The Perils Of Energy Efficient Housing

[Cinnamon]

Gotta love the new EU regulations that demand that everything has to be airtight in order to save energy:

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.welt.de%2Ffinanzen%2Fimmobilien%2Farticle13372977%2FSanierte-Haeuser-massenhaft-von-Algen-befallen.html

Same rules also apply to the UK, so expect similar disasters here.

[SarahBell]

1. not with british building standards. Even when BCO inspects new build only one in about 20 is submitted to the air tightness test.

2. Decent energy standards would make new builds have heat exchange systems to remove moisture from air.

3. british double glazing has to have standards on thickness of air gap, controls on frame structure to ensure heat tightness BUT then has to have air vents in allowing air in and out.

[AteMoose]

true air tight homes, need to have serious ventilation/a heat exchanger to stop this and to stop you dieing

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_house

[ken_ichikawa]

1. not with british building standards. Even when BCO inspects new build only one in about 20 is submitted to the air tightness test.

2. Decent energy standards would make new builds have heat exchange systems to remove moisture from air.

3. british double glazing has to have standards on thickness of air gap, controls on frame structure to ensure heat tightness BUT then has to have air vents in allowing air in and out.

Except removing moisture from the air takes a hell of a lot of energy, its like air conditioning but worse as the air has to be reheated back to the ambient temp. You turn on a dehumifier and the lights dim for a moment to compensate for the load. Since that is hammering the electricity any saving from a totally airtight house is lost!

[Cinnamon]

1. not with british building standards. Even when BCO inspects new build only one in about 20 is submitted to the air tightness test.

2. Decent energy standards would make new builds have heat exchange systems to remove moisture from air.

3. british double glazing has to have standards on thickness of air gap, controls on frame structure to ensure heat tightness BUT then has to have air vents in allowing air in and out.

Forget the British stuff, the old, sane ways are living on borrowed time, this is all about carbon savings, those new building codes will be implemented EU wide and old houses will have to be converted. It's not like the German building codes ever allowed such idiocy, but it was 'updated' by some EU numpty and that is the insane result.

It doesn't even make sense for the landlords or tenants -- the rent in existing tenancies cannot be raised and the houses are huge, so conversion is seriously expensive, in many cases rebuilding the entire thing makes a lot more economic sense -- but only if you then can ask for fairytale rents ... which is why some time ago, those students protested nekkid in Berlin about the 'high rents' in those nice new, energy-efficient renovated flats.

This C02 saving lark really has shades of the Xhosa cattle killing movement...

Btw, some people were wondering about why house prices in Germany are so depressed and stable... this is one of a few serious reasons as to why. (there are a few more which are just as prohibitive).

[kraft]

Think of all the new jobs that will be created in the mould remediation industry!

[longtomsilver]

http://t0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQQPH8yPw1BqFp7XZoQ6ItX74GU-iM80JMk_lXuKDpAqtnh2WP4Ng

On the brightside these regs will mean we stay fresher longer

[swissy_fit]

Gotta love the new EU regulations that demand that everything has to be airtight in order to save energy:

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.welt.de%2Ffinanzen%2Fimmobilien%2Farticle13372977%2FSanierte-Haeuser-massenhaft-von-Algen-befallen.html

Same rules also apply to the UK, so expect similar disasters here.

If you build an airtight home without a double-flow heat-exchanger ventilation system then you don't know how to Google, it would require extraordinary ignorance and stupidity. Even blocking up airbricks in old (non-airtight) properties can lead to humidity problems.

[swissy_fit]

Except removing moisture from the air takes a hell of a lot of energy, its like air conditioning but worse as the air has to be reheated back to the ambient temp. You turn on a dehumifier and the lights dim for a moment to compensate for the load. Since that is hammering the electricity any saving from a totally airtight house is lost!

You don't remove the moisture, you remove the heat, the moisture(and the air) goes outside, replaced by drier fresh air. $

I've seen these things in action, they work, and they work well, energy bills are zilch.

