If you would like to enter into a competition to design a Net Zero Energy Spa Villa, then check back here in a few weeks time...
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Net Zero Energy Spa Villa simple design
If you would like to enter into a competition to design a Net Zero Energy Spa Villa, then check back here in a few weeks time...
Designing the Optimal Solar Orientation of Your Villa in Spain
We include this in all our designs so what does it actually mean?
Design for Optimal Solar Orientation
The angle at which the sun’s rays hit your home varies during the day and from season to season. It can have a big effect on your heating / cooling costs and on the overall sense of comfort your home gives you. It should be studied in conjunction with the layout and function of the rooms and outside spaces, the window placement, the insulation / thermal mass, and heating and cooling systems. Getting this right is a big part of designing a comfortable energy efficient home.
Inland or Coastal Spain
Many designs in northern Europe place the primary occupied rooms for maximum solar gain in the winter to reduce heating costs. However in southern Spain you may be more interested in avoiding solar gains in the summer to minimise the chance of overheating in the summer. The climate can vary enormously in Spain. Inland Spain is quite different to coastal Spain. It can be very cold in the winter in inland Spain. So the optimal solar orientation may be quite different depending on the exact location.
Lifestyle
Shading and spaces for outside living are likely to be an important part of your design. The depth of the shading is important and may vary according to your lifestyle and the particular advantages of the site. You may not want to shade so deeply you can’t enjoy the view from inside for example. You may prefer a breakfast area which captures the morning sun before the atmosphere and the building has warmed up. You may want a place for sitting out in the winter sun as well as a winter suntrap inside the house. The sun’s angles are very different in the winter than the summer and a careful study is needed before the optimal solution can be found.
Any views available will also influence the orientation and layout of the building as will trees, mountains, and neighbours. Trees and vegetation may be planting to funnel wind or provide shade as necessary. Deciduous vegetation with foliage that provides shade in the summer that disappears in the winter may be appropriate in some places.
Sleeping comfort may be a primary consideration.
Renewable Energy Sources
If you are sourcing the sun for renewable energy, and solar hot water is standard in our houses, then the placement of the panels and the angles at which they are placed may from part of the design.
Direction and intensity of the wind: cooling breezes
The prevailing wind direction is also important. You may want a cool breeze available in the summer evenings in a place for sitting out. You may also want to shelter against the wind if your site is exposed. You may want cross ventilation inside your home as part of passive cooling design. High windows can act as heat chimneys releasing the heat in the summer.
Careful Research
We produce plans that illustrate the exact angle of the sun at any time of any day in the year and how it varies through the year
We also take into account:
- Temperature ranges seasonal and diurnal
- Humidity ranges
- The direction of cool breezes, hot, cold and wet winds
- Seasonal characteristics
- Local geographical features and adjacent buildings on the micro climate
Good orientation, combined with other energy efficiency features, can reduce or even eliminate the need for auxiliary heating and cooling, resulting in lower energy bills, reduced greenhouse gas emissions and improved comfort. It takes account of summer and winter variations in the sun’s path as well as the direction and type of winds, such as cooling breezes.
John Wolfendale Chartered Surveyor Granada
Author: John Wolfendale
Bio: John is a founder of Eco Vida Homes and is passionate about bringing modern design and construction practices to Spain. He believes a home which is warm in winter and cool in summer is largely a matter of design and selective use of materials. He is British and a Chartered Surveyor with over 22 years experience living and working in Spain.
Monday, July 27, 2015
D.C. couple on a tight budget tries for ‘net-zero’ power on fixer-upper home
Patrick Hughes, left, and Amy Sticklor found inexpensive ways to reduce the carbon footprint of their 100-year-old home on Capitol Hill. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Energy-efficient, solar homes tend to be brand-new architectural gems powered with the latest — and priciest — technology. But a couple who bought a century-old fixer-upper on Capitol Hill in 2013 are proving you don’t have to be rich to embark on a “net-zero” quest.
A net-zero home is one that produces all of its own clean and renewable energy. They tend to be new construction or gut remodeling projects because it’s easier to get to net zero by building super-insulated spaces that don’t require much to heat and cool, then add top-of-the-line geothermal heating systems, heat pumps, solar panels and other “green bling” to operate them as efficiently as possible.
