Energy Wise

I guess I’m in a writing mood today. Anyway, while I was writing about indoor air pressure, I happen to begin thinking about indoor air cleaners. Indoor air cleaners are great, to a certain extent. They won’t work in the garage with the garage door open. Neither will they work with the windows open. But, they will work if the home is properly sealed, and the air distribution ductwork is balance correctly. Don’t forget the oven vent, clothes dryer vent, and the bathroom vents.

To me, the difference between an indoor air cleaner and an electronic air cleaner is that, the indoor air cleaner is, normally, a filter marketed as an indoor air cleaner, having a means of moving air across a specific filter media, whereas, the electronic air cleaner involves an electronic circuit which charges part of the electronic media positively, and the other part negatively. Some filters have a polyethylene media which creates a charge from air passing through the media at 300 feet per second, or more. Honeywell has always made an excellent line of Electronic Air Cleaners.

All of these methods of cleaning the air require some maintenance by changing, or cleaning, the filter media. The main difference between the two is that the electronic air cleaner collects much smaller particles, such as pollen, cigarette smoke, and other minute particles, from the air than does the other types of media, and is good at collecting larger particles such as large dust particles.

If you think about it, as a filter collects more and more dust, it becomes more and more effective in collecting the smaller particles trying to pass through the filter. However, as the filter becomes more congested with particles, it reduces the amount of return air pressure, up stream from the filter, and therefore, causes the home to become out of balance. Another issue is that the amount of air just down stream from the filter, and before the fan, goes negative. And that is where the real energy losses, and mechanical failures starts happening.

Another interesting issue related to natural draft, and air distribution inside a building is the amount of indoor air pressure.  Having dust all over the place can be a nuisance.  Sometimes this problem can be reduced by increasing the indoor air pressure just a little bit.  The way you do that is to add an outdoor air damper to the return air duct leading back to the furnace fan.  You can open the damper, just a bit, and add a little air pressure to the indoors.  This causes a little bit of air pressure to escape through cracks around windows, sheetrock joints, doors, and a list of other structural openings.  If the furnace is pulling in more air, causing a negative air pressure in your home, its generally because the supply air ducts might be too small.  Normally, when an HVAC company installs a system on a new home its a good idea to balance the air distribution duct work, allowing just a little bit of positive pressure inside the home.  Of course, if you filter is dirty, and there are air leaks around the furnace area, all of the dust in the furnace closet area, or mechanical room, will eventually make it to your coffee table in the living room, and the energy losses will show up on your electric bill, increasing you Thermal Footprint.

See ya,

An interesting energy issue is Natural Drafts that can be planned to occur in any building. In my blog I have talked about how heat rises in and around a building. Roman history shows how, in ancient times, they caused, and used natural drafts to cool their buildings. Several methods were used. One, most interesting, was how they allowed the sun to shine on certain areas to increase the amount of heat rising along inside wall surfaces. The cooler air was being drawn up along the wall interior after being drawn across a pool, or fountain of evaporating water. The reverse was employed by allowing the cooler air drafting across a pool of water to fall down a wall surface into an occupied space. Of course extremely high ceilings were employed to allow heat to accumulate there instead of down in the occupied spaces. Extremely thick, rock, walls were used, and given adequate thickness, would prevent heat from either being transferred into the occupied spaces, or from being transferred from the occupied spaces, depending on the season, over a 24 hour period, or longer.

I have never tested this, but, I would like to build a house with two different types of rock over the entire exterior. For instance, some rocks have a higher insulating quality than others. The first layer of rock could be the lower insulating rock, but with a higher heat capacity (thermal-bank), could be put closer to the building frame. Then a higher insulating rock, such as pumice, could be put exterior to the first layer. In the winter, the first layer would hold heat, and the second layer would help prevent the heat from escaping the first layer to the outdoors. In the summer, once the first layer is cooled down, the second layer would prevent the heat from transferring into the first layer.

Just a thought,

See ya

I ran onto an interesting issue. I have had cellfon.com, net, and org registered for about 16, or 17 years. I have also had cellfon webpages on my website, SmartWebLinks server for at least that long, with practically no participation from the surfing public.

I have even tried to sell the domain names with no results. Now I see the word “cellfon” popping up on the internet. The same thing has happened to mobiledirectory.com.

I guess I was just a few years ahead of myself.

I have some friends who built an outdoor fireplace on their patio. They invited my wife, and me over for a bar-B-Q. The food was great, but the outdoor fireplace was a special treat. It was late in the evening, and the fireplace was burning with only a few logs on the fire. We roasted hot dogs, and marshmallows, over the open fire. The evening was a little cool out and the heat from the fireplace was a pleasant, comforting element of the evening.

I think we are going to build one on our patio, now.

See ya,

I don’t normally give away special information, but this time I will make an exception.

One of the inquiries on my blog was “roof heat recirculation”.  Yes, roof heat recirculation can be changed into using roof heat as a mover.  For instance, there is no such thing as cold, there is, however, the absence of heat, and heat rises.  Therefore, in the summer, if the exterior walls are sealed, a vent exiting the attic, of a home, can be a conduit causing a negative pressure on the interior of the structure.  The vent pipe needs to be a double walled pipe.  The negative pressure, inside the structure, can cause cool air to enter the structure from a cool, or cooling source, such as a shady area on the north side of the structure, or a static cooling coil connected to a geothermal system, properly ducted,  so as to deliver cooler air into the occupied spaces of the home.

Its called “Natural Draft”, just like the Romans did centuries ago.

