Houses: windows and Eaves

[ErlyRisa]

I wonder why it is that a modern home is LESS energy efficient than one built 100 or even 5000 years ago?

 

here are some major culprits...

 

The Eaveless box home.

The Porchless House.

The Aluminium Window + stupid window placement and size.

Concrete Slab home design.

-Ill material choices...eg. Brick in a hot climate.

 

any others you can think of?

Another intersting 'Conspiracy Theory'... is FibreGlass Wool actually better than an empty sealed cavity? Air is the highest insulating material...why provide a means to conduct the heat in the cavity?...Fibre Glass Wool actually makes things worse!... if the cavities were sealed properly, than they would do more than the wool. Actually for a really modern home you could, 'vent' the cavity air via computer control, to get the desired climate inside the house.

--It's pretty much how an 80+ year old house works, and it don't even need a computer.

[Zythryn]

I partially question your premise (that a house built 100 or 5000 years ago is more energy efficient than a modern house). However I also see some logical cause for this.

 

5000 years ago, there was no heating, no cooling. Homes/huts needed to be built to allow the occupants to survive the enviornment without the help of cheap energy. This would naturally lead to very efficient houses, especially in areas with unfriendly weather.

 

Your mention of sealing the cavities is very spot on. However, it is not always easy to do. In the recent past, it was cheaper to not worry so much about it and insulate. However, modern buildings tend to be tighter and tighter. We just built, and it is one of the tightest houses the builder has ever seen:)

 

In addition, a house 5000 years ago was likely much smaller than most houses are today (at least in developed countries). The larger space requires more energy to maintain the climate.

 

With the spreading use of geothermal heat, better sealing of the shell of the house and proper facing of windows the efficiency of houses are getting better.

[Cedars]

I wonder why it is that a modern home is LESS energy efficient than one built 100 or even 5000 years ago?

 

here are some major culprits...

 

The Eaveless box home.

The Porchless House.

The Aluminium Window + stupid window placement and size.

Concrete Slab home design.

-Ill material choices...eg. Brick in a hot climate.

 

any others you can think of?

Another intersting 'Conspiracy Theory'... is FibreGlass Wool actually better than an empty sealed cavity? Air is the highest insulating material...why provide a means to conduct the heat in the cavity?...Fibre Glass Wool actually makes things worse!... if the cavities were sealed properly, than they would do more than the wool. Actually for a really modern home you could, 'vent' the cavity air via computer control, to get the desired climate inside the house.

--It's pretty much how an 80+ year old house works, and it don't even need a computer.

 

I would disagree that the older homes were more energy efficient, its just the fuel for heating was often wood or coal.

 

Everything Z said plus the structures were built of solid wood, not pressboard/plywoods which did allow for some extra thickness to retain heat/cooling.

 

There have been significant changes in the way brick and concrete blocks are manufactured which minimize their potential insulation, just as there have been changes in how wood is cut. A 2x4 in the farmhouse (and even the house I live in now) are real 2x4s 2x6s, not the 1.5 by 3.5 etc that are claimed to be 2x4s. So we have lost some thickness of walls there.

 

The floors in the farmhouse were so cold in the winter the dog water bowl on the floor in any room besides the ones holding the heat source got ice on it by morning. During windy episodes, the curtains blow around a bit on the inside. We never worried about carbon monoxide poisoning in that place.

 

Cost to heat the place was minimal due to the woodstove and the 30 acres of woods we had to gather fuel from. Once insurance issues caused us to change over to oil alone, the cost went up significantly. We burned around one 265 gallon tank of fuel during the winter when we had the woodstove to help heat. After the changeover, 3+ tanks of fuel.

[freeztar]

I wonder why it is that a modern home is LESS energy efficient than one built 100 or even 5000 years ago?

 

Back this statement up please.

 

here are some major culprits...

 

The Eaveless box home.

The Porchless House.

The Aluminium Window + stupid window placement and size.

Concrete Slab home design.

-Ill material choices...eg. Brick in a hot climate.

