<div dir="ltr"><div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.727272033691406px"><i>"There's nothing to prevent a person living in northern Alberta....flinging open the triple-glazed windows and fibreglass doors....</i></span><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.727272033691406px"><i> then the question becomes one of willingness to accept </i><font color="#ff0000"><b>moral responsibility</b></font><i> for ones actions in consuming far more resources than necessary to allow one that carefree door and window flinging."</i></span></div>
<div><span style="font-family:arial,sans-serif;font-size:12.727272033691406px"><i><br></i></span></div><div style>The humble HRV is being touted as the moral alternative to an open window; it provides fresh air (though not sounds, breezes or smells) at a low energy cost. However, if we're talking about <font color="#ff0000"><b><i>moral responsibility</i></b></font><i>, </i>well, it needs to be remembered that a HRV only mitigates a problem steaming, at root, from our desire to be comfortable -and the criteria by which we demand our comfort. Perhaps in the back of whatever mind is left in doddering old hippies, is the nagging feeling that this humble fresh air machine is aiding and abetting a lifestyle that is consumptive to the core. Whereas our grandparents died of something called "consumption", our current consumption may be dooming the entire planet. </div>
<div style><br></div><div style>Just a random, cheerful thought that I had while waiting in the air-lock vestibule to be cleared by Homeland Security....I'll go back to sleep now....</div></div><div class="gmail_extra">
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Mar 15, 2013 at 9:55 AM, RT <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:archilogic@yahoo.ca" target="_blank">archilogic@yahoo.ca</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
A someone was was quoted as saying (to which several "Hear! Hear!`s were heard):<br>
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
I prefer a design approach that minimises the use of expensive, resource gobbling,<br>
and complicated materials and systems. A colleague of mine sums it up thus:<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
The.... division is between those who fling open their doors to embrace the day,and those who huddle behind triple glazing worrying whether they are going to be comfortable.<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Sometime back in the previous millennium, on a quaint little email strawbale mailing list hosted by CREST, a Buddhist lay-preacher/strawbale building contractor from Northern California once uttered the wise words:<br>
<br>
"Latitude determines the attitude (, dude)"<br>
<br>
when a similar discussion about the need for air-tight construction in super-insulated buildings was being carried out.<br>
<br>
That is to say, those building in the more mild and/or arid climates of places like the SW USA could afford to be a little more casual about things like detailing to ensure air-tight construction and hence, could stay blissfully ignorant about stuff like required ventilation rates to ensure good IAQ and such seeming nonsense.<br>
<br>
I also remember back to around that time (1996 or so ?), the fellow who started this thread on this list talking about blower door test numbers in 2013, back then expressing sentiments similar to those written by NZ archiTony, eschewing the complexities of the demands placed upon us by good building science and embracing a desire for a simplicity in building that would enable him to avoid (and I quote) "knob-twiddling, knerpwhistles" and by inference, anything having to do with numbers and yet, now in 2013, this List is seeing the same Canadian fellow boasting about European PassivHaus religion-inspired blower door numbers like "0.88".<br>
<br>
Last I saw of the Buddhist lay-preacher-hot-tubbing-<u></u>surfer-dude-SB designer/builder, he was running energy modeling programs on his current SB projects.<br>
<br>
Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose . Eh ?<br>
<br>
There's nothing to prevent a person living in northern Alberta ( ~ 7500 HDD/yr (degC) or ~13,500 HDD/yr degF) flinging open the triple-glazed windows and fibreglass doors on their SBH to embrace the day ... whether it be a minus 40 degree (same in Celsius or Fahrenheit) day in January or a plus 40 degC (~104 degF) day in July pretending that they're a Kiwi in Northwood, Christchurch, Canterbury NZ (~933 HDD/yr near as I can figure) ... but I'm fairly confident that they wouldn't do it for very long or very often.<br>
<br>
That is to say, constructing a well-insulated building to be air-tight as is *demanded* by the principles of good building science does not preclude the option to avoid simply opening a window or door to provide the ventilation necessary to ensure good IAQ.<br>
<br>
But if one is also consuming fuel and spewing GHG emissions to condition the interior in order to raise or lower temperatures/ humidity in relation to ambient outdoor conditions and/or dumping hundreds of gallons of precious water into the desert atmosphere via a swamp cooler to make a building interior tolerable, then the question becomes one of willingness to accept moral responsibility for ones actions in consuming far more resources than necessary to allow one that carefree door and window flinging.<br>
<br>
Me ? I like to use air-lock vestibules on all entries.<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
-- <br>
=== * ===<br>
Rob Tom AOD257<br>
Kanata, Ontario, Canada<br>
<br>
< A r c h i L o g i c at Y a h o o dot c a ><br>
(manually winnow the chaff from my edress if you hit "reply")<br>
______________________________<u></u>_________________<br>
GSBN mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:GSBN@sustainablesources.com" target="_blank">GSBN@sustainablesources.com</a><br>
<a href="http://sustainablesources.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/GSBN" target="_blank">http://sustainablesources.com/<u></u>mailman/listinfo.cgi/GSBN</a><br>
</font></span></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><font face="'trebuchet ms', sans-serif"><span style="font-size:x-small"><font color="#666666">John Swearingen<br>Skillful Means Design & Construction<br>
2550 9th Street Suite 209A<br>Berkeley, CA 94710<br>510.849.1800 phone<br>510.849.1900 fax<br><br>Web Site: <a href="http://www.skillful-means.com" target="_blank">http://www.skillful-means.com</a><br>Blog: <a href="https://skillfulmeansdesign.wordpress.com" target="_blank">https://skillfulmeansdesign.wordpress.com</a></font></span></font>
</div>