Even if you think you've insulated well enough for thermal control, extra insulation is also sound deadening, which is nice.
For controlling accoustic noise nothing beats mass. Concrete panels, bricks, thick renders and cement stabilised earth are all good ways to stop noise. The fluffy insulation will only deaden higher frequency sound.
make sure you install a heat-exchanger venting system to replace the house air.
HRV are almost always a waste of money. It is very hard to seal a house well enough to make the HRV have any serious impact (and they cost a lot).
When you drop a deuce in the master bath,
Better to just draw the air out through the cistern overflow.
Laundry
Where I live we dry clothes on a line outside, but if you need to use a dryer, perhaps just keep your clothes in a heated cupboard and toss the dryer. Heat at the bottom and turn on a fan if it gets humid at the top.
Amen! We don't even have a crawl space, we have a get-wedged-and-require-earth-moving-equipment-to-g et-out space. Nor do we have an attic. Add to your attic some polycarbonate roofing to use as a sunny workshop in winter.
HVAC
Read up about sunspaces, solar closets and 100% heated houses. There are lots of examples across the US and Canada, and they can be built for very little money (even when added to an existing house!).
You're a home owner, me too. I'm slowly adding many of the features you suggest (we have a house blog at http://modestmanor.blogspot.com/ and solving some problems you may not have to consider.
'direct gain' solar houses are poor performers. As a slashdot geek you should look at http://www.ece.villanova.edu/~nick/solar/solar.htm l instead for a much more elegant solution. And you can build them for $300 attached to your existing house or shed.
Audio in the walls is notorious for its poor performance. If you are serious about audio quality build some of Martin King's mass loaded transmission lines or similar. I built mine for about $200 each (including drivers, wood work and time), and everyone who's heard them has gone and built them too.
Actually, concrete is crap. It has a very high thermal conductivity so it quickly reaches the same temperature as outside. It also has a huge embodied energy (costs a lot) and weighs lots so you need heavy moving equipment.
Look up SIPs if you want something that is quick, cheap and results in good thermal performance.
Actually EMC holds for chemical energy - it's just that the difference in mass is minute. It even holds for hot things vs cold things. If you take a brick, and heat it up by 1MJ (perhaps heating it to to 800C) the brick will weigh: You have: MJ/light^2 You want: g
* 1.1126501e-08
Your post is a good counterpoint, I've had to think about it a bit. But I think you are only right due to cultural assumptions.
The same argument might be used with: Is stopping throwing litter out the window rather than enjoying oneself a reduction in lifestyle? How about the choice to drive a large SUV, which increases danger to others in smaller cars?
My original statement was definitely too strong[1], but society creates implicit rules about what is and isn't a reasonable way to go about life. I am suggesting that we could change these rules without losing the good bit about civilisation. Refusing to change ones habits is as much a choice as changing.
p.s. fruit trees rarely fruit all year round, I like the fact that as the seasons move my choice of fruit and veggies changes. New season's apples are so much nicer than apples stored for 6 months.
[1] On slashdot, if you want people to listen to an alternative viewpoint you often need to be bold in your claims.
Fascinating, yet all my neighbours have fruit trees. All my neighbours in my previous house also had fruit trees. MY collegues says he has a peach tree overhanging his yard. You must have had a strange selection of places to live (perhaps you always lived in an apartment or something - heck even my friends who live in downtown bristol have fruit trees in their apartment garden). My parents and their neighbours had fruit trees.
I think it might be fair to say that there is a lemon tree within 100m of every house in Melbourne.
That's probably my biggest concern about peak oil. We can produce some fertilizers using coal, and I read a report last night that suggested that it would be more efficient to just use brown coal as a soil builder than than to burn it.
That is the general experience, yes. You need to make sure that the people doing the production are knowledgable, but knowledge transfer is something we can do efficiently and cheaply. The nice thing is that it isn't necessary - it's easy for a farmer to produce a large excess without additional external energy or labour with areas as big as an acre of two. This could feed 100 people. So only 1% of the population needs to be farmers.
Our planet's soils are being eroded at a phenominal rate with intensive fossil fuel driven farming practices. The average soil loss over kansas is 3m in the last 100 years. When the soils and cheap fertilizers and the diesel tractors disappear, what are we going to do?
Not at all. Most of our energy is from transportation and agriculture. Fixing up electricity is but a tiny part of our energy mix. Transportation uses something like half the total oil produced. Half the world's human caused CO2 is released into the atmosphere due to cropping destroying soil humus.
I also don't believe that we need to change our high grade electrical use habits to have a massive impact on the world's energy. As I worked out in another thread, you could power the whole US and Canada's electrical needs for home computing, TV and lights using just hydro-quebec's hydro power.
Even if 100% of gym users switched to riding a bike, what percent of the world goes to the gym? What percent of these users work close enough to home to ride a bike? Not to mention that the cardio/leg workout of riding a bike does not equal the other stuff available at a gym.
It's not how many people go to the gym, but how many need to get exercise that counts.