 

As has been said above, it's like comparing apples to oranges. You seem to have a negative attitude towards modern home design and I don't blame you, but you must realize that the "box homes" are not cutting edge and were developed and continually used as a model of efficiency and economy for those that desire them.

As far as alternatives, there is A LOT going on in that field. I can give you some sources if you are interested in this.

 

any others you can think of?

 

Well, I guess while we're at it...

-non passive-solar designs

-lack of a basement (or similar cool ground connection)

-etc. etc. etc.

Another intersting 'Conspiracy Theory'... is FibreGlass Wool actually better than an empty sealed cavity? Air is the highest insulating material...why provide a means to conduct the heat in the cavity?...Fibre Glass Wool actually makes things worse!... if the cavities were sealed properly, than they would do more than the wool. Actually for a really modern home you could, 'vent' the cavity air via computer control, to get the desired climate inside the house.

 

Why do you think that fiberglass is worse than just air? If that were the case, then nobody would be using it because it would be cheaper not to use it.

Air is the best insulator, which is exactly why fiberglass is used. Imagine a sealed jar full of straws randomly piled inside. The air inside those straws is insulated from any other air bodies in the other straws. Now imagine cramming the jar as full as you could with all these straws until you had a dense layer of straws filling the jar. In the case of fiberglass, the actual glass portion makes up a small amount of the volume. What the glass does it to slow the transfer of heat/cold. If you had empty wall, there are only two mediums the outside air must go through, the outside wall and the inside wall. With fiberglass insulation, you have a lot of "mini-walls" slowing down the transfer and thus creating more stability of temperature within the wall.

--It's pretty much how an 80+ year old house works, and it don't even need a computer.

 

I've lived in a 150 year old house that had the worst insulation I've ever experienced. It was actually a lot hotter inside than outside!

[Turtle]

I wonder why it is that a modern home is LESS energy efficient than one built 100 or even 5000 years ago?

 

here are some major culprits...

 

The Eaveless box home.

The Porchless House.

The Aluminium Window + stupid window placement and size.

Concrete Slab home design.

-Ill material choices...eg. Brick in a hot climate.

...

any others you can think of?

Another intersting 'Conspiracy Theory'...

 

eaveless box home. > In general, this is true, but gaining efficiency with eaves relies on having the house properly oriented for whatever region it's in. For example eaves on a North side do little but provide rain cover. Eaves on East or West exposures offer limited shading throughout a day, but a proper sized eave on a Southern exposure can have a dramatic effect on the efficiency of heating and cooling in the house.

The porchless house.> Pretty much the same as for eaves, but better efficiency because of larger area of shading.

 

For those two, I think people don't build them because of the cost. An efficient porch on 3 sides of a house may have as much roof area as the whole roof of just the house.

 

The aluminium window + stupid placement & size.> I see fewer & fewer aluminium windows in new residential houses these days; they have given way to plastics & wood with double or even triple panes. I agree somewhat on stupid size and placement, however many fire codes require certain size windows and placements in new construction.

 

Concrete Slab home design.> Not fond of that myself, but again codes often play the main role in the type of foundation. Even where basements are allowed, many people don't want to pay the considerable expense. A basement is in essence doubling the square footage of a one-story home.

 

Ill material choices...eg. Brick in a hot climate. > In a hot climate, brick can have advantages if used in an active solar system. Thick Pueblo.

 

One feature I always liked in old homes is the screened vents in the backs of a cabinet that vent to the outside.

 

If you want to cut down heating/cooling costs, get the littlest fridge you can afford.

[CraigD]

is FibreGlass Wool actually better than an empty sealed cavity?

If you mean “is less heat transferred between hot and cool walls separated by an unsealed cavity filled with fiberglass wool than a sealed cavity of the same dimensions filed with ordinary air at standard atmospheric pressure?”, the answer is “yes”.

 

Although air at a better insulator than, say, solid silica glass, it is not a perfect insulator. Further, large volumes of air separating walls of unequal temperature moves, transferring heat convectively far more rapidly than by conduction. Perfect vacuum is a perfect insulator, but an unusual, impractically expensive house-building material.

