We are starting on design of a new house. I am highly sensitive to a few aesthetics including little things like placing the electricity meter in a place where no one sees it. Other aspects such as having mechanicals that you do not hear - no sounds of plumbing in the walls, ventilation systems that can't be heard, computers isolated in closable rooms. Etc.
The overall design will have a footprint of one house and one 'barn' (not actually a barn, but a very large garage).
Here's my question: I probably have an opportunity to put most if not all of my mechanicals out in that large barn. I can put my solar collectors out there for domestic water, my photovoltaic panels up there, my auxiliary generator out that way, my water heater, maybe a boiler, etc.
Do you think I could pull that off considering that the house will be possibly 20 or 30 feet away from this large garage?
I am wondering if I can somehow super-insulate the hot water runs over to the house so that heat loss is minimal? I had planned for recirculating hot water anyway - so that' part isn't an issue.
The way my my new house and garage is situated, that would leave me with clean appearance on the house and all of that messy stuff only visible by my neighbor who is 1 mile down the valley. And a good part of my mechanicals are out there in one place, away from the house. It should be easier to work on the mechanicals out there too, over the long run.
I want to figure out something like this because I have never liked the appearance of solar equipment on top of roofs, and even less so as free-standing.
So that's my question. What am I going to lose by putting as much stuff as possible 20 feet from the house?
A possible consideration might be: as you have concentrated nearly everything in one area, what happens in case of fire?
As far as connecting the two buildings, you may be thinking some type of fairly large buried duct. You would want access to inspect, or repair leaks. Again, you would have to think about fire spread between the buildings as you have created a path for the fire to travel. (Yes, firebreaks could be installed.) Random thoughts.
Put in an underground tunnel that you can walk through between the two buildings. That will give access and the ability to make repairs, additions, and corrections.
Sounds like a good idea. However, I find that when things go wrong, I usually hear the difference in sound coming from the failure. But I burn wood, so I don't have to listen to the gas furnace/boiler kick in and out. Water flowing through pipes might be a tough one to 'silence' but worth a try.
Yeow - an underground tunnel? Don't think so. I may be a litte bit odd, but I'm not crazy! [img]/forums/images/icons/smile.gif[/img]
What do you 2 think about the heat loss for that length? Do you think I could get it down to almost nothing with some type of insulation?
The maintenance and repairs question is indeed a good one. I can add more conduit for the electricity, but not exactly sure what to do about potential problems with the plumbing lines!
Maybe redundancy??? Put extra lines in that super-insulated run.
Those water lines are a very good argument for the tunnel idea.
Running spare lines through an insulated duct is a band-aid.
Think about what happens to that insulation when those redundant lines become useful. If your primary lines leak, the insulation gets wet. Most forms of insulation lose effectiveness when wet. How do you even know that leakage is happening? This sounds like a bad idea to me.
Running everything through a tunnel makes inspection and repair possible. If one of your water lines springs a leak, you see the puddle on the floor. When you see the puddle on the floor, you repair the line.
Not sure about everything else, but that distance is significantly less than many people install outdoor wood-boiler/hydronic systems from the house. There are highly insulated pipe conduits that contain hot/return lines inside a 6"-8" flex-pipe that is filled with insulation. I'm not sure about heat loss per foot, but a 20' run is pretty short. You could also box that pipe in with foamboard when you bury it. You would probably want/need separate trenches for electrical -vs- water lines. You'd also want to isolate your 60Hz power from your communications lines to eliminate interference. I like your thoughts of minimizing operational noise though.
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