Then, how may people drive "across" town to eat fast food. No, people drive "across" town to eat good food. Fast food is gotten around the corner for convenience. Both of which are often done with neighbors/friends:)
Even driving 5km is a long way energetically. Try riding 5km some time. Then think how often you drive that distance without thinking.
How many people have the property/climate to grown their own fruit? Yeah, those city dwellers are screwed.
Everyone of my neighbours has at least a lemon tree or apple tree. I live in the middle of the burbs. Perhaps by city dweller you mean people in high rise apartments? You're probably right, those are a bad idea.
It sounds like you've got some throw-away lines too. No, my lines are 100% recyclable.
http://www.serendipity.li/fe/ch_car_bomb.htm says Today's 6.3 billion human beings have around 775 million motor vehicles to fuel, repair, park and run, almost exclusively using petroleum and natural gas.
Do the math, and I think you've find that most of the available land suitable for farming and food production is... surprise! Being farmed.
You've hit the nail on the head with this one: We produce more than enough food for everyone, and we haven't even come close to using all available land. When people grow their own food, particularly using sustainable practices, production increases. So it should be a slam dunk.
If we got rid of pointless wastes like war and subsidies to not grow crops; food would not be an issue.
That solution is... Make energy expensive. In particular carbon produced energy. Most easily achieved by migrating taxes from goods and labour to energy production.
Spot on. People have even designed economic systems based on this idea (such as emergy). It's a bit trickier than just charging for joules, as some joules are more useful than others (e.g. electricity vs 30C heat).
The market will work that out for us.
Indeed I can get solar hot water for less than the installation price of a gas heating system.
Most of the billions people on earth still don't have a car. A quick google indicates that there are about 750 million cars on the road at the moment. There are 6.5 billion people on the planet, and many car owners have more than 1 car.
Slashdot Mirror
I just had a look. Yep, I think his point is well illustrated by those pages. The pages aren't even nice to look at or well organised!
Ouch! But the sunspaces are attached to the house and could be made out of multiwall polycarbonate, which is almost bullet proof...
A good post, but some minor points:
g et-out space. Nor do we have an attic. Add to your attic some polycarbonate roofing to use as a sunny workshop in winter.
Even if you think you've insulated well enough for thermal control, extra insulation is also sound deadening, which is nice.
For controlling accoustic noise nothing beats mass. Concrete panels, bricks, thick renders and cement stabilised earth are all good ways to stop noise. The fluffy insulation will only deaden higher frequency sound.
make sure you install a heat-exchanger venting system to replace the house air.
HRV are almost always a waste of money. It is very hard to seal a house well enough to make the HRV have any serious impact (and they cost a lot).
When you drop a deuce in the master bath,
Better to just draw the air out through the cistern overflow.
Laundry
Where I live we dry clothes on a line outside, but if you need to use a dryer, perhaps just keep your clothes in a heated cupboard and toss the dryer. Heat at the bottom and turn on a fan if it gets humid at the top.
Nice big conduits to every room
Someone else posted this: http://www.wiretracks.com/prod.html Much better solution.
Tankless water heater.
And how does this work with solar heating?
A basement. An Attic.
Amen! We don't even have a crawl space, we have a get-wedged-and-require-earth-moving-equipment-to-
HVAC
Read up about sunspaces, solar closets and 100% heated houses. There are lots of examples across the US and Canada, and they can be built for very little money (even when added to an existing house!).
You're a home owner, me too. I'm slowly adding many of the features you suggest (we have a house blog at http://modestmanor.blogspot.com/ and solving some problems you may not have to consider.
They use commercial greenhouses in pretty harsh conditions.
'direct gain' solar houses are poor performers. As a slashdot geek you should look at http://www.ece.villanova.edu/~nick/solar/solar.htm l instead for a much more elegant solution. And you can build them for $300 attached to your existing house or shed.
Have you looked into freecycle? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freecycle_Network
Think of it as unlimited storage that can contain things you never bought.
As a gardener, an automated greenhouse would be neat (maintains temperature with opening and closing of flaps, and an internal heater if needed).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autovent
brilliant! thanks. (of course due to frieght charges I'm going to make this out of local stuff, but the idea is brilliant)
Audio in the walls is notorious for its poor performance. If you are serious about audio quality build some of Martin King's mass loaded transmission lines or similar. I built mine for about $200 each (including drivers, wood work and time), and everyone who's heard them has gone and built them too.
http://www.quarter-wave.com/
Otherwise I agree with you. Do you have an examples of your server closet stuff? I'm pondering where and how to do this myself.
Or you could put something up using structural insulated panels in a weekend with comparable thermal performance.
m l
For heating all year round, read this: http://www.ece.villanova.edu/~nick/solar/solar.ht
Actually, concrete is crap. It has a very high thermal conductivity so it quickly reaches the same temperature as outside. It also has a huge embodied energy (costs a lot) and weighs lots so you need heavy moving equipment.
Look up SIPs if you want something that is quick, cheap and results in good thermal performance.
1 in 10 sounds reasonable, I think.