[Cinnamon]

If you build an airtight home without a double-flow heat-exchanger ventilation system then you don't know how to Google, it would require extraordinary ignorance and stupidity. Even blocking up airbricks in old (non-airtight) properties can lead to humidity problems.

Funny that, this is the point of the post -- the completely bonkers new regulations. And no those bureaucratic overlords didn't use Google to inform themselves how or if this works, they have one goal and that is to reduce C02 emissions and for this end, they went against the advice of everyone experienced, because this makes their milkmaid calculation work.

You don't remove the moisture, you remove the heat, the moisture(and the air) goes outside, replaced by drier fresh air. $

I've seen these things in action, they work, and they work well, energy bills are zilch.

What -- AC for free?

And replacing expensive warm humid air with icy, wet German winter air is not such a wonderful proposal, British winters are what they call 'warm autums' there...

[swissy_fit]

Funny that, this is the point of the post -- the completely bonkers new regulations. And no those bureaucratic overlords didn't use Google to inform themselves how or if this works, they have one goal and that is to reduce C02 emissions and for this end, they went against the advice of everyone experienced, because this makes their milkmaid calculation work.

What -- AC for free?

And replacing expensive warm humid air with icy, wet German winter air is not such a wonderful proposal, British winters are what they call 'warm autums' there...

The regs are OK, if builders and owners don't implement them in an intelligent manner that's another matter.

I live in Switzerland, it's a similar climate to Germany, especially in the Jura about 10 miles from here.

90% of the heat is recovered when the air is replaced. These systems work, and they work well.

No it's not free, the air still has to be pumped round the house and the fluid pumped round the Canadian well which takes a bit of electricity but the energy bills are tiny overall.

However I wouldn't be keen on trying to install them in an existing house unless it was enormous.

As for the idea of icy wet German winter air, we have a humidifier in the babys room in the winter because the air is too dry - have a look at this :

[Riedquat]

You don't remove the moisture, you remove the heat, the moisture(and the air) goes outside, replaced by drier fresh air. $

I've seen these things in action, they work, and they work well, energy bills are zilch.

So you have to go to all the effort to make it airtight, then have a fancy system to bring air in. Genius. Sealed windows with vents above them are stupid enough.

Are all the stupid building regs that result in idiotically high sockets and low light switches EU too, or is that our own piece of idiocy?

[ken_ichikawa]

You don't remove the moisture, you remove the heat, the moisture(and the air) goes outside, replaced by drier fresh air. $

I've seen these things in action, they work, and they work well, energy bills are zilch.

Again sounds like free air conditioning, air conditioners suck up huge amounts of electricity. No free lunches you know!

If it is just to change the air from inside to out.... you know there is something which was invented a long time ago called windows.

[Cinnamon]

The regs are OK, if builders and owners don't implement them in an intelligent manner that's another matter.

I live in Switzerland, it's a similar climate to Germany, especially in the Jura about 10 miles from here.

90% of the heat is recovered when the air is replaced. These systems work, and they work well.

No it's not free, the air still has to be pumped round the house and the fluid pumped round the Canadian well which takes a bit of electricity but the energy bills are tiny overall.

However I wouldn't be keen on trying to install them in an existing house unless it was enormous.

As for the idea of icy wet German winter air, we have a humidifier in the babys room in the winter because the air is too dry - have a look at this :

So, all those people are stupid? Hmm. Let's just not go there.

Switzerland is in the south and inland, and the north of Germany is a very different proposition, it's next to the North Sea for starters. It's truly grim up north... and even the Rheinlanders are complaining... please read this: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/31664-why-does-wet-cold-air-feel-so-much-colder-than-dry-cold-air/

As for the energy bills being 'tiny'.. nops, even a measly desk fan will trivially eat up 100w or more -- take a look here at some high pressure fans (the sort you need to ventilate a large building with lots of piping) http://www.venti-oelde.com/uploads/tx_sbdownloader/hochdruckventi-en.pdf and take careful note of the 'Motor output' which is listed in kHw. And don't forget, those fans must be running all year round, 24/7, because most of the moisture is actually from people breathing out, cooking and showering.

