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Wilbour
Member
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# Posted: 31 Aug 2015 11:47am
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http://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/rules-won-t-let-n-s-woman-live-off-the-grid-1.2498006
We need to make a bigger effort to educate our own governments.
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Steve_S
Member
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# Posted: 31 Aug 2015 12:24pm
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Government, Owned & Operated by the Corporate "Entities"... For the Corporate By the Corporate and phooey on everyone else. The "Corporate Way or NO WAY" is the motto of the current Canadian Regime.
Air Exchangers are required on building bigger than 500 sq feet. Battery Powered Smoke Detectors & C02 Detectors CAN be purchased and work as well as 120v Hard Wired ones.
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creeky
Member
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# Posted: 31 Aug 2015 12:26pm
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I'll double down on that.
Of course, a small solar system would solve her problem too. Panasonic has an ERV (energy recovery ventilator). It's around 400 bucks US.
http://shop.panasonic.com/support-only/FV-04VE1.html
For small homes this is a pretty nice unit. And it can be set to 10 cfm. Using 17 watts. that's pretty awesome. Put it on a timer so that it's running say 8 of 24 hours.
of course. in our very cold canadian climate is appears that straight ventilation, with a panasonic bathroom fan on a timer, and a couple of intakes is the best solution.
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Wilbour
Member
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# Posted: 31 Aug 2015 02:31pm - Edited by: Wilbour
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I restrain from blaming branches of government until I know if they are the true culprit. Is this municipal, provincial or federal or a combination of 2 or 3? I don't know. All I know is in my book, less is more, because that has, and continues to work for me.
It just seems odd that we are becoming a society that is saying to the frail, "You can end your life when and how you want" but you cannot live the way you want because it may harm you perhaps, maybe.
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DaveBell
Moderator
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# Posted: 31 Aug 2015 07:42pm - Edited by: DaveBell
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https://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/ctu-sc/files/doc/ctu-sc/ctu-n14_eng.pdf
"However, if a house is so tight that leakage fails to provide this level of air change for significant periods of time, it is likely that many such periods of shortfall will coincide with periods when this level of air change is required. When this happens, poor indoor air quality, high humidity, surface molds and interstitial condensation can result."
The premise here is Canadian and Alaskan houses are built so air tight because of the extreme cold, that they then experience unintended consequences. This issue would be especially critical in smaller homes where the home air volume is exceptionally small.
I recommended external air for woodstoves in a separate thread. It prevents backflow during pressure differences and increases heating efficiency. An air tight house in Maine suffered smoke backdraft (smoke-filled rooms) when a bathroom fan was used.
I think that she could meet all the requirements with solar power, 12V detectors, and exterior air for a woodstove.
The woodstove draft combined with the PVC valve in the wall, in the winter when the home is sealed for lengths of time, would provide enough ventilation to abate the consequences of air tight homes in extreme temperatures.
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Wilbour
Member
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# Posted: 31 Aug 2015 08:03pm
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Well the way the article was written was that she had to be have a working smoke detector and an air exchanger. You are lead to believe they are insisting on her being tied to the grid but no where does it mention the feasibility of Solar Power. I am sure if she complied to the requirements using renewable energy she could get approval.
But if she did it would not be a story.
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Gary O
Member
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# Posted: 31 Aug 2015 10:09pm
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Off topic aside;
Does anyone else think it ridiculous to build a house so air tight it requires an air exchanger????
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MtnDon
Member
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# Posted: 31 Aug 2015 11:03pm - Edited by: MtnDon
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Quoting: Wilbour You are lead to believe they are insisting on her being tied to the grid but no where does it mention the feasibility of Solar Power.
Some locations in Canada are less friendly to solar when clouds are added to the northern latitude. But the exchanger creeky linked to is very doable almost anywhere. Then too, some folks are just inclined to fight authority rather than accept a compromise solution. Compromise won't get your name in the paper.
OTOH some people in MB that my sister there knows, are off grid in a home built into a hill top and have been since 2009. Solar power works for them and their home is very tight too. Passed all code requirements. 2500 square feet built into a hill on three sides. Faces south for some solar gain. Wood fired outside boiler. Sounds like a similar idea to indepdence, but they worked within the system.
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MtnDon
Member
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# Posted: 31 Aug 2015 11:57pm - Edited by: MtnDon
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Quoting: Gary O Does anyone else think it ridiculous to build a house so air tight it requires an air exchanger????
Depends on what you use to heat or cool the home and the climate where it is located. If the home uses gas (NG or LPG) like many homes do for convenience, then the cost of operating an air to air heat exchanger is negligible compared to having heated air escape due to poor construction techniques. If winter brings many days of below zero temperatures even more so. I used to live in Winnipeg and did wish that old home was tighter after the first winter. We heated some with natural gas. We changed all the old (50 year old) windows to triple pane casements. Wonderful windows, locally made; home was more comfortable and the gas bill dropped a noticeable amount; by about 40% IIRC. We were very happy. The windows would pay for themselves in a few years.
Then we added a wood burner stove after a year or two. I built my own fresh air intake for it as I did not want to chance drawing outside air down the gas furnace chimney. We were still going to use NG as backup and for day long absences. Didn't want to even take the chance of sucking the exhaust from the pilot inside.
The wood stove worked very well. # or 4 cords of wood saw us through the winter with needing to use the NG furnace very little. The gas bill dropped to where the meter fee was more than the gas.
