Building smaller homes should be in that list of things to do to reduce energy demand. None of these giant, leaky McMansions like they build in Texas housing tracts.
One of my friends grew up in a house his dad’s company built.
It has a super tiny, almost bungalow-sized building on the surface that’s basically a glorified sitting room for entertaining a few guests, and one bedroom.
Then behind door #2 is a staircase leading to the actual house, mostly underground.
If you look behind the fence that surrounds what appears to be a back yard, it’s about 3ft of roof sticking out of the ground.
I’m not an architect or engineer, so I just assumed there were technical reasons he didn’t want the house completely underground, cause that seems to me like it would be better to have it completely buried if you’re going for energy efficiency and things like that. Although now that I say that, I imagine you’d want some natural lighting. Maybe a good compromise? No idea.
Too bad we lost touch, because I’d love to ask his dad more questions about how it was designed and built. I remember the few times I was there it was always cool, but never cold in winter and never hot in summer.
Nice idea, but in my area for example this wouldn’t be a good solution. I live in a flood prone area.
Luckily there are many different solutions. What I find quite interesting are simple techs that also don’t require electricity, like a heat chimney, or a air supply from underground, air-flow designs in general.
Also, with already built houses there are even simple possibilities. What I’ve done successfully is letting a tree grow on the south west side, now in the evenings my walls and with that the inside area is much cooler.
This particular house was on a decent sized hill in the middle of a large flat area. I think the sea would have to rise 750ft or the closest river would have to flood half a state for it to flood their house. It wouldn’t work in my area either. I live in a large valley.
It definitely requires tons of money to do. I wonder if they’ve made back the difference in savings yet?
People really underestimate what a couple trees can do when strategically placed. Or how drastic the temperature difference can be between flat lawn and cops of trees. They’re giant cellulose and lignen heat sinks.
I wonder if building houses like deep freezers would be viable. Doors, windows all at about 2.5m so the cold air is trapped in the living space and any air loss is the hotter upper part when people leave the house.
Look at passive solar, it’s probably the easiest method for decreasing energy use. It often does call for thick walls and roofs with radiant barriers, but the underlying principle is taking advantage of the sun’s position changing throughout the year (provided you aren’t on the equator).
there are a thousand ways we could improve home design but homes aren’t optimized for efficiency they’re built to cost and they’re already unaffordable.
Yes and no. Yes they are built to be cheap and minimally code compliant but they are also way too fucking big. Most of the new construction I see is shitty ass mcmansions at 4k sqft and up with 5 bathrooms and 50 windows, when it could be 2800 sq ft to something close to passivhaus standards (PGH), all electric and very, very efficient for the same price. But somehow these asswipes needs a 5th bathroom to shit in so we are stuck with them optimizing construction to size and number of shitters, not efficiency. Unaffordability is a real issue but it’s a cop out to shitty oversized inefficient housing. We need to use the codes and tax structures to build smaller efficient homes, which will actually help affordability.
Building smaller homes should be in that list of things to do to reduce energy demand. None of these giant, leaky McMansions like they build in Texas housing tracts.
Tldr: build a hobbit hole
One of my friends grew up in a house his dad’s company built.
It has a super tiny, almost bungalow-sized building on the surface that’s basically a glorified sitting room for entertaining a few guests, and one bedroom.
Then behind door #2 is a staircase leading to the actual house, mostly underground.
If you look behind the fence that surrounds what appears to be a back yard, it’s about 3ft of roof sticking out of the ground.
I’m not an architect or engineer, so I just assumed there were technical reasons he didn’t want the house completely underground, cause that seems to me like it would be better to have it completely buried if you’re going for energy efficiency and things like that. Although now that I say that, I imagine you’d want some natural lighting. Maybe a good compromise? No idea.
Too bad we lost touch, because I’d love to ask his dad more questions about how it was designed and built. I remember the few times I was there it was always cool, but never cold in winter and never hot in summer.
Nice idea, but in my area for example this wouldn’t be a good solution. I live in a flood prone area.
Luckily there are many different solutions. What I find quite interesting are simple techs that also don’t require electricity, like a heat chimney, or a air supply from underground, air-flow designs in general.
Also, with already built houses there are even simple possibilities. What I’ve done successfully is letting a tree grow on the south west side, now in the evenings my walls and with that the inside area is much cooler.
This particular house was on a decent sized hill in the middle of a large flat area. I think the sea would have to rise 750ft or the closest river would have to flood half a state for it to flood their house. It wouldn’t work in my area either. I live in a large valley.
It definitely requires tons of money to do. I wonder if they’ve made back the difference in savings yet?
People really underestimate what a couple trees can do when strategically placed. Or how drastic the temperature difference can be between flat lawn and cops of trees. They’re giant cellulose and lignen heat sinks.
To do that, we’d first have to fix capitalism.
I wonder if building houses like deep freezers would be viable. Doors, windows all at about 2.5m so the cold air is trapped in the living space and any air loss is the hotter upper part when people leave the house.
Look at passive solar, it’s probably the easiest method for decreasing energy use. It often does call for thick walls and roofs with radiant barriers, but the underlying principle is taking advantage of the sun’s position changing throughout the year (provided you aren’t on the equator).
there are a thousand ways we could improve home design but homes aren’t optimized for efficiency they’re built to cost and they’re already unaffordable.
Yes and no. Yes they are built to be cheap and minimally code compliant but they are also way too fucking big. Most of the new construction I see is shitty ass mcmansions at 4k sqft and up with 5 bathrooms and 50 windows, when it could be 2800 sq ft to something close to passivhaus standards (PGH), all electric and very, very efficient for the same price. But somehow these asswipes needs a 5th bathroom to shit in so we are stuck with them optimizing construction to size and number of shitters, not efficiency. Unaffordability is a real issue but it’s a cop out to shitty oversized inefficient housing. We need to use the codes and tax structures to build smaller efficient homes, which will actually help affordability.