David Gulyas

Revised Blower Door Results!

Mark Jansen, of Energy Efficient Homes Midwest EEHM, who rated our Bloomington, IN LEED Platinum home about two years ago, originally gave us a 200cfm / 50 Pa for air infiltration.  Mark was convinced that the measurement was even tighter, but he didn't have a smaller reducer ring for the blower door.  He showed up today, with blower door and more rings!  Guess what?  Our house tested at ~155 cfm / 50 Pa!  A nice bit of news validating the conscientious construction of our SIPs panels house!  The meter shows 155 cfm / 49.6 Pa.  Close enough to 155...that's really TIGHT!

Big thanks to Marko Spiegel of Conservation Technologies International, CTI, for his detailed design, guidance, and creativity.  His mastery of advanced energy conservation techniques used in our design allowed us to get to a pretty spectacular level!

 

Aquaponics Greenhouse Design

Aquaponics coming to Bloomington, Indiana!  Here is a design rendering for the project.  We are currently finishing the foundation work on the 24' x 48' greenhouse, and the trusses are soon to arrive.  You can see the 900 gallon tanks in the back, and each is connected to six 4' x 8' hydroponic beds which will host a variety of greens.  Each row of six beds is connected to one tank, constituting a "node".  I haven't shown any plumbing to make a clearer image.  Each tank will grow about 1000 lbs of tilapia, ready for harvest after 7 - 9 months.  The fish effluent from the tanks will be piped to each bed, where bacteria in the gravel beds digests and oxygenates the ammonia and nitrite to nitrates, which is taken up by the plant ribosomes.  The water drains back to the tanks!  I'll be documenting the process with videos and images, so stay tuned!

Pure Air Quality: An Age-Old Concept

 
“To have pure air, your house must be so constructed as that the outer atmosphere shall find its way with ease to every corner of it. Badly constructed houses do for the healthy what badly constructed hospitals do for the sick.”
-Florence Nightingale, 1859

OK.  We finally moved in, and even with a temporary kitchen and one working bath, it's great to be in a house with ideal indoor air quality.  We achieved this by incorporating a very nice Energy Recovery Ventilation system, the UltimateAir  RecoupAerator

"The RecoupAerator® is a whole-house air filter and ventilator that circulates fresh air into an average-sized home every two hours. It serves as both ventilation and filtration, capturing virtually all pollens and mold spores." (from product website.) The air quality is unbelievable! 

I finished the concrete floor myself, with an acid stain, and wax finish.  I used a low VOC ceramic based paint over a zero VOC primer, and for dramatic effect, applied a Venetian plaster finish to the largest interior wall. Next steps are to finalize the kitchen design, trim, and interior doors, and figure out how to install all of it.

Raising the SIP Panels for High Performance House

Raising the South SIPs Walls in Early January!

Chris Sturbaum and crew of Golden Hands Construction are joined by Porter SIPs consultant, David Suutala, to install the SIP panels for the Gulyas house in Bloomington, Indiana. The walls are 12.38" thick, with wood integrated around the window openings and where structure is necessary. The SIPs are load bearing, comprised of expanded polystyrene (XPS) sandwiched between two layers of oriented strand board. The south elevation shown here, will capture radiant solar energy through the windows, and stored in the floor slab to heat the house in cold weather. The floor slab is thermally decoupled from the perimeter foundation and floating on 10.5" of extruded polystyrene insulation (EPS) reclaimed from decontructed commercial roofs!

LifeBreath Furnace Provides Superior Indoor Air Quality, While Saving Energy

LifeBreath is a non-combustion hydronic furnace, with a built-in heat recovery ventilator (HRV).  The HRV creates a very efficient heat energy transfer between the outgoing and incoming air streams.  In winter, the incoming cold air is warmed by the heat transfer of outgoing air, and the reverse in summer.  The two air streams do not mix, only the heat energy is transferred through conduction in the HRV. 

The LifeBreath furnace then takes this pre-heated air and brings it up to air delivery temperature by heating it with the available potable hot water source in a closed loop.  We're currently exploring the option of using a solar thermal system to provide the hot water source.  The value of this system is that it can provide a continuous infusion of fresh air while minimizing the energy loss from the outgoing stale air, providing a superior system of high indoor air quality.

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Chicago Center for Green Technology Class Tomorrow Night

Tomorrow night (March 25th) I'm giving a talk at6-8pm at the Chicago Center for Green Technology at 445 N. Sacramento Blvd. on green interior design.  Here's the blurb from the Green Tech U catalog: 
   

Join interior designer David Gulyas as he shares new developments in the interior design field - a fast-growing world of green and sustainable furniture, carpeting, wall coverings, cabinetry, and indoor air quality. Mr. Gulyas will highlight how new high-performance buildings are requiring fresh understanding on the part of interior designers and clients.

   

(I hope I can live up to the billing.)Register by calling the hotline at 312.746.9642.

New Book on SIPS (Structural Insulated Panels)

Structural Insulated Panels (SIPS) could very well lead the way in new building envelope technologies, for structures that are up to three stories high.  This makes them ideally suitable for residential construction.  There are numerous kinds of panels, including the most common sandwich of two layers of oriented strand board (OSB) and foam insulation.  There are different flavors of foam producing slightly different results.  The foaming agents include open and closed cell polystyrene, isocyanurate, urethane, and soy based.  I've been reading Michael Morley's "Building with Structural Insulated Panels (SIPS)" , and while the book tends to repetitively sell SIPs with the same mantra-like list of benefits, it does describe the construction and application principles, and does a good job of comparing the various kinds of SIPS

It is a truly comprehensive manual for the newcomer as well as the experienced builder.   

American Clay Walls: Beautifully Natural

Just had to share a few more things from the GreenBuild 2007 Conference in Chicago, like these  walls from American Clay.   The textures and colors are beautiful, and the walls feel smooth and cool to the touch. 

Shaw Carpet Walks the "Cradle to Cradle" Walk

Yesterday at the GreenBuild Conference in Chicago  I stopped by the Shaw booth where my attention was drawn to the woman with the beakers.  Turns out they were full of carpet bits that were being turned back into their original material, destined to be reconstituted into new carpet, true to the Cradle to Cradle principles.  Cradle to Cradle demands that products be designed so that they can easily be  recycled.  Most products are "downcycled" or made into an inferior product, with a lot of pure waste as a byproduct, while true recycling would allow a product to be used, recycled, and used again, without any loss of material quality.  In order to do this, however, the products need to be designed with that future in mind.   

Architecture 2030: Green Design Imperative

Architecture 2030 is a non-profit, non-partisan and independent organization established in response to the global-warming crisis by architect Edward Mazria.  Because "buildings are the major source of demand for energy and materials that produce by-product greenhouse gases",  Mazria is calling on everyone in the field of design and architecture pledge to change to sustainable design. Architecture 2030's  research page is sobering:

"Think you're making a difference?  Think again: There are 151 new conventional coal fired power plants in various stages of development in the US today.  Home Depot is funding the planting of 300,000 trees in cities across the US to help absorb carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions...  The CO2 emissions from only one medium-sized (500 MW) coal-fired power plant, in just 10 days of operation, will negate this entire effort."