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3375. thoughtful - 11/28/2005 10:14:30 PM

Yep wonks. No skylights for us as they really are holes in your roof and I've heard too many horror stories of water pouring in through them from ice dams and such. And of course sky lights get the most light from the south side...but if we go active solar, it will be full of solar panels with no room for sky lights.

We wanted a cupola in the house for ventilation, but I'm opting for an attic fan which is a far more efficient way of moving air through a house.

House will have a southern-facing sunspace on the lower level which will have vents up to the family room on the main level for added solar heat. Sun space will also have windows opening up to surrounding rooms on the lower level for more heat in the winter. Back wall will be a trombe wall to capture and hold the sun's heat.

3376. Ms. No - 11/28/2005 10:49:52 PM

I'll have to ask my friend what methods she used in her newly built house. Ten days ago the outside temp was 45F and inside her house it was a balmy 68F without ever having turned on the heater. Now, if only the house is as efficient in the other direction for the hot Texas summer, she's totally set.

3377. alistairconnor - 11/29/2005 11:22:47 AM

Can you define "masonry heater", tful? Any links?

3378. thoughtful - 11/29/2005 4:11:56 PM

AC, try this to see what I'm talking about. Tulikivi makes 'kits' and uses strictly soapstone for its efficiency, whereas other manufacturers like Tempcast make the guts and give you the designs, but you can finish the surface as you wish be it with brick, stone, etc. Then there are the very attractive but smaller cronspisen from Sweden that do essentially the same thing.

Masonry heaters are very large very massive type wood stoves that pipe the flue gasses around in a serpentine fashion to extract most of the heat out of the fire and soak it into its mass which then slowly emits the heat all day. They say that you need make only a small fire in the a.m. and one in the p.m. and the thing will throw heat for the rest of the day. Very clean burning, very efficient, uses much less wood and needs far less tending. I refer to our woodstove as 'the baby' as it needs tending and feeding every hour or so throughout the day.

Masonry heaters are seen more often in colder climes than ours as they do take time to heat up and in moderately cool weather can easily cook you out of the house. So if your in Canada to keep the thing running for days on end is not a problem. But where we are, there's the spring and the fall where we don't need such heat but like making a small fire to 'take the chill out' of the room. Masonry heaters are not good at doing that.

Thus our dilemma.

3379. alistairconnor - 11/29/2005 5:16:41 PM

Ah yes, I've seen the Tulikivi things in the specialised shops and lusted after them.

Spring or autumn, a good modern wood stove will keep the house warm all day, or all night, on one fill.

3380. PelleNilsson - 11/30/2005 8:01:50 PM

There was a discussion about geothermal here a few months ago which generated considerable interest. It seemed to me that those who favoured it could be roughly classified into three groups.

Group 1 were people building a new house and with general ecological concerns.

Group two were young people who had bought an old house with an antique oil burner and an oil tank of dubious status, thus facing a heavy reinvestment. but willing to accept a long pay-back period.

The third group is perhaps of most interest in your case, thoughtful. They were people nearing retirement facing the same situations as the first two. But for them the pay-back period was of less concern than the prospect of a reasonably stable and predictable running cost.

And, a simple thought: if you go for geothermal you will have solved the heating question. No need for those expensive masonry stoves.

3381. PelleNilsson - 11/30/2005 8:43:19 PM

We have had two glorious winter days. If it keeps up we may put in some skiing this weekend. We have a couple of golf courses nearby which usually provide good skiing (but somewhat uninteresting). There is too little snow to go out in the woods. Here are some shots from our drab surroundings in winter shroud.

3382. wonkers2 - 11/30/2005 9:27:50 PM

Today, we have snow on the tround and trees for the first time. Can't say I've been looking forward to it.

3383. thoughtful - 11/30/2005 9:37:09 PM

Pelle, thanks for the input and good point about the masonry stove...I think we'd like a regular woodstove anyway though for the looks of the fire but even more so the comfort. There's nothing quite like curling up with the cat on the rug in front of the woodstove for a nap on a wintry sunday afternoon.

We haven't dug into the geothermal details yet (no pun intended), but the payback on it is supposed to be relatively short at 3-5 years vs. active solar which is running 16-17 years. Hubby's key question is if you can put the geothermal pipes in the ground around the septic system. If so, you can save lots of money as you have to dig those holes anyway. Major cost factor apparently is drilling for the vertical systems which can be expensive in our area. Cost of the pump and the heat pump is not so bad.

Hubby's other concern is the cost of the electricity to run the heat pump and the pump, which is why he's still interested in active solar.

Also our state will pick up 1/2 the tab of a new solar system so long as it's connected to the grid and next year there's tax credits that kick in from the latest energy bill that will help pay for the system too.

3384. thoughtful - 12/1/2005 7:47:11 PM

Made corned beef and cabbage in the crockpot yesterday. I never tried that before and it was very easy and came out good, though different somehow. Though I used all the same stuff as usual, it had a different flavor. Don't know if it was the corned beef or the process. But the meat was tender and juicy but didn't fall apart. The veggies were not under done or over done.

Carrots and celery on the bottom of the pot
corned beef on top
add 2 c water with bay leaf, pepper corns, cloves, rosemary, garlic, green pepper and onion. Cook for 1/2 the time (6 hrs on low, 3 hrs on high) add wedges from 1/2 a cabbage and finish cooking.

If you want to boil potatoes and the rest of the cabbage, you can do it separately on the stove top.

3385. ronski - 12/1/2005 11:29:26 PM

Nice pictures Pelle. I am quite the snow-lover. We had snow last week. I'll post pix later.

3386. Ronski - 12/2/2005 2:49:38 AM

The deck. Those pots held coleus in the front, tomatoes in the back.