You’re describing a fancoil supplied with cool, regularly replaced, municipal water (normally this water would be a fully closed loop cooled with an air source or ground source heat pump). Your energy needs will just be a circulation pump. You’ll probably notice a little cooling but it depends on how cold the water is, the surface area of the radiator, and the flow rate of the water. It has the advantage of being low maintenance so give it a shot and perhaps build it in a way you can access the components and improve / experiment over time.
Look into an approach / methodology called Passive House. Passive House focuses on making buildings that have near zero heating and cooling load. If you get the math right / design from scratch with this in mind you can make a Passive House in nearly any climate. Common modern single-family-home building techniques are generally not at all closely aligned with building a Passive House.
When trying to keep a house cool, here are the things I would focus on (in order of priority):
Reduce solar heating impacts: either place shade trees or awnings to block direct sun on the entire structure (or the windows at a minimum).
Build a highly-insulating enclosure (~R30 walls and ~R50 roof at a minimum, but you could push that further). If you are set on building with lumber you still can, you could building an offset double-stud wall filled with insulation, and of course an appropriate amount of exterior insulation a well. The goal in addition to insulation quantity is to reduce thermal bridging. Consider a “simple” house layout. Avoid too many corners / details / flourishes that add construction complexity.
Utilize free-cooling first: as your first stage of cooling, open large windows close to the ground and open clearstory windows in the roof / top of a stairwell or similar, it really depends on the layout of the home (and ideally the layout is design around this concept). This allows the heat to be drawn out naturally via convection. Include ceiling fans for comfort. This approach will work until outdoor air temperatures get quite high. Once free-cooling will not longer work
Once free-cooling will not longer be effective you can transition to mechanical cooling. Close all windows and cool your space either a high-efficiency air-source heat pump (and / or your free-cooling municipal water fan coil).
Similar to the design methodology to encourage natural air / heat flow out clearstory windows or “solar chimneys”, also consider just having higher ceilings where heat can pool but you won’t feel it. Your exhaust should pull from these areas.
Dedicated outdoor air system (DOAS): don’t design your mechanical ventilation system to cool using air (aside from the free-cooling described earlier). It’s inefficient. Hydronic heating and cooling (moving heat with water) is much more efficient. That means heat pumps for heating as well as cooling. Mechanical ventilation rates should be the bare minimum, just enough for fresh air but not for temperature control. Perhaps look at flow rates included in ASHRAE 62.1 or a standard more focused on residential homes. Also, your supply air can be separately ducted to each room (not a shared trunk), each being much smaller than what you see in a “normal” house, this gives more control for every single room.
ERV: of course you’ll want to install an energy recovery ventilator to capture what heat / “cold” you’ve worked to produce before instead of throwing it away along with your exhaust air.
For heating your domestic water, get a heat pump hot water heater (with tank). Instead of making heat it takes heat from the surrounding room and puts it into your domestic water tank. That means it “outputs cold” into the surrounding room, the opposite of a gas or electric resistance water heater.
Earth tubes: to naturally pre-condition your supply air by running it through the ground first. Another form of free-cooling but useful when the house is “buttoned up” because outdoor air temperatures are too high. This is when you’re only supplying minimum ventilation air.
Limit the things in the house that make heat. Efficient refrigerators / freezers (see energy star website), computers that are no more powerful than what you need, etc. Place these things in areas where the heat won’t bug you as much.
I can’t thank you enough for taking the time to write all of this. I have come across most of these concepts and have been considering them with respect to the options I have.
I’m trying to design the house considering the natural air flow and sun angles. There is a garden with trees on one side of my plot and I intend to make use of it while also planning for other sides. Currently I’m making house plans on my own and discussing with some people I know. This is helping me understand what we want/need, or not, in our home. At some point I’ll definitely take it up to the professionals. There used to be a community of floorplaners and home builders on Reddit but it was not much active.
