Week 19 & 20 at the Sustainable Village: HRVs, Siding & Porches on Helical Piers

Week 19 was a flurry of activity trying to finish homes for students to move in starting in Week 20. That included siding, interior trim, adding deck railing, moving in furniture, and–everyone’s favorite–cleaning up!

During Week 20 students moved into three of the homes. We are still wrapping up the interior of the SW home as well as a few outdoor tasks like siding. We are using a recyclable cellular vinyl siding on the south faces of the homes–a nice contrast with the bright metal siding and salvaged mining pipe. Each house has a unique patchwork look.

We also built front porches for the two homes on pilings–which meant driving four steel helical piers into the ground and building a wood deck on them. In the time lapse, you can watch Dawson installing the HRV and ductwork in the SW home (in turbo speed).

 

UAF Sustainable Village Week 18: Interior finishing

It’s finishing time at the Sustainable Village! The devil is in the details, and we’re detailing ceilings, floors, corners, railings, trim, and everything else. The time lapse shows workers installing beautiful birch paneling on the upstairs ceiling as well as cabinets and appliances.

Finishing up @ the UAF Sustainable Village

What to look for in an energy efficient house

Shopping for a home in Fairbanks can be difficult, especially if energy efficiency is a priority. With heating oil prices volatile and resale value at stake, finding the most fuel-efficient home makes sense.

Following are just a few of the things to look for in an efficient home.

Site Location

  • South-facing slopes that are exposed to sunlight will be warmer in the winter and require less heating than comparable homes on north-facing slopes or obscured by dense tree canopies. Deciduous trees, such as Alaska birch, are desirable because they lose their leaves in winter and allow sunlight to shine through.
  • Ideally, homes should be situated lengthwise east to west in order to take advantage of the sun.
  • Protection from wind, provided by trees or hills, can help to conserve heat in winter. Low-lying evergreens or shrubs placed on the sides of a house that are exposed to wind will also help conserve heat.

Design

  • Houses that share common walls with other structures, such as townhomes, lose less heat than standalone homes.
  • The overall shape of the house will affect heat loss due to the amount of wall space exposed to the elements. L-shaped, H-shaped, or U-shaped homes, for example, will tend to lose more heat than rectangular homes.

  • Arctic entryways that are sealed from the outside and the inside living areas by separate doors can help retain heat.

  • South-facing windows are preferable to windows on any other axis because they can collect sunlight and minimize heat loss.

  • Plumbing should be run inside heated or indirectly heated areas and consolidated as much as is practical. Sinks, baths, and laundry should be close to the water heater to minimize standby heat loss or, alternatively, on-demand water heaters can be used.

 

Insulation

  • There’s a saying among energy raters in Alaska – “You can’t over-insulate, you can only under-ventilate.” When inspecting a house, ask how much and what type of insulation is in the floor, walls, and attic. Other than airtight construction, no other single factor will affect a home’s energy use more than insulation. But insulation without adequate ventilation will invite moisture problems.

  • All gaps and cracks in the house should be well sealed or caulked.

  • Doors and windows need effective weather-stripping.

Mechanical Systems

  • The performance of heating appliances such as boilers can vary widely and replacing an aging existing system can be expensive.  It’s not uncommon for heating systems to be oversized in relation to a homes energy needs, which can also contribute to efficiency losses.  Consider having the heating system professionally inspected to assess reliability and performance.
  • Doors and windows need effective weather-stripping.

  • Previous years’ fuel bills can help gauge heating costs, but be aware that the presence of a woodstove, pellet stove, or other heating appliance other than the boiler can make heating oil usage numbers misleading.

Home Inspections

  • Check to see if the home has already had an energy audit done.  An energy audit will provide a detailed assessment of the home’s energy performance and will help identify problem areas.  If energy efficiency is a priority, an audit/home inspection by a state certified energy rater can provide valuable insight into a home’s real world performance.

 

Chiefs of Staff for U.S. Senate Visit CCHRC

CCHRC President/CEO Jack Hebert with Senate chiefs of staff from around the U.S. at the research center.

A group of U.S. Senate chiefs of staff from Wisconsin, Connecticut, West Virginia, Indiana, Alaska, New Hampshire, & Mississippi visited CCHRC in August to see our facility and research. Their visit to Alaska focused on energy and climate change.

