Sunday, January 24, 2016

Everything I ever knew about Green Sustainable Design was Probably Wrong | Tree Hugger






The drawing above, or some version of it, has been part of every sustainable design class since about 1970: have lots of south facing windows carefully shaded by properly designed overhangs, with the winter sun heating up that thermal mass of the floor.Frank Lloyd Wright did it; I did it; everybody did it. 

But what if we were all wrong? 

Everything I ever knew or said about green sustainable design was probably wrong : TreeHugger:

3 Lessons Learned from This Article!


1. High thermal mass floors are not particularly comfortable


2. South facing windows as an energy source are counterproductive and “should be limited to that necessary to meet the functional and aesthetic needs of the building.”  While large expanses of south-facing glass help heat up a home on a sunny day, the solar heat gain doesn’t come when heat is needed. Most of the time, a passive solar home has either too much or too little solar heat gain, so much of the solar heat gain is wasted. At night and on cloudy days, large expanses of south-facing glass lose significantly more heat than an insulated wall.

3. That careful orientation doesn't really matter any more because nobody needs that extra solar gain.




Just to make us all feel even worse, Bronwyn Barry points to a 1978 study that compared the Saskatchewan Conservation House (superinsulated) to a Passive Solar design (mass and glass) of the period, and the conservation house won hands down, hiding in plain sight.

Lloyd Alter (@lloydalter) Design / Green Architecture October 14, 2015 'via Blog this'

EcoSmart having just built an NetZero home with passive solar design concurs with these lessons learned. Less windows and mass would have prevented our home from overheating which has been an issue. 
We have planted trees for summer shading as our only cooling is a big ass fan!



Murray Guy aka @Lean_tobe_Green

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