Stone is the cheapest construction material in my area but it practically converts the house into a furnace unless the walls are very wide. I plan to avoid it at all costs. On my radar is a technology called EPS (Extended PolyStyrene) Core panels which are nothing but high density PolyStyrene with a galvanized steel mesh in it. It is supposed to be load bearing and good enough to build the roofs along with walls. It has been used in some countries at various levels of success though not in this exact form (with wire mesh). It is supposed to be highly non conductive in terms of heat and so good for maintaining inside temperatures with minimal cooling. Most of the material available online are either research papers or companies selling it, both of which only have the incentive to talk good things about it. I intend to go and meet people who have actually built using this technique and take their feedback before I commit to it.
As regards this pet idea of mine, I think the consensus in this discussion is that it will not cause much difference. But since it does not involve much effort/investment, I’m going to try it anyway.
Another cooling technology that has my attention is desiccant based cooling. That too has some research papers and a nice set of videos by Tech Ingredients (www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zW9_ztTiw8). It looks more daunting and more suited for humid regions/months.
I keep dreaming about a setup with evaporative coolers for dry spells and desiccant based thing for humid ones, assisted with this pet tech of mine.
I hope I’ll have the courage to implement these ideas finally.
Thank you! The surfacing part was actually done mostly by hand because if a chicken and egg situation of making the inside components and adding the hinge, without throwing things off balance on the lathe. But after four prototypes, I definitely learned a lot!
We celebrated our 8th wedding anniversary yesterday, easy peasy 👍 The trick is simple, don’t marry someone who is an asshole. I certainly didn’t, and hope my wife feels the same way 😅
To your edit, it should be 2 hots and a neutral is my understanding. Hots deliver electric and neutrals complete the circuit back to the back. In newer wiring the 4th is the ground but a 240v 3 wire has no ground. However, if it is a neutral it should be sheathed and individually insulated.
That being said, I’m not an electrician and most of this is just what I’ve learned from replacing outlets and rerunning 120v wire in this house. If an electrician wants to tell me I’m wrong I’m all ears
The two hots give you 240 across them, but in North america an appliance may run 120 for standard control functions and 240 for heating functions, so in thise cases you need a neutral to provide a 120 pathway. you will see 240 stove appliance plugs have 4 prongs. 2 hot, 1 neutral and a ground. That wiring looks like a time before grounds were used.
If you’re in North America, which I assume you are based on the 120v wires, then your assumption about 240v power is a bit off. Both wires can be a hot (120v) wire, 180° out of phase from each other, so they add to 240v. In this case, a neutral wire isn’t necessary to carry the current back, the other hot wire does that. A neutral wire may be used, but then there would be 4 wires.
The ground wire and the neutral wire actually connect to each other in the panel, but it’s not safe to use a ground wire in place of a neutral, so definitely don’t wire it to the neutral on the outlet.
If you are unsure of what’s going on with this set of wires, you should really call an electrician to help. Wiring a standard 120v outlet is something a homeowner can do, but identifying an old 240v cable on a dubious circuit is definitely something a qualified electrician should do.
So, I have a problem with electricians. I’m running out of them lol. I’ve had 4 out already for other projects and I get quotes and in 2 cases even paid the first payment but no one actually shows up to do the work. So I have just been doing it myself.
