[Greenbuilding] Year-round thermal comfort & insulation

[Mike O'Brien]

Hi, Reuben—

In our house we used lots of insulation, and also thermal mass. The house is built on a slab, the southern end has a clay finish floor, it has Durasol walls on the south side, and there is a cob wall in the interior. We also installed an ecoroof on the south facing side, which helps reduce thermal gains on that area. I believe the thermal mass helps dampen the temperature swings, especially noticable in extreme weather. The west-facing windows are shaded by a big cedar tree and a (sprawling) wisteria, and the west-facing roof has solar water panels on it. With your same night-flushing strategy, our house remains comfortable, even when the outdoors is in the 90s.

Best,

Mike
(503) 819-8991


On Jul 14, 2018, at 7:43 AM, Reuben Deumling <9watts at gmail.com> wrote:

I like insulation: the more the better as far as I'm concerned. For keeping the cold out (speaking colloquially) I've found that careful attention to air sealing and insulation pays huge dividends. But for keeping the summer heat out, I'm finding that the same insulation does a far less admirable job. Stretches of direct sun not only manage to heat up the room/house, it feels like the insulation then does a good job of holding that just-gained heat in. While cool nights with the windows open typically solves the problem in our relatively mild PNW climate I'm still perplexed why the seasonal symmetry I (naively) expected is not evident. 
The walls in question have two parallel but isolated sets of studs and as much dense packed cellulose as I my Forec 2 insulation blower can force into the nooks and crannies. Thermal mass (such as a brick or stone wall) would I think do a much better job producing comfortably cool summer evenings, but would not accomplish much in the winter. Are there hybrid wall assemblies I'm not aware for? What am I missing?

Planned remedies: learn to make exterior shutters, plant more trees.

Thanks!
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