Energy Efficient Housing

Milestone: Redefined Scope of the Design

This milestone was put in place to allow us to decide how in depth to make this project, how in depth to design each individual system, and through what criteria we will make these decisions.

Define Sustainable, Green, and Energy Efficient

These definitions are in specific context to our project and are put forth in this milestone to educate our audience as well as inform them of our perception of these key terms in this sector of the housing industry. These three terms are used often in everyday language, as well as used in the context of building construction. There are no clearly defined lines between the three terms, the definitions overlap. What we want to do is investigate the three terms in order to try to distinguish between them so our audience will understand the scope of our project.

Sustainable:
In order to build a home (house, apartment building, housing complex) you need materials. In order for the home to live out its potential it needs care and maintenance. Between building materials and maintenance many consumable products need to be used. When we talk about sustainability what we are really talking about is “Through-put Sustainability.” This means from start to finish the entire process is sustainable. All of the consumable products needed depend, either directly or indirectly, on natural resources (things which only time and nature can provide). From the time a tree is planted, grown, cut down, shipped to the mill, milled, shipped to the distributor, brought to the construction site, and finally put into place by the contractor it depends on natural resources. These natural resources are: water, sunlight, nutrients in the ground, electricity (which comes from a large variety of other natural resources), oil products (for manufacturing, shipping, and construction)… the list goes on. Through-put sustainability defines that by the time a home reaches critical failure and needs to be demolished everything that was needed to construct the home has been replenished. All of the trees have been replaced by new ones, all of the resources needed to transport have been replenished (including oil), and all of the electricity needed for construction has been replenished. Think of every system of the home (construction, maintenance, clean water, electricity, heating, waste stream , etc.) as being a cycle, and each one of these cycles is part of the life cycle of the entire home. Most of our energy systems currently depend on oil, which takes millions of years to be created. In order for the entire home to be sustainable each system or cycle must be sustainable, which is nearly impossible given the current limits of technology.

Green:
Green building construction at its best would be sustainable construction. Green is a word that is often used synonymously with sustainable or as a supplement to it. Green is often used very loosely. Green just means that there was some consideration taken to reduce the impact of the building on the environment. If the building had no impact on the environment over the entire life cycle of the building, then the building would be sustainable. People will often call a building green just because it has a solar panel on top of it. But that certainly doesn’t make it sustainable, especially if it is still getting 90% of its power from the grid, or if the home is suitable for ten people but only four live in it.

It is also a word that can be all encompassing, most of the time when someone refers to green design they are referring to things that reduce the environmental impact of the home. In most cases whenever energy is saved, the environment is saved by a proportional amount. Here are two links which may help to further your understanding of green products. GP Link 1, GP Link 2

Energy Efficient:
Efficiency is simply a ratio of the energy achieved out of a system compared to the energy put into the system. Energy efficient means getting the maximum energy and longevity out of the resources being used. Comparison of different designs and different products is crucial in achieving an energy efficient design. When an energy efficient system, or home, is designed which uses a natural resource it is designed to achieve the most energy out of the energy put in. The entire process of constructing a home uses multiple natural resources at varying degrees of consumption and at many different stages of the construction process. If a system is sustainable then it is also 100% energy efficient, because the energy needed, in the form of a natural resource, is replenished by the time it is needed for consumption. For a home we will be specifically dealing with designing the home and designing the systems needed for operation of the home (HVAC, electricity, clean water and waste treatment). Energy efficiency deals specifically with system design and allows for optimization in more ways than one. For example, optimizing several parameters of the home, such as ventilation, insulation and window selection, will allow us to gain the highest efficiency of a particular heating system.

Why We Chose Energy Efficient

As can be determined from our project title instead of designing a Sustainable or Green Housing Complex we decided to design an Energy Efficient Housing Complex. As you can see from the definitions of the three apparently synonymous adjectives we believe that they each vary slightly. We feel that when a home is called a sustainable home this inaccurately describes the current technology available for the entire construction process of such a home. Granted there are probably a few exceptions to this brush stroke. In most cases we feel that the terminology is misleading, exaggerated or just not descriptive enough. Most homes which label themselves as sustainable are certainly better than the alternative, but we feel that it is a stretch to call them sustainable, we also believe that these homes are a step in the right direction.

