[V8] correcting myself: I must be getting senile

[Roger Woodbury]

I made two errors in my diatribe of last evening.  The first correction is
that the Passive House standard is 15 kwh per square meter annually for
HEAT, and the second is that the R value of vacuum insulated panels is R-30
per inch.

 

When we build our new retirement home we have several goals.  First of all,
we wish to build a completely off grid home and will use a wind turbine for
electricity.  The site is 120 feet above the ocean about 1/3 mile away.
With an 80 foot tower the turbine hub will be at least 30 feet above any
obstacle within 500 feet in any direction.  The battery bank will provide
backup power for 72 hours without electrical generation by any means, and we
will have to learn to be watt frugal.  (I am trying to train my wife now,
but it is a lot like herding cats.and we have three of those, too.).  solar
panels are not a good option, but might be added later.

 

Secondly, we wish to build a house to Passive House standard and have it
certified a Passive House.  This will be the hard part because I am
anticipating that we will need to achieve R-100 in the roof and at least R50
in the walls.  I wish to accomplish this by using 2X4 studding, and to
achieve the necessary Rvalue we will be using vacuum insulated panels, 2"
thick and closed cell foam for air sealing.  We are doing research into this
now, although the actual systems are still in Beta testing, so we don't have
the product as I am writing, but next fall is a good target date to begin.

 

In our home our heat source will be the heat recovery ventilation system
which will provide at least 95% of the heat that we will need.  What we may
need for any additional heat has not been decided yet, and I think we will
not even address that until we find out what the extreme really is.

 

Thus to achieve really high levels of electrical efficiency in automobiles
will require some serious engineering of the vehicle's outer envelope and
certainly a near air tight cabin with HRV system for heat and a/c will be
necessary, capturing the heat of the electric motor and allied equipment.
Extreme environments will pose a real challenge, and repair after collision
will pose some serious issues as well.  It may be that the age of the
repairable car is ending too, and once a car is damaged beyond a simple
fender or tail light, the entire car will be recycled.  I won't be around to
see that, however.

 

Roger