Week 10

We’re in the double digits now and have less than 2 short months to go. Everyone here on the MMHG crew can hardly believe how fast the time has gone. There have been quite a few obstacles throughout this project, but the crew has stayed strong and the response from the public has been phenomenal. All day long people drive by to witness the progress. It’s encouraging to watch as their jaws drop when they see how beautiful this green home is becoming. The green features on this home are endless. From the grey water system and radiant floor heat system powered by our soon-to-be installed solar panels to fly ash in the concrete and low-water consumption, native plant-landscaped yard and everything in-between. This home truly represents the goals and principles we are conveying to the general public. We encourage all of you to take advantage of this unique opportunity to learn about sustainable building, energy efficiency and cost effective methods. Take one or two of our examples and find out how to apply it to your current home or future construction project.

Rigid insulation installed in the existing 2x4 walls

Spray foam that lines the inside of the old rubble foundation

Dense packed cellulose installed in all the new 2x6 walls

During this past week, we primarily focused on air sealing and insulating our building envelope. A tight envelope is the key concept and basic principle of energy efficiency. A common misconception is that insulation is the most important part of maintaining heat within the structure. But as we’ve found through our extensive research, air infiltration and exhaust cause direct flow breathability and account for much more heat loss than convective heat transfer through insulation. Similarly, a high R-value insulation and proper installation are also very important. In the salvaged 2 x 4 walls, we used rigid poly-iso board with spray foam to seal all the cracks. In the new walls we used dense packed cellulose, which John Diem of Advanced Energy Solutions installed for us. John uses material which is over 80% recycled newspaper and cardboard. John Diem will be at our open house this weekend to answer any questions you may have about insulating your home and making it more efficient. Due to the tight envelope, we installed an HRV or Heat Recovery Ventilation system into our home. The HRV continually extracts air from the home and takes in fresh air from the outdoors. The inside air is then run through a purifying filtration system and interfaced with the fresh air from outside. This state of the art technology extracts the heat from exiting air, cleans it using fresh air from the outdoors, and sends it back into the home. It circulates fresh air throughout the home without any heat loss. Since we are making this home as energy efficient as possible and are analyzing the overall global impact of the home, we are trying to minimize the carbon footprint this home will leave over its existence. What we mean by “minimizing the carbon footprint” is finding the best balance between long-term fossil fuel usage and immediate fuel usage of constructing the home. These immediate carbon emitters include the manufacturing and transporting of the materials we are using. Fossil fuel burning is one of the biggest culprits of global warming. So, on these hot days which seem to be getting worse and worse, let’s remember to all do our part in reducing our carbon footprint.

As the weeks progress we will hang our drywall, paint, install cabinets and appliances, and install doors and trim. This is going to be an exciting time for the project and we hope you will all come share it with us. Remember to come out to the site this Saturday for our free public seminar on Green Plumbing, Solar Heat, Radiating Floors, Wastewater Management/Grey Water, Heat Energy Efficiency, Insulating and Sealing the Envelope, Efficiency in Lighting and Technology with the help of our guest speakers.