 

Comparing the insulating ability of available building materials, vacuum insulated panel is a 1, aerogel .2222, various foams from .1778 to .1111, fiberglass blanket .07533, blown insulations of most kinds .06667, straw .03222, air (thicker than .01 m) .02222 (source: wikipedia article “R-value”)

Air is the highest insulating material...why provide a means to conduct the heat in the cavity?...Fibre Glass Wool actually makes things worse!... if the cavities were sealed properly, than they would do more than the wool.

I am aware of no data supporting this claim for insulation greater than .01 m. I’ve never seen an insulated building with insulation not greater than .01 m thick.

 

A greater thickness of a low R-value material can provide more effective insulation than a lesser thickness of a high R-value material. Architectural factors, such as thick walls, small windows, and well sealed windows and doors are also significant. Houses designed to more effectively actively or passively use solar power, improvements such as buried heat exchangers, and other less common techniques, can provide dramatic improvements.

 

Though some very old houses are more energy efficient than some very new ones, I don’t believe a general trend for this exists. My personal experience in my present house, which was built in 1954, is that replacing it’s original insulating materials with ordinary 21st century materials has reduced annual heating and cooling energy use by about 70%. Tar-shingled, brick-clad, and with multiple stoves and fireplaces, my house is not significantly different than ones within 10 miles of it that were built more than 100 years ago.

[ErlyRisa]

We stuffed some of that Fibraglass Wool into our 110yr old house 10 years ago.

 

I went into the attic about a month ago.... -It's all dust!!!! and has quite literally collapsed... It would have been cheaper and more efficient for me to just board up the attic... therby providing a sealled cavity that would not DISSOLVE over time.

 

As for that 'blown' insulation, my frined did that... it dissintegrated in under 5 years.... he heavily regrets it and so do I.. the clean up is going to be a b___h...sadly I am not going to pull apart the walls to clean that up.

 

PS.. the wool is alos a great place for rats/cochraoches to nest.

 

I have noticed pretty much all the replies are of US origin... luckily enough you guys build to a Higher code then us here in Australia...

 

fro example, our modern bricks... actually turn the house into a brick oven!!, customers usually want brick 'for structural preference', but usually buy cheap bricks... these bricks Heat latency hovers closer to 40C than the older bricks, which should be around 10C.

 

We don't build basements in Australia (quite impractical in this country)... but we waste resources on concrete slabs, the most envirnmentally damageing proponent to building Slabs in a low water table envirinment, is now the salt is rising in many Australia suburbs.

 

Windows... nearly all new houses here opt for Aluminium... I don't care what anyone says about how much foam thier is.. a 5year old aluminium window doesn't even come close to the insulative capabliities of a 100 year old wooden window. (it's also less resouce hungry)

 

The eaveless box home , is the 'Hip Trend Home' to buy here. They come in many variations, from ultra modern to a greek or spansih copyied style.

 

I Australia, the 2 storey home is the stupidest invention for our climate, it's an environmental blasthemy to build one, yet they are what is being built, to out compete the Jones'. These Mc Mansions, have bedroms upstairs, wtih the Air Conditioning running all night.

-How stupid is it, to place the area of the home you spend the most time in (5-9 hours of sleep) that needs the most climatic control.

 

Then their is the case for the new fully sealed 'stagnation' feel that these homes creat for the occupant... air doesn't move from the outside to the inside... a simple fart can lingerie in the home for upto an hour (it quite literally slowly floats around the house, you can fart in the toilet, and have yourself , resmell it in the kitchen and hour later)

 

anywya enough ranting....

 

any other Ideas?

[freeztar]

Although air at a better insulator than, say, solid silica glass, it is not a perfect insulator. Further, large volumes of air separating walls of unequal temperature moves, transferring heat convectively far more rapidly than by conduction. Perfect vacuum is a perfect insulator, but an unusual, impractically expensive house-building material.