That is what we are looking to do with this project; we are looking to take a step in the right direction. We feel that Energy Efficient is more descriptive of what we will actually be able to achieve. For the most part what is currently available as a “sustainable” (by other people’s standards) home is the equivalent of what we call Energy Efficient.

Describing a home as a “green” home really does not describe the home effectively. Saying that is a green home could mean one of several things. It can mean that the designer took into account several things in the design or that it investigated every aspect of the home as to whether it could be designed green. Naturally as described prior when a system of the home is designed green it is probably more efficient than its predecessor. For example an old washing machine is not nearly as efficient as a new green washing machine. Most green appliances are simply more energy efficient, they use less of the resources required to perform their function than the older or standard model. All around what we want to achieve is to design a home that will use less energy through out the entire life cycle of the home. From the time the building is in the form of raw materials to the time that the building needs to be demolished we want to use as little energy as possible. Thus the home will in some ways be “green” and in some ways it will strive towards “sustainable” but above all it will be energy efficient.

Scope of the Design

The design of a housing complex from top to bottom is a very substantial and expansive task. Entering this project, we know we will be limited by three factors: there are only two team members working on it, we only have one school year to complete it, and we have little exposure to the vast field of architecture. Because of these limitations we knew that we would be spending a lot of time learning many things for the first time; we also knew we would have to learn several programs and educate ourselves about the inner workings of home design.

Thus we will not be able to go in depth into all areas of home design for the reasons listed above. In order to help us decide what depth to go we found out what the requirements were for the university and the residents. After establishing the requirements we were able to integrate them with our design initiatives and decide what processes will be used to design each specific system. The systems and areas which we will be designing as well as the scope of them are expressed below.

Size
The apartments themselves will hold anywhere from two to four people. The number of apartments per building will not be determinable until the milestone describing the general layout has been met, on March 23^rd. The reason for this decision is we want to configure the apartments and buildings in a manner which uses construction materials efficiently.

Community Center
A space will be left on the lot for the community center which will also contain the laundry facility; the laundry facility will be in the scope of this design. However, the rest of the design of the community center will be beyond the scope of this year’s design.

Landscaping
There will be general landscaping for energy efficient purposes such as shade. Plant species will be chosen primarily to fulfill energy efficient requirements and secondarily for their aesthetic value. For example, maple trees may be used to create shade in the summer when they are full yet allow the sun to pass through when they are empty in the winter months. Their will be adequate, yet energy efficient lighting of pathways and roadways at night time for safety purposes. We are also discussing the possibility of a community garden that could be run with the cooperation of students, faculty and residents.

Grey Water Heat Recovery System
This will be the feasibility analysis and possible design of a heat recovery system which uses the excess heat from the grey water output stream of certain home appliances and necessities (shower, dishwasher and laundry machines).

Electrical Appliances and Components
This will be selection of energy efficient appliances (refrigerator, stove and dishwasher), lighting fixtures and all of their components, and all electrical components of the Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system.

Photovoltaic System
Determine the location, size and type of photovoltaic panels to be used. The selection of all necessary components needed to supply electricity from the panels to the home/grid.

HVAC System
The buildings will be designed to optimize several currently used techniques for efficient space heating and cooling. The HVAC system will be designed inline with the general unit layout design. The HVAC system will consist of the following subsystems: passive solar systems, passive cooling, secondary heating source, ventilation system and a control system.

Unit Layout
This will be the determination of the building orientation, location of specific rooms (kitchen, bathroom, bedrooms or living rooms) and appliances to maximize efficiency of all systems and minimize construction materials.

Construction Materials and Techniques
All building materials will be selected with the energy efficient criteria previously described. All construction techniques necessary to create an energy efficient home will be described (framing, roofing, foundation, etc.)

Out of Scope
We will allocate a space for a maintenance building which will not be in the scope of this year’s design. Many utilities are already in place, for the purpose of universality of this project we will not be designing around the current underground or above ground infrastructure. Therefore, the utility grid layout will be out of the scope of this year’s design. It will be assumed that all utility connections (electricity, water, waste outtake, cable, phone, internet, etc.) will be available at each building.