See ya,

Window placement, in a new home, can be important. I have been in homes where you cannot see the driveway, the front porch, the back porch, and other directions where visitors, and other traffic might be happening during the day, and night. Sometimes the homeowner says “they wish they had a window here, or there, so they can see whats happening outside. If the doorbell sounds, they might have to run around the house to see who’s calling on them. It sounds like a trivial issue, but it’s really not trivial, because having a new window installed can be very expensive, if not impossible in certain locations.

Blueprints are expensive. So, when you begin sketching around on floor plans, using a ruler, and a pencil, draw some lines from places you plan on spending a lot of time through windows to find out what can be seen from that location inside the home.

See ya.

“Cold” is having or being a temperature that is uncomfortably low for humans, among other definitions, such as “the lack of heat”.

Viewing old photographs of train stations, some schools, manufacturing facilities, and government buildings, it is hard not to notice the ceiling fans hanging from the ceilings on long polls. In those days ceilings were high to let accumulating heat a place above the occupied spaces below. In the winter months there is an advantage to recirculating the heat back down into the occupied spaces below. It helped to reclaim heat, trying to get through the walls to the outside, supplied by the heating system. Usually steam radiators in larger buildings (steam and hot water heating is another topic). The velocity of the air coming from a ceiling fan does add a chilling effect on ones skin. For that reason, the fan speed needs to be addressed in the winter to prevent occupants from getting cold chills. The insulating qualities of the outside walls has a great deal to do with how effective a ceiling fan can be on any given structure.

Additionally, during winter months when the outdoor temperatures are well below the indoor temperature recirculating warm air from the ceiling and down along the surfaces of a set of single-pane glass doors (windows) can cause the recirculated heat to transfer through the glass more rapidly. Energy Star rated, Double, or triple pane glass doors and windows are less likely to cause this affect.

One issue, normally overlooked, is that the temperature differences between the indoor and outdoor, during Winter months vs. Summer months. Depending on what temperature you set your indoor thermostat at. The temperature difference in the winter can be 68 degrees (0 degree outdoor and 68 degrees indoor). During Summer months, the temperature difference can be 32 degrees (100 degrees outdoor and 68 degrees indoor). The velocity of the heat transferring into your home, and out of you home depends on the insulating qualities of the exterior walls of a your home. The heat will travel faster through a low insulating quality, and slower through a high insulating quality inside an exterior wall.

If you are using ceiling fans, in the winter, you can do the same thing. Energy Star rated ceiling fans are your best bet because of competition among fan makers for energy conscious customers. Ceiling fans do use a certain amount of electricity, when they are on. Another subject I want to explore later on; is how the current of a Ceiling fan motor affects the entire household electrical circuitry, as a subcomponent, from a system perspective.

Ceiling fan use in the Summer presents a different set of air circulation advantages, and disadvantages.

Today (Tuesday) I’ll write about patios. In the old days homes had a patio all the way around the house. You’ve seen them. It’s like a porch that has furniture and junk on them. Most of these old houses were two story, but some were only one story. Years ago, we used to sit out at night and watch the stars, enjoying the quiet countryside, that’s when a set of steps was added to the porch, leading to a patio. I like the idea of having an outdoor fireplace, or open pit campfire, on the patio.

When a heating and cooling load is calculated to find out how much air conditioning is needed for a home, one of the little things is where trees are located, if any. Shade on the south and west side of a home can actually reduce the cooling load on a home. So, some of the old builders probably knew that it was cooler in the shade, or under a wrap around porch (patio). A breeze, from just about any direction, really helped cool things down on the porch. A white asphalt roof could reflect some of the heat from the porch roof.

In the winter, the porch kept most of the snow from the down stairs exterior walls. I don’t know if, or not, they were aware of it, but they could have angled the ceiling of the porch up toward to exterior walls of the down stairs and the heat transferring through the down walls could migrate into the walls of the second story exterior walls. Snow, on the roof of the porch, can be an insulator.

You might also see some of those old houses with a Cupolas on the main roof. Some of those Cupolas were open to the attic in the summer, to vent heat from the Attic, and closed to the attic in the winter, to retain heat in the winter.

Some of those porches were called “sleeping porch”. In the Spring and Fall people would sleep outside on the porch, where it was cooler at night.

Interesting.

See ya

I am planning a series about energy saving issues about the little things that really count.

I am supposed to have the day off. I do have the day off, but the problem is I have a little time to contemplate some of the small but important energy conserving issues facing builders and customers when considering the construction of a new home, instead of picking up my Guitar and getting stuck in the 60’s.

Little things, like, which side of the house (Civil Structures) would you like to have a patio? In the sun, or out of the sun? Is the patio going to be in view of the street or not? How about ceiling fans, and an outdoor fireplace in the patio area? Is the street on the North, South, East, West or some angle thereof? Is the building lot on a hill, on a grade, or out in the open on flat ground? Are there trees close to the home? Which direction is the majority of the asphalt, metal, slate, etc., roof facing? Are we going to have the best triple insulating, Energy Star Windows facing in the best energy conserving directions? Here’s a good one; Are we going to have wood floors or cement slab floors? How about a fireplace? Are we going to have Jacuzzis in the bathrooms? Are we planning to have a swimming pool?

Did you know that you can use a Geothermal Heat Exchanger to kelp heat a swimming pool? They do it in Europe. The ground temperature, below 29 feet, in most of America is between 50 and 60 degrees F. You can bring the temperature of the swimming pool up by circulating it through Geothermal Heat Exchanger. If you want the temperature of the pool higher than that, you can then turn the pool heater on. It works on hot tubs too!

Think about it.

Well, that’s enough for today, I’m going to get my Guitar.