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!

Ecolect, LLC launches website of sustainable materials

Ecolect is a new website to help interior designers, architects, builders and homeowners identify and locate sustainable materials.   

"What makes something sustainable? Its recycled content? Its biodegradability? Its support of the local economy? Or, is it that it requires less energy than conventional products to make and transport? It’s some of these, and all of these. We’re still so new at creating and using sustainable materials, that there are no hard-and-fast rules for what makes something sustainable. It’s an evolving definition that we’re constantly revising as we learn more. In fact, even a 'sustainable' material may still have some negative qualities. So for now, our mission is to identify the best resources and technology for sustainability."

Reclaimed Wood Furniture

Claire Dianthos takes doors, beds, and gates, and other things and remakes them into chairs, stools, and other things.    Once a Door was once a door.   From Inhabitat.