@peterberg- How's the new passive house doing this winter?

[satamax]

Yep fifteen hundred.

About 1.4 milion watts per year per m² of sun radiation. And a yearly mean temperature around the 10c° mark may be!

www.meteofrance.com/previsions-meteo-france/le-monetier-les-bains/05220

[ericvw]

Jan 19, 2015 8:33:13 GMT -8 pinhead said:

Jan 19, 2015 2:24:08 GMT -8 peterberg said:

Walls Rc=9.5, ceiling Rc=8.5, floor Rc=8.0, windows triple glass in modified and coated pvc profiles especcially for passiv houses.

Your numbers had me thrown for a loop until Satamax mentioned that the EU values are different than US values.

-EU----US-
9.5R = 53R
8.5R = 48R
8.0R = 45R

Whew! I thought for a moment that you had moved to Florida! 
Didn't realize that R values where on a different scale- kinda like shoe sizes!
Eric VW

[satamax]

Yep, when we went metric, the british empire wanted to be different than the froggies and stayed with imperial.

Now, Kiwies, Aussies, Canucks, and even the Brits have all gone metric! But some of your rulers might have kept the same set of mind as they had. So we have two different R vallues. Well, in euro (disney) land, we do the same sometimes too. Settle for an inferior thing, because it's ours. Or even superior, but not worth anything.

The concorde, for example, fantastic plane, but a bloody money pit!

Same with the rafale, everybody say it's the best fighter?bomber plane in the world. But we can't sell it, because it's too expensive.

[gjh42]

Yep, the US government back in the 70s or so said "we're going metric", and the people said "no we aren't!"
So we have a lot of things that have to have metric measurements on them, but they all still have the traditional measurements that are actually used...

[peterberg]

OK, I've taken pictures of our house today to publish here. There's a sign next to the red front door which says "WITH CARE", the name of the house. This is a piece of one the numerous glass crates we've burned and it originally said "HANDLE WITH CARE". All the fuel was cut up to one foot and this piece exactly showed this text purely by chance.
We hired a piece of ground from the people next door so our garden is decent sized now. To our standards, it's even large, taking into account it is a densily populated area. The garden is still in development, we are busy with it for a few hours nearly every single day.

[keithturtle]

Nicely done, Peter, with obvious care.  Are the cloudy skies the norm, and does the evacuated tube array work well in diffuse sunlight?

Outstanding project, but Mrs T would never let me get away with that much shop area in the house.  You are indeed blessed

Turtle

[peterberg]

No, the cloudy skies aren't the norm. Tomorrow it will be very nice wheather according to the forecasts, so I'll be able to post a sunny picture of the south facing wall.

There is a nice shop area in the house, that's true. But the whole of the top floor is Mrs B's studio, we have both the same square footage as our respective workspace. We don't have a shed, attick or garage, all living and working space is inside the insulated envelope.

The vacuum tube collector does need direct sunlight in order to work. The photovoltaic panels are collecting energy when it's cloudy but that's going up eightfold when in direct sunlight.

[peterberg]

Three pictures which shows sunlight. Number one and two at noon, third at 5pm. The large windows on ground floor and top floor are still in shadows because of the large roof overhang. It will be this way through summer, in winter sunlight will shine inside the house.

[ericvw]

Beautiful home! And well documented, to boot. Thanks for sharing, peterberg!
Are there top secret projects in the shop, or are you just tidying up a bit for the reveal pics?!


Stunning workmanship sir, and a great namesake for y'all's home, too.
Eric Van Wickler

[buckeyenut]

Very nice! I live in a much colder climate in ohio,USA I'm saving to build a berm home andhope for it to make more energy then use. i plans to build it with the pahls system. It uses earth as insulation and heating mass.