Twinsprings Research Institute

New List for 2015

Posted on January 5, 2015 by ellen

Now that the holidays are over, it is time to re-check the fall list. I thought the kitchen beam was on it, but this is what I published in October.

Remaining Fall Tasks (finished items marked out)

~~Finish insulating wiring chase~~

Install polyiso on ceiling—ALMOST done
Install membrane/air barrier
Install ceiling battens

~~Lay vapor barrier in crawlspace~~
~~Seal vapor barrier to walls and connect pipe from under barrier to passive radon vent.~~
Insulate south facing crawlspace wall with spray foam.
~~Seal vent.~~
~~Set up wood boiler~~–except for final connections to water and heat exchanger this is done too.

We can start the year with three items from the previous list with one almost done and another completed.

Winter Tasks 2015

Install kitchen beam.
Install polyiso on ceiling—ALMOST done
Install membrane/air barrier
Install ceiling battens
Connect wood boiler

Now we have to think about what else has to be done. Basically we would like to be ready for another inspection by the onset of spring. The insulation inspection could happen before the sealing membrane and battens, but the electrical has to wait until the outside walls have a chase for the electrical wires. We need to decide on new windows and doors to finish the thermal envelope and they will be a major contribution to our LEED qualification.

In order for the electrical wires to have a chase through the walls, they will have to be built. That is a major task that will take us at least most of the summer I would guess.

Once the walls are up and the battens installed and the wiring run, we can have the house drywalled. Then we will be on to rough plumbing install and inspection and installation of bathrooms and finalized electrical installs.

Other LEED projects would be to order and install the ventilation unit with best air filtering levels, plus a ventilation fan in the garage. Continue to collect used and recycled materials for the bathrooms and finish work as well as obtain water saving toilets and faucets. I just installed a .5/1/1.5 flow shower head in the the existing shower. Mostly it is set on 1 gallon but higher flow and lower are possible when needed. The LEED qualification we will meet is less than 1.75 gpm average flow rate for all showers plus all water sense lavatory faucets.

Before we know it, maybe next winter, we will be painting and finishing the interior. I hope!

Posted in LEED Project, Planning | Comments Off

Raise High the Ceiling Beam…

Posted on January 5, 2015 by ellen

Today we finished putting up the kitchen beam that will hold the wall that divides the kitchen and the bathroom. I had to cut the joist holder to fit under the ceiling insulation and trim the beam to rest on the concrete wall.

Kitchen Beam on Concrete Wall

The beam is hanging on the laminated main beam with a full joist hanger but that one had to be shimmed to line up with the rear wall. These are the type of joist hangers that fold behind the beam instead of outside of it. We are reusing screws that we saved from the demolition. I have them sorted into bags by thread size and length. They are mostly drywall screws. Very useful and no extra expense.

Simpson Strong Tie LUC26Z Concealed Flange Hanger

Kitchen Beam on Laminated Beam

The wires for the kitchen and utility rooms will extend along this beam and around the rear of the utility room instead of draping across the kitchen ceiling.

Beam to South Wall

The wall will be hung from the beam instead of the ceiling and the wall to the ceiling will also be supported by this beam.

Beam to North Wall

A platform will be installed over the rear of the bathroom and the closet to hold the ERV ventilation unit. We plan to have the rest of the bathroom ceiling be open to the cathedral ceiling with an interior window over the door to let natural daylight into the bathroom that has no outside window.

Future Platform between the family room and kitchen walls.

The pantry closet will hold a subpanel that will feed the kitchen, utility, and most of the north side of the house. UPDATE: The electrician can’t put a subpanel in the pantry as it needs 30 inches of access in front of it. So he will run the power from the garage instead.

The ventilation system will be located above the closet and the toilet area of the “triangle” bathroom.

Dibble Floorplan With Electrical Core

The electrical rough install and re-building the walls are major tasks we hope to complete in the spring/summer.

Posted in Construction | Comments Off

Storage Switch Outlet Wiring for Fireplace Boiler

Posted on December 18, 2014 by ellen

The wiring on the storage side became a little tricky when I decided to use a switch/outlet combo to allow both the transformer to be switched on and off and the Taco Relay to energize an outlet, since the pump has a cord and plug instead of direct wiring. This diagram does not show all the grounds but they are all connected like the white wires.
Leviton 109-05225-WSP Combo Switch and Receptacle, White

Combo Switch Outlet

I also needed the power to go through this box on to the Taco Zone Valve so the wiring also required a pass through the box. For that I used this diagram. I use these circuit diagrams frequently as they cover most all wiring configurations. I have 31 of these from an ibook version of the Black and Decker wiring handbook. I’m glad I saved them to my computer.

Switched Receptacle

This is the wiring example for extending full power to the last receptacle, except I’m extending it to the Taco Zone Valve Controller.

I was able to wire this equipment and complete the wiring so that the transformer and aquastat won’t use energy unless turned on and the Taco Pump Relay will control the pump that circulates water from the storage tank through the heat exchanger.

Taco Pump Relay and Swtich

If the logic I’m using is correct, I will also move the gas boiler TT which is the trigger to activate the boiler from the zone valves to this relay and the primary pump wiring would be moved to the normally closed position on this relay. Since I don’t want the heating system to be down in case I have an error in my thinking, I will wait until March to hook the entire system up. Another few months wait in a project like this is inconsequential. I can cross “set up boiler” off the list and add connect boiler to the spring list.

Posted in Electrical, Fireplace Boiler | Comments Off

Amory Lovins’ House Systems

Posted on December 17, 2014 by ellen

The Lovins house tour was most interesting because of the various house systems; heating, water, electricity, etc. I’m sure there was more going on than what met the eye but what met the eye was pretty exciting.

First, there is a lot of data collected in this house. I would have loved to learn more about the data systems. I don’t know what the Johnson Controls box housed, but they are HVAC products–there was a rack for network equipment and this Davis Weather Instrument Panel.

Data Collection

Apparently the house has sensors like ours did–and the data is collected and recorded from various locations. The new array of solar panels use Enphase microconverters that have data collection built in and a website at EnPhase delivers data about the performance back to the house. A monitor in the entry hallway displays various house data including the solar collector data.

