''close to being very airtight''?

Nigel, I agree with you on this one.

Some poor bugger is going to have to go in and sort out the heating and probably summer A/C too, in order to make it habitable.

Andy

The author's general comments seem well-informed. I'm not so sure about the economics.

It may come as a surprise to many readers that the previous generation of enthusiastic architects and engineers analysed all these topics, ignited by the 1974 oil crisis, and a lot of creative building ensued. The conclusions are unchanged and bear emphasising again; pretty much in order of priority:

1. When Asian countries are building a new fossil-fuelled mega power station every 3 days, the world cannot be saved by small scale self-sufficiency freaks in the west. The urgency of the timescale demands a crash programme of nuclear power stations throughout the world. At worst this will provide time for other alternatives such as wave power are developed.

2. The greenest solution to domestic comfort is to knit sheep's wool into clothing and wear it.

3. Human behaviour and social patterns are the greatest waste of energy, of which simply leaving doors open is probably the worst.

4. Bizarre 'alternative' solutions can make little overall impact as they are utterly impracticable for massed urban society.

5. Solar heating has no cost-effective role in domestic heating at these latitudes.

6. High insulation + low thermal mass is generally energy efficient in winter but creates over-heating and need for air con in summer

7. Wood-burning is a polluting, inefficient and impracticable - peasants excepted.

8. Heat pumps are a valuable means of reversing the thermodynamic penalties of electricity generation in power stations. Electricity can only be efficiently generated on any scale in large power plants, which also have the great advantage of centralising efficient management and any consequent pollution and thus enabling its control. Transmission losses are relatively tiny, and heat pumps enable the full calorific value of the original fuel to be captured at a remote location.

9. Wind power can only be a marginal contributor to electricity generation in an advanced economy, even in countries with high wind resources, and it is very poor investment as a means of reducing carbon emissions.

10. Rain harvesting/sewage disposal raises both public health and energy considerations. Broadly speaking, the Victorians got it right (they usually did). In urban society's ublic water supplies and sewage disposal are essential.

I disagree with point 8.

It would be more efficient to generate the electricity in the home if the fuel can be carried there (e.g. gas).
If you're going to use the fuel to produce heat rather than more high-class work, it's clearly going to be much more efficient to run the heat pump directly on the fuel on site.

funcrusher's views are exactly that, just views. If there was one 'correct' way of building, that could be demonstrated to be more efficient than any other, there wouldn't be the huge industry of alternative building techniques and innovative new technologies we see today. The self build and green magazines wouldn't be spending every issue exploring different options. Government legislation would be far, far simpler. In short, a most of us would be building exactly the same houses.

I think the evidence of telemetry put into the building is potentially very useful. But sadly lessons learnt from this project will only be of value if these metrics are publicised along with other crucial details about the construction e.g. results of an air-tightness test, details of any additional heat sources used (apart from solar gain) and whether the house is occupied during periods that metrics are recorded. I'm disheartened by the commercial sensitivity that surrounds this. Without more openness about the project, opinions expressed remain just opinions and the only progress made is in the production of hot air.

Tim

Keith,
It would be very interesting to hear comments here from Mike Hillard. Perhaps inviting him to visit this topic would be a good move.
His email address is given at the end of the BBC article mentioned in Nigel's posting