Calorique: Heat feels good! Blog post #1

If you are reading this blog, then you are an interested party in building to Passive House standards. And I applaud you for that commitment.

All of us would like to start over with all the right features included in the dwellings that we live in. For those of you who have been working with an architect, you will know that there are always trade-offs as a project is being put together. In the end you will probably not be able to have every want on your list.

If the heating of the structure leaves some areas inadequately passively heated because of the design of the building; or if this is a remodeling project and you must work with what you have; or your local building codes require some kind of heat installed, then I would suggest exploring the use of electric radiant heating to supplement.

Calorique film electric radiant heating can be installed in three different ways to heat flooring, or in the ceiling with enough wattage to be primary heating.  On a programmable thermostat you can have customized heating where and when you need it.

A major goal of having a passively heated house is to eliminate, as much as possible, paying for heating.  With that mindset you will also want to keep expenses down for any supplemental heating system. The Calorique film electric radiant heating systems utilize 99% of electricity in the production of heat – very efficient.  The Small Planet Workshop can provide you a heat loss analysis with projected energy use and cost per year if you wish to see what the additional cost will be to install supplemental Calorique radiant heating.

If you’re wondering how ‘film’ electric radiant heating works differently than other heating systems, here is our explanation. There are no hydronic tubes or boiler, no wires, no transformer, no pipes and compressors, and no wall units.  Just polyester film with flat electric bus bars and carbon lines covering the panels to distribute the heat.  So it’s even heat, noiseless, unseen – no vents or ducts or wall units.  The film is incorporated into the building and directs warmth at people and objects to heat them, rather than heating air.

This concept for heating was popular in past decades and then disappeared, yet it is still an efficient and viable method of heating, which is seeing a resurgence now that the public is desirous of getting the most heat for their dollar.

Contact The Small Planet Workshop for your Heat Loss Questionnaire to obtain a quote for inclusion of Calorique film radiant heating in your project.

The Worlds Greatest Radiant Heat Video

The Worlds Greatest Radiant Heat

 For videos about Calorique visit their YouTube page.

 For information about the products installation visit: MrCalorique’s page. 

Update on Monday, December 17, 2012 at 1:40PM by Small Planet Workshop

Calorique: Heat Feels Good! Blog Post #2

Calorique radiant heating systems have been around since the early 1980’s when the US building industry was using radiant heating in a good percentage of dwellings.

You can find apartments in every city with ceiling heating and homes with slab heating.  Calorique heating systems are used now in renovations of these buildings when there is damage done to a 40 year old + working system.

No one seems to know why this type of heating system almost disappeared in the US.  In Europe and the rest of the world electric radiant heating never disappeared and at this point in time Calorique does most of our business outside the US.

Homeowners and designers, introduced to Calorique’s newest methods for providing heating here on the west coast, have been open to including this type of heating in new or remodeled projects.  I fascinatedly watch the gears turn when I talk to people about Calorique’s film radiant heating systems as this concept of heating starts to make sense to them.

Here’s an example of a good use of Calorique film radiant heating as replacement heating in a home that is far from Passive House standards. It has little possibility of including many aspects of Passive House building, being limited by budget, perpetrated by the arrival of 3 boys in 4 years: 

The homeowner decided to use the Under Floor heating film after taking out a 60 + year old natural gas wall heater in the living room that was able to heat the whole house when it was 600sq.ft.  With the addition of a bath and 2 bedrooms at the back of the house this wall furnace was inadequate as well as old.  The homeowner didn’t want to spend $8K on a new nat. gas furnace with ducting.  After doing a Heat Loss Calculation for each room we determined that we could provide enough wattage and heating with the Under Floor heating system and insulation, attaching it beneath the subfloor, accessed from the crawlspace. 

Installing the Calorique Under Floor heating system will allow the homeowner to remove the electric resistance wall heaters in the pre-schoolers’ room, removing the possibility of a smoldering fire if  toys were left in front of it.  The floor will also be warm for them to play on.  With no furnace fan blowing air the room will feel warmer and without dust billowing there will be no unhealthy allergic reactions for the children.

Small Planet Workshop can answer your questions and provide you with your own Heat Loss Calculation for the rooms you are interested in heating with Calorique

Corky kinda day...

On June 22, 2012 The Small Planet Workshop welcomed Francisco Simões, a Portuguese representative of Amorim Isolatmentos in regards to the amazing material, cork. Francisco demonstrated the many uses of cork from wine stoppers to shoes fillers, but specifically on its application as insulation. Cork is one of the most sustainable substances to use as insulation in any building. Not only that, in Portugal “Regular extraction of the cork is a fundamental contribution for environmental, economic, and social sustainability of the rural areas of the Mediterranean region where the cork oak may be found.” ₁ As you can see, BCORK (informational site by Armorim) regulates Portugal in more than an agricultural way.

