South Central Oklahoma Farmhouse

[GaryM]

I have these on my current home, and have had them since the 70's. i've replace the turbine section at least 4 times. Additionaly I have had them damaged by hail. When it rains, if there free to turn, you don't get any leakage of water. But if the bearings are bad, then water can enter.

They are kind of ugly too. I have never plugged or covered mine in the winter. Moist air entering the attic from the home needs to be removed. I've heard of, but not seen myself, ice on the underside of the roof decking.

[Bird]

I just wondered, Gary. I don't see them going on the new homes being built around here lately. We had them put on the new house in July '77 and sold the place in January '89 and never had to repair or replace them, except for a little oil. I found that if you covered them for the winter so they sat that long without turning, they sometimes squeal pretty loud when you uncover them in the spring. A couple of drops of "turbine oil" fixed that, so one 4 oz bottle lasted the whole time we lived there.

[GaryM]

Turbine oil. I've got a bottle of that stuff. Does yours have the zoom spout? That's the pull out tube that lets you reach the bearing.

Besides my own, I installed turbines on at least three other houses. Like you said, I don't see them on new homes around here either.

[Bird]

</font><blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr />
pull out tube that lets you reach the bearing.


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Yep, that's what I used.

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I installed turbines on at least three other houses

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When we bought that house, I was just a bit busy and pressed for time, so I had called a local company about putting the wind turbines on and installing a Genie garage door opener, since I'd never done either job myself. I was really surprised, and not pleased, when a kid (looked to be a high school teenager) showed up by himself. I asked if he needed me to help and he said "No." So I went on to do other things, and I was even more surprised when he did a good job in an amazingly short time. [img]/forums/images/icons/shocked.gif[/img] [img]/forums/images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

[GaryM]

That pull out spout makes a neat rig for oiling the bearings on your furnace blower motor too!

Some 3 in 1 oil packages now have that feature.

[kemartin3]

Gary,

Last week you posted some information about the "ice house" roof you installed. I'm curious what material you used for the "icehouse roof panels"? I could see using a combination of the the classic thin "W" foam panels (used at eaves to hold the loose glass away from the roof sheathing) with a radient barrier cloth laid on top, or some of the rigid foam that comes with an aluminum face on one side. Was your solution one of these? Or something different?

Thanks,
Kevin

[Pat]

Hi, All... just ringing in on the turbine topic and giving a construction update. They work great. I installed two in a friends rented house whose A/C was too expensive and he didn't want to add a lot of insulaltion. Really lowered the ceiling temps and increased comfort with more moderate run times on A/C. His wife noticed an improvement before we even finished the install. Amazing how strong the gush of hot air was when we made the cutouts with my recip saw. You could have inflated hot air balons.

They are ugly industrial looking and potentially nerve racking squealling nightmares that can, under some conditions, let a lot of precip into your attic. Many have no provision for lubricating the bearings and they don't usualy have the best bearings. When working they are quite effective.

Cooling tower/chimney.. Great idea, works well, but must be engineered to separate out the precip from the air to avoid getting precip into where you don't want it.

Construction update on South Central Oklahoma Farmhouse...

It still feels to me as if we are moving at a glacial pace but more progress soon. Should pour the slab-on-grade stemwall-floors on either side of the basement on Monday. In-floor hydronic PEX tubing is down in the master bath and shower. Moisture/vapor barrier is down as is a layer of foil faced bubble wrap (InsulMat) and a mat of rebar over that (PEX on top of rebar).

Bubble wrap is two layers of bubbles totaling about 1/4 inch thick and has aluminum foil on both sides. For heat to penetrate it must either flow through the thin buble walls on edge (high resistance path) or convert to radiant energy, propagate through the air space and make it through the second foil layer. Either way the heat is going it has a second foil layer to penetrate while in radiant form. The foil lalyer rejects/reflects about 97% of radiant energy.

This will make the slab tend to move toward the room air temp rather than the ground temp as well as prevent heat from traveling from outside the perimeter of the room to inside the room. Result will be more comfortable floor temps year round.

I had the installers stub out the PEX in the shower wall such that I can contilnue the run up the wall into the ceiling. As the shower design is doorless (a bit cooler in use) I want extra radiant heat in the shower. The shower floor and ceiling loops will be in parallel with valves behind an access panel to allow me to ballance for the desired effect. There will be a third valve to allow me to "short circuit" the shower. We just don't know how much heat will be enough so we designed in plenty of heat delivery capability and then made it adjustable. The first place the water goes is through the shower then through the loop in the bathroom floor. This ensures PLENTY of heat for the shower. In my previous house I used multiple heat lamps on a timer switch but this should be better. I will likely put PEX tubing in the shower walls as well for a more even heat distribution. The walls and ceiling will be one circuit.

An added benefit is that I can have a hydronic towel dryer/warmer. It is essentially a decorative assembly of metal tubing (towel rack) with hot water flowing through it. Same water as heats the floor and shower will keep the towels warm and dry.

It took a second explanation from my HVAC guy but now I GET IT. I was concerned with controling humidity in the WICs. Ordinarily you just give them conditioned air and they stay dry but with hydronic heat you don't have a direct supply of dry air. The conditioned air of the house will be humidity controled. Air will not be directly supplied to the closets but will be exhausted from the closets ensuring them a constant supply of treated air from the living space through infiltration (and maybe a louvered door to the closets.

