn't bring myself to sample the seal oil, but the raw bow fin was quite good. The rest may be an acquired taste…

I was welcomed to "the club house" by Betsy Petit a renowned architect and writer/ speaker who shares the place with her husband Joe Lstiburek when it's not being used as summer camp HQ and runs Building Science Corp with him. The house is a 150 year old Massachusetts farm house that they renovated into a very energy efficient building. You can read about the process at www.taunton.com/finehomebuilding/how-to/articles/remodeling-for-energy-efficiency.aspx?ac=fp Joe calls himself a "Building Science Insultant" and is known for his colorful language and lack of tact. Betsy takes it all in stride.

Most of the presentations were really interesting but one by Henry Gifford was particularly earth shattering. Recently the USGBC had published a report from the New Buildings Institute that showed the LEED certified buildings perform 25% better than non-LEED certified "CBECS" buildings. Henry is a building efficiency expert in New York city, and he thought he smelled a rat because he sees these all-glass LEED buildings going up and he, at least, is sure they don't perform that much better than the CBECS average. So he downloaded the data and discovered they were comparing mean data for all age CBECS buildings to median data for new LEED buildings . He made some adjustments so they were comparing mean to mean for equivalent age building and was able to demonstrate that the new CBECS buildings were using 81.6 thousand BTUs/year/sq ft and the LEED buildings were using 105 thousand BTUs/year/sq ft so not only were the new LEED buildings not performing as well as the "normal" comparison buildings but
they were actually performing 30% worse. Of course LEED buildings tend to be very high budget, and high profile buildings with a lot of glass etc. but the point he was making is that the science may be good, but until we go back and test the work we are doing we're not doing building science, we're doing building theory (and getting pretty close to religion if we just take things on faith.) Read Henry Gifford's report!

This was a great set up for Peter Yost to step in and announce that Building Green Inc. publishers of Environmental Building News is forming a Partnership with Taunton Press, publishers of Fine Homebuilding Magazine to form Green Building Advisors and one of their (our) initiatives will be to support third party auditing of existing green certified homes (I'm starting with four of our recent homes as part of the first wave of the study). It's an exciting project to see how the theory really works out over time as compared with other excellent builders across the country, if a little intimidating.

Not to be out done, Sam Rashkin from Energy Star got up to announce the latest "version three" release from Energy Star and their newest "Advanced New Home Construction" program. The version three builds on the 2006 enhancement of the Energy Star standard to add new ventilation, humidity control, water management, thermal bridging, HVAC installation testing, radiant barriers, and overall size limitations. Sam is a guy who likes to knock at bee hives with a stick and his announcement that energy star for homes was going to get a whole lot harder and that homes with more than 1,200 sf per occupant were going to be disqualified from the program in version three set the whole room to buzzing.

He went on to show what would be required to meet the Advanced New Home Construction standard; 50% better than code, triple glazed windows, super HVAC, and no more than 1,000 sq ft per occupant and even I was thinking this will work at $10/gallon maybe but America's not ready to go there yet. Saying "no more Hummer Houses" is one thing but this feels like he's taking Energy Star away from the market. It's a very interesting time to be part of the green building movement.

Recently I spoke with one of my more eccentric Yankee cousins, Appy Chandler, who mentioned that I really needed to go visit my cousin Bob Ferris, who was also an environmentalist and a green building proponent. He was sure I must remember him, he's the guy who used to train trumpeter swans to migrate by getting them to follow behind him in an ultra light aircraft and restored wolves to Yellowstone Park. I had no idea who he was talking about but agreed that I needed to meet him. Appy said that now he's the director of a place called Yestermorrow Design-Build School up in Warren, Vermont. This is a place I had been hearing about and been fascinated by for the almost 30 years that it's been gathering the most outrageous architects and building system innovators and teaching people about many different ways to build homes. Appy put us in touch with each other.

Of course Bob is an open and friendly person and he immediately invited me and Beth to come up to visit with him and his wife, Carlene Ramus, who is a green architect and landscape designer. Beth had another obligation so I made the trip solo.

The Yestermorrow campus is on 35 acres of heart-stoppingly beautiful land that used to be a tennis camp in the Mad River Valley in Warren, Vermont. The "lower campus" is the old camp building which has the dormitory, cafeteria, woodworking shop, design studio, and library. The "upper campus" is a hillside with a creek, tent sites, and many experimental buildings that have been constructed over the years by the students. Not all of these experiments were successful and not all of the buildings have been maintained, but walking through the woods is an educational and inspirational experience.