Actually EMC holds for chemical energy - it's just that the difference in mass is minute. It even holds for hot things vs cold things. If you take a brick, and heat it up by 1MJ (perhaps heating it to to 800C) the brick will weigh:
You have: MJ/light^2
You want: g
* 1.1126501e-08
(i.e. not very much more)
Your post is a good counterpoint, I've had to think about it a bit. But I think you are only right due to cultural assumptions.
The same argument might be used with: Is stopping throwing litter out the window rather than enjoying oneself a reduction in lifestyle? How about the choice to drive a large SUV, which increases danger to others in smaller cars?
My original statement was definitely too strong[1], but society creates implicit rules about what is and isn't a reasonable way to go about life. I am suggesting that we could change these rules without losing the good bit about civilisation. Refusing to change ones habits is as much a choice as changing.
p.s. fruit trees rarely fruit all year round, I like the fact that as the seasons move my choice of fruit and veggies changes. New season's apples are so much nicer than apples stored for 6 months.
[1] On slashdot, if you want people to listen to an alternative viewpoint you often need to be bold in your claims.
Fascinating, yet all my neighbours have fruit trees. All my neighbours in my previous house also had fruit trees. MY collegues says he has a peach tree overhanging his yard. You must have had a strange selection of places to live (perhaps you always lived in an apartment or something - heck even my friends who live in downtown bristol have fruit trees in their apartment garden). My parents and their neighbours had fruit trees.
I think it might be fair to say that there is a lemon tree within 100m of every house in Melbourne.
That's probably my biggest concern about peak oil. We can produce some fertilizers using coal, and I read a report last night that suggested that it would be more efficient to just use brown coal as a soil builder than than to burn it.
That is the general experience, yes. You need to make sure that the people doing the production are knowledgable, but knowledge transfer is something we can do efficiently and cheaply. The nice thing is that it isn't necessary - it's easy for a farmer to produce a large excess without additional external energy or labour with areas as big as an acre of two. This could feed 100 people. So only 1% of the population needs to be farmers.
Our planet's soils are being eroded at a phenominal rate with intensive fossil fuel driven farming practices. The average soil loss over kansas is 3m in the last 100 years. When the soils and cheap fertilizers and the diesel tractors disappear, what are we going to do?
Going nuclear at least buys us some time.
Or allows us to become complacent again?
Not at all. Most of our energy is from transportation and agriculture. Fixing up electricity is but a tiny part of our energy mix. Transportation uses something like half the total oil produced. Half the world's human caused CO2 is released into the atmosphere due to cropping destroying soil humus.
I also don't believe that we need to change our high grade electrical use habits to have a massive impact on the world's energy. As I worked out in another thread, you could power the whole US and Canada's electrical needs for home computing, TV and lights using just hydro-quebec's hydro power.
Even if 100% of gym users switched to riding a bike, what percent of the world goes to the gym? What percent of these users work close enough to home to ride a bike? Not to mention that the cardio/leg workout of riding a bike does not equal the other stuff available at a gym.
:)
It's not how many people go to the gym, but how many need to get exercise that counts.
Then, how may people drive "across" town to eat fast food. No, people drive "across" town to eat good food. Fast food is gotten around the corner for convenience. Both of which are often done with neighbors/friends
Even driving 5km is a long way energetically. Try riding 5km some time. Then think how often you drive that distance without thinking.
How many people have the property/climate to grown their own fruit? Yeah, those city dwellers are screwed.
Everyone of my neighbours has at least a lemon tree or apple tree. I live in the middle of the burbs. Perhaps by city dweller you mean people in high rise apartments? You're probably right, those are a bad idea.
It sounds like you've got some throw-away lines too.
No, my lines are 100% recyclable.
http://www.serendipity.li/fe/ch_car_bomb.htm says Today's 6.3 billion human beings have around 775 million motor vehicles to fuel, repair, park and run, almost exclusively using petroleum and natural gas.
Do the math, and I think you've find that most of the available land suitable for farming and food production is... surprise! Being farmed.
You've hit the nail on the head with this one: We produce more than enough food for everyone, and we haven't even come close to using all available land. When people grow their own food, particularly using sustainable practices, production increases. So it should be a slam dunk.
If we got rid of pointless wastes like war and subsidies to not grow crops; food would not be an issue.
That solution is... Make energy expensive. In particular carbon produced energy. Most easily achieved by migrating taxes from goods and labour to energy production.
Spot on. People have even designed economic systems based on this idea (such as emergy). It's a bit trickier than just charging for joules, as some joules are more useful than others (e.g. electricity vs 30C heat).
The market will work that out for us.
Indeed I can get solar hot water for less than the installation price of a gas heating system.
If its a poor way to have a discussion, then why did you bother? The benefit of a public forum is that others might have something relevant to say.
:) But that's the main point of slashdot eh?
Because you are more likely to meet interesting people on slashdot than by sitting waiting for email to arrive?
Besides you two werent having a discussion, but a pissing match. You're both right to a degree.
very true
Most of the billions people on earth still don't have a car. A quick google indicates that there are about 750 million cars on the road at the moment. There are 6.5 billion people on the planet, and many car owners have more than 1 car.