The electrical system is solar photovoltaic and grid tied with a huge battery backup. The battery bank was enclosed in plexiglass and probably vented to the outside. The batteries were sealed lead acid Absolyte from Exide Technologies in a stacked array. The batteries are always kept topped up, however, they are only used in the case of a power outage–I read that they had been used 5 times since the system was installed.

Battery Bank Used for Backup

This was labeled as a control panel, with two large conduits leading from the battery bank, it is the DC shutoff.

DC Control Panel and Shutoff

The system had not one, but TWO Sunny Boy inverters–they explained that this grid tie system overproduces energy for the house during the day and they purchase green wind energy at night to reduce the total carbon footprint of the home’s energy needs.

Two Sunny Boy Inverters

The radiant heat system was similarly very impressive. They had embedded polybutyl tubing in the floors when the house was built but only put in an active radiant system in 2009. The system is heated by solar thermal panels on the roof and each zone has its own tube in tube heat exchanger so that the thermal panels use glycol while the house system is water. There is a water meter on each zone. Not sure why the water is metered–but the white cylinders are ABB Hygienic Master food quality water flow meters from Germany.

Water Meters and Electric Boiler

There appear to be shutoffs just before the expansion tank, probably where the heating water enters and leaves the heating system for the zones.

Expansion Tank

The system has an electric boiler boost from whatever the solar panels are producing to usable hot water.

Electric Boiler

The plumbing has very few 90 degree angles to eliminate head issues. Although there are also several Grundfos pumps.

Slanted Pipes

There seem to be a lot of monitoring devices on the radiant system too.

Monitoring Equipment

A mixing valve with an outdoor reset is used in the system to modulate the temperatures going into the radiant house piping.

Tekmar Mixing Control

Finally an indirect water heater provided household hot water–these have a coil heat exchanger in them that heats domestic hot water–probably boosted by the electric boiler as well.

Superstore Indirect Water Heater

The variety of lighting systems was very interesting. Most of the house had LED strip lighting for general night time illumination, as well as large hanging fixtures with shades that had circline florescent bulbs in them. Daytime lighting is mostly solar through the large windows and also through a few solar tubes in the north hallway.

Kitchen to Living Area Chandelier

More LED track and a line of Japanese Lanterns

LED track and Japanese Lanterns

Both LED bulb and strip lights were used.

LEDs

Interesting Frank Lloyd Wright type use of a white translucent material in a wood panel probably to cut the glare on this desk from the direct sun into the solar greenhouse.

Solar Shade

We were told a bit about the ventilation system. The tower held an Energy Recovery Ventilator–they called them panel exchange ventilators. I did see one ceiling fan in a high area of the office ceiling.

Ceiling Fan

And the ventilator inlet and outlet seemed to be located side by side in the tower.

Ventilation Vents

In addition to these there were several operable panels on the high north wall opposite the low intake windows of the greenhouse that could be opened with a system of pulleys and cords to vent hot air and pull fresh air in from the low greenhouse windows.

The water system was designed for low use also. I didn’t take photos of the bathroom, but there was a Toto toilet with a tank sink–water from washing hands drains into the tank for the next flush. A waterless urinal, a small hand sink with low flow faucet and a corner shower also with a low flow shower head, although this shower looked decorative and unused.

They mention on the website that the gray and black water systems are separate, although Colorado has been slow to legalize gray water systems and rain water systems are so restricted that collection is not plausible for most people.

So the systems were both relatively simple (greenhouse with vent panels) and very sophisticated–photovoltaic electric system). I’m sure there was more to see and learn but the tour was only a couple of hours long. We both really enjoyed it though!

Posted in Design Style, Energy Efficiency, Green Building Interests, House Systems | Comments Off

Diagrams for Fireplace Boiler Wiring

Posted on December 17, 2014 by ellen

These are diagrams of the parts and functions for the fireplace boiler wiring.

The storage side is powered by a 24 Volt transformer. Wired with 120 on one side, 24 volt is delivered on the other.

Transformer Wiring

This is one 24 Volt transformer that I bought-not realizing the Taco Zone Valve Controller had its own internal transformers. This is a 50 amp model that I’m using to power the aquastat and valve.

Plate Mount Transformer

This is the diagram of the Honeywell 8043 valve. It has four leads, two yellow and two red. The yellow are the power lines and the red are the end switch that can be used to trigger another action. On the zone controller the red are wired to turn off the zone valve lights when the valve closes. A 24 volt current is sent when the valve is open and turns off when it closes. The valve can also be opened manually, but the end switch only operates if the valve is opened by current.

Honeywell Valve Diagram

Although the aquastat is controlling a pump in this diagram, the wiring to the valve is the same. The hot side is interrupted by the aquastat, when the aquastat makes the connection, then the circuit is on, when the connection breaks then the circuit to the valve turns off.

Simple Aquastat Wiring

This is an explanation of the aquastat wiring for W-R-B terminals. I am not using the R-B terminals.

Aquastat Function

The Honeywell 6006 aquastat is controlling the valve using the yellow power inputs. The red wires are sending a 24 volt signal to the pump relay. This aquastat works with either 120 volt or 24 volt power–something that was not clear in the documentation.

Honeywell Zone Valve Wiring to Taco Relay

A powered signal from the aquastat to the pump relay requires the alternate relay wiring. A thermostat wire connected to the relay instead would be getting its power from the relay’s transformer and would be wired to the RW terminals, however, the valve must be powered on the yellow side and an external transformer is required. So the W and 24 V/COM terminals on the pump relay are used and 120 VAC is not connected to the relay’s transformer.

The pump relay has both a normally open (N/O) and normally closed (N/C) circuit that can be used when the valve is open and when it closes. Normally closed means the circuit is delivering power except when the valve is on. Normally open means that it will only deliver power or close the circuit when the valve is on.

The storage pump will be on the normally open circuit, it will only come on when the aquastat is letting the valve open because the water in the tank is hot enough to circulate instead of heated water from the boiler. The boiler pump and firing circuits will be normally closed, they will only open when the aquastat sends the signal that the storage water is hot enough to circulate, the valve will be closed and the boiler will operate normally.

