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Thread: Newbie

  1. #1
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Camden, SC
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    3

    Newbie

    After reading about the experiences and solutions of those of you who are building your own homes, I salute you. My wife and I are starting on our shortly, and I will share our progress, ask lots of questions, and may become areal PITA before it's done.
    One really great place you have here. [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

  2. #2
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2002
    Location
    In the city now.
    Posts
    656

    Re: Newbie

    Welcome to CBN, Ed. Misery loves company. I think I'm just not going to visit my place until Ken calls to say it's done. From your profile (home builder) I guess you will actually GC your home?

  3. #3
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Camden, SC
    Posts
    3

    Re: Newbie

    I'm gonna try to do everything I can by myself, and with help from son, son-in-law, and a couple friends.
    I think we can manage all but the HVAC, and we may be able to do the duct work at that.
    It's gonna take some time, as when we open the door for the first time, we won't have a mortgage staring at us.
    (Wish me luck!!) [img]/forums/images/icons/tongue.gif[/img]

  4. #4
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Nova Scotia,Canada
    Posts
    3,108

    Re: Newbie

    Go for it. Be patient and take a break every so often.

    Set a step at a time schedule so a goal is always acheived and discouragement is negated.

    Egon

  5. #5
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Ontario, Canada
    Posts
    139

    Re: Newbie

    If you go for radient heating, you could probably do the HAV too, unless you need A/C. I did all my radiant, etc., and it worked out ok.

  6. #6
    Junior Member
    Join Date
    Mar 2004
    Location
    Camden, SC
    Posts
    3

    Re: Newbie

    Definately gonna need A/C here in the sunny south. I do like the radiant heat system, keep from having all that dusty air blowing around, but alas, gotta do it with a/c.

  7. #7
    Senior Member
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    SouthCentral Oklahoma
    Posts
    5,236

    Re: Newbie

    Actually, there are radiative cooling systems.. More popular in Europe than here, especially in a purer form but hybrid, part radiative part mechanical dehumidification, seem to work OK and are used stateside.

    In a high relative humidity environment it is clear that you can't just cool the slab to reduce the effective temperature of the radiant environment because you will get massive condensation and have soggy carpets or wet tile. Radiant cooling works better when ceilings are treated. In commercial installations they sometimes go ahead and go for direct dehumidification with the same distributed heat exchanger as is used to cool the air and reduce the radiation temp of the ceiling.

    What I have seen in residential installations is a fine mesh of tubing, "capillaries" with larger "arteries" going to mainfolds. This mesh was encapsulated in plaster, i.e. the mesh was installed and plastered over. In operatiion the ceiling is lowered in temp to a point safely above condensation for the ambient relative humidity. When you walk into a space cooled this way you just feel cooler as you give up more radiant energy than you receive, just the reverse of radiant heating, no surprise. A problem is that you can only cool a surface so much and then you get the EVIL condensation. You need a humidistat in the system and most installations I have known of use supplementary dehumidification.

    A cost effective dehumidification system is a seriously undersized but efficient air conditioner that has to run all the time and can't keep up. It will dehumidify realy well. Some higher tech approaches to dehumidificatioin are availlable. For example, heat pipes. Heat pipe enhanced dehumidification, even with conventional A/C is a wonder to behold.

    There are off the shelf packaged units with air handlers for freon based heat exchangers that include heat pipe technology as well as retrofit units with heat pipes. Dehumidification is boosted considerably by heat pipe technology at negligible increase in electricity operation costs. The heat pipes represent a marginally increased resistance to air flow in the plenum but have no moving parts and nothing to wear out. Sounds like magic but is actually pretty simple physics. Heat is moved from one point to another temporarily lowering the temp of an air stream and causing water to condense out but the heat is not "created or destroyed" just advantageoulsy manipulated. Dr. Dinh did a lot of the work to bring this to thte commercial market place and had a company in Florida making units. I haven't kept up lately but suspect the technology is spreading. It was used in F-106 fighter bombers to cool the computers and some of the super fast Pentium chips in realy fast PC's have accessory coolers that use this technology.

    I got interested in using this technology for radiant cooling but just finding experienced folks in radiant heating is tough enough out here in the sticks. Most folks I fould with experience in ground sourced heat pumps wouldn't do radiant heat in their misguided belief that it won't work in our climate.

    I selected a Water Furnace brand geo unit which makes hot water and or hot air at the same time and with a separate thermostat for each I can reduce floor temps in spring and fall to reduce over and undershoot by suplementing when needed with scorched air. I ended up with conventional insulated metal ducts and chilled air with humidistats and thermostats for the A/C which has mullti-speed compressor and air handler.

    [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img] Pat [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
    "I'm not from your planet, monkey boy!"

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