One of the first things we saw after our tour of the main building was the gate to the upper campus. One of the interns had hand-knotted a hammock and hung it in the gate to make a cool and relaxing space along the, now diverted, path from the hills to the main campus. Bob explained that this was an early example of straw bale construction and had been built with a plaster that was too rich in cement and wouldn't allow for natural breathing of the straw bales. The bales had as a result gotten moldy inside and the cement has cracked. Newer stucco formulations are breathable and self-healing. Living proof that this stuff is harder to get right than it looks and that it's worth learning from people who have been doing it for a while.

Just around the corner from the gate to the upper campus is another essential structure that provides comic "relief". The path approaches from the side and my first view was from so close that I didn't get the joke until I got home and looked at the photo. The zipper is the door knob to this open air privy. Perhaps next year they'll build a roof with a giant belt buckle. Designed and executed by an intern with no review from the staff. There is a culture of trust and empowerment here that is pretty amazing.

Empowerment seems to be a theme here. One of the more popular focuses is a women-only construction curriculum and Bob is especially eager to point out all the amazing projects built by women-only construction teams. Many of these folks are here gaining the knowledge to go back and build, re-model or GC their own homes. They are motivated to learn and come away ready to make the sawdust fly.

Professional builders and designers also have a place here. This half timbered cabin was built by a group of skilled woodworkers who came here for an advanced class on timber framing and cob construction. It has a wood stove and a sleeping loft and is a very sweet miniature of a home hidden up here on the hillside. (I'm looking at the terrain and thinking about all the work just to get these materials to the site.)

Another pro class conceived and built this wheelchair accessible tree house. Yestermorrow is a great place for architects and designers to come as an antidote to the grueling reality of a traditional architecture practice or for young architects to use as a transition from the theory of design school to the reality of nails and bricks.

This is a place where it is truly okay to build just because it's the only thing you really feel capable of doing. It celebrates the joy of getting dirty in the pursuit of something beautiful that will give graceful shelter.

In recent years Yestermorrow has become well known for their "natural building" curriculum. With the new realities of global warming and the energy crises it hopes to reach out to the green building community and expand the curriculum to address the educational needs of green and high performance builders and designers. It has the potential to be a meeting ground for many different building approaches. As I was leaving I ran into Robert Riversong, one of the faculty, whom I have had lively debate with on Fine Homebuilding's on-line construction forum. He and I have fundamental disagreements about construction and business best practices. We shook hands and I introduced myself and we smiled and enjoyed each others company for a little while in the afternoon sunlight. In the end we agreed that, while we may differ in approaches to the details, we are both passionately committed to seeing better homes evolve to meet the new world. Even Martha Stewart would agree "it's a good thing."

Summertime is all about getting together with friends and enjoying good food and drink in the great outdoors. The choices we make can reduce our impact on that outdoors and global warming without getting in the way of our enjoyment of the event.

We’ll start with the beverages since that’s where the guests (and hosts) will likely start. I was interested in finding out what was the most environmentally benign beverage and called my local recycling coordinator who wasted no time in telling me that tap water was my best choice. So I refined my query, I had heard that recycling 30 beer cans saved the equivalent of a gallon of gas - how many beer bottles, I wondered, would be equivalent to 30 beer cans. He did some research and we ran the numbers and it turns out that 385 beer bottles has the equivalent embodied energy of 30 beer cans. He pointed out that there was some minimal adjustment needed to account for the transportation cost of imported beer so this calculation was most accurate if applied to domestic beer in both bottles and cans. Ah-ha! I said, this gives me an environmental rationalization for buying that nice local microbrew! Maybe even to buy it in kegs and keep a kegerator in the garage! Actually he replied, the kegorator idea is a no go due to the carbon footprint of the refrigerator (regardless of the impact of the increased beer consumption) However, if you consider that there are 22 shots of bourbon in a bottle that likely has the embodied energy content of two beer bottles this gives you an environmental justification for drinking bourbon on the rocks or mint juleps. If a single beer can equals 12.83 beer bottles it is equivalent to six bottles of bourbon in terms of its carbon footprint. As a dedicated environmentalist I found his logic irrefutable.

But what about the kids? We needed to get them off the cans and plastic bottles that impart bisphenol-A into soft drinks, but “let them drink tap water” was not going to fly. We decided we’d have less of an insurrection if we made up a sun tea and fruit juice concoction. (And the cost works out to our advantage as well.)

