They replaced 4 of the old windows (from 1971) in the livingroom with new low-emission windows today :-) Last week all the windows in the kitchen were replaced and status in the livingroom is now: 5 down and 2 to go (the biggest window and the patio-door).
The team installing our ventilationsystem has probably caught the flue or someting, but the manager still says that they will finish their part of the project this week. Half of the "piping" has been completed (most of the distribution system is located in the attic) and the ventilation unit that will pull in fresh air and recover heat from the "used air" is in its right place in the cellar - but is not connected to the distribution system yet. The same is true for the heatpump (A/C) - both the indoor unit and the unit to be placed outside are stored in the cellar.
Enova in Norway suggests that you can save up to 20% of your energycost by implementing a central management system for lights and heating in your house. They even offer up to 500 Euros is grants for those who implement such solutions. We therefore wanted to implement such a central management system. It's been weeks since we had meetings with to prospects - but neither has managed to send a proposal.
The whole project is quite complex and I believe that sharing some of the questions we have and challenges we face as we go down this path - can help others who want to achieve what we try to achieve in our house.
* a central management system for lights and heating/cooling can be very effective for houses with electrical heating/cooling. You define different temperature zones and depending on the time of day (and potentially based on motion censors) the target temperature varies. To achieve the same savings in a project like ours - it is important that the heatpump and the ventilation unit can be managed from the same system. This seems to be a challenge that the company who installs the solution didn't count on. Still hoping it will be solved.
* earlier today we passed a list of questions over to the company responsible for the new ventilation system. I will include the questions as comments below when we receive the answers.
Monday, October 26, 2009
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The ventilation questions are listed below, with their corresponding answers:
ReplyDelete1) Why are some roooms equiped with one air inlet and one air outlet, while other rooms only have one?
The livingroom only has one inlet and the kitchen has only one outlet - because you don't want "polluted air" (from preparing food in the kitchen) to flow into the livingroom.
Similarly the bathrooms have only one outlet to make sure humid air leaves the house rather than flowing in to nearby rooms.
2) Since the outgoing air from the ventilation system is warmer than the outside air (in wintertime), why don't we use that air as input to the heatpump?
The amount of air passing through the heatpump is much higher than what comes out of the ventilation system - so the effect woiuld be minimal. It is also important to note that the heatexchange is so effective that the difference is only approx. 5 degrees Celsius.