[Greenbuilding] please rant: thar she blows

[John Straube]

I have worked on energy efficient houses in Japan, and the reason they heat
only certain rooms is that their houses are incredibly air and heat leaky. A
well insulated, airtight home will use less energy than a Japanese (and
formerly British and New Zealand) room-by-room heater approach.  When the
Japanese consumer finds out how comfortable and cheap it is to live in a
R2000 or Super-E house, they don't want to live in an old Japanese house. 
Wrapping all occupied space in a good blanket of insulation is the most
practical solution to both durability and energy efficiency

Dr John Straube
Associate Professor
Dept of Civil Engineering & School of Architecture
University of Waterloo
www.johnstraube.ca
Waterloo, Ont., Canada
www.civil.uwaterloo.ca/beg
 

-----Original Message-----
From: greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org
[mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at listserv.repp.org] On Behalf Of Alan Abrams
Sent: Monday, April 09, 2007 07:56
To: wmdorsett at sbcglobal.net; 'John Salmen'; 'Greenbuilder list'
Subject: [Greenbuilding] please rant: thar she blows


<John, please rant. We have a Japanese student who lives in my mother's
apartment who said how odd it was that we Muricans heat the whole space of
our houses. Koichi explained that in Tokyo people wear coats indoors and
drop the temperatures of their homes to the point of seeing their breath. >

we mur'kins were once wiser; as Ishmael observed to Queequeg, misty mouthed
and huddled in a shared bed in a decrepit Nantucket rooming house on a
blustery winter night, "to be truly warm, some part of you must be cold."
Lisa Heshong develops that notion in her recent delightful tract, "Thermal
Delight."

But insulating the basement ceiling--a theoretically sound concept--is
subject to the practical difficulty of insulating the stairwell and adjacent
door.  As we reduce the overall footprint of the house, we fight headroom
requirements, shaving every possible inch out of the sections of landings
and carriages.  And as often as not, we also create habitable space in our
basements.  So it still strikes me as reasonable to insulate the basement
and capture the heat of the water heater and heating equipment.  

Alan Abrams

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