BUT, I noticed in the coldest months of winter we did not get enough air circulation in the house. We ended up getting frost forming at the wall / ceiling intersection in the room farthest from the wood stove. A fan blowing up in that corner helped. But better was to rely a little less on wood and to run the NG furnace more and get the air circulating. So the gas bill went back up some, but it was still a better deal than using gas for 100% of our heat.
Back then there were some early air to air heat exchangers. Very few. Hellish expensive. If we could have bought one of those Panasonic ones that creeky linked to that could have let us forgo the furnace use. The power to run the exchanger would have been a fraction of the normal gas bill. A fraction of one months gas bill. We would have had a net gain in energy savings.
In climates that are extremely hot as in the SW where I am now the same thing can apply to the electric loads for cooling systems. Tighter costs less to operate.
I hope that makes some sense.....
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Gary O
Member
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# Posted: 1 Sep 2015 02:00am
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Quoting: MtnDon I hope that makes some sense.....
it surely did
yessir
thank you
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Don_P
Member
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# Posted: 1 Sep 2015 11:04pm
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The engine that drives draft is temperature differential between indoors and outdoors. A small air leak on a moderate day becomes a large air leak when the mass of warm bouyant air is trying hard to get outside and warm the arctic, drawing in outside air in its' wake. A drafty house leaks the worst on the coldest day of the year.
My woodstove is harder to light, or really harder to establish draft, at the beginning of the heating season when there isn't a great difference between the temperature inside and that outside. About Febuary I could throw a cat in the chimney and it would pop out the top. I hate it when those writers sensationalize things.
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Gary O
Member
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# Posted: 1 Sep 2015 11:23pm
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Quoting: Don_P About Febuary I could throw a cat in the chimney and it would pop out the top
Tabby or Manx?
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Don_P
Member
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# Posted: 1 Sep 2015 11:43pm
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 Black
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Gary O
Member
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# Posted: 2 Sep 2015 12:43am
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S'pose they're pretty much all black after liftoff....
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DaveBell
Moderator
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# Posted: 2 Sep 2015 02:02am
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Don_P
"I could throw a cat in the chimney and it would pop out the top." That's Funny. 
I ran into this electrician once at a building I was working on. He was putting in Plenum rated signal cable for a security system. He had a pet Chihuahua dog. For long runs of cable he would tie pull string to its collar and put the dog up in the ceiling tiles. He would take his ladder and go down several offices, pop open a ceiling tile and call the dog. Untie the pull string and let the dog back on the floor.
The Maine air tight house was constructed to save energy, money, and recurring labor. The article states that the owner went from four cords a year to one and a half. Ya know those engineered floor joists? After they put up all the wall framing, they installed those vertically around the outside of the house, insulated, and finished. So the exterior walls were about 24" deep. Installed solar, 3 pane gas windows towards south, all the tricks. That type of house is called something, after the architect who made the first one. There is some group around Maine, northeast U.S. that specializes in air tight house construction.
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Don_P
Member
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# Posted: 2 Sep 2015 06:38am
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I think you're thinking of a Larsen "truss" house.
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toyota_mdt_tech
Member
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# Posted: 5 Sep 2015 10:19am
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Quoting: Gary O Off topic aside; Does anyone else think it ridiculous to build a house so air tight it requires an air exchanger????
Yes, there is other drawbacks, first off, off grid, the last thing you need is extra loads on electrical system (PV/batteries etc) and other drawbacks are mold, sweating, rot.
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creeky
Member
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# Posted: 5 Sep 2015 11:09am
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that panasonic ERV I mention up top uses 17 watts/hr. a small load for a small cabin, full time, off grid solar system. I'd run it off/on. A humidity sensor would be a good idea.
You could literally pay for the load by buying a better inverter. Some of those el cheapo inverters use 35w/hr. The good ones 10w/hr. There, you just bought your 25w to run an ERV.
Course summer folk might not realize that winter time off grid means getting up at 3 a.m. every night to fill the woodstove back up. Or wake up to ice in the sink.
Still, it's yer choice. Freeze all winter long. Chop lots of extra wood and burn lots of propane. Or. Build tight. Insulate. Ventilate.
and. for off grid solar. this points out again the advantage of lithium batteries. that extra load hardly counts for doo dah day with a sweet, say, 9kw pack.
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Gary O
Member
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# Posted: 5 Sep 2015 11:40am
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Quoting: creeky and. for off grid solar. this points out again the advantage of lithium batteries. that extra load hardly counts for doo dah day with a sweet, say, 9kw pack
yer making me a convert
but
can't do it this year
gotta get all this wood chopped, no time (yes, my tongue is in my cheek.....frozen at the moment)
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creeky
Member
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# Posted: 5 Sep 2015 03:18pm
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well you've got the wood with the all the blow down.
and frozen tongue? I guess you want the lithpium pack then.
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Gary O
Member
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# Posted: 5 Sep 2015 10:44pm
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Quoting: creeky I guess you want the lithpium pack then.
just caught this on the 2nd read
thunny
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Wilbour
Member
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# Posted: 6 Sep 2015 07:51am
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That's funny but any cat would be black when he pops out.
Or that's what you meant in the first place and I'm a little slow on the up draft
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Don_P
Member
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# Posted: 6 Sep 2015 02:18pm
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Building a house that is a little loose runs a good risk of mold, sweating and rot as well. The heat that is whistling out of the cracks is carrying moisture along with it. How much moisture is in good part up to you. Warm air can hold more moisture than cold air. At some point on that migration of warm moist air heading through the gaps that air will deposit any moisture that it cannot carry on something cool.
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