The primary pump wiring should remain the same, i.e. wired to the zone control instead of the boiler. The boiler signal from the zone control will have to be interrupted by this set up too. That would avoid having the call for heat sent directly to the boiler. Although not shown below, I believe that it will be wired to the TT connections on the Taco switching relay next to the T and COM ports. That will transfer the signal to the 24 volt side of the relay and connect to the TT on the boiler, where the circuit is normally closed (or ON) unless wood heated water is being circulated to the system instead.

Taco 501-4 Switching Relay Alt 24 V Wiring. UPDATE: The boiler pump can’t be connected like this–moved back to the main controller.

The boiler side also has a transformer for the valves too. I found another one at the Restore that was brand new in the box for $3. It was not plate mounted so I bolted it to the box cover.

Transformer Wiring

The transformer is wired to a Honeywell 8043 zone valve that opens when the Grundfos pipe aquastat reads that the water in the bypass line is hot enough to send to storage. UPDATE: The Grundfos aquastat is set to turn on at 95 but it also turns off at 120, so I had to replace it with the Honeywell high/low aquastat.

This is a one way aquastat unlike the Honeywell 6006, it makes and breaks on only one circuit but the Honeywell can make or break either as a high temp limit or a low temp limit.

Grundfos Clip On Aquastat–Temp. range does not work!

The Taco Mixing Valve is also wired to the transformer–there is no integrated end switch. (An end-switch makes or breaks to indicate positive proof of equipment position being ON or OFF such as with a damper or valve.) There are only two sensors hooked up the Taco i-series valve, one is the boiler supply sensor, and one is the boiler return sensor. The fireplace boiler will not operate steadily enough to use a setpoint or outdoor reset sensor. The sensors will work together to determine the amount of water each pipe will deliver to optimize the water temperature going back to the boiler.

Taco Mixing Valve Wiring

The Taco 006 stainless pump on the fireplace boiler is wired directly to 120 and the entire circuit will be controlled by a light switch in the utility room that will be manually turned on when the fireplace burner is started. I’m planning to put a timer on the circuit so that it can turn off without being monitored until the end of the heat cycle.
This is the logic behind the operation of the stove.

Fireplace Boiler Logic Diagram

Posted in Fireplace Boiler, Planning, Radiant Heat | Comments Off

Wiring Plan for Fireplace Boiler

Posted on December 16, 2014 by ellen

The fireplace boiler wiring has to control the water circulation through the boiler on one side–in the living room, and the circulation through the storage and heat exchanger on the other–in the utility room.

The piping diagram shows some of the wiring logic for the system. I revised the drawing adding a zone valve to the gas boiler side of the radiant circuit so that the water from the heat exchanger only flows when the storage tank is hot enough.

Dibble Fireplace Boiler Piping-15 Revised

On the boiler side, there is also a Honeywell 8043 zone valve that opens only when the water is hot enough to send to the storage tank–it is wired to a small strap on Grundfos clip on aquastat with a fixed temperature range (95 to 120 F) to send it a signal to open or close. UPDATE: The temperature range of the Grundfos is opposite of what is needed. It turns on at 95 and off at 120. The aquastat needs to turn on at 120 and off at 95!

The zone valve will not transfer the signal to any other device so the red wires will not be used. A 24 volt transformer is mounted in the electrical box to power the valve and the Taco i-series mixing valve and 120 volt power is wired to the pump.

FP Boiler Wiring

In real life it looks like this:

FP Boiler Zone Valve and Aquastat Wiring

The boiler circulator/pump will be turned on whenever there is a fire in the fireplace. The Taco iseries mixing valve with sensors on the feed and boiler return will mix water from the storage tank and the circulator bypass to ensure that warm water returns to the stove.

FP Boiler pump and Taco Iseries Mixing Valve

On the storage side several electrical components feed the radiant system from the heat exchanger.

FP Boiler Storage Wiring

There is a Honeywell 6006 strap on aquastat on the delivery pipe–this is an adjustable aquastat that will either make (the electrical connection, in this case to open the zone valve) on temperature rise or temperature fall. I am using only the temperature rise side. I have added a zone valve that the aquastat will trigger to open when the storage water is hot and close when it cools–initial setting will be a 25 degree differential–on at 120 and above, off at 95 and below–same as the grundfos aquastat. (UPDATE: I was wrong about the Grundfos aquastat–it turns on at 95 and off at 120.) By the way for this DC wiring job I’m using high quality marine grade 14 ga. DC wire, because I bought it for an RV project and have it available.
Ancor 121510 Marine Grade Electrical Standard Duplex Tinned Boat Cable (Flat, 14-Gauge, 100-Feet)

Honeywell 6006 Aquastat

This Honeywell 8043 zone valve on the boiler water side will allow hot water from the heat exchanger to move through the radiant system when the aquastat triggers it to open. The aquastat and zone valve are powered by a 24 volt transformer. The zone valve’s end switch (red wires) is connected to the Taco pump relay so that when the valve opens the circulator pump will turn on.

Honeywell 8043 Zone Valve and Taco 501-4 Pump Switching Relay

A small Laing circulator pump will send hot water to the exchanger when it is triggered by the aquastat.
Laing LHB08100085 Low Flow Circulator Pump with Line Cord

Laing Pump and Strap On Aquastat on Storage Tank

I’m working on diagrams and a logic document that I hope will help describe the functions and help me make sure it will all work as designed. There were several mysteries about how the various parts work that I researched and might be helpful if I explained them more thoroughly.

Posted in Electrical, Fireplace Boiler, Planning, Radiant Heat | Comments Off

Current Wiring for the Boiler

Posted on December 15, 2014 by ellen

Way back last spring when I was finishing up the boiler wiring, I had problems with the secondary pump such that I replaced the used pump I bought on ebay with a brand new Taco 011. That was expensive but not as expensive as buying more than one rebuild kit for it or guessing whether the capacitor was bad too. In the post about the pump problem, I promised to explain the change in wiring that the problems with the pump led me to, but I never posted about the wiring and now I can’t remember clearly why there was a problem!

I have some documentation that shows the changes in the wiring. This was the original pump wiring. The primary pump was wired to the boiler and the secondary was wired to the zone control pump end switch.

Original wiring diagram

This is a close up of the zone controller with just one pump wired.