[snowflux]

Again sounds like free air conditioning, air conditioners suck up huge amounts of electricity. No free lunches you know!

If it is just to change the air from inside to out.... you know there is something which was invented a long time ago called windows.

It's not air conditioning. Heat exchangers simply use the heat in the stale outgoing air to warm up the fresh incoming air. It's a very efficient process if properly implemented.

[snowflux]

So, all those people are stupid? Hmm. Let's just not go there.

Switzerland is in the south and inland, and the north of Germany is a very different proposition, it's next to the North Sea for starters. It's truly grim up north... and even the Rheinlanders are complaining... please read this: http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/31664-why-does-wet-cold-air-feel-so-much-colder-than-dry-cold-air/

As for the energy bills being 'tiny'.. nops, even a measly desk fan will trivially eat up 100w or more -- take a look here at some high pressure fans (the sort you need to ventilate a large building with lots of piping) http://www.venti-oelde.com/uploads/tx_sbdownloader/hochdruckventi-en.pdf and take careful note of the 'Motor output' which is listed in kHw. And don't forget, those fans must be running all year round, 24/7, because most of the moisture is actually from people breathing out, cooking and showering.

According to the ads I've come across, devices for household use generally incorporate a couple of approx. 100W fans and can recover about 70% of the heat that would otherwise be lost.

[swissy_fit]

Snowflux I think we're wasting our time posting here, these people clearly know more than us.

I really must go and see a psychiatrist, my delusions are getting worse.

I must have imagined visiting my work colleagues extremely pleasant 190m2 house with a 100m2 basement, he must have lied about his electricity/heating bill and had a fake one printed up to show me, and wiped all the algae off the walls just before I arrived.

Not only that, I don't seem to know the difference between relative humidity and absolute humidity, and nor do the heating engineers at Schworer - back to school for me and them.

[Cinnamon]

Snowflux I think we're wasting our time posting here, these people clearly know more than us.

I really must go and see a psychiatrist, my delusions are getting worse.

I must have imagined visiting my work colleagues extremely pleasant 190m2 house with a 100m2 basement, he must have lied about his electricity/heating bill and had a fake one printed up to show me, and wiped all the algae off the walls just before I arrived.

Not only that, I don't seem to know the difference between relative humidity and absolute humidity, and nor do the heating engineers at Schworer - back to school for me and them.

Well Swissy_fit -- no doubt you can make a killing in Germany showing all those incompetent professional tradesmen how to do things properly Btw, it's also a matter of scale, your mate's dolls' house is probably doable(he probably has the place doused in chemicals to prevent growth) but when you think about the millions of large tennements in German towns that need to be done in order to comply... that's a different problem. As you say, you would not do it in large houses, well, the law says you got to, and as you know, it then will be done, no matter what.

As to claiming that Switzerland has the same climate as Germany... maybe you need to go back to school indeed

To the 100w fan expert -- let's do some math and be boring...

100w*24hrs = 2400 watts per day (remember, this fan has to run all the time to keep your tupperware hovel dry!) or you can heat the same room with a 600w heater for 4 hours, since you don't want to do this in summer, for the same expenditure, you can run the heater 8 hours a day for the 6 cold month.

[Rare Bear]

Again sounds like free air conditioning, air conditioners suck up huge amounts of electricity. No free lunches you know!

If it is just to change the air from inside to out.... you know there is something which was invented a long time ago called windows.

Ken, for once your slipping up. The idea is to change the air in the house while keeping the heat in the house and getting the excessive moisture out. Makes sense but I would reckon that you really need to start with a new build.

[Rare Bear]

Well Swissy_fit -- no doubt you can make a killing in Germany showing all those incompetent professional tradesmen how to do things properly Btw, it's also a matter of scale, your mate's dolls' house is probably doable(he probably has the place doused in chemicals to prevent growth) but when you think about the millions of large tennements in German towns that need to be done in order to comply... that's a different problem. As you say, you would not do it in large houses, well, the law says you got to, and as you know, it then will be done, no matter what.

