THE HAYFIELD HOUSE

Air Exchange / Design / Fireplace / Lessons Learned

March 26, 2024

Fireplaces don’t work well in net zero houses

I built a large traditional open-hearth fireplace in THE HAYFIELD HOUSE. Unfortunately, it didn’t work! Following is my story of how I ‘fixed’ the problem. I built a house in 1990 with a large traditional open-hearth fireplace. That fireplace worked great, so I used that design to build a similar (but bigger) fireplace in THE HAYFIELD HOUSE. Unfortunately, my new fireplace didn’t work very well. Smoke tended to back-draft into the living area instead of rising up the chimney. What was worse is that if any exhaust fans were simultaneously working (kitchen fan, etc.), the entire house would fill with smoke. And of course, my smoke alarms were constantly being triggered. In short, the chimney wasn’t drawing well. –What I had failed to understand was...
Air source heat pumps / Design / Lessons Learned

March 16, 2024

Use Outputs from Energy Modeling Software with Caution

The building of a net-zero house requires the forecasting of both the energy production and energy demands of the house. There are computer software models that can be used to make these forecasts. However, these models can have issues. Forecasting energy production (at least for solar panels) is generally quite accurate. However, the forecast for the energy demand of a house have high error ranges. Part of the problem is the difficulty of predicting how an owner will actually use the house. For example, one owner might be frugal in his energy use, while the other owner turns up the heat to 75 degrees. Over-all, the models have a wide error range with a bias to over-estimating energy use. For example, Applied Energy Volume...
Design / Insulation / Lessons Learned / Performance Metrics / Sustainable Building / ZNE Homes Examples

January 9, 2024

What’s the Secret Recipe to get to Zero Net-Energy

A SECRET RECIPE TO GET TO NET-ZERO??? One of the reasons why many homebuilders shy away from building a zero net-energy home is that it sounds so complicated. The various experts don’t help with their barrage of technical advice on building design, insulation strategies, computer modeling, inspections, auditing, testing, etc. Furthermore, a discussion of incremental costs is frequently lacking. — Instead, homeowners just want someone to tell them in simple terms how to get to net-zero, and what it will cost. What’s the secret recipe? The best recipe that I’ve currently found is provided in the book The New Net Zero, by William Maclay and Maclay Architects. Their recipe is based on experience, so I expect it works quite well in the Northern New England...
Design / Sustainable Building

January 15, 2023

ALL HOMES WILL EVENTUALLY BE ZERO NET-ENERGY

The Rocky Mountain Institute states in their 2018 paper “Economics of Zero-Energy Homes” that; “… ZE (Zero-Energy) and ZER (Zero Energy Ready) homes comprise less than 0.1% of the current US housing stock”. Deduct from this figure the ZER component (which likely is the largest component), and further deduct any house that uses fossil fuels, and you are left with a very tiny (unknown) number of net-zero energy, zero carbon homes. One can also visit the Net-Zero Energy Coalition (www.netzeroenergcoalition.com) and the New Building Institute (www.newbuildings.org), both of which attempt to track these types of numbers, but their figures are more useful in gauging trends, not absolute numbers. Although the present number of zero net-energy (“ZNE”) homes is low, eventually nearly every new single-family house...
Costs / Design / Financial / Lessons Learned

January 7, 2023

HOW MUCH EXTRA DOES IT COST TO BUILD A ZERO NET-ENERGY HOME?

HOW MUCH EXTRA DOES IT COST TO BUILD A ZERO NET-ENERGY HOME COMPARED TO A CODE COMPLIANT HOME? This is a much-debated question, with typical answers suggesting the incremental building costs to be within the range of 6% to 20%, see table below. My guess is that many authors consider the 20% number an outlier, but I’m not convinced of that based on my experience building a custom ZNE house. So as not to keep you in suspense, it cost me at least $112,000 extra to build THE HAYFIELD HOUSE to be zero net-energy versus merely code compliant. This equates to about 14% extra. This figure represents the initial incremental gross upfront building costs prior to any tax incentives, rebates, or avoided energy costs. Note: my...

