Timber Frame Hybrid Home - Owner Builder

[EddieWalker]

Thanks for the update. Good information on the HVAC system. I've always understood that it's better to be a bit undersized then oversized for that very reason.

Eddie

 

[jk96]

One more quick update that may be beneficial to others is the use of a blower door test. I know BitChin1 mentioned having one done earlier in this thread. We intended to and with the hectic schedule we just didn't get it done. I would highly recommend it. We just recently found out our electric coop offered the service at a minimal cost. We went ahead and had it done this week just out of curiosity. With the cold weather, blower door, and an IR camera they brought it was really easy to see the areas of air infiltration.

The initial test of the entire envelope including conditioned attic and basement came in at a 3.1 ACH50. Not bad but not near what I thought we would get with the spray foam. One big leak was where the main HVAC trunk line ran between the basement and garage. We also found another big leak in the corner of the loft which I new we had, just didn't realize it was as big as it was. One of the boys bedrooms was on the opposite wall and has been cool this winter. After some foam injection we stopped the leak and now the one cool bedroom is normal temp. I just assumed it was cooler due to the large bank of windows and small room size. A couple of other leaks we found were fixed as well. We re-tested yesterday. Our new test showed an ACH50 of 2.25. Almost all of the remaining leaks are coming from behind timbers where I knew we would have problems. I'm addressing some of those now and will retest to see what our final ACH50 rate comes in at. I'll update when we do. It was pretty cool being able to use the IR camera and see exactly where the cold spots were located.

Note: We performed the test on the house as is. No covering fireplace intake air, sealing chimney, bath exhaust vents etc.

Jeremy

 

[jk96]

I finished addressing the remaining air leaks around the timbers yesterday. Final blower door test will be done on Tuesday. My guess is that we are well below 2 now. All of the air sealing has tipped the scales in favor of our fireplace now.

Getting ready to call it a night. Current outside temp is 3 degrees. Our heating units have not turned on since we got the fireplace cranked up earlier this afternoon.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

wow, that's awesome.

 

[BleedingOrange]

" One of the other things I changed was our thermostats to ones that allowed me to set a higher temperature swing between startup and shutdown. "
Do you have a link to the thermostats you bought ?
I,ve been searching for one with a larger swing, but didn,t have much success finding any ?
Beautiful, well built home you have there. Congrats, on getting it right.

 

[Country Geek]

I finished addressing the remaining air leaks around the timbers yesterday. Final blower door test will be done on Tuesday. My guess is that we are well below 2 now. All of the air sealing has tipped the scales in favor of our fireplace now.

Getting ready to call it a night. Current outside temp is 3 degrees. Our heating units have not turned on since we got the fireplace cranked up earlier this afternoon.

Can you tell (remind) us a little more about your fireplace? Most fireplaces seem to send the heat up the chimney more than heat the house, does yours have blowers or some other design feature to prevent that? Also, how far is that thermostat from your fireplace and what's the temp in the room(s) farthest from the fireplace.

Your house looks and works great. I've been toying with adding some kind of wood heat to my place and am interested in hearing how people have done it, especially if it's managed without a wood stove. My current fireplace just sends heat up the chimney for the most part, and it's a custom design that won't fit any inserts of any usable size or capacity.

 

[jk96]

Thanks Kyle,

now that things are tightened up and we've got the bugs worked out of the HVAC units I'm really excited about our homes performance. I'm looking forward to seeing how our usage rates this summer compare to last year.

" One of the other things I changed was our thermostats to ones that allowed me to set a higher temperature swing between startup and shutdown. "
Do you have a link to the thermostats you bought ?
I,ve been searching for one with a larger swing, but didn,t have much success finding any ?
Beautiful, well built home you have there. Congrats, on getting it right.

We bought Hunter programmable thermostats. http://www.menards.com/main/heating-cooling/thermostats-freeze-alarms/hunter-thermostat-7-day-programmable/p-1944041-c-12864.htm They have a 3 degree max swing. So if we are set at 70, they come on at 68.5 and off at 71.5. The change is so gradual we have not noticed a difference in comfort level. My old tstats had only had a 1 degree swing and the short on off cycles were killing our efficiency.

