Heating and insulation…
March 18, 2010
A common question that is asked by all my clients is: ‘How should we heat and insulate our home?’ This is a common concern throughout the building industry.
When dealing with the housing industry, which encompasses more than half of all construction projects in BC., there have been big improvements in the way we heat, insulate and ventilate our home environments.
Inefficient broilers and furnaces are giving way to systems that can harness the sun’s energy to assist in, or completely heat and power a house. Many municipalities now require that all new homes are to be built to accommodate future green technologies such as solar photovoltaic panels or passive solar collectors. A combination of decreasing prices for green technology and an increase in government regulation will ultimately lower the housing beast’s carbon footprint.
The sun is a massive energy source, it is radiating some 566×10^21 kilowatts of energy per hour and burns through 4 billion kilograms of mass per second. There are three main ways to harness some of that energy to heat our homes more sustainably:
1. Photovoltaic Solar Collection: Electricity producing solar collectors.
How dose photovoltaic solar collection work?
2. Thermal Solar Collection: Solar heat collection and transferring to assist with water heating.
How does thermal solar collection work?
3. Passive Solar Design: Careful placement of specific elements to provide protection or retention of thermal energy.
How does passive solar design work?
Proper insulation will further increase your home’s efficiency by optimizing heat loss and heat gain through your walls, floors and roof. Conventional fiberglass insulation is being challenged by environmentally friendly spray foam insulation which provides double the insulation value.
Typical fiberglass insulation offers 3.0-3.7 R/in whereas a closed cell polyurethane spray insulation can provide up to 6.0 R/in. So in a standard 2X6 stud wall, you are getting insulation values of R22 and R36 respectively. Spray foam insulation has many attributes which makes a better performing insulator, but this product comes at an initial cost of almost 3 times the cost of conventional fiberglass insulation.
When looking at residential applications, heating and insulation configurations could be as follows:
Cost Efficient Option:
- Space heating with EuroSmart high efficiency, gas powered space heater
- In floor heating for bathroom areas using products such as Warmly Yours electric heating
- Wai Wela mini tank heaters for hot water
- Standard fiberglass Batt insulation
Deluxe Solar Option:
- Space heating with hydronic floor heating (hot water tubes in the floor) and domestic water heating both powered by a high efficiency solar assisted hot water system
- Closed cell polyurethane spray foam insulation
- Compact HRV unit to ensure adequate fresh air circulation
Any combination of these systems will provide efficient heating to suit varying budgets.
Passive Solar Collection:
Photovoltaic Solar Collection:
