Tag Archives: windows

Tightly Sealed Homes Are Coming Our Way – Passive, Yet Powerful Houses

Posted on June 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

The idea of passive house design isn’t new. It was first promoted in the early 1990s.

But the concept — virtually airtight buildings, heavily insulated and using triple-glazed windows, requiring little energy for heating or cooling — has yet to capture the public’s imagination. Part of the problem may be people’s lack of exposure to a passive house. There just aren’t that many to visit.

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“Unless you can show the public the projects under construction, then stand in it when it’s finished, I think it’s hard to understand the passive house,” says Julie Torres Moskovitz, the founding principal at Fabrica718, an award-winning Brooklyn design firm.

Torres Moskovitz estimates there may be 40,000 certified passive house buildings in the world, but probably fewer than 50 projects in the United States.

“There are also a lot of houses being built with the passive house (concept) in mind that don’t quite reach the (certification) level,” she says.

The stringent passive house — or Passivhaus — standards and the Passive House Planning Package software were developed by the Passive House Institute in Germany. The U.S.-based Passive House Institute is currently formulating its own standards. The PHPP software incorporates a designer’s calculations and helps design a passive house.

A passive house saves up to 90 percent of space heating costs and 75 percent of overall energy costs, though some European studies indicate the numbers may be even higher.

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Renovations; New Doors New Windows This may help deciding what you need

Posted on December 12, 2012 | Leave a comment

If there’s one thing guaranteed to cause arguments, it’s renovations.

Aside from the disruption of having tradies traipse through your home, the confusion over whether certain facts were actually communicated, and the sharp sense of unease watching the bank balance shrink, the biggest bone of contention has to be the vast array of choices.

We’ve gotten through bathroom taps, the toilet, the hand basin and what to cover the floor with. But the showstopper this week was something seemingly innocuous – the door.

The statement “I’ve ordered the door”, was met with stony silence. On one side of the fence is the argument for a bog-standard single-pane glass entry door that lets in plenty of light and garden views, but also heat and cold.

On the other is the desire for, at the very least, double-glazing, preferably with a low-emissivity (low-e) coating on one face to make the set-up more efficient.

Both sides of the fence are happy with a timber frame, which although requires more maintenance, suits the style of the house and is more energy efficient than standard aluminium.

The main sticking point is the price difference of the two different glazing options (several hundred dollars at most suppliers), and the fact that, as most companies don’t offer double-glazing as standard, it will throw the wait-time for the door out past Christmas.

For all the talk of building more energy-efficient homes, it seems most suppliers are still playing catch up. Few have off-the-shelf double-glazed doors, and those that do, stock them in limited sizes.

One company I contacted this week said they used to do a double-glazed unit, but found the double-glazing didn’t fit their doors so now they only offer single glazed.

Argh!!

While the argument is not yet settled on the domestic front, and the door deposit has not actually been paid, there has been plenty of reading of the Window Energy Rating Scheme (WERS) website, in particular the climate zone map and the window comparison tool on the Efficient Glazing site. NOTE: this is for Australia; USA uses Energy Star check out their website at: http://www.energystar.gov

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Simplifying Cross Ventilation

Posted on April 7, 2012 | Leave a comment

Ever heard the term “cross-ventilation” mentioned in a real estate ad or a story about a million-dollar architect-designed place, and thought it sounded like scientific mumbo jumbo?

That’s the trouble with architect-speak sometimes, or techno talk of any kind – what is a relatively simple concept can suddenly look awfully complicated.

But anyone who has ever gone camping will be able to tell you the basics of cross-ventilation – opening up opposite windows (or tent flaps) to allow the air to flow from one side to another.

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It’s the same thing that you would do if you have to sit in your car on a hot day. One window is simply not enough, but one open on each side of the car does the trick.

Cameron Rosen, managing director of Australian Living, a Sydney construction company with a sustainable bent, says the first step in planning for cross-ventilation is working out where the breezes are on your own site.

There’s several ways to do this – the simple golfer’s trick of throwing some dry grass into the air when the breeze is blowing to see which direction it’s coming from; keeping a close eye on trees, flags, a weather vane or a windsock to see how it behaves; or lastly, taking a look at the observations on the Bureau of Meteorology’s website for an area near you.

Disclaimer: for information and entertainment purposes only

Tag Archives: windows

Tightly Sealed Homes Are Coming Our Way – Passive, Yet Powerful Houses

Renovations; New Doors New Windows This may help deciding what you need

Simplifying Cross Ventilation

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