That’s said, my step dad does a lot of electrical work so I do have a bit of help even if he’s not a full on electrician. He’s has tons of tools for this type of work and makes most identification pretty easy. He took a Quick Look at the picture and he said it needs replaced based on the fact that it has an aluminum ground so I am just going to run all new wire. At least I know now that it will be the right wire
Always! I’ve been doing a lot of work but I still don’t mess with safety. Obviously the main will be shut off and I won’t be doing the work while home alone in case something does happen. But since it is 1 breaker, 1 wire, and 1 outlet all being replaced it does seem to be a pretty straight forward replacement
It does look bad and I plan to replace it regardless. I’m more so wondering if it needs replaced now. Wire is expensive and replacing this will be pretty extensive as I would need to tear out horse hair plaster to unstaple it from the studs. I’m not 100% on if it’s stapled or not but it’s tough to move and the other wires I replaced were stapled down so we had to tear open the plaster and run them that way. This would be going from 2nd story to basement through kitchen behind the sink so it’s not a quick job. If it needs replaced now I’m gonna need to cancel the whole weekend
I think old style wiring had bare neutral in those 240 wires. It is the path back and shares a ground connection in the panel. I don’t know the safery of insulated neutral vs non insulated, but I have seen panels with uninsulated neutrals. And The ground bar on modern equipment is also attached to neutral bar. I don’t have enough electeical theory knowledge to explain why / how it is that way though
The insulation protects the stuff outside the wire from catching fire. The wires get hot while carrying a load. Neutrals always carry a load once the hot is powered on. Grounds only carry when something goes wrong such as a power surge. They carry excess electricity the neutral can’t handle and usually significantly less so they don’t get as hot. There’s no reason not to insulate a ground, and it arguably is safer, but the amount safer is noticeably less considering the extra cost. For a ground to get hot enough to catch something on fire several other safety measures would need to fail. In that regard it’s not necessary.
Yeah I think in the old wire scenario the two live wires were insulated and bare neutral sandwiched in them with an outercasing could have been their compromise on insulating all of them. But if you use 240 the neutral is not used unless it is wired as a 3 phase circuit. But what i meant by not understanding electrically theory is why bare ground and neutral join at the panel. i.e. purpose of a ground wire if you already had something reaching ground via the neutral connection in the panel to the ground rod or piping.
Snaking wire without a guide for that distance is extremely tough. The normal way to swap out wire would be to tie the new wire to the end of the old and the pull the other end of the old. Since you can’t pull the old (it’s stapled and secured) you can’t pull the new through behind it.
I’m not an electrician, please consult with one if you’re unsure.
I think Shadow is right on both counts.
The wire is very old. Personally, I would rip it out, but that is a risk assessment you have to make.
A 240V circuit, in North America, gets there by having two hot wires one on each of the 120V circuts from the transformer in the street. So no neutral wire is needed to complete the circuit. If you want to think about electricity “flowing” it flows from one pole to the other (instead of to the neutral in a 120V circuit). The unshielded wire is your ground.
They are right. I was wrong. But the wire is getting replaced regardless. My step dad does a good bit of electrical work and said he doesn’t trust an aluminum ground on a 240v outlet
Yeah, my first thought was to come into this thread and answer “I’ve identified it as the kind you replace”
Look at the wires in those pairs, they look like they’re falling apart from each other. Do you really want to risk an area in the wall where one of those wires being thin/having strands broken which is going to cause it to heat up inside your wall?
This has fire hazard written all over it. Just replace the wire and stop trying to take the easy way out. You’ll thank yourself later when you still have a house to go home to.
Those and round phone jacks about every 10 feet or so. There’s a phone jack in the hallway! Not even connected to a landline anymore. And because we opted for the ultra-deluxe old home, an intercom system that made a zapping noise accompanied by a perfect little curl of smoke when we turned it on for the first time. Yeeeehaaaaaa!!!
Omg. This at my house. All old cat 3 phone line. The lines aren’t even terminated anymore but I can’t pull them out. Same with all the coax lines. So frustrating.
Yes, definitely that. But I also dream of being able to press a button and say our little “all ducks, go to bed” and have all those truants down in the big pond know what they’re supposed to do 😂
I suspect you might be joking and I just didn’t get it, but just in case - do your ducks actually respond to verbal cues??
I have friends with ducks, and another friend who tried to have ducks this spring and lost them all to predation, and I know they would all love to be able to get their ducks to get to bed on time.