          To explain in more depth, cork is raising the bar in sustainability, and is being shared with the world. Environmentally, cork is forested in one of the most sustainable methods: The tree is not cut down. The cork bark is simply harvested from the tree by hand, as it's been done since the Romans. When Francisco came to the shop, despite his exhaustion from jetlag, he presented with full strength and shared his enthusiasms about cork. He showed us that cork has a NEGATIVE CO₂ carbon emission effect on the environment. Completely negative, from extraction, application, shipment, and back into the ground.

          Thousands of people depend on the short harvesting season from May to August to support their families for the next year. During the peak of the season these people brave the Mediterranean heat to harvest the bark off the trees. As seen in the image above, the whole tree is not completely stripped so the tree can regenerate its bark for its next harvest in 9 years. The trees are marked with the year it was extracted so the harvesters know when to re-harvest each tree. The bark is then stacked to dry for a short period of time. As soon as the bark is dry, it is brought to the power plant for the compression/expansion process begins. In order to accommodate each order the process changes but basically they are put through a controlled expansion box until it reaches the desired ‘fluffiness’. Once they are finished, the extra bark gets turned into biofuel for the power plant. The cork is then shipped to the desired destination anywhere around the world. Considering the cork ends up all around the world, you may ask, “doesn’t shipping cause a higher CO₂ count?” The answer is no; even with shipping worked into the calculations the CO₂ emissions still come out negative. 

          After the detailed explanation of the process and many questions asked by Albert and Mark, we finally got to the insulation part – what is its application? Although it can be used for many construction purposes, insulation seems to be the most popular. You can insulate practically anything with it! Francisco told us about its advantages such as its thermal conductivity coefficient of 0.038/0.4 W/MK₂ (about R4 per inch) as well as its acoustic and anti-vibrating qualities. What was most surprising is it durability and density levels (110/120 kgs/m3). It has spectacular dimensional stability so when it is formed its there to stay. The best part of the day was when Francisco spoke to us about the energy efficiency of the cork. Cork surprisingly consumes only 7% of electricity in processing, meaning 93% of the energy used in created cork products is strictly cork produced.

By the end of the day, he’d made believers of us all. A 100% renewable, natural, raw material with a negative carbon emission sounds like something the world could use. All this while helping the Mediterranean families, economies, and the environment? I think we can help! As a final point, we would like to extend our most appreciative thanks to Francisco Simões for his beautiful presentation and for answering all our questions clearly and concisely. The day then ended with some samples and well deserved taco truck feast.

Update: Later in the month when we got the first samples of cork, we tested it out! check out the video! It features our friend Mike Eliason with Brute Force Collaborative; he was the one we were proving how great cork is!

Bibliography:

₁ “Sustainability of cork, BCORK. Copyright 2011. http://www.bcork.amorim.com/en/sustainability

₂“Insulation cork” Amorim Group. Copyright 2007-2012. http://www.amorim.pt/en/cor_neg_isolamentos.php

Passivhaus Diversity: Share the Efficiency!

Excursion brochure 16^th International Passivhaus conference Hanover 2012
By: ProKlima Der enercity-fonds

The Passivhaus movement is a set of standards for energy efficiency in buildings to reduce the ecological footprint on the planet. Simply: it is individuals and contractors building dream houses with green technology. What began as a German green building movement has spread across the globe with astounding feats! Though ProKlima is a publicly run publishing company in Germany, the book is available for everyone around the world to enjoy. 

Passsivhaus Diversity is a compilation of some of the most energy efficient projects of this century. With houses being modified as old as 1900 and energy savings up to and past 93%, yout miss out on the Enercity Fund as they change the lives of families, children, and businesses.

The book is intended for architects, builders, families, dreamers, people whom are simply curious and people who want to make a difference. For example, here at The Small Planet Workshop we sell items for small and large changes that make a world of differences in your home and energy savings. Start small and plan well and you can have a Passivhaus too!

Passivhaus Diversity doesn’t solely deal with the buildings, but it also gives you a chance to learn about the architects and designers that provide a face for the creations presented. Let me show you what I am talking about:

 Tour 1-The Messer Family single family home “The building is currently under construction in Hannover-Wettbergen’s zero:e park, which has 300 private homes built to Passivhaus standards, making it the largest zero-emissions development in all of Europe…”

Let’s stop there; I wouldn’t want to spoil the stories! What I will do though is let you get into action through the Passivaus Diversity Book. As you saw above, with extra efforts made by single families like the Messer’s, the world is changing to zero:e and quickly. 

Interested in buying a copy of the Passivhaus Diversity book? click HERE! 

Want to save a tree? read online!

Blog post by: Harmony Counsellor
July 19, 2012