Patrick Hughes and Amy Sticklor began their do-it-yourself approach in fall 2013, shortly after purchasing their first home in Washington’s Atlas District. Instead of replacing big-ticket items such as the aging furnace and boiler (both of which still have a few years of service left in them), they slashed their energy usage in half with less than $500 in insulation, new lighting and other equipment available at the average hardware store or online.
Updates alone made it possible to run their entire 952-square-foot, two-bedroom home for several months of the year without exceeding the amount of energy produced by the solar array they had installed on their rooftop. Their utility bills have plummeted. In environmental terms, meanwhile, Hughes says the couple have saved 1,238.5 kilowatt-hours of power by lowering their energy usage alone. That’s equivalent to planting 22 tree seedlings that would remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere over 10 years or driving 2,033 fewer miles.
“It goes to show that you can get really significant energy savings without spending a lot of money,” says Hughes, who has done most of the handiwork and tracks the couple’s progress on a spreadsheet.
Subtle shades of green
From the outside, their brick Colonial doesn’t look much different from the other attached rowhouses on the block. The solar array on the flat rooftop isn’t visible from the street. Inside, too, the energy-saving updates are so discrete that they don’t stand out in the house built in 1900. The off-white walls and dark wood floors offset the large collection of books. Like many newlywed households, there’s a mishmash of furniture that survived the merger of Hughes’s and Sticklor’s lives.
You have to look closely to discern the energy-saving changes. Three minimalist black pendant lamps hanging above the glass-topped dining room table are one of Hughes’s favorite upgrades. He installed them himself using products made by Southwire Co. While the LED bulbs in the lamps use very little electricity, they give off a cozy soft white light just like the old fashioned, energy-hogging incandescent bulbs.
It was crucial to reduce their energy usage to make it feasible to run the house on no more than the energy that can be produced by the relatively small 2.2 kilowatt solar array installed by San Mateo, Calif.-based solar power provider SolarCity.
The solar panels have generated 2,580 kilowatt-hours of energy since they first went up in February 2014 through the end of May. Counting their reduced energy usage, the couple have garnered a total savings of 3,818.5 kilowatt-hours, or 5,805 pounds of climate-changing carbon dioxide. This is the equivalent of not driving 6,269 miles, which is like taking your car off the road for more than six months of the year, according to the EPA’s clean energy calculator.
From May through September last year, the panels easily out-produced their household needs, but official net-zero status requires 12 consecutive months without the need for additional energy, a target that has proved more elusive even as they move closer to achieving it.
The decision to sign a contract with SolarCity, essentially renting their roof to the company, saved Hughes and Sticklor from a large upfront investment in the panels, while locking in a rate of about 8 cents per kilowatt-hour, 45 percent less than the nearly 15 cents an hour paid to Pepco before the panels went up in late February.
A natural fit
Having just signed a mortgage on the $505,000 home and in the midst of planning their wedding, they didn’t have a lot of extra cash when they began the project in late 2013. But what they lacked in capital they made up for in working knowledge and a commitment to reducing their carbon footprint. They are both environmentalists who met while working on climate-change policy at the United Nations Foundation’s Pennsylvania Avenue NW offices.
Today, Hughes is director of government relations at the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA). He even managed to tie his home-improvement project to his job — using light bulbs, lighting sensors and solar energy equipment manufactured by NEMA members, and blogging about his efforts on the organization’s Web site. (Hughes installed the dining room pendant lights, for instance, with technology made by NEMA member Southwire Co.)
A clothes line in the back yard is one of the inexpensive ways Patrick Hughes and Amy Sticklor reduce the carbon footprint of their home. (John McDonnell/The Washington Post)
Sticklor says she became environmentally conscious after seeing the devastation Hurricane Katrina wrought on New Orleans in 2005, when she was attending Tulane University in the city. In May, she finished a master’s degree at Georgetown University and hopes to soon work on climate change mitigation in the developing world.
They are such committed environmentalists they weaved their eco-consciousness into their wedding in May 2014. Instead of cut-flower centerpieces, they used potted daisies, azaleas and other flowers that guests could take home and plant in their own gardens. They also had a green wedding registry that allowed invitees to help them with their net-zero quest by selecting environmentally friendly gifts instead of the traditional stemware or home appliances.