UAF Sustainable Village Week 17: the first cellulose REMOTE wall

This week we tried a new building system at the Village–a cellulose REMOTE wall in the SW house. A REMOTE wall has the majority of the insulation value, or R-value, outside the sheathing rather than inside. Up to this point, we always used rigid foam on the exterior. But since one goal of the Village is to test new techniques for both cost and energy use, we decided to try a REMOTE wall with batts as interior insulation and 9 inches of cellulose on the outside.

The house has two sets of studs, with sheathing applied to the inner wall. The inside wall cavity is filled with a recycled batt insulation. The outer wall was wrapped in Tyvek. To insulate the outside wall cavity, we hole-sawed a 6-inch hole in the sheathing in each wall bay (on both floors) and sprayed in 12 inches of dense-pack cellulose. Those holes were patched with poly sheeting and acoustical sealant. The whole wall is 18 inches thick.

We also installed birch paneling ceilings, cabinetry, and ventilation systems in 2 of the homes. The homes are mostly sided and are starting to look very livable!

How long does it take to cure firewood in the Interior?

Firewood can dry in a single summer if split and stored properly.

While we won’t mention the dreaded “W” word, it’s never too early to start thinking about the heating season, when many Interior Alaska residents burn wood for heat.

 

While wood burning is a cheaper and more renewable alternative to heating oil, it also contributes to the air quality problem in the Fairbanks North Star Borough. Burning wet wood produces excess smoke and PM 2.5-sized particles, which disperse into the air and can be harmful to health. These emissions can be lessened by burning dry firewood. Fully cured wood — moisture content of 20 percent or less — is not only cleaner but also produces more heat.

How long does that take in this climate? It depends on the species of wood, when you harvest it, how you cut it and how you store it. A study at the Cold Climate Housing Research Center shows that wood can dry rapidly during a single summer — no matter when it’s harvested — but takes quite a bit longer over the shoulder seasons or winter. No matter what wood or method you use, firewood harvested in the fall won’t be fully cured by winter.

In our study, split wood harvested in the spring took anywhere from six weeks to three months to dry during the summer, depending on the storage method. Split birch and split spruce, for example, dried in one and a half months when stored in a simulated wood shed or left uncovered. In general, the fastest way to dry split wood was by storing it in a wood shed or leaving it uncovered, although uncovered wood is at the mercy of the weather and could be wet again by fall. When stored under a tarp, the wood took three months to cure.

Unsplit wood, on the other hand, didn’t cure during the summer in any storage scenario. Though it neared 20 percent moisture content by the end of the summer, it required another summer to reach a full cure.

Firewood harvested in the fall didn’t cure by springtime no matter how it was cut or stored. While it dried out somewhat in a wood shed (to between 30 and 40 percent moisture content), some samples got wetter under a tarp during the winter.

Several other factors should be considered when seasoning your wood. Spruce and birch tend to dry more quickly than aspen. Your drying times also will vary based on exposure to sun and air circulation (the more, the better).

The good news is that it’s possible to harvest firewood in the spring and cure it during a single summer — so you can stay cozy and burn cleanly during the winter. Just make sure to split it early and store it so it can dry.

The “Ask a Builder” series is dedicated to answering some of the many questions Fairbanks residents have about building, energy and the many other parts of home life.

Read more: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner – Ask a Builder How long does it take for wood to season

UAF Sustainable Village Weeks 15-16: solar hydronic

Is it just us, or is this summer going fast?

As the daylight wanes to only 18 hours a day, we are getting situated to capture this heat at the Sustainable Village. The solar collectors are up on the northeast and southeast homes, which both have three 4-foot-by-10-foot collectors mounted on the south-facing wall just under the roof. The system will feed heat into radiant tubing in the concrete floor slabs, and will also dump heat into a 120-gallon solar storage tank in the house. We are adding temperature sensors and flow meters to each system to monitor how much heat is used.

Also, the homes have skin (for the most part), i.e. metal siding. Two green, one blue, and one gray with patches of other colors and salvaged dredge pipe. They look cheerful and also at home in the spruce forest.

 

UAF Sustainable Village Week 14: Sheetrock, insulation & siding

We continued siding, insulating, and Sheetrocking in Week 14. We began hanging a reclaimed steel siding that came from old dredge pipe in the surrounding area. It will provide an accent to the metal siding, adding a cool aesthetic and historical value to the homes.

http://makinghouseswork.cchrc.org/