[GSBN] Flinging stuff (was Re: Can bale buildings be air tight?- How to ventilate)

[RT]

A someone was was quoted as saying (to which several "Hear! Hear!`s were  
heard):

> I prefer a design approach that minimises the use of expensive, resource  
> gobbling,
> and complicated materials and systems.  A colleague of mine sums it up  
> thus:

> 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.

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:

     "Latitude determines the attitude (, dude)"

when a similar discussion about the need for air-tight construction in  
super-insulated buildings was being carried out.

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.

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".

Last I saw of the Buddhist lay-preacher-hot-tubbing-surfer-dude-SB  
designer/builder, he was running energy modeling programs on his current  
SB projects.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose . Eh ?

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.

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.

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.

Me ? I like to use air-lock vestibules on all entries.



-- 
=== * ===
Rob Tom					AOD257
Kanata, Ontario, Canada

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