[Greenbuilding] Year-round thermal comfort & insulation

[John Salmen]

Interesting house! Like the houses here around mills – framed in clear fir.

 

Comfort is an interesting topic as if we narrow the range of physical experience too much – that can be a form of discomfort.

I’ve found mass works well in small amounts and typically the drywall and perhaps a tile floor is sufficient for most passive solar benefit. We have an environment where high day temperatures are coupled with cooler evenings – so I put an inch of mass on our floors and that seems to maintain a decent swing (cool day interior / dumps the heat with night ventilation – good winter solar gain but can overheat with simple woodstove fires. As Stephen mentioned any unusual swings and mass can’t be responsive – it is hard to design with.

 

Exterior mass is great – microclimates – even ventilation air being drawn over intentional mass both for cooling and heating (low ground mass cooling – high eave vent over south brick or stucco for heating)

 

Phase change I like (played with wax paints in bathrooms and kitchens and it works – quickly tempering the air from excessive heat and then releasing). Clay paints and plasters I’ve also found useful with humidity.

 

John

 

 

 

 

From: Greenbuilding [mailto:greenbuilding-bounces at lists.bioenergylists.org] On Behalf Of Stephen Collette
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2018 5:52 AM
To: greenbuilding at lists.bioenergylists.org
Subject: [Greenbuilding] Year-round thermal comfort & insulation

 

Hello Reuben and all,

 

I wanted to relate a personal story about  thermal mass and insulation to see if it resonates. I live in Ontario, so cold winters, hot summers. I live in a 100 year old house that has rough cut 2x4 hollow walls. Well, it was designed to be hollow walls. Living near a cement factory (at the time) our little village has the unique detailing of filling the hollow wall cavities with dry mix concrete (stones and cement), then lath and plaster over the 1x12 planking. The concept was that the walls would suck the moisture out of the plaster, and harden up, which they did in mine and numerous homes around here. So I literally have a ton (or 4) of thermal mass in my story and a half. It over the years has worked pretty well managing both heat and cold, however we found that any extended periods of either will result in the mass getting stupid hot or stupid cold and radiating heat into the house non stop, or sucking every kiloWatt out of it in winter. We have since done a major renovation and addition to the house adding 6 inches of Roxul (now Rockwool) comfortboard rigid board to the outside from the footings to the roof (it’s basically their old drainboard with probably John S’s stamp on it saying you can put it on walls)(haha). The master suite addition has 2x6 stud walls with Roxul batts in it and same outsulation. The overall consensus is that the older part performs better anecdotally. Too many variables to be accurate, but the thermal mass stays consistently stable throughout the year now and our heating bills have dropped significantly. 

 

Summary. Thermal mass on the inside with outsulation is a good idea in my climate. Oh yeah, and make it airtight too!

 

Cheers

 

Stephen

 

Stephen Collette 

BBEC, BBNC, LEED AP, CAHP, BSSO

Principal

Your Healthy House 

Indoor Environmental Testing & Building Consulting

http://www.yourhealthyhouse.ca

stephen at yourhealthyhouse.ca

705.652.5159

 

 

 





On Jul 15, 2018, at 2:00 PM, greenbuilding-request at lists.bioenergylists.org wrote:

 

Reuben says: "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"

 

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