Climate-specific Design

Energy in your home has to be designed as a system. Whether or not you think about it, your home is always interacting with the environment. Hot sunny days create one response from your home's cooling system; cold snowy days create a totally different response from your heating system. When you consciously question your environment:

  • When does the sun rise?
  • What rooms does the sun shine into and when?
  • In what direction does the wind blow in different seasons?

you create design requirements that are more efficient than automated systems because they are in tune with your specific environment.

May 15, 2003 - Installing Radiant Flooring

My heating options are limited by the open space design and the use of SIPs. Forced air won't work well because of minimal access for running ductwork. The office is so energy-efficient that it would be hard to find a small enough furnace to be efficient. Many contractors who looked at the job said to just use radiant electric resistance heaters. To me it was like telling me to drink hemlock! Electrical resistance heating is the least efficient source of heating next to having your own mini nuclear reactor for your heat source.

I decide to use radiant hot water in the floor — an easy decision but a challenge to execute. Radiant floors are created by laying tubing in serpentine coils with lightweight concrete (gypcrete) poured over them, and the concrete is then covered with wood, carpet, or tile. The problem is I don't have enough room from the floor height to the bottom doors and windows to pour the gypcrete. I also don't want to use baseboard radiators because filing cabinets and desks would cover many of the walls and reduce the heaters effectiveness. So I have found a product called Warm Board™ made of 0.875-inch-thick high-density OSB, which is specially grooved for the tubing to run through. I lay the Warm Board™ on top of the floor and fill in the rest of the floor with two layers of 7/16-inch-thick OSB sheathing. It leaves just enough room to cover the floor with carpet and allows the doors to open. It also provides another layer of subfloor so the floor now is able to support 100 people dancing Greek style!