Raising the South SIPs Walls in Early January!
Chris Sturbaum and crew of Golden Hands Construction are joined by Porter SIPs consultant, David Suutala, to install the SIP panels for the Gulyas house in Bloomington, Indiana. The walls are 12.38" thick, with wood integrated around the window openings and where structure is necessary. The SIPs are load bearing, comprised of expanded polystyrene (XPS) sandwiched between two layers of oriented strand board. The south elevation shown here, will capture radiant solar energy through the windows, and stored in the floor slab to heat the house in cold weather. The floor slab is thermally decoupled from the perimeter foundation and floating on 10.5" of extruded polystyrene insulation (EPS) reclaimed from decontructed commercial roofs!
The Interior Design profession is just beginning to put its toe in the water in regard to Life Cycle Assessment. It's really the fundamental foundation of thinking about material choices and how they affect the environment.
I've developed an online course on Life Cycle Assessment and (drum roll) you can get a 30% discount on it by enrolling at EcoAchievers and entering the promotional code LCA09. The class covers the basic principles of Life Cycle Assessment, how it affects design choices, and the three main Life Cycle Assessment methodologies. It should take about an hour to take the course online.
David and Chris hoist the sails to shelter the foundation from rain and snow.
SketchUp is a 3D modeling software for Windows and Mac. I have modeled our house we are building in Bloomington, IN, with SketchUp, and I have gotten deep enough into it to conclude that it is really a strong professional tool for design and presentation graphics. SketchUp is free, with a professional package offered at a very reasonable price, but I just use the free version at the moment. There is also an energy modeling plug in, as well as solar site analysis when you integrate with Google Earth.
This is an amazing LED technology which blends LEDs into a reflective baffle in their recessed fixtures and the results are infinite control of color hue, color temperature, and dimming. Saves about 70% of energy compared to incandescent halogen recessed. Because of the design, there is no glare as there is when you look at a light bulb. The light shining down is reflected from the dome of the fixture, which serves as a color mixer. Though the fixtures are more expensive, they last an entire generation, and use 70% less energy than an incandescent light. From the Renaissance Lighting website:
LifeBreath is a non-combustion hydronic furnace, with a built-in heat
recovery ventilator (HRV). The HRV creates a very efficient heat energy
transfer between the outgoing and incoming air streams. In winter, the
incoming cold air is warmed by the heat transfer of outgoing air, and
the reverse in summer. The two air streams do not mix, only the heat
energy is transferred through conduction in the HRV.
The
LifeBreath furnace then takes this pre-heated air and brings it up to
air delivery temperature by heating it with the available potable hot
water source in a closed loop. We're currently exploring the option of
using a solar thermal system to provide the hot water source. The
value of this system is that it can provide a continuous infusion of
fresh air while minimizing the energy loss from the outgoing stale air,
providing a superior system of high indoor air quality.
--
As its name implies, Postfossil is a firm dedicated to designing for the post-fossil-fuel future. This lamp, called "Goodnight Eileen", is an energy-efficient LED lamp that refers in its design to the old-fashioned, hand-held candle, used to guide someone through a home. It is recharged at its base, then keeps lit for a few minutes before slowly fading. "Electricity is transferred between the lamp and its base via magnetic induction, so there is no visible connection." More at the Postfossil website.
Organic Light Sculptures are designed by Daniel Rossi in Brooklyn, NY using bamboo, energy-efficient LED lights, and other sustainable materials. Check out the collection here. Mr. Rossi constructs the lamps himself. There is a great video of him constructing one of his lamps on the website. Great to have so much information about how products are constructed. You can order them directly from him online, too.
