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Etsy is Awesome

10/31/2015

Earlier this month we found Tyler Reed from Straight Edge Metal Art on Etsy and asked him to make a couple of custom metal signs for our driveway.

TW created the art for the signs and e-mailed the vector graphics to Tyler for fabrication.

Tyler plasma-cut the signs on 18-gauge cold steel and welded mounting bolts to the back. The fronts were given a brushed finish and clear-coated. The signs came out really nice!

My Bosch hammer drill made quick work drilling the mounting holes into the rocks at the entry to the driveway.

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Fall Colors

10/31/2015

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October is almost over and its time for the Fall Color report. The oaks are just starting to change but the hickories have all turned brilliant yellow and gold. We had a nice sunny day yesterday so I took some pictures.

Aside from the beautiful Fall colors, the main observation is that most of the leaves are still on the trees and we get very little solar heating though October and much of November.

As the leaves come down we can start to see the lake and the Young Life Christian Camp in the valley below.

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neoTerra Weather Station Online

10/18/2015

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We finally have our Davis Vantage Vue weather station on-line with Weather Underground.

The station measures temperature, humidity, rainfall, wind speed and wind direction and reports the info to Weather Underground every ten minutes.

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Heating Season has Arrived - Experiment #1

10/4/2015

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October is here and we are starting to get Fall weather. It's been raining since September 20th with only a few sunny days in two weeks.

With so little sun, the temps in the house have fallen to the mid-60s so its time to turn on the HVAC system to take the edge off the chill and dampness.

As an aside, we only ran the AC one day this past summer. However, we ran the system in de-humidify mode for several days to take the humidity out of the basement.

By yesterday morning, the temperatures of the slabs throughout the house were uniformly at 66 degrees so I thought it would be fun (and informative) to run a little experiment.

The Experiment
I turned on two mini-splits in the basement, with the theory that heating the basement would warm the main floor slab. Since the slab has an array of embedded temperature sensors this would allow me to calculate an estimate of heat gained versus the energy consumed.

I started the test just after 9:00 using the splits under the kitchen and under BR2 and setting them to 75 degrees. The test ran for 24 hours so I could use Heating Degree Day (HDD) calculations.

At the end of the test the temperature of the main floor slab was at 73 degrees for an increase of 7 degrees.

I was surprised that the basement slab also increased, though only by 2 degrees.

Air temperature in the basement was at 75 (as expected) and the main level was at 74.

Temperatures at the end of the test

Heat Calculations
There are two components to the heat calculations: a) how much heat was lost through the envelope during the test period and b) how much heat was retained/stored in the thermal mass of the structure.

Based on our computer model, the heat load for the house is 15,816 BTU per HDD. The average interior-exterior temperature difference was 13 degrees so the test simulated 13 HDD. The estimated heat loss is 205,608 BTU.

The main floor slab consists of approximately 25 tons of concrete which will store about 10,866 BTU per degree of temperature difference. Since the temperature increased by 7 degrees, the slab retained about 76,000 BTU.

The basement slab only increased by 2 degrees but it is twice as thick so the basement slab retained about 42,000 BTU.

    Heat Load (consumed)            206608
    Heat stored in thermal mass    118201
    Total heat                               323809

Energy Used
The TED energy monitor recorded a total of 35.122 kWh consumed by the mini-splits during the test. This equals about 9220 BTU per kWh consumed which indicated an efficiency of about 270%.

Note: These are only rough estimates and don't take all of the thermal mass (drywall, steel framing, appliances, furniture, etc). into account.

In the next experiment (already started) I have turned the mini-splits off again and we will measure how long it takes for the house to fall back to 66 degrees.

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Benches

10/3/2015

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Just before we started construction, we decided to replace the stairs coming into the house with a deck that would bridge the slope.

I won't say that it makes the house handicap accessible, but its always good to eliminate steps, especially outdoors. Here's a picture of the original concept.

We had a brief break in the Fall Monsoon weather last week so I finally got around to building the benches.

I'm working alone so I decided to build two 8-foot benches instead of a single long and unwieldy 16-foot bench.

I used pressure treated (PT) 2x6s for the sides and PT 2x2s for the slats.

Pieces of scrap 7/16" OSB were used as spacers to keep the slats aligned during assembly.

The finished benches are each 8'-3" long, 14 1/2" deep and 18" high.

Each bench has three 4x4 post legs attached with double 2x4s

Here, the benches are both assembled and ready to be mounted to the deck.

Titan post anchors were used to attach the posts to the deck (click on the image below to go to the Titan web site).

The Titan anchors are extremely strong and very low profile... but they are a LOT of work to install.

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Etsy is Awesome

Fall Colors

neoTerra Weather Station Online

Heating Season has Arrived - Experiment #1

Benches

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