Here are some pix depicting things awaiting concrete. This first picture is of the master suite. The pex tubing is in the bathroom floor. The plumbing stubouts are for the Jacuzzi, twin vanities, toilet, and shower.

Pat

[Pat]

This is a shot of the shop garage slab prep looking toward the basement (basement has slab floor above it already). The part of the slab area with foil is the shop and utility room. In the foreground there is some sand showing with no foil on it. That is the actual garage part. Garage doesn't really need a moisture barrier and insulation since it is not a conditioned space. Garage is 36 ft wide and 24 ft long as is the shop.

The cutouts are for where the foundation bolts, mounted on templates, are installed above piers dug down to a solid rock layer. These bolts attach to the steel columns that are the load bearing members of the all clear span steel structure of the shop/garage/tractor-implement shed (48x57 overall divided into a 21 by 48 shed and a 48 by 36 shop garage with shop and garage each getting 24 by 36) The foundation bolts are 3/4 inch bar stock threaded on one end and with a 90 degree bend in the other to anchor in the concrete. They will be down in the concrete 13 inches and stick up 2 inches aove the slab.

These bolts will require some care in positioning so the column's mounting holes line up AND the column is square to the building. This causes me a slight bit of aprehension as the "god ole boys" are a little lax in the precision department.

Pat

[Pat]

This last in the series shot shows where the utility room joins the corner of the house above the basement (kitchen). In this shot you see the stubbed out plumbing that goes in the wall between the util room and kitchen. The vertical PVC with small black tubes taped to it just left of center of the picture is the util room sink. the two black tubes pointing to the right in the right corner of the picture are for the ground loop of the basement mounted geothermal (ground sourced) heat pump. In the upper left part of the picture is the water and drain for the washer.

In the lower right corner of the picture you can see some pink foam exposed. This is 18 inches high, 2 inches thick and runs the length of the north wall of the basement (picture is lookinlg south). This is an 18 inch extension to the 8 ft high 2 1/4 inch thick rigid foam insulaltion below it which insulates the basemenet walls on the outside.

Also in the lower right ot the picture you can see that there is a 4 1/2 inch wide 3 1/2 inch high "notch" where the basement wall meets the slab above. This notch will carry the porch slab for the porch on the north side of the center of the house and it will carry the util room slab where it contacts the basement wall (kitchen/dining room floor).

Being a Belt AND Suspenders kind of guy we'll be hammer drilling into the basement wall to insert rebar as extensions of the rebar in the util room's floor. In our seismic zone that is NOT required (nor is the supporlting notch) but if there is any movement of any kind for any reason then I want everything to move together.

My builder no longer recommends connecting the piers to the grade beams/foundation with rebar. Grade beams just sit on the piers. It took years but finally engineering recomendations to put that in the "code" finally made it through the process. IF everything works as planned the piers support the building whether or not they are attached with rebar. If anything goes wrong and a pier subsides or its "foot" slibs down the side of a slope it will take the grade beam with it if they are connected.

If something goes wrong the beam has to hold the pier up not the pier supporting the beam if they are tied together. I don't expect the piers to "fall" through the rock layer they are on but not attaching them doesn't hurt a thing. We put enough foundation under all of this so that NO PIERS WERE NEEDED and then put a bunch of piers down to solid rock because the rock layer was so close and the piers were so cheap and it makes me feel better. How biblical! Build your house on a rock!

Oh well, the piers cost me a total of $200 to have drilled and running from 30 to 60 inches in depth they didn't cost too much for concrete and steel.

Monday at least one of the slabs, probably the master suite, should be poured and finished. It has the closest tollerances for floor flatness since ICF construction is a bit less tollerant of sloppy floors, having no mortar lines to allow fudging. Hopefully the util room, garage and shop will pour on Tuesday. Also on Tuesday the forms can be stripped from the master suite and recycled for the shed slab.

I hope to have the thrill of seing TWO and maybe THREE crews working in parallel. That would be the ICF guys doing the master suite, my builder's framing crew erecting the shop/garage steel, and the concrete sub working on the 21x48 shed slab or other slabs here and there around the site.

AND... Like wow, man! You haven't experienced glare until you work in the noon day sun in the middle of a large expanse of shiny aluminum foil. I gave advance warning to the concrete guys and they showed up without sunglasses. Next day after nearly being blinded they all show up again without sunglasses. In contrast to this, the HVAC guys came looking like the MIB in casual dress, matching dark trousers, dark T shirts, black ball caps, and matching wrap around dark dark sun glasses. They would have gone blind putting the PEX down in the middle of the day had they not been prepared.

Pat

[GaryM]

The ice house roof panels are nothing more than corregated cardboard with a reflecting layer applied with a high temperature surviving glue. They are prescored to go between trusses on 24" centers. Fold the edges down and staple them to the trusses. I'm sure Stitt Energy Systems would sell you all you need.

The contractor hasn't installed them yet. Maybe this week. All the framing is about done, so the next step is the windows and doors.

I have a website with photos and links to some of the products we are using. www.w0gom.net