Original Boiler Zone Control Wiring–the end switch is wired to the secondary pump

In this photo of the system, there are only two black wires to the boiler, one is the outdoor reset and the other is the zone valve thermostat end switch that tells the boiler there is a call for heat.

Original Pump Wiring

The secondary pump seemed to have issues with this wiring, it caused the secondary pump to run when the primary did not. That stressed the secondary pump.
I have a diagram of the wiring changes.

Zone Control with Mod-Con pump control. UPDATE: The secondary pump cannot be wired to the Priority Zone–instead both pumps are wired in series to the Space Heating Pump connection.

Close up of the wiring of the pumps on the zone controller.

Revised Zone Control Wiring-Both pumps on Zone Controller UPDATE: This wiring is an error and does not work–Priority zone even with the dip switch set to off, is always on with the NC connection and does not sync with the main boiler control with the NO connection.

Wires changed to boiler–if you can follow them. The boiler pump control wires are routed to the zone control end switch and the two pumps are both wired in series. This works!

Revised Boiler Wiring for Pumps

Although the changes made perfect sense at the time, I’m not sure why the Taco controller diagram for a Mod-Con boiler had the system pump on the zone end switch instead of from the boiler connection, or why the secondary pump runs without the boiler pump when not wired together. This is a problem because I want to add the third pump from storage and that would separate the wiring for these pumps again.

Posted in Condensing Modulating Gas Boiler, Electrical, House Systems, Radiant Heat | Comments Off

Re-Used Polyisocyanurate Ceiling

Posted on December 13, 2014 by ellen

Dave has almost finished the 1.5″ polyiso layer on the ceiling. This is the insulation that we bought from Repurposed Materials. The extra insulation on the ceiling is to eliminate the thermal bridging in the wood rafters. The walls of the house have a 1″ foil faced polyiso sheathing so they already have a thermal break.
Dave has marked the ceiling with pieces of tape where he wants to go back with an open can of Great Stuff to fill in the gaps between the sheets.

Dining Area and Entry Ceiling

Some of the ceiling is quite high so it was nice to have the scaffolding to work up there.

Family Room Ceiling

The kitchen and living room are covered but the kitchen area still needs the gaps filled.

Kitchen and Living Room Ceiling

The wiring chase is open for now, it will be insulated and covered after the electrician pulls wire for the whole house. We won’t be able to finish the wiring until the walls are up though. Since the living room furniture is behind the posts, this open area is a “solar hall” where the sun shines brightly on the floor, warming the house and storing heat for evening.

Solar Hall Ceiling

The master bedroom ceiling is finished now. The narrow area at the vertical radon pipe will be the bedroom wall and entry.

Master Bedroom Ceiling

We are going to add the Majpell air barrier film and battens to hang the drywall from. I purchased the air sealing products from A and E Building Systems, our local dealer for many of the best energy efficient building products. In our Indiana passive solar we put 2″ of old fashioned white polystyrene “beadboard” on the ceiling and just bought long screws to attach the drywall.

The battens and the gap filling ideas came from a Fine Homebuilding forum. We used 1.5″ polyiso and Dave did cut the pieces to follow the rafters, that was easier for him.

“…hang full sheets of 2″ polyiso on the rafters, just like hanging drywall. Leave a 1/4″ to 3/8″ gap between the edges of the sheets as you hang them. The ends of the sheets do not have to fall on the rafters, they can land over a rafter bay. I hang them with nails with round cap plates. You only need 4 per full sheet. Another R-12.
Once hung, peek into the gaps to find the rafters. Use a sharpie marker and mark the face of the polyiso so you know where the rafters are. Now use canned foam to seal the gaps.
Use scrap wood, real furring strips, or rip a sheet of 3/4″ ply into 1-1/2″ to 2″ wide strips. These will be your furring strips. Run these horizontally across the ceiling. Using the sharpie marks as your guide, use 4-1/2″ screws to screw through the furring strip, through the foam, and into the edge of the rafter. The ends of the furring strips do not have to fall on the ends of the rafter. They can also land mid-span. But offset the ends of the furring strips from the ends of the sheets of polyiso. If the furring strips are bowed, set them so the ends of the strips touch the polyiso. When you screw down the center, it’ll pull the ends even tighter.
Hang drywall off the furring strips. The drywall plus air gap is worth a little over R-1.”

This is where I found out about capped nails which have worked great. I had to go to Amazon to get long enough nails to go through the foam and into the rafters. We used 2.5″ nails. We have not used the whole box and they were not very expensive.
WoodPro Fasteners PC212-2M Ring Shank 2000-Count 2-1/2-Inch Electro Galvanized Plastic Cap Nails

Capped Nails

After all the gaps are filled, we will install the air barrier and the battens for the drywall nailing, then we can hang walls!

Posted in Air Intrusion/Thermal Envelope, Reduce Reuse Recycle | Comments Off

Completed Crawlspace!

Posted on December 12, 2014 by ellen

I finished the crawlspace today and replaced all the old pipe insulation with 1″ thick K-Flex R-7 insulation from Supply House. This insulation is a Greenguard certified product for its low VOC and mold resistance. There is over $275 of pipe insulation on all the exposed radiator pipes and the hot water pipes in the crawlspace, including the hot water return pipe. (So far I have purchased $845 worth, about 360 ft., of this R-7 pipe insulation for the house–although I still have to insulate some of the exposed radiant pipes near the boiler) All the hot water pipe under the slab and to the bathroom in the crawlspace was also insulated with R-7 during construction.)

It took about 15 6′ lengths to cover all the pipes. Where the pipe was too close to the joist or was attached with a pipe hanger, I left a gap in the long pipes then went back and cut extra pieces to cover most of the pipe that could not be encircled and then taped the seams. I cut the elbow ends at 45 degrees and fit them together then taped them to cover the entire bend.

This is a photo of two of the wrapped pipes next to the caulked edge of the vinyl barrier.

Insulated Pipes

Here is where the three pipes enter the closet slab–two radiators and the hot water return pipe.

Pipes insulated to closet slab entry

The new pipe insulation goes into the fiberglass layer and all the way up to the floor.