“I haven’t seen such a green registry before, but I definitely was not surprised,” says Sticklor’s friend since childhood, Alex Doty. Doty and her boyfriend bought the couple a backyard composter from the registry. “It was nice to get them what they wanted.”
Other guests bought them a push lawn mower and contributed cash toward bigger investments such as the new front and back doors and an energy-efficient boiler the couple had picked out and are still saving for.
“They always talked about doing something like this,” Doty said of the net-zero project. “All of our friends aspire to being as green as they are.”
Indeed, Hughes and Sticklor may have taken their DIY quest further than your average homeowner. But they are among a growing number of people interested in living more sustainably, according to experts.
A growing trend
A quarter of all new single-family houses built in 2014 qualified as green, up from just 2 percent of the market in 2005, according to McGraw Hill Construction Dodge Forecast. The value of green single-family housing starts will reach as much as $80 billion by the end of 2016, more than 10 times its value in 2005. Nearly 80 percent of the builders who responded to McGraw Hill’s most recent green building survey said they expect it to be part of the standard services by 2018.
The dramatic shift to new energy conservatism is fueled largely by growing awareness of how the nation’s seemingly insatiable demand for power is harming the planet, says Courtney Baker, residential product manager at the U.S. Green Building Council, which oversees LEED, the country’s leading “green building” standard. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, indirect greenhouse gas emissions from the electricity used by homes and businesses to fuel heating, air conditioning, lighting and appliances have increased by 26 percent since 1990.
“The surge of consumer electronics, flat-screen TVs, laptops and cellphones have caused a surge in energy demand. Now we’re seeing an increase in smart systems and sensors designed to save energy,” Baker says. The trend, he says is driven by “a mix of [concern about] sustainability but also convenience,” referring to, say, a programmable thermostat that turns up the heat automatically before you get out of bed in the morning.
More do-it-yourselfers like Hughes and Sticklor could be a very good thing for the planet, according to Baker.
“If we can get 10 million homes to do this, it would be significant” to reducing the carbon footprint of U.S. buildings, he says.
To revamp their century-old home, Hughes and Sticklor deployed a three-part strategy: reduce the amount of energy it takes to keep the lights on, kill the “vampire energy” and stop throwing away money on heating bills.
“Some of the things, we would have done anyway — like installing the sensors and changing to LED light bulbs,” he says. “Some of the other projects, like adding the insulation, was more involved and kind of messy. It probably wouldn’t have been worth the effort, except that we were looking for that small, incremental energy saving to reach our goal.”
They signed up for Pepco’s Energy Wise Rewards Program, allowing the company to turn down their air-conditioning for short periods during times of peak summertime energy demand in exchange for reduced electric bills and a free programmable thermostat. Pepco pays more for energy during those spikes in demand, and the environmental consequences are higher, too, since the country’s oldest, dirtiest and least-efficient plants are usually powered up to meet demand.
For further savings, they made a few lifestyle changes, stringing a clothesline in the back yard, for instance, to dry bulky items such as sheets and towels. They say it was surprisingly easy to cut their energy consumption by being more conscious of how they used energy and eliminating waste whenever possible.
The biggest energy savings came from reducing the house’s lighting load. Besides replacing every light bulb in the house with energy-saving LEDs and motion sensors and daylight sensors to light switches, they replaced a few light fixtures with lower-energy models, including a solar-powered backyard spotlight. Those changes alone allowed them to reduce the amount of electricity used to light their house by 85 percent, which helped drive down by one-half their overall energy usage, without even factoring in solar power production.
Undaunted after setback
Their electric meter first started spinning backwards (a sign they were producing more solar energy than the house needed) in May 2014. By September, they had built up a hefty “net positive” energy balance. But just as it looked like they’d met their goal, their aging roof sprang a leak and needed to be replaced, a fix that set them back $10,000. It also required removing the solar panels, dashing their hopes to complete a year at net zero by spring.
The couple paid a little extra for a new white roof made of recycled material that reflects solar rays and should reduce their summertime air-conditioning needs. But the solar panels spent six weeks idling in the back yard. To compensate, the couple signed up with Arcadia Power and pay $5 a month for wind-generated “clean energy” carbon offsets to more than cover what Hughes estimates is about a 20 percent differential between the house’s energy usage and its energy-generating capacity.
