The purpose of this blog is to explore, explain and exchange ideas on how a house can be a high performance device that operates on little to zero outside energy while looking and acting like a normal structure.
THE HOUSE IS A MACHINE
Houses are very large machines. The house may looks like a group of unassociated doors, windows, walls, floors and a ceiling, but hidden from view are most of the elements that make it a machine. It's a machine because it has heating and cooling systems, water and electrical systems. It has sewage pipes, vents, telephone lines, computer hookups and a water heating system with controlled delivery. In many ways a house is a machine just as a car is a machine. Cars, like houses, have wires, pipes, gauges, valves and controls to make them work.
THE HOUSE: NOT BUILT LIKE A CAR
A car has one distinct advantage over a house when it comes to working well; it was designed, built, assembled and tested by one company. Most homes, on the other hand, involve many unassociated people. They are assembled from generic parts. They include many systems and controls that are not designed to work together.
If cars were bought and assembled like houses, then your last car would have been designed by a local car dealer and assembled by your local mechanic after you visited the shop and picked out all of the features. The engine would have come from one company, while the transmission, chassis, cooling system, carburetor and electrical systems would have come from other companies. Most likely, they would all work together as in an acceptable way as long as the dealer chose compatible products and the mechanic knew how to assemble them correctly. What kind of a car would it be? Most likely it would be a fairly generic car. It would be similar to most other cars in your community because that's what the dealer and the mechanic think that the community wants and needs.
CAN A HOUSE BE HIGH PERFORMANCE?
But what if you wanted a high performance vehicle or a super gas efficient vehicle? Now the pressure is on. You'd probably find out that the dealer and the mechanic know a hand full of tricks but not enough to give you the performance or efficiency that you want. A high performance car has parts, systems and structure that were designed to function together. A traditional house does not. A high performance vehicle has dozens or hundreds of small design choices that give it an edge. A standard house does not. The fuel efficient car has a chassis that accommodates the drive train, brakes and transmission, not the other way around. The gear ratios of the transmission are matched to the torque of the engine. Normal houses don't have the benefit of this kind of thinking.
That leaves us with the obvious question: Is it possible to build a home that is high performance? Is it possible to have a house designed to accommodate the local climate and conditions and still deliver superior efficiency? Is it possible to have a home that knows how to recover energy from one part of the environment and use it effectively?
In future blogs I will try to cover such topics as solar, wind, geothermal, site orientation, off-grid, grid-tied, water reclamation, house envelope design, seasonal energy strategies and any other topic that seems related. I will try to list sources, links and resources. Join me by commenting or adding your findings.
Kimball Ungerman