Radiator Pipe insulated to floor

To complete the vinyl ground cover, the two corners on the west end needed some special treatment because the ground extended past the slab around a metal support post. This had to be covered and sealed too. The old wire was a sensor wire that was under the slab at the closet. The sensor was cut off on the other side during the prep for the new slab and now cut off on this crawlspace side too.

Difficult corner

The patch was cut around the post and caulked to the walls then taped around the post and to the vinyl that was caulked to the slab at the stair edge where there was a gap between some spray foam and the slab top. More evidence of the sinking of the original slab.

Spray foam gap under stairs

Here is the final patch sealed all around the post and to the vinyl barrier.

Patch caulked and taped

Another view shows that the pipe is wrapped with tape and the barrier caulked to the short area of wall around it.

Pipe is fully wrapped with barrier

This was a big job and I have the bruises to show for it. The grandkids came over and thought crawling in the crawlspace was great. It was fun to have this secret place below the floor. They were game to crawl around and enjoyed tunneling from the hatch in the bedroom to the hole in the wall of the master bedroom. I’m glad they enjoyed it and very happy to have this job checked off the to do list.

Posted in Air Intrusion/Thermal Envelope, Energy Efficiency, Radon Mitigation | Comments Off

Effective R Value?

Posted on December 12, 2014 by ellen

Amory Lovins’ home boasts an “effective R-Value” of 40 for the masonry walls. I was skeptical knowing they were masonry with a 4″ polyurethane core. The core would be about 20 if it was XPS foam, less if EPS foam was used. Masonry is not know for its R Value and solid concrete 4″ thick is about an R value of between 1.5 and 2.5. So the wall would be about R-25 not 40.
But I researched the R-value of concrete and found out there is something called “Effective R Value” for a thermal mass wall that has a lower R value of the materials alone. This effective value is described from hot box tests of various wall compositions at the Oak Ridge Laboratory in the early 90’s. A paper was published (Also found here.) and subsequently an article in the Home Energy magazine.
I also found a California Energy Standards Appendix describing additional energy measures, U-factor, C-factor, and Thermal Mass Data for various wall assemblies. Thermal Mass is identified by HC or Heat Capacity. I am not sure how heat capacity is translated into “effective R value” but I’m glad to know about this concept, since our trombe wall has a very low R value due to its materials. 8″ concrete blocks are about R-1.5 to 2.5 depending on the density of the concrete and solid slag blocks at 4″ are similar to 4″ brick for an additional .44 and what appears to be 4″ concrete blocks on the outside layer. That makes our wall about R 3.5 at the high end since the slag brick and the concrete are back to back and there is no air cavity or insulating layer. The heating capacity of the wall would take into account its ability to moderate the temperatures in the home as well as gather heat from the solar collector surface.

Trombe Wall Inside Detail about 16″ Thick

Trombe Wall Outside Detail

This masonry organization mentions the research on thermal mass in their description of masonry R-Value.

“Mass effect is real. High-mass walls really can significantly outperform low-mass walls of comparable steady-stated R-value. However, the mass-enhanced R-Value is only significant when the outdoor temperatures cycle above and below indoor temperatures within a 24-hour period. High mass walls are most beneficial in moderate climates that have high daily temperature swings and nearly all areas with significant cooling loads can benefit from thermal mass in EXTERIOR walls. This is especially true for the sunny Southwest areas of Arizona, New Mexico and Colorado.”

They reference the article from the Oak Ridge Laboratory report in the Home Energy Magazine.

“According to an article written by Jeffrey E. Christian and Jan Kosny titled “Wall R-Values that Tell It Like It Is,” wall systems with significant thermal mass have the potential, depending on climate, to reduce annual heating and cooling energy requirements below those required by standard wood frame construction with similar steady-state R-value.

Masonry products, with mass-enhanced R-value or thermal mass, provide some of the best energy values for homeowners today. They consistently rank higher than steady-stated R-value of wood framed walls. Remember, the overall R-value is not as important as how the home is constructed. Attention to details like the windows you select, like low e-thermal, dual pane windows that are tinted, is just as important as the R-value in the walls. In fact, much heat loss or gain, up to 48%, is through windows, not walls! The most energy efficient building materials for the desert or Southwest climate is 24″ thick adobe, which only has an R-value of less than 7. It is energy efficient because of it other attributes including thermal mass, air tightness, thermal lag and thermal dampening. This proves that R-value is just one piece of the energy puzzle, and often, does not paint a realistic picture of energy efficiency.”

Another reference to masonry and R Value:

“The effect of thermal mass (also known as thermal inertia) on walls is well documented. High thermal inertia walls, such as concrete masonry, have the ability to delay and reduce the impact of outdoor temperature changes on conditioned indoor environments, improving energy efficiency. The International Energy Conservation Code (1994) recognizes most masonry walls that weigh more than 25 lb per square foot as mass walls. For example, this wall weight is attained with a 90 pcf 8″ un-reinforced cmu.”

Green Building Advisers take a dim look at thermal mass in this forum discussion, with most of their experience in cold climates, they discount the thermal performance of mass vs insulation R-Value except in some desert buildings. However, a poster from the front range in Colorado touts its effectiveness.

“I live and build on the Colorado Front Range and am a big believer in low tech Passive Solar, so no “expensive equipment” needed to harvest the “free energy”. Passive solar, moderate thermal mass, super tight insulation and being comfortable from 65 to 75 degrees, can “almost completely” eliminate heating bills and expensive heating & cooling equipment.”

This forum also has a good explanation of capacitive vs. resistive heat transfer and R-Value.

“R-values are for resistive insulation, calculated and measured in steady-state conditions where heat flow is consistently in one direction, from the warm to the cold side of an assembly. Capacitive insulation effects result from non-steady state condition where the heat flow reverses on a regular diurnal cycle. This can only be useful where exterior temperatures cycle significantly above and below desired interior comfort conditions e.g. in hot desert climates – heat starts to move slowly through the wall during the day but changes direction to head out again when the exterior cools dramatically at night. This is why traditional building cultures in those climates frequently make use of extremely thick mud or masonry walls and roofs. Capacitive insulation has virtually no effect in steady-state heat flow, which is when temperatures are relatively constant for an extended period of time on each side of a material.”