As to claiming that Switzerland has the same climate as Germany... maybe you need to go back to school indeed

To the 100w fan expert -- let's do some math and be boring...

100w*24hrs = 2400 watts per day (remember, this fan has to run all the time to keep your tupperware hovel dry!) or you can heat the same room with a 600w heater for 4 hours, since you don't want to do this in summer, for the same expenditure, you can run the heater 8 hours a day for the 6 cold month.

I think though that the 2400 watts is for the whole house. At say 10p per unit that's 24p per day say £70 a YEAR.

[swissy_fit]

Well Swissy_fit -- no doubt you can make a killing in Germany showing all those incompetent professional tradesmen how to do things properly Btw, it's also a matter of scale, your mate's dolls' house is probably doable(he probably has the place doused in chemicals to prevent growth) but when you think about the millions of large tennements in German towns that need to be done in order to comply... that's a different problem. As you say, you would not do it in large houses, well, the law says you got to, and as you know, it then will be done, no matter what.

As to claiming that Switzerland has the same climate as Germany... maybe you need to go back to school indeed

To the 100w fan expert -- let's do some math and be boring...

100w*24hrs = 2400 watts per day (remember, this fan has to run all the time to keep your tupperware hovel dry!) or you can heat the same room with a 600w heater for 4 hours, since you don't want to do this in summer, for the same expenditure, you can run the heater 8 hours a day for the 6 cold month.

Wow, you're a rich chap, his house is about twice as big as most UK houses, so if it's a dolls house, you must live in a real mansion. Either that or the units have confused you - in square feet it's about 1000 for each floor, making a total of approx 3000 usable square feet.

I'd send you pictures, but he's Swiss and would be very angry if I breached his privacy on the net.

Interestingly it was built by German engineers, and no chemicals are involved, they tend to be very anti that kind of thing.

You were inattentive, I didn't say I wouldn't do it in a big house, I said I wouldn't do it in an existing house. Adding the vents would be complex, ugly, expensive and would take up space so would only be feasible in a very large house. I expect the problems in Germany come from making properties airtight that weren't designed to be airtight. No ventilation will lead to humidity and mould. If they are making tenements airtight without providing ventilation, I'm surprised no-one has died yet.

Anyway regarding your "Maths" - so 2400 watts a day heats the whole house and cools it in high summer, your heater does one of the approx 13 rooms for 4 hours a day(there are 3 full bathrooms) and doesn't do anything when it's hot. Sounds like a reasonable comparison to me. Of course 90% of the heat generated by TVs, kettles, ovens, fridges etc is conserved in winter by this system as well.

I'll concede that the climate up in Schleswig-Holstein by the Baltic isn't like the climate in Geneva. However the climate in Bavaria is very similar. But it doesn't make any difference because absolute humidity is different from relative humidity - double-flow ventilation with airtight houses is widely used in Sweden, they have thousands of houses overlooking lakes which I think you'll agree are probably quite cold and with a high relative humidity in winter.

[Cinnamon]

I think though that the 2400 watts is for the whole house. At say 10p per unit that's 24p per day say £70 a YEAR.

A 100w fan to dehumidify a whole house / flat? Nops. Not even close. How much air do you think this can move how far and how much reach does it have? (not a lot.. especially not around corners -- and what is the story 3 rooms along?) And it's not 10p a unit of lecki, more like 15p and rising fast.

And that is before you figure out the problem of humidity pockets and moving the air around in the areas you want to vent, and even a small ceiling fan weighs in at 50w and you'd need one of them in every room if you want to avoid wet corners in your room.

[swissy_fit]

A 100w fan to dehumidify a whole house / flat? Nops. Not even close. How much air do you think this can move how far and how much reach does it have? (not a lot.. especially not around corners -- and what is the story 3 rooms along?) And it's not 10p a unit of lecki, more like 15p and rising fast.