Ducks would really rather party outside all night, but we use “all ducks go to bed” every time we bring food or treats or water changes to the coop. It took some time but now when we say it they come in to see what the deal is and we can lock up behind them.
We also had the owner installed intercom system! I pulled it out since it didn’t work anymore either. On top of that we have Central-Vac! It still works, and my toddler has yet to figure out she could put stuff in there.
If it helps any fiberglass isn’t called that for funsies. It’s actually made of glass fibers in a resin. It’s not any more flammable or conductive than any other kind of glass/resin combination. The most important safety advice for using it is to wear gloves and protective glasses, because having lots of tiny glass fibers break off in you is super itchy, and your hands are right up in there, and itchy eyes are just the worst.
I knew it had glass in it but I wasn’t sure if that’s all it was made of. That and the paper backing just made me want to be cautious. But I do know how to handle insulation from tearing a room off my grandparents house a few years ago.
You will also want to make sure the filter isn’t clogged up. Most overheating is going to be an airflow issue. You can also look up online how to pull it apart and check components. You may also have a loose power connection somewhere. Make sure the vacuum is unplugged before you mess with it.
That’s awesome, but I was very confused by the first picture. I thought you ran ducts all through your house like a giant hamster cage. Very cool though!
Same here, we tried to figure out how old our house was once and the furthest back we got was 1850. The house existed before that for sure but that’s the oldest bit of paperwork we could dig up for it.
Oh yeah that’s a good idea! I want to check with a nearby estate too because it used to be part of that, 1850 was just when it separated and became an independent property.
Stone? We had only unburned bricks, no right angles, several kinds of walls put together and bulging out to rooms. It is always funny to add or redo some furniture, electric work …
The outside walls are stone, but inside it’s a big mess: I never know what color the dust will be when I drill a hole. And I can’t even imagine right angles or straight walls. It must be so handy.
Funniest part of it is that for some parts even exists some drawings, some electric work was made by students (friend was teaching electricians), something done by friends…
My workplaces is like this: Some walls are red brick, others white/yellow brick. I have one random concrete wall. A couple plywood walls. I have yet to find a plasterboard wall.
I don’t necessarily have a solution, but it might be useful to know why you need such a big connection to the room, if you’re willing to share. Might lead to some different solutions.
I think OPs issue is a combination of available space and regulations. Little space + no copper data connections next to power cables leave little choice but fibre.
I‘m kind of in the same boat, as I would like to connect the garage and an annex building. However, the garage needs power to, prepared for EV - so, large power cable as well. Same for the annex one, in which I just want to have bandwidth available :)
Little space + no copper data connections next to power cables leave little choice but fibre.
That’s the thing. If I add anything else the house won’t pass the periodic electrical inspections.
For an EV we’re probably talking 11 or 22kW, so a rather thick cable. But you’re probably going to have it installed by a certified electrician anyway, or can you do that yourself in Germany?
Hmm, Lemmy or Jerboa appears to have eaten my lengthy reply, so here we go again:
My aim is to have my router/firewall, mail server and VM host in the shelter, as it’s the most protected room in the house. That means I need at least two lines - one from the modem to the router/firewall, and one connecting everything to the internal LAN.
The internet connection is rated 400Mbit synchronous with the option of upgrading to up to 25Gbit, though at present I can’t imagine us ever needing that much and it’s probably more of a marketing gimmick anyway, so that line isn’t as critical, throughput-wise.
The rest of the house is currently a copper Gigabit affair, though the cabling is Cat7 and capable of more, so I wouldn’t want the fiber to be the bottleneck when we upgrade to 10Gbit a few years down the road. Hence multimode looks like a good idea. The question is whether (and how) there’s a way to cut, install and connect it myself. POF would be easier but comes with a number of question marks concerning 10GbE.
This might be a stupid suggestion, but Wifi 7 is to arrive on this Dec. It’s going to allow tens of Gbit/sec. Depending on your conditions, you might just buy a Wifi router.
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