“It seems like a great project,” says Andrew Corral, green building and training manager for Elysian Energy, a company that tests energy efficiency for several green building certification programs. But, Corral adds, even if the roof had held, the couple probably wouldn’t be able to achieve year-round net-zero energy usage without replacing their furnace with a higher-efficiency model or adding more solar panels. But that doesn’t diminish what they’ve achieved to date, he says.
“Patrick and Amy have attempted a very difficult task,” says Corral, who adds he’s impressed by how much they’ve been able to cut their home’s energy usage.
Hughes and Sticklor should be commended, Corral says, but he also expressed concerns about Hughes’s DIY insulation work. On older homes, tightening up the building can lead to condensation, mold or sometimes more serious carbon monoxide buildup unless the structure has adequate airflow. He suggested they get a home energy audit to make sure they won’t have air quality problems this winter.
While Corral’s assessment is disappointing, the couple continue to work toward their net-zero energy goal since the solar panels went back up on the new roof in November. Both Hughes and Sticklor say they’re surprised and happy with how far they’ve already come to their goal, even without replacing their old, inefficient furnace and boiler.
“The whole experience has been so much easier and so much less expensive than I thought it would be,” says Sticklor, adding she’s merely made a small shift in the “mental checklist” she goes through before purchasing. Now she thinks about energy usage along with the usual considerations of cost, size and style.
“You just have to think a little more,” she says. “I don’t think it’s changed our lifestyle at all.”
Villa Tugendhat - Net Zero Energy Villa completed in 1930
A passion for good architecture is in Andy Tugendhat’s genes. The iconic Villa Tugendhat, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in the Czech city of Brno, was commissioned by his grandparents. Completed in 1930 and restored in 2012, the home in which Andy’s father lived until he was 5 is now a museum listed as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage site. Tugendhat and his wife, Karin, drew on that remarkable family history, their own life experiences and a passion for environmentally responsible building to plan their handsome new modern house.
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Structural Insulated Panels
Call them what you will.
They are most commonly known
as Sandwich Panels, S.I.P.S, highly insulated building materials.
The technology looks good.
They are modern and provide
high levels of insulation so why aren’t more people using them in their
Portuguese new builds or renovations.
It could be just cost of
course the panels look expensive at first glance – www.onduline.pt To see one
suppliers web site.
The real cost comparison
should be done by taking in to account the cost of replacing current systems of
building, added insulation and more strength. That is if they are installed
correctly (a whole new can of worms) and one to cover later. A “sandwich panel”
is basically just that.
The bread being one of a range
of products such as plaster board which goes on the inside and wooden boards,
plywood or cement board on the outside for instance. The “jam” in the sandwich
is either expanded polystyrene or extruded polystyrene which provides a high
degree of insulation.
The panels are simple to fix,
heavier than they look and it is important that you think about how you will
handle joints before you start to fix the panels.
A typical example of areas to
use SIP panels in a refurbishment of an old house in Portugal would be to put
them on top of the roof joists to act as a support for the roof tiles and
provide the ceiling finish.
Dry lining ground floor stone
walls so that the rooms are dry and warm. Room divisions, the advantage of the
heat being kept in the room that is being heated and a good level of sound
proofing.
Between a family bathroom and
a bedroom for instance. Suspended floors, the list goes on.
Just use your imagination.
Builders’ New Power Play: Net-Zero Homes
Industry Wants to Bring Electricity-Generating Housing to Mass Market, but Potential Buyers Must Be Sold on Price
LAS VEGAS—Net-zero homes are going mainstream, if the home-building industry has anything to do with it.
The homes, which generate more electricity in a year than they use, have long been viewed as a niche product for the affluent who can afford custom homes. The chief problem is that it is expensive to get a home to net-zero status, and many customers aren’t willing to wait several years for their electricity-bill savings to cover the thousands of dollars they would have to spend on net-zero features such as solar panels and energy-efficient windows, doors and appliances.