Can you tell (remind) us a little more about your fireplace? Most fireplaces seem to send the heat up the chimney more than heat the house, does yours have blowers or some other design feature to prevent that? Also, how far is that thermostat from your fireplace and what's the temp in the room(s) farthest from the fireplace.

Your house looks and works great. I've been toying with adding some kind of wood heat to my place and am interested in hearing how people have done it, especially if it's managed without a wood stove. My current fireplace just sends heat up the chimney for the most part, and it's a custom design that won't fit any inserts of any usable size or capacity.

I'll start with tstat locations and temps first as I did check all zones last night. The tstat in the picture was in the loft and the warmest for obvious reasons as heat rises. Zones 1 and 2 are 1st floor and closest to the fireplace

1st Floor Zone 1 (Dining room) - 72 degrees
1st Floor Zone 2 (Living room) - 72 degrees
1st Floor Zone 3 (Master) - 71 degrees
2nd Floor Zone 4 (Loft and Boys Bedrooms) - 75 degrees
2nd Floor Zone 5 (Girls room and office) located at end of hallway - 73 degrees

Fireplace is a wood burning insert manufactured by Acucraft. It has two outside combustion air intakes so that no air is pulled from the house for combustion. The chimney flue is a 16" flue with damper that can be controlled from wide open to completely shut. It also has two variable speed blowers that pull the living room air in through the lower opening, around the heated firebox and back out the top vent. I measured the leaving air temperature at one point during a good burn and it was measuring 210*F. Once we get a good clean burn going, I can close the flue damper to about 90% and really heat things up.

One other note, the day before yesterday we had 20 mph winds with gusts to 35mph. It was whisper quite inside the house. Unless you looked out at the trees you would never know it was windy. This is the quietest house I have ever been in.

Edit: Also last nights temp was 3 degrees and the fireplace was able to hold all zones above setpoint. Prior to tightening things up our balance point seemed to be around 15-18 degrees. At or below those temps we needed some help from the HVAC units.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Great to see everything coming together so nicely, jk96! Makes all that attention to detail, and especially riding herd on the contractors, worth while.

FWIW, the Hampton Bay Altura 60" fan I purchased from Home Depot turned out to have ghosts in the remote control circuitry, just as many of the reviews at the HD site indicated (curiously, all of those unfavorable reviews have now been removed, and the manufacturer name has been changed to Home Decorators Collection). I get around the problem by controlling power to the fan at the wall switch, so at least it no longer comes on all by itself. It still changes speed and direction, and turns itself off autonomously, but those are less of a problem than coming on and running for long periods of time while the house is empty, which could be days at a time.

I was also able to get it to stop swinging by shimming the blades so they all rotated in the same horizontal plane within a sixteenth of an inch or so anyway. No amount of weight would cure the problem, but at least the fan uses screws for a solid attachment, and it was simple to slip a piece or two of cardboard between the blade and bracket to get the right adjustment. I sent two Hunter fans back for the same problem since their blades are attached through rubber grommets and couldn't be shimmed at all.

The Altura is still a beautiful fan, and very quietly moves a lot of air in the 400 sq.ft. room in which it's installed. So thanks again for pointing it out to me. I'm using a wood heater for the first time this winter and the great room is the most comfortable room in the house. In fact, it's easy to get carried away and use too much wood, making it so warm that if it was summer time, I'd be running the AC.

 

[jk96]

Good to know Redneck. Since its your handle I'm assuming its ok to call you by that name. lol. Our altura fans have been controlled from a switch from the start. On a couple of occasions they have stopped and had to reprogram them with the remote to get them going again. Luckily I haven't had any of the ghost issues or balance issues you've had. Ours have worked great from the start for almost a year now. We have a total of 5 of them.

 

[BleedingOrange]

Thanks for the info, jk96. I just ordered one.