The main course? Certainly not pork barbeque, though as a North Carolina boy I run the risk of getting my tires shot out for saying so, I’ve seen first hand the environmental cost of factory pork farming and one of the major precepts of sustainable cuisine is to eat less meat and more local vegetables. Lamb, even that shipped from New Zealand, has a low embodied energy content in comparison to grain fed pork and beef. Of the factory farmed meats, chicken has the lowest carbon footprint overall considering both embodied energy content and methane production. We can make points on both carbon footprint and embodied energy content by preparing meat and vegetable shish kabobs on the grill with range fed lamb tips or chicken thighs and local farmers market vegetables and Yukon gold potatoes. In general our goal is to reduce meat portions to less than ¼ lb per person by filling in the plate with delicious local vegetables and starches.

For the sides we’ll keep the theme going and instead of hitting the local grocery for tubs of coleslaw and potato salad we’ll sauté up some summer squash and onions and make up a great green salad with ingredients from the farmers market.

As for dessert I’d say the best thing to do is ask the kids what they want and make it happen. It is summer after all.

Recommended links:

http://www.oberlin.edu/recycle/facts.html

http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/food/story/0,,2097255,00.html

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/ten-readers-ways-to-cut-your-carbon-footprint-460822.html

http://health.msn.com/health-topics/cancer/articlepage.aspx?cp-documentid=100200558&GT1=31025

One of the biggest advantages of working with a design-build company such as Chandler Design-Build is that we have a track record of building our own designs and we have a data base of the cost breakdown on the houses we've built in the last eight years. So when clients ask us what something is going to cost we have comparable data somewhere in our system that can give us a good idea of what it's going to be. The issue is generally just the effort of measuring up and inputting the data and assumptions on ever-changing 1/8" scale pencil drawings we are working with in the preliminary stage of the process.

In the past that meant poring over the drawings with a scale and making guesses as best we could. While there is still a lot of "educated wild ass guessing" involved, we have recently added a tool to our system that improves both speed and accuracy.

It's called "Digital Take-Off" and it's one part of a design and construction management system from Digital Canal Corp. In many ways it's similar but superior to an older piece of software called "PlanSwift" that other builders may be familiar with.

The screen shot above shows what the interface looks like. I've just imported a digital photograph I've taken of a plan Beth is working on. It's drawn on a piece of thin trace (you can see the drawing below it on the table bleeding through) with no dimensions or indications of finishes or construction; it's got loads of offsets and 45 degree angles. To bring it into the computer I just lay it on the table and shoot a photo of it and drop the image into the client's folder in our computer.

The next thing I do is take a distance that I know on the plan, in this case the width of the living room and, to "set the scale," I drag my mouse across the distance I know. It asks me to type in the known distance, 22 ft. here, and the scale is set for the entire drawing.

I've set the tabs on my software to correspond to the questions my estimating worksheet asks me; Heated SF down, up, ext wall perimeter, interior wall cumulative length, number of windows and such. Pulling to the "Heated space down" tab, I drag my mouse around the perimeter of the building.

Once I have the shape I want I click the plus sign and I get an accounting of the area, (too big, we're trying to keep it under 3,000 sf) perimeter and other information that I can either cut and paste into my estimating software or export to Digital Canal's estimating package, Bid Builder, which is part of their software suite.

As I click through the tabs they prompt me to remember to measure, count, and export all the different elements I'll need to prepare a preliminary estimate for the house.

When counting items such as windows or fixtures it leaves a mark so you will know if you've left anything out or counted anything twice. Right clicking allows you to undo the last few points you've selected. It has a roof pitch converter so when you want to figure out how many roof shingles to order you can enter the pitch of the roof and it will tell you (you still need to add for ridges and valleys) Once the house is under construction the software will help with lumber and flooring take-offs and even figure rafter lengths and counts for you.

I bought Digital Take-Off at a special price the last day of the international builders show and they immediately assigned me a sales rep who has since sold me on "special deals" for their CAD software, Solid Builder, and the estimating component, Bid Builder. I'm not sure what the regular price on any of these items is since they are always doing specials. If this is something that would help with your building projects call Monty Alexander at 800-449-5033 ext 139, tell him I sent you. I have their CAD software which I got to replace Chief Architect and have started experimenting with it and will post about that here soon. He also made me an offer I couldn't refuse (thanks Monty) on Bid Builder so I'll be diving into that sometime soon as well.