Pivot
16:26 Tuesday, 30 June 2026
Current Wx: Temp: 88.54°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 60% Wind: 8.48mph
Words: 266
Had a very productive Zoom meeting with Jeffrey Sauls at Energy Vanguard. To cut to the chase, I've abandoned radiant heating and cooling with the exception of heating the basement slab.
So we will still use an air-to-water heat pump (so we can heat the slab), but heating and cooling the main floor above the basement will be by forced air. This is an economic decision, so I'm not buying two methods of moving (or removing) heat on the main floor. (Radiant for heating, air handler and ducting for cooling.)
Our Florida experience included a loud air handler (you had to turn up the volume on the TV whenever the AC came on) with overhead registers that blew cold air down on you. Here, the air handler will be in the basement (no basements in Florida), so sound should not be a problem. The registers will be in the floor, because we're going to keep the ducting out of the attic. We'll be judicious in out choice of locations.
They need some details about the floor trusses, but they'll work up a design for us, including the ductwork, and we'll review that at another Zoom meeting.
The benefit is that I should have a properly sized, well-designed HVAC/IAQ (indoor air quality) solution that I can present to any plumbing and heating contractor to implement.
A bit of mixed emotions, as I'm still excited by hydronic heating and cooling. But I need less uncertainty in this build, and some practical, affordable, reliable solutions to move forward.
"Better is the enemy of good enough."
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Current Wx: Temp: 78.24°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 79% Wind: 8.68mphWords: 536
Had a bit of excitement in what should have been a routine day.
Brad the Builder had ordered two cement trucks with conveyors. The cement company sent one truck with a conveyor, and they started pouring the footers. A little later the second truck arrived without a conveyor. The thought apparently being that the second truck could position its chute over the first truck's conveyor.
Sure. In an ideal world.
We're building on a hillside. Although there's a construction driveway, it's not necessarily perfectly level. The second truck parked next to the first truck and to absolutely no one's surprise, concrete wouldn't run uphill into the chute. Hilarity ensued.
By "hilarity," I mean the kind of side-splitting slapstick farce that made The Wages of Fear such a classic cinematic comedy. At one point they had the second truck's front chained to a skid-steer so it could pull the front end of the truck away from the slope that leads down into our back patio.
My brother was visiting and we watched as the second truck tried to maneuver away from the slope, which resulted in it only pushing shale and moving closer to the slope. I suggested that we repair to the house so that we couldn't be called as witnesses in the event of an ensuing catastrophe. "Not my circus, not my monkeys," came to mind.
They eventually figured out how to re-arrange the trucks so they could get the concrete from the second truck into the chute of the first. I have no idea how they did this. I asked how we would preclude a similar circumstance going forward. I'm assured we're going to be using a pumper with a boom, and the trucks can line up like ducks in row.
All's well that ends well, but sheesh.
We're entering a hot spell after what has been a mostly lovely June. I have a meeting this afternoon with Energy Vanguard to discuss the results of our Manual J calculations. It should be interesting. I'm convinced we can decouple the latent heat load from the sensible heat load by using a whole-home dehumidifier. They want to use a fan-coil unit to handle both sensible and latent loads and duct cold air, which is not what I want for a number of reasons.
We have a limited "cooling" season here. I'm confident that the house is tight enough and well-insulated enough that our cooling loads will be modest, even at the design temps, such that we will be able to keep the temperature of the floor above the dew point.
I'm also looking at using a product that goes above the sub-flooring. It is a high-density EPS (styrofoam) that has embedded aluminum channels and fins to emit or collect heat. My concern is its thickness and how that might affect the doors. It's $7 a square foot, so it's not cheap. But if I can reuse the radiant floor for heating and cooling, and avoid buying a separate piece of equipment and ducting, I think it'll be worth it. I suspect it may also help reduce the sound of foot traffic in the basement.
The beat goes on...
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