But some builders, motivated by what they deem as rising demand from home buyers and state and local regulators, are aiming to change those perceptions by designing such homes for the mass market. Such a model home—the latest in the National Association of Home Builders’ annual New American Home series showcasing new-home designs —is on display this week in a hillside neighborhood 7 miles from the Las Vegas Strip as part of the trade group’s International Builders Show.
The 5,800-square-foot home, designed and built by the trade group and Blue Heron Design/Build LLC, is being shown in a format that will enable other builders to incorporate elements of the design in mass-market homes across the country. The company says it can build similar—but smaller—net-zero electricity homes for about $700,000. Blue Heron anticipates listing the New American Home for $2.5 million.
This year's New American Home at the International Builders Show in Las Vegas aims to show off the viability of creating less-pricey net-zero electricity homes. PHOTO: TRENT BELL PHOTOGRAPHY
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“We wanted to basically prove through this New American Home project that you can offer the absolute highest level of cutting-edge design, energy efficiency and technology on more of a production scale,” said Blue Heron partner Tyler Jones, who oversaw the home’s design and construction.
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Most net-zero homes generate much of their own electricity through rooftop solar systems, though they are still connected to the public power grid for the times, such as nights, when their system isn’t generating all the electricity needed. At other times, such as intensely sunny periods of the day, those solar systems generate more electricity than a given house needs, so the excess is sent to the public power grid. The homeowner receives credit for the excess electricity, the amount of which varies depending on the state and the utility company, that typically shows up on their monthly or annual bill.
Achieving net-zero status typically requires builders to install spray-on foam insulation to seal the house of leaks and adding energy-efficient doors, windows, appliances and lighting, among numerous other features. Net-zero homes also need high-performance heating and ventilation systems and other equipment to regulate humidity, air quality and air flow.
So far, in part because of price, net-zero homes remain a fraction of the overall market. In the past year, the U.S. Department of Energy has certified 370 homes as being “net-zero energy ready” under updated guidelines. Before that, it deemed an additional 14,500 as being close to zero-energy specifications.
This year's New American Home is expected to be listed for $2.5 million. But the builder, Blue Heron Design/Build, says similar, but smaller, versions can be made for about a $700,000 list price. PHOTO: TRENT BELL PHOTOGRAPHY
The hurdles to broader demand are higher in the Northeast and Midwest, where the sunshine—specifically, solar radiation—isn’t as intense as in areas like the Southwest. In those less-sunny regions, homeowners have to install more solar panels to generate the same amount of electricity as a home in the Southwest can generate with fewer panels.
Dan Bridleman, a senior vice president at builder KB Home, which has constructed net-zero homes in several states, estimates that it can cost $6,000 to $12,000 more for a solar-power system in the Northeast than in the Southwest to achieve the same amount of electricity output.
But some builders say that demand is slowly starting to pick up as the cost of energy-efficient materials and renewable-energy equipment falls. The Solar Energy Industries Association says the average price of an installed solar-power system has declined more than 50% since 2010.
Retirees Robert and Sue Payton bought a new net-zero home in Coupeville, Wash., in 2011 from builder Ted Clifton’s Zero-Energy Plans LLC. They spent an estimated $15,000 extra for the home to achieve net-zero status. They say they now pay no electricity bill. “We knew energy rates were going to go up, and we didn’t want that extra burden of energy bills on us,” Mr. Payton said.
Meritage Homes Corp., which builds in nine states, has constructed 50 net-zero homes since 2011 and intends to build 50 this year alone.
C.R. Herro, vice president of environmental affairs at Meritage, says the company can achieve net-zero status in homes costing as little as $200,000 in certain markets. Thus, the key to more mainstream acceptance, he believes, is not price but informing more home buyers of the benefits of net-zero homes. “Net-zero is technologically and financially solved,” he said. “It’s now a matter of the consumer catching up to that potential. That’s probably another three years.”
Some builders disagree. Luxury builder Toll Brothers Inc. says it’s “not seeing demand” for net-zero homes.
And Lennar Corp., the nation’s second-largest builder by closings behind D.R. Horton Inc., prefers to offer energy-efficient homes outfitted with solar power rather than those fully achieving net-zero status. “Net zero is an interesting concept, but it’s far from commercially available and far from being financially affordable,” said David Kaiserman,president of the builder’s Lennar Ventures division.
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