And that is before you figure out the problem of humidity pockets and moving the air around in the areas you want to vent, and even a small ceiling fan weighs in at 50w and you'd need one of them in every room if you want to avoid wet corners in your room.

You're just digging a deeper and deeper hole.

Have you ever seen these systems in action?

The positioning of the input and output vents is calculated as part of the house design (as you'd expect the main outlet vent is in the kitchen, there are others in bathrooms and toilets). It works by small pressure differences, the fan's don't need to be powerful. The air in each room changes about once every 2 hours.

[Cinnamon]

Wow, you're a rich chap, his house is about twice as big as most UK houses, so if it's a dolls house, you must live in a real mansion. Either that or the units have confused you - in square feet it's about 1000 for each floor, making a total of approx 3000 usable square feet.

Compare it to a normal German tenement building it's a dolls house, We're not talking one-family hovels (or mansions) here, but multistorey houses that home 10 or more families.

You were inattentive, I didn't say I wouldn't do it in a big house, I said I wouldn't do it in an existing house. Adding the vents would be complex, ugly, expensive and would take up space so would only be feasible in a very large house. I expect the problems in Germany come from making properties airtight that weren't designed to be airtight. No ventilation will lead to humidity and mould. If they are making tenements airtight without providing ventilation, I'm surprised no-one has died yet.

As I said, it's the big existing tenements which are the main problem. And the vents is only part of the story, there is also the matter of there being enough air pressure to carry the moisture and the dust through the ducts, this costs a lot of watts. And people haven't died but they got lung problems and other health issues.

Btw, if you built a large HVAC system like that, maintenance is also an issue, can you spell 'Legionaires disease'... so you can add that to the costs, plus the liability insurance.

Anyway regarding your "Maths" - so 2400 watts a day heats the whole house and cools it in high summer, your heater does one of the approx 13 rooms for 4 hours a day(there are 3 full bathrooms) and doesn't do anything when it's hot. Sounds like a reasonable comparison to me. Of course 90% of the heat generated by TVs, kettles, ovens, fridges etc is conserved in winter by this system as well.

For 100w you vent the entire house? Now with added perpetuum mobile? You might vent one room for 100w, but not a house!

I'll concede that the climate up in Schleswig-Holstein by the Baltic isn't like the climate in Geneva. However the climate in Bavaria is very similar. But it doesn't make any difference because absolute humidity is different from relative humidity - double-flow ventilation with airtight houses is widely used in Sweden, they have thousands of houses overlooking lakes which I think you'll agree are probably quite cold and with a high relative humidity in winter.

I don't know about Swedish houses, what they are made of and how large they are. However I would not believe for one moment that they can ventilate an entire house for 100w either. Feel free to educate me here, but to be honest, this idea sounds more incredible than Jesus' fish'n'bread feat.

What I do know is that Germany insists on Landlords of big tennements refitting their houses to comply with a law that is broken and not enough money to go round to pay or maintain this idiocy. And here we happily agree that this is applied stupidity, right?

[swissy_fit]

For 100w you vent the entire house? Now with added perpetuum mobile? You might vent one room for 100w, but not a house!

I don't know about Swedish houses, what they are made of and how large they are. However I would not believe for one moment that they can ventilate an entire house for 100w either. Feel free to educate me here, but to be honest, this idea sounds more incredible than Jesus' fish'n'bread feat.

What I do know is that Germany insists on Landlords of big tennements refitting their houses to comply with a law that is broken and not enough money to go round to pay or maintain this idiocy. And here we happily agree that this is applied stupidity, right?

No no, I never mentioned 100w, that was someone else.

I'll get my mate to check the machine and give the exact figure. I'd be surprised if it was less that 3-400w, but for 300m2 that's dirt cheap.

Yes I agree that making landlords make existing buildings airtight is stupid and even dangerous, each case would have to be considered individually.

This tech is brilliant, but to work well it has to be integrated into the design of the building.