 

Oh, so you have to get all exact on us huh?

I agree, on earth, air is the best/most practical insulator. (barring extravagant ideas of course)

Comparing the insulating ability of available building materials, vacuum insulated panel is a 1, aerogel .2222, various foams from .1778 to .1111, fiberglass blanket .07533, blown insulations of most kinds .06667, straw .03222, air (thicker than .01 m) .02222 (source: wikipedia article “R-value”)I am aware of no data supporting this claim for insulation greater than .01 m. I’ve never seen an insulated building with insulation not greater than .01 m thick.

 

Interesting...I have school notes that suggest slightly different figures, but this was 5 years ago and I would be more apt to trust these figures, except...

They do not mention cob or adobe or any other hybrid techniques suited for "niche" climates (modified igloo anyone).

 

A greater thickness of a low R-value material can provide more effective insulation than a lesser thickness of a high R-value material. Architectural factors, such as thick walls, small windows, and well sealed windows and doors are also significant. Houses designed to more effectively actively or passively use solar power, improvements such as buried heat exchangers, and other less common techniques, can provide dramatic improvements.

 

Thumbs up!

 

Though some very old houses are more energy efficient than some very new ones, I don’t believe a general trend for this exists. My personal experience in my present house, which was built in 1954, is that replacing it’s original insulating materials with ordinary 21st century materials has reduced annual heating and cooling energy use by about 70%. Tar-shingled, brick-clad, and with multiple stoves and fireplaces, my house is not significantly different than ones within 10 miles of it that were built more than 100 years ago.

 

Yes, it's a moot argument without some substantial proof.

[Turtle]

...I have noticed pretty much all the replies are of US origin... luckily enough you guys build to a Higher code then us here in Australia...

 

...any other Ideas?

 

Move to the US? :doh: ;) Start a business importing US plastic/wood windows?

[freeztar]

We stuffed some of that Fibraglass Wool into our 110yr old house 10 years ago.

 

I went into the attic about a month ago.... -It's all dust!!!! and has quite literally collapsed... It would have been cheaper and more efficient for me to just board up the attic... therby providing a sealled cavity that would not DISSOLVE over time.

 

Dissolve!?!?

Wood does not dissolve. The attic should definitely be sealed off from the rest, but it also is critical for moisture control. A collection of dust over a short period of time would signal a leakage, to me.

As for that 'blown' insulation, my frined did that... it dissintegrated in under 5 years.... he heavily regrets it and so do I.. the clean up is going to be a b___h...sadly I am not going to pull apart the walls to clean that up.

 

Don't pull apart your walls, create ventilation! ;)

PS.. the wool is alos a great place for rats/cochraoches to nest.

Don't give the buggers a chance. Zap em! Stomp em! Eliminate the primordial brother! er....

 

I have noticed pretty much all the replies are of US origin... luckily enough you guys build to a Higher code then us here in Australia...

 

I don't know the comparison, but things here are not so peachy as they seem.

 

fro example, our modern bricks... actually turn the house into a brick oven!!, customers usually want brick 'for structural preference', but usually buy cheap bricks... these bricks Heat latency hovers closer to 40C than the older bricks, which should be around 10C.

 

You get what you pay for!!

 

We don't build basements in Australia (quite impractical in this country)... but we waste resources on concrete slabs, the most envirnmentally damageing proponent to building Slabs in a low water table envirinment, is now the salt is rising in many Australia suburbs.

 

The salt level has little to do with foundations, but rather the water table.

 

Windows... nearly all new houses here opt for Aluminium... I don't care what anyone says about how much foam thier is.. a 5year old aluminium window doesn't even come close to the insulative capabliities of a 100 year old wooden window. (it's also less resouce hungry)

 

Well if you don't care what anyone says...

 

The eaveless box home , is the 'Hip Trend Home' to buy here. They come in many variations, from ultra modern to a greek or spansih copyied style.

