Autumn pictures…

Heating and Ventilation – The heart and lungs of this cottage…or any house!

Heating and ventilation are the heart and lungs of every home and these two functions take on a very important role as they work together in any building, but particularly ones off the grid. Almost all heating and ventilation systems require electrical power, so they are often neglected or done poorly in homes off the grid. If ventilation is neglected it will lead to air quality and structural rotting problems in an extremely well insulated, air tight building such as mine.

 

It starts with design! And design should start with the architect or planner of the structure as it did with this project. Of course “house as a system” is my business and I understand that when you super insulate a house it is critical to make it “air tight” or vapor tight. Once you make a structure super air tight it then becomes critical to have good ventilation and since I am off the grid and my main heating choices are propane and geo thermal (both of which are expensive to operate). It is therefore critical to have heat recovery on this ventilation / air exchange. The fresh air side of this ventilation will be returned through the forced air furnace / duct. Since installing a forced air heating system I planned a 9’ ceiling height in the basement which then allowed for a drop ceiling. I also made sure that all the main floor joists ran the same way (in this case east /west) and the beam down the center (north / south) was a drop beam insuring that all the pipe runs could go over this beam thereby eliminating more drops.

 

Having Darren, one of our skilled sheet metal installers on site to help fine tune the design was fantastic (pictures below). Designers can be given something this easy and already planned out and then along comes the plumber and puts his drain waste and vent right in the path you designed for the duct pipe route. That’s when you need someone with knowledge of how air gets through the duct work and how changes will affect air flow. Darren, with his Quality First training and years of experience was able to find solutions. It was a real thrill for to see our guys installing the ductwork and solving challenges with the design. Along with Darren and myself, was Mat (sheet metal) and Warren (our TQ bench and fittings production). It was a long, hard two days but very gratifying to get so much accomplished.

 

Ventilation:

Dave Hill at Eneready (our supplier of HRV’s) is in the process of building an HRV (heat recovery ventilation) for us that incorporates a DC motor and only consumes approximately 22 watts at 24 volts. This 24 volt HRV could be a first in Canada or anywhere for that matter! Since I am planning to use photovoltaic solar panels to produce electricity, every watt we use is extremely precious ie, expensive to produce.

 

Heating:

Bryant Geo Thermal is the manufacturer our company represents and since they supply one of the finest Geo Thermal furnaces, we have chosen them. Secondly; since they incorporate a DC blower motor which consumes only a fraction of the electricity, Bryant is an obvious choice.

A secondary advantage of having a DC blower in the furnace is that when we are using the wood burning RSF Opel, (the return air grill which will be located above the gravity vent off the top of the Opel), with the blower running this fan will draw in the convection heat from above the fireplace and distribute it through out the entire house. In the resent photos you are able to see the gravity vent pipes coming off the top of the Opel. I will be trying it both ways, with the blower operating and without. I will let every one know what I experience (how different the distribution is with the blower circulating) however this won’t be until winter 2009.