I found an excellent article republished here from a LEED AP explaining the difference between thermal mass and R-Value and how “effective R-Value” is calculated. There are some fancy computer simulations that can do the job based on generic data or this method could be used.

“Performance of the building as a whole is simulated over a year’s worth of weather data. The results is an estimate of the annual heating and cooling energy use of that building. Next, walls of the building model are change to non-mass wall and the wall R-value is increased (to make up of the lack of thermal mass). Computer simulations are rerun with increasing wall R-value until the annual energy use of the frame wall building matches that of the mass building.”

James Plagmann, our architect, brought up this issue when he first looked at the house’s construction. He was initially perplexed by the trombe wall structure, saying the heat gained during the day would just leave the building at night. Later he told me he talked to some solar experts about the wall who said it would be effective. In fact his initial thoughts were somewhat correct, the thermal mass wall is “superheated” during sunny days by the sun due to the collectors on the south-facing front of the thermal wall. The walls heat slowly and release their heat slowly into the space. Someone in the above discussion explained that thermal mass is like a water cistern, it has to be filled to provide insulation properties. It works precisely because Colorado is so sunny and the difference between day and night temperatures are similar to those in any desert, hotter during the day and colder at night.
I believe our LEED evaluators (Energy Logic) use energy modeling software to calculate whole house performance to judge the energy efficiency of the building. I assume this software has some type of thermal mass modeling that will take into account the low R-value but high thermal capacity of the trombe wall.

Posted in Air Intrusion/Thermal Envelope, Green Building Interests | Comments Off

Amory Lovins Home Tour!

Posted on December 10, 2014 by ellen

We had a great opportunity due to the Roaring Fork USGBC scheduling of a tour of Amory Lovins Passive Solar, Greenhouse Furnace, Net Zero, photovoltaic and thermal solar home in Snowmass, yesterday! It was a large tour group, about 30 mostly green building experts so their questions and observations were really interesting. There were two or three employees of the Rocky Mountain Institute running the tour and they were very obliging and included lots of interesting details.
Amory Lovins is an energy policy activist who wrote in the mid seventies and forward about changing attitudes and policy for current and future energy needs. He was trained as a physicist but quit his PhD at Oxford to work for Friends of the Earth. He got very involved in writing books and working to change policy on environmental issues and eventually moved back to the USA and with his first wife, L. Hunter Lovins, started the Rocky Mountain Institute which is an energy think tank in Snowmass. The RMI is currently building a net zero super low energy use commercial office building in the nearby town of Basalt, to move their operations into their own building as well as use it for demonstration of energy conscious commercial building techniques.
The home was built circa 82-83 with the help of lots of volunteers in forming the slip form walls–which is an inexpensive masonry building technique also used by Frank Lloyd Wright and his students at Taliesin West in Scottsdale, AZ in the 30’s. Many homesteaders learned the technique from Helen and Scott Nearing, famous homesteaders from the 30’s who were gurus of simple living. Apparently the original technique was invented by Ernest Flagg in 1920. Dave is currently building a slip form garden wall with the old broken up concrete slab that was taken out of the house.
Amory placed a 4″ thick (low CFC Freon) polyurethane foam in the middle of the slipforms and the rock faced each edge while the gap was filled with cement. He used curved forms so the basic house is a rammed earth north wall (the RMI guides mentioned that) and a curving masonry wall that mostly faces south.

Lovins Floorplan

This is a 4000 square ft. house so roughly twice the size of our first passive solar after two additions and almost twice the size of our current remodel. It also houses Amory’s library and for years was the headquarters of the Rocky Mountain Institute so much of the east wing is office and library space.
I wish I had taken more photos, last night I was mostly interested in the radiant heat and data collections systems but the house itself was quite nice.
One of the most impressive areas was the octagonal bookshelves in one of the towers located behind the greenhouse. I have always loved library ladders and there were lots of high shelves to use them. There was also a small bathroom in one of these towers complete with a waterless urinal, toilet with tank sink, mexican-tiled half moon shower and a small hand sink.

Tall library

Tall library ladder

The home had a cozy living room nook with built in couch–also very Frank Lloyd Wright in concept.

Living Room

There were lots of LED fixtures in the ceilings–part of a 2009 retrofit and the ceiling lamps were circle fluorescent.

Lighting

The kitchen was spacious and featured an inductive stovetop, an Asko dishwasher (most efficient) at least a couple of ovens and two of the two compartment Sun Frost refrigerators/freezers with the compressors visible from the back in a pantry. The refrigerator had an extra “fin” outside the entry to include outdoor winter temps in the refrigeration process.

Sun Frost Compressors

The most impressive feature is the greenhouse “furnace” where banana trees and other tropical plants bear fruit in an area of the country that hardly has a long enough growing season for tomatoes. The greenhouse features meandering stone paths, a bridge, a small patio, lush green plants that hang over the paths, a gurgling waterfall and brook that collects in a small pond. Kind of a paradise inside the house. Spreading its heat and humidity to the whole structure.

Greenhouse

The greenhouse is framed by two large concrete arches that have built in pipes that preheat water that goes into the solar heating tank.

Concrete Arch

But that is getting into the mechanicals which I’ll address in a future post. Touring this home was inspiring and enlightening.

Posted in Design Style, Energy Efficiency, Green Building Interests | Comments Off

Sconce Lights Craigslist Find

Posted on December 7, 2014 by ellen

I’ve been working on the electrical layout and planning to keep wiring from the outside walls and inside the thermal envelope. We have one large wiring chase across the building ceiling and plan to have all the rest of the wiring done in interior walls.

Dibble Res_Electric Plan_Rev-11_14 w_core

Since we want to limit the penetrations in the ceiling I was planning to purchase sconce lighting instead of ceiling lights–except for a few chandeliers and ceiling fans. I found a sweet deal for “outdated” sconce lights on Craigslist. They were from a spa so there were several matching ones.

Spa Sconces $100 Craigslist Ad

Turned out they only had 8 lights, but 2 were double. They were $10 each and I thought that was a very fair price. They are very much a “lodge” style. The spa they came from updated to brushed nickel modern sconces. They threw in all the new backplates from the replacement lights so must have just used their existing backplates. We are very happy with the style and the bargain and we will be able to have matching lights in the main areas of the house.

Stained Glass Wall Sconces

Posted in Electrical, House Systems, Reduce Reuse Recycle | Comments Off

Crawlspace Radon Piping

Posted on December 6, 2014 by ellen

Another thing I am rethinking is the piping that the radon mitigation calls for under the vapor barrier.

I stuck a pipe under the vinyl, measuring for connection to the vent pipe and it looked kind of ridiculous. A short piece of pipe there close to the vent is not going to pull much in the way of radon laden air from under the sealed vapor barrier into the vent. And it would block the vent from pulling air from the entire crawlspace.

Crawlspace Radon Vent Pipe

If radon gas does escape from under the vapor barrier, then the fan should pull it out of the crawlspace before it got a chance to make its way through the insulation and flooring. I’m going to take out this pipe to the vent and just allow the fan to draw air from the entire crawlspace. This matches the crawlspace conditioning requirement that household air is drawn through the crawlspace area instead of outside air. I’ll put a vent to the crawlspace in the master bedroom so that there is an intake. The stairs also have some cracks that would allow house air to be drawn into the negatively pressured (due to the fan) crawlspace.

Just waiting for delivery of more R-7 pipe insulation and the crawlspace area will be complete–until we decide to add extra insulation to the unburied walls.

Posted in Air Intrusion/Thermal Envelope, Radon Mitigation | Comments Off

Scaffolding

Posted on December 6, 2014 by ellen

One of the most important tools for working on our high ceilings has been the sets of scaffolding on wheels. I bought these at Harbor Freight with a coupon so each set was about $200 with tax. I first bought one and then when another coupon was published, went back and bought another one and they have been handy tools to have.
I had to use the double scaffolding to get high enough to fix the bird holes.

Double Scaffolding for Bird Hole Fix

The demolition guys who helped me finish the high areas of the cathedral ceiling used the scaffolding too.

Double Scaffolding for Demo

We have only been using one set to put up polyiso the other is disassembled for now. Both will be used again when we put up the trim and paint etc.

Single Scaffolding

Another useful tool from Harbor Freight has been this ratcheting holder. I could not find it on the Harbor Freight site so they may no longer carry it. They have a ratcheting pickup truck holder which might work the same, but this one has two pads, one on top and one on the bottom that hold the panels to the ceiling. The ratchet gets stuck sometimes and the pole doesn’t tighten as well as it used to, but overall it has been a useful tool. It was also on sale when I bought it for about $10.

Ratcheting Holder

Posted in Construction, Tools | Comments Off

More About Tools

Posted on December 6, 2014 by ellen

It is great to have a good selection of tools when working on such a large project. We also have our daughter and her husband nearby who are willing to lend us their tools when we need them.

Here is a photo of our tool storage area on and below the dining windowsill. It is often messy because we always seem to have more stuff than space to put it, but if we remember to put stuff back in this area, we usually can find the tool we need. Better than searching all over the house and garage.

Tool Storage

I’m going to post more about the tools that we are using for the job because we often wonder if we will use a tool enough to justify its cost. I feel that if the tool will make the job go faster or easier, we should buy it. That is the benefit of doing the work ourselves, we can get some very cool tools in the process.

Posted in Construction, Tools | Comments Off

A Tool for Every Job

Posted on December 5, 2014 by ellen

Battery Powered Caulk Gun

Dewalt Cordless Caulk Gun

I used this 18 volt cordless battery powered caulk gun to quickly spread the caulk for the crawlspace tarps without tiring out my hands with the manual caulk gun. With lots of caulking to do, I think the gun is worthwhile but Dave doesn’t like the automated application. He says it is too difficult to control and prefers the manual caulk gun. He also has larger and stronger hands though.

This seems like a gimmicky tool, but it works and has good reviews on Amazon where I bought it. At the time it was about $200. We have plenty more caulking to do to put up the air barrier membrane and I’m sure more caulking will be called for around the place. So I’m glad I have this option.

It works best for large jobs of course. For small shorter jobs, like caulking the vent patch, I just used the manual gun. It is the long stretches of crawlspace walls for the tarp edges where this really saves time.

Posted in Tools | Comments Off

Crawlspace “After”

Posted on December 5, 2014 by ellen

The conditioned crawlspace is almost complete. The vinyl tarps/billboards are sealed to the walls with caulk. The low VOC Loctite PL375 is inexpensive and easy to work with. It is both a construction adhesive and gap filling caulk and washes up with water.

North and East Walls

The seams are taped with double sided tape between the two layers and yellow vinyl tape on the top of the seams. I used the tape that I bought at the Restore when the plastic vapor barrier was being installed under the concrete. This tape was made by a Denver manufacturer–Bron Tapes.

Under the Back Door, Taped and Caulked

In this photo you can see the hump in the foreground that is the sewer and water pipes.

Transition from hallway to main area

The original slab continued under the wall and stairs so I covered it with the vapor barrier and caulked it to the top.

Slab Edge Caulked under Hallway and Stairs–next to Master Bedroom

The area around each of the posts is taped–this one was tricky because it had a small gap between the 2 x 4’s. So I taped a narrow piece between the two posts and then connected it on each side to form a gapless layer.

Taped around posts

The old screened vent to the outside was covered by replacing the hole that was made in the 1″ foil covered polyiso and taping it with the special sticky air barrier Siga Sicrall 60 air barrier tape, then filling in the hole in the 2 x 12 rim joist with polyiso from the inside and taping that with the Siga tape. Then fitting a piece of scrap board in the hole in the siding and caulking all the gaps around that.

Outside vent

Finally I used a bit of textured hardboard from an old hollow core door to cover the messy caulked patch.

New vent cover

This is another big task to check off the To Do list. We are getting close to finishing this fall’s work. We need to start another list in the new year!

Posted in Air Intrusion/Thermal Envelope, Local Products, Radon Mitigation | Comments Off

Wood Boiler Clarification

Posted on December 4, 2014 by ellen

The “Boiler Room” forum on Hearth.com had some folks willing to try to answer my concerns about the system pump overcoming the vent pipe and pushing boiler water into the overflow tank. Unfortunately they had some concerns of their own, mostly about my competence. That was a bit wounding but I tried to just get the info I needed and move on. This is the forum discussion on the topic.

Someone mentioned that with an open system the boiler pressure cannot be higher than the opposite pressure from the elevated tank and it’s “head” or water would flow into the overflow tank.

Pressure in Boiler is Balanced by Pressure from the Elevated Tank

But for the open tank there were several cautions and requirements especially about the corrosive influence of the water in the overflow tank bringing oxygen into the system that seemed to make it a poorer choice than a closed system. The relationship between the vent and the feed pipes remained murky–wasn’t obvious if both are needed, and I can’t really find a full explanation anywhere. Since I have a pressurized fill system instead of the gravity feed of the open tank too, it seemed obvious that I had to move away from the open tank.
Once I understood that the open tank overflow system was specified in the installation instructions to keep the pressure in the boiler under the maximum system operating pressure of 2 bar, then it made sense to forgo the open tank and its issues of design and operation and just use a low pressure relief valve.

Spectra Stove Maximum Working Pressure

Atmospheric pressure at about 30 inches of mercury (the standard measure) equals 14.7 psi or about 1 bar. So operating the system with a 15 psi pressure relief valve will ensure that the system stays well under the maximum operating pressure. These conversions are made easy because of the online measurement converters for air pressure. I used this one–from a free source code site–enter any measure and all others are converted to match!

I ordered a 15 psi pressure relief valve and a 4.7 gallon pressurized boiler expansion tank last night and will install them instead.

The question still remained whether the pump would have provided too much pressure in the system, tripping the 15 psi relief valve, but that is not going to be the case. (Coincidentally, the head from the open tank would have had the same effect on the water in the boiler as the 15 psi pressure relief valve–it would not have moved up the pipe due to the opposite pressure of the height of the water in the vent pipe (head) and atmospheric pressure.)

The explanation from a forum expert was, “Although the pump is intended to build pressure, it is also pulling suction at the same time. Since your system will always maintain a positive head pressure, the entire system will remain flooded at all times. This means that instead of the pump “building pressure” it will just serve to move water.”

The Taco 006 is a high head lower flow pump because there is so much water pumping into the boiler and pulling from the storage tank and pipes. It would have to overcome the total head in the boiler system to build enough pressure to blow the pressure relief valve.

This is the new piping diagram.

Dibble Fireplace Boiler Piping-15

Posted in Fireplace Boiler, Planning, Radiant Heat | Comments Off

Wood Boiler Confusion

Posted on December 2, 2014 by ellen

There is a problem with the piping design for the wood boiler. I finally got all the leaks fixed and the system holds air pressure, but I had the vent pipe plugged so that air would not escape up into the overflow/header tank.

Boiler System holds Air

Sometime in the process I started to wonder what was going to keep the water from just pumping up into the header tank and filling it to overflow instead of pumping the water out to the storage tank. The pump puts the header tank under pressure from below. The pipe is plumbed to dump the water into the tank but through an open hole, not a sealed one. This open tank just doesn’t seem to make sense.

Dibble Fireplace Boiler Piping-14

In fact the water enters the tank from an opening in the side, more like this drawing.

Open System Header Tank

I planned to plug up the other opening in the tank and connect a tube to the highest as an overflow. I didn’t have a return loop to the boiler from this tank because I am filling the system from the storage tank side where the incoming water is located.

The overflow is supposed to go into the upper tank if the stove gets too hot–here is the photo of it getting temporarily installed for testing.

Overflow Tank for Boiler

The pex pipe would connect to the upper copper pipe and the air assembly below that disassembled and plugged since I won’t have a cold return from the tank. Unless I have to! More investigation is required. I did post this question at the Boiler Room at Hearth.com hoping some expert will let me know how to deal with this issue. (Hearth.com experts were not happy with the pex pipe to the overflow, nor the small size of it–and cautioned that the pex would expand and move with any heated water in it and possibly disconnect from the tank entirely, so this pipe would have to be copper too–I had planned to use copper when the tank was moved to a structure above the stove but now the entire open system is scrapped for a closed system instead–See Wood Stove Clarification.)

Posted in Fireplace Boiler, Planning, Radiant Heat | Comments Off

Crawlspace Conditioning

Posted on November 23, 2014 by ellen

We had the initial energy audit done in March of 2012. One of the recommendations in the audit was to condition the crawlspace.

“Your crawlspace can cause major air quality and energy issues in your home. The vents in this area should be sealed. A vapor barrier laid and sealed on the floor, and R-19 vinyl faced fiberglass batt installed on the walls. Pay special attention to air sealing and insulating rim joist areas.”

Covering the dirt in the crawlspace is also part of the radon mitigation process. Since we found out that the exterior of the concrete walls is covered with 4″ of xps foam, more insulation on the crawlspace walls is not a priority, but covering the ground was an important step in adding the crawlspace to the “conditioned” space in the house.

When we purchased the polyiso from Repurposed Materials, we also picked up a couple of heavy vinyl former billboards. We happened to buy 36 x 10.5 ft size–although I had not measured and was not looking for a particular size, one sheet was exactly the width and length of the larger side of the crawlspace. The second one was cut to fill in the rest of the space.

Vinyl over cleared out dirt

The vinyl has a 4″ “edge” where it was mounted to the billboard with pipe–this will be caulked to the concrete walls. All the perforations such as the beam supports and the plumbing will be taped to prevent air/radon escaping into the area.

Taped around plumbing

The vinyl is cleaner and makes it much easier to crawl over than over the raw dirt.

Clean vinyl covers dirt

Here is the second piece of vinyl being installed.

Second piece of vinyl

While installing the first piece, I drug it around under the floor–unfolding it was difficult and time consuming. For the second piece, I cut it and refolded it above ground to make it easier to spread into the space. The colored advertisement portion of the billboard is facing down.

Spreading out the vinyl

The narrow area under the hallway to the bedrooms, has a bit of extra vinyl at the edge. It can be extended over the edge of what is left of the master bedroom’s original concrete slab.

Vinyl in the narrow “hallway” area

I still have some taping and the caulking to finish the floor but it feels like quite an accomplishment to finally get the vinyl installed almost three years after the house was purchased and the initial energy audit recommendation.

Posted in Air Intrusion/Thermal Envelope, Construction, Radon Mitigation | Comments Off