 

It's not just there mate. :doh:

 

I Australia, the 2 storey home is the stupidest invention for our climate, it's an environmental blasthemy to build one, yet they are what is being built, to out compete the Jones'. These Mc Mansions, have bedroms upstairs, wtih the Air Conditioning running all night.

-How stupid is it, to place the area of the home you spend the most time in (5-9 hours of sleep) that needs the most climatic control.

 

Have you heard of Las Vegas?

Then their is the case for the new fully sealed 'stagnation' feel that these homes creat for the occupant... air doesn't move from the outside to the inside... a simple fart can lingerie in the home for upto an hour (it quite literally slowly floats around the house, you can fart in the toilet, and have yourself , resmell it in the kitchen and hour later)

 

whatever man...If that were true, I'd be smelling farts and other gaseous excriments all day long...fortunately, that is not the case!

[freeztar]

Move to the US? :doh: ;) Start a business importing US plastic/wood windows?

 

oh, but he's at least a hundred years late...ever heard of Weyerhauser?

;)

 

 

 

:(

[CraigD]

A dramatic illustration of the relative total energy efficiencies of old and new houses can be made by noting that you can stand to hold your hand withing a few inches to of the small (3”) flue of efficient modern furnace during the fraction of time its running, while you can grill meat over any of the several large (9+”) flues of a century old house's chimneys with its fires high enough to make its main rooms comfortable.

[ErlyRisa]

I think the piont about the Las Vegas home... is what I was trying to make.

 

Yes... a house that has to survive 50cm snow cover on the roof AND summer, is probably more efficiently built today. (especially in the US/Canada)

 

but... here in Australia... the first homes that were built by settlers were better than what we are doing today.

 

In my house I have no Air Conditioning, and only a Small Wood fire... my girlfreinds parents home is built in one of those 'development' zones.. it's a clincker brick single storey.

 

..They put the bedrooms on the North Western Side.

...The living and Kitchen are north East+south.

!!! the house is the wrong way round!!!

 

...In order to sleep in this house, the airconditioning has to run all night, and even then, everyone is waking up to go to the living room to feel the cool.

 

---My house a 100yeara ...was designed on stumps so air can circulate under the house, the bedrooms are all on the south side, the fireplace was layed in a perfect central position in the house -> climate control can be achieved just by closing and opening doors (none of this ducted s__t)

....and I wreckon the most important thing of all.... because their is 'an ambience' of air movement in my home... my farts don't smell in the kitchen, unlike My girlfriends home, which is a fully sealed veneer brick home... with one of those 'Wind Tunnel' centrally placed hallways.

 

--Oh, as for the Ceiling and the Insulation... I have deiced that boarding up the attic and placing vents in strategic positions will be better than using that god awfull fibreglass insulation again (I just hope the local authorities don't find out)

 

My cousin, also has one of these sigle storey clinker brick houses...his airconditioning has to run all night too!... otherwise you can quite literally die heat exhaustion....I can't imagine how much energy is being wasted on stupid house design, and poor material choice.

 

PS... my house = cheap weather board.

 

PPS... 'Salt Rising'....when you 'seal off' the ground by making a concrete slab, water no longer seaps into the ground as efficiently, especially when you also account for, 'sealed' garden beds, concrete/tile pathways and patios...

 

what ends up happening is that the now minimal ground water, evaporates up, bringing the salt in the ground with it... people still pertain to building slab houses, even when the neighbours homes bricks have salt crystalising and cracking the bricks apart!

[Turtle]

---My house a 100yeara ...was designed on stumps so air can circulate under the house, the bedrooms are all on the south side, the fireplace was layed in a perfect central position in the house -> climate control can be achieved just by closing and opening doors (none of this ducted s__t)...

 

What other factors affect your heating/cooling in your house? Do you have a porch/porches? How big are they and what is their pitch? (Track the angle of the Sun for a year & build a porch that shades the wall entirely in Summer and allows Sun onto the walls and in the windows in Winter.) Do you have any plants/trees that shade the house? On which sides? Are they desciduous or evergreen?

 

Well, I can't think of anything else just now so g'day & g'donya downunder. :cup: