The Coffee House

[Frank F.]

@Frank: Airtight doesn't work with small structures like homes. Energy efficiency has been a big thing since the 1960's here in California. One construction company built "airtight" homes which could be heated seemingly with a single match. But the odors and smells from cooking simply made the houses uninhabitable. Tyvek, (or equal), is standard construction material on all government facilities. Those thin, fiber-ish, large mail envelopes that you can't rip open with your bare hands ... that's Tyvek. The US has construction companies which have qualified by our EPA as ESCO companies. ESCO is an Energy Service Company. ESCO's bring in all the disciplines of construction, engineering and energy management, from landscaping to insulation to solar to et cetera, in order to construct building with the smallest energy footprint. It is a comprehensive approach to construction and retrofitting. Example: Planting trees is specific areas will reduce the need of mechanical cooling or LED w/sensors will reduce the number of solar panels.

Our government will issue Requests For Proposals which can only be bid upon by an ESCO.

Typically, an ESCO contract requires the ESCO company to pay for their portion of the construction/retrofitting and the ESCO company gets paid back over time through the energy savings. Example: If it costs $100 a month to heat/cool/vent/power/light the facility and the ESCO can reduce the costs to $60 a month. Then the ESCO captures and pockets the $40 difference, until the contract is fulfilled.

Gary has worked with ESCO type contracts with hospitals, schools and military facilities. Gary has seen the payments amortized for as little as three years to as long as 12 years.

The ESCO business model seems to make a lot of sense. In the entrepreneur unfriendly environment in Germany people are more into following the flow of government money than to make up their mind and do what is right instead.

Air tight works well with modern non draft air management systems, the air is replaced with outside air up to 18 times a day. If the air outside does not bring in odours you will have no problems with odours. Most of the movement can be initiated passively.

But: the materials used here remind me of a shoe box with double walls stuffed with insulation material between them "stone wool" is a good material. This whole construction is energy saving but not at all sustainable. I guess these houses will last 40 years maximum, in case of water penetration these constructions can be lost for good.

They are also often covered by monopitch roofs with aluminium cladding, prone to electrochemical destruction ... One thing leads to another. The systems are often very complex meaning lots of failure points.

I try to make my house sustainable, it shall last for 100 years at least, even if the latest and greatest energy savings are not to be achieved that way. It will be a breathing construction.

 

[jcdeboever]

I took this one of the granddaughter this morning, she had no idea. We were skipping rocks into the lake.

 

[JonA_CT]

Beautiful, JC.

I might set my alarm to pre-order a new iPhone. Can't justify the X, but my 6 plus is starting to show its age.

 

[SquarePeg41 3]

Beautiful, JC.

I might set my alarm to pre-order a new iPhone. Can't justify the X, but my 6 plus is starting to show its age.

Princess has the 7 plus and loves the new camera features. She thinks the X is "ugly".

 

[JonA_CT]

I think the design is actually pretty cool...screen the size of the plus in the body of the regular. I'm sure the OLED screen will be beautiful. But...at the end of the day, it's not worth an extra $200 to me. That $200 can go towards my 4K TV upgrade (that my wife will never go for). Or more likely, she'll get another pair of Tieks.

 

[smoke665]

They are also often covered by monopitch roofs with aluminium cladding, prone to electrochemical destruction ..

Painted steel both rib and standing seam has gained popularity here for residential, but with environmental fallout I just can't imagine they will give much more lifespan then conventional shingles. The old farmhouse homeplace had slate shingles that lasted at least 50 years or more

 

[Frank F.]

Slate shingles can last 100 years if properly mended

 

[vintagesnaps]

Slate? I haven't seen a roof made of that, well, maybe ever. We just live in a different world, the oldest things here aren't nearly as old as in Europe. My relatives did have a home in Germany that went back a long long time; our family name and history goes back to the 1500s. I find it interesting to watch shows filmed in places like the UK to see how old and how different homes and buildings are there.

 

[Frank F.]

My grandparents had a house built by my great grandfather who had lots of money. Iirc the construction was finished in 1904. The house was sold in 1997 and the roof was still original only well mended slate. Very expensive then, even more so today.

Topmodernisiertes Schloss in Rheinlage bei Bad Honnef – KRAFT Immobilien GmbH Bonn – Immobilien-Makler für Wohnungen Häuser Grundstücke – Kapitalanlage Eigentumswohnung – Mieten Kaufen Verkaufen Vermieten Bauen Bewerten Projektieren

This is the house of my grandparents. They never had the money to renovate it like this.

Only the one who bought it had the money. Now he sells it again

 

[JonA_CT]

The deed is done. I ordered an iPhone 8 Plus for myself and a iPhone 8 for my wife. They should be here next Friday.

I was going to buy the directly from Apple...but they make it so complicated. It took me about a minute to buy them from Verizon after I messed with the Apple page for 10 minutes.

 

[Frank F.]

ESCO Post Scriptum:

The KfW Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, I am sure Leo loves the word, just published a report that most of the insulation measures on houses done in the past few years in Germany will never pay off financially. The KfW did most of the financing for these measures because the Federal Government wants that so.

It is part of a brain fart called "Energiewende" meaning a way to sustainable energy production and consumption.

The idea is great but results are bad. Lignite burning is propelled, Wind Mills are built in places where the wind don't blows, relatively clean nuclear plants are closed for no good reason and they pay the Netherlands to take our excess electricity in case the wind blows strongly on a sunny day. All that ideocracy is planned to cost roughly 1000 trillion Euros and in the end neither sustainability nor environmental friendliness is reached.

Reason for it to happen? They employed lobbyists from an organisation called EUROSOLAR to advise the German government on Energy Policy.....

 

[SquarePeg41 3]

The deed is done. I ordered an iPhone 8 Plus for myself and a iPhone 8 for my wife. They should be here next Friday.

I was going to buy the directly from Apple...but they make it so complicated. It took me about a minute to buy them from Verizon after I messed with the Apple page for 10 minutes.

Can't wait to hear how you like them. Now the 8 is different from the X yes? What are the differences? I will have to live vicariously through you on this as I struggle with my sad 6 plus that must be charged 2-3x day now. I spent all my mad money already this year on the xt2 and the iPad Pro! Apple care or no?

 

[smoke665]

Slate? I haven't seen a roof made of that, well, maybe ever. We j

Slate was pretty common in the Midwest where we lived during the 30/40's. It's still available today in both natural an synthetic. Good read on the pros and cons Slate Roofing Tiles - pros, cons, & costs the biggest reason you don't see it much today is cost. Not only material and installation of the slate, but the additional cost of the supporting structure to handle the weight of the slate.

 

[smoke665]

Reason for it to happen? They employed lobbyists from an organisation called EUROSOLAR to advise the German government on Energy Policy.....

Lobbyists are like a plague across the world, that run contra to what's best for the general population.

 

[Gary A.]

My grandparents had a house built by my great grandfather who had lots of money. Iirc the construction was finished in 1904. The house was sold in 1997 and the roof was still original only well mended slate. Very expensive then, even more so today.

Topmodernisiertes Schloss in Rheinlage bei Bad Honnef – KRAFT Immobilien GmbH Bonn – Immobilien-Makler für Wohnungen Häuser Grundstücke – Kapitalanlage Eigentumswohnung – Mieten Kaufen Verkaufen Vermieten Bauen Bewerten Projektieren

This is the house of my grandparents. They never had the money to renovate it like this.

Only the one who bought it had the money. Now he sells it again

Wow ... Ja, das ist ein modernes Schloss.