March 20, 2022

WHY ZERO NET-ENERGY WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH FOR MY HOUSE

WHY ZERO NET-ENERGY WASN’T GOOD ENOUGH FOR MY HOUSE Many zero net-energy advocates make the statement that ‘zero net-energy homes have zero energy costs’. There is a dirty little secret that made this statement false for THE HAYFIELD HOUSE. Following is my story and the dirty little secret. The definition of a zero net-energy home is one that produces as much renewal energy as the house uses, as measured on an annual basis. It then sounds logical to jump to the conclusion that such homes have zero operating energy costs. It also sounds logical to assume that if a house is performing at near zero net-energy that your utility bills will also be near zero. — I’ve found both assumptions to be FALSE for THE HAYFIELD HOUSE....

Lessons Learned / Water heating

February 21, 2022

HEATING WATER IN A ZERO NET-ENERGY HOUSE

Air Source Heat Pumps versus Electric Resistance Water Heaters — Lesson Learned. You’ll find that many zero net-energy (“ZNE”) homes use a ’high efficient’ air-source heat pump water heater (“HPWH”). Many net-zero authors recommend these systems as part of the over-all strategy to lower the home’s energy demand. This recommendation sounds logical, especially when the EnergyGuide label on such water tanks advertise several hundred dollars of annual savings compared to other less efficient systems such as electric resistance water heaters (”ERWH”). In addition, many jurisdictions are trying to encourage the use of HPWH systems either via incentives or regulations. BUT, WHOA NELLIE, HOLD YOUR HORSES!!! These air-source systems aren’t as good as advertised and may not be your best option to heat water, especially...

Design / Solar

February 14, 2022

SOLAR PANELS AND PROPER ROOF DESIGN AND VENTING

SOLAR PANELS AND THE INVASION OF THE ROOF VENTS Currently, most solar panels are installed on existing houses; but what a nightmare that can be. Older roofs were not designed in anticipation that solar panels would be added later. Therefore, many older roofs look like this. What a mess! This roof can barely fit any solar panels due to the interference with the vents. — Vents are a solar panel killer! Another problem with many roof designs is a frequent abundance of gables, peaks, valleys, ridges, dormers, offsets etc. These (sometimes superfluous) architectural features limit the number of solar panels that can be installed. Take the pictured roof (below) for example. It is a southerly facing roof with excellent solar potential, except for the fact...

Lessons Learned / Sustainable Building

February 13, 2022

NET-ZERO BUILDING…. How to get there.

NET-ZERO BUILDING…. How to get there. Constructing a zero net-energy house that uses zero fossil fuel might sound hard, but it’s easier than you’d think (which is one of the reasons why I started this blog). Not many people have tried to construct a zero net-energy house. The Rocky Mountain Institute states in their 2018 paper “Economics of Zero-Energy Homes” that; “… ZE (Zero-Energy) and ZER (Zero Energy Ready) homes comprise less than 0.1% of the current US housing stock”. Deduct from this figure the zero energy ready component (which likely is the largest component), and further deduct any house that uses fossil fuels, and you are left with a very tiny (unknown) number of net-zero energy, zero fossil fuel homes. One can also visit...

Sustainable Building

February 7, 2022

BUILDING A ZERO NET-ENERGY HOUSE: A ‘DO IT YOURSELF’ JOURNEY

BUILDING A ZERO NET-ENERGY HOUSE, YOU CAN DO IT! One of the issues with building a zero net-energy house is that the literature makes the journey seem very daunting. The literature contains a plethora of architectural, engineering, and building specifications and terms. It can become quite an intimidating exercise if one dives into the details. In short, if you know too much, you can get scared away from building a zero net-energy (“ZNE”) house. But it’s not really that hard. I wanted to build a very efficient, all-electric house powered by solar. However, I was hesitant to commit to saying that I was building a ZNE house as I really didn’t know what I would be committing to. I didn’t know where to turn to...

Sustainable Building

February 6, 2022

A VENTURE INTO SUSTAINABLE HOUSE BUILDING

THE HAYFIELD HOUSE My father built a house in 1960 in an old potato field (“THE POTATO FIELD HOUSE”). The house was a Deck House built using post and beam construction with tongue-and-groove ceiling decking. There was no insulation in the roof, other than the insulating value of the roof decking. The windows were large plate glass, of single pane construction. The walls were framed using 2X4 inch studs, allowing for only modest wall insulation. The house was built on an uninsulated concrete slab with the first floor heated with radiant heat using an oil fired furnace. The result was a very energy inefficient house which released a lot of CO2 due to the large amount of heating oil that was burnt. As a child,...