Woz Details His Plans for Energy-Efficient House

An anonymous reader writes "ECN magazine has posted a long interview with the Woz on his new passion: energy-efficient housing. 'ECN: In PC World, you said, "It's like the way I used to make computers" -- how so? Woz: Simple design. Think about the right way to build something and take a lot of time to get it the best that can be done with the fewest resources used. No waste. Build it right and with few parts it does a lot. Don't cover things with more and more and more technology for features. Design them in from the start. It starts with the architect, of a home or a computer, working from a knowledge of the building materials and a desire to choose wisely.'"

Passive house

[Aminion]

There's already tons of research on the concept of energy efficient houses. One popular approach is called Passive house [wikipedia.org] and it's pretty amazing how much energy you can conserve.

Wish Woz had done his homework

[Ancient_Hacker]

Using the heat of crystallization of Pine resin is a really cool idea, but it seems unlikely there is that much heat capacity there. Dang, my CRC handbook doesnt list that number.

not the first attempt at this...

[DMoylan]

i'd love to see buckminster fullers house given a chance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_house [wikipedia.org]

energy and pollution

[roman_mir]

I like things simple with fewer parts and fewer added technologies. Just think out the right ways to build a home and do it. So few people know how easily all our homes could have been energy efficient rather than energy wasters. I suppose it's an outcome of the fact that energy is so cheap and abundant now. I think of it this way. The timeline of history and of man will be many millions of years long. Over that timeline, at some point man was going to find oil and ways to use it. Whenever in time that had happened, the generations it happened for would have used it up. We are those generations using it up, but if we saved it and didn't even touch it at all, some future generation would quickly use it up. The time that mankind has oil may be a short blip on the long timeline of humans. Whenever the discoveries were made, that blip would have appeared. We needn't think of ourselves as bad just because we were the lucky ones to have the oil blip. - this is the same line of thinking that I have about our current energy production methods and the pollution it causes, only there is one more variable here: population size.

Once the population size reaches some critical mass, there are enough of us on the planet to really impact on the environment in a bad way, but as we do so, we start noticing the problems we cause and eventually in order to survive we have to move to better tech for both energy production and to less polluting manufacturing techniques. From point of view of energy we use what serves us best at the time and at this time burning oil serves us best because it's there, it's easily accessible, it's easy to transport and use. But more importantly it makes it possible for us to grow the total population to a point when we reach yet another critical mass, at this point the oil is going to be pretty much used up and the environment is much worse off then before, but we have so many people working on so many tech advances that it makes it possible to shift to a different energy source (nuclear/thermonuclear/geothermal/black hole gravity pumps or whatever.)

Increase in usage of certain types of energy and resources allows our population to grow, which pushes the tech forward, which allows population to grow even more eventually forcing us to think of new energy sources and other resources etc. It's all about population growth.

Re:monolithic.

[kpharmer]

> The answer to that is easy. concrete dome.

Yep, that would be great. But just like geodesic domes that preceded monolithic domes - there are unforeseen issues like:
    - leakage - in the case of monolithic domes due cracking
    - integration challenges - they're difficult to tie into other components
    - windows - good quality windows don't come in arcs
    - expense - they're not cheap to build (nor necessarily expensive)

A monolithic dome is at the very top of what I'd like to build to live in. Unfortunately, we just haven't yet worked out all the kinks. And worse, many of the kinks are brushed under the carpet by the evangelists behind them. Until years later when they admit that the prior design didn't work - but "the new design fixes that old problem that I always denied they had".

Re:Passive house

[ucblockhead]

What Woz brings, as he essentially tells the journalist, is a name that attracts journalists and gets them to write articles on the subject.

Hope he is serious!

[perfectionachieved]

Whenever I hear about wealthy people talking about the environment I always have to wonder if they are serious about improving it, or just seeking acclimation from the public

how many houses?

[Sebastopol]

has this guy built? i mean, just staying in the same house forever will save far more energy than building X number of new ones, regardless of how energy efficient they are. seems a bit self-inconsistent to me, dare I say hypocritical.

Concrete domes

[amightywind]

I helped build one of those once in Larkspur CO. Stryrofoam forms, reinforced with rebar, shockcrete... Not sure if the architecture maximizes or minimizes available space. One thing is for sure, the damn thing is bomb proof.

I find shipping container homes [fabprefab.com] (and other modular designs) to be intriguing. I am glad a genious like Woz has a new creative outlet.

The Fountainhead

[Graff]

After reading this article it dawned on me - Steve Wozniak is a real-life Howard Roark [wikipedia.org]. Woz matches pretty closely with the fictional character: they both have uncompromising principles, they are both creative geniuses, they both use the materials and techniques of their craft to achieve creations far beyond their peers.

I wonder how Woz would feel about the comparison.

San Luis Obispo? Not very challenging

[mnemotronic]

Although I think Woz was talking about end-to-end efficiency, it's not too much of a challenge to build an energy-efficient house in someplace where the average temp varies between 42 and 82 [weather.com] (nasty flash). How about a more challenging location with a wider range [weather.com]? How about someplace at altitude [weather.com]? Talk to me about energy efficiency when it's butt-cold in the winter, with no sun, and triple-glazed windows are the standard. When summertime is unbearable heat, oppressive humidity, intense solar UV, or giant brain-sucking mosquitos. It's easy to build a show home in paradise.

Neat concept, but I bet it can be improved.

[Anonymous Coward]

If Southern Yellow Pine has this magic property of absorbing a lot of heat from melting above room termperature, then refreezing and letting off the heat - couldn't we make a similar synthetic substance that is even more efficient? Like a sprayable foam of this resin, instead of just using it for the building material. Would be especially neat if it could be installed in existing normal houses. Think of the market!

Also, I'd like to point out that some of the houses shown on the Enertia website are like some sort of giant hippy McMansions. The Brandywine design is 3432 square feet, while the Southern Comfort design is an astounding 6,473 square feet. Unless you have 17 kids or live in a commune, I don't see how an "efficient" 6,500 square foot mansion makes sense. Shouldn't they be concentrating on the smaller homes that have less internal space to build/heat/cool/light?

Re:monolithic.

[mytrip]

Actually, they dont leak. It is made out of concrete and polyurathane foam. I live near their plant in Italy, Texas and have talked to the inventor, David South. They inflate a large rubber mold of the house and spray 'shotcrete' in it and there is _no_ space for either air or water to come through. If it wasnt for the front door and a few windows, it would be airtight. the monolithic dome is the most energy efficient thing out there due to the fact that the temperature wont change more than 1 or 2 degrees a day. it is a thermal mass that takes hours to heat up or cool down so it builds up heat in the concrete in the day and releases it at night when it is cool. Build one into the side of a hill or underground and you're done

Sequester carbon: use lots of wood

[G4from128k]

Woz can help remove CO2 from the atmosphere by using lots of wood or plant fiber (from local sustainably-managed plantations, of course). If each person on the planet used about 30 tons of wood or plant fiber for their house, it would return the Earth's atmosphere to it's pre-industrial level of CO2 (1 ton of wood sequesters roughly 1.2 tons of CO2). The only challenge (aside from growing enough wood) is termites which have a nasty habit of converting wood into CO2 and methane.

Re:Passive house

[KokorHekkus]

Depends on where you live.

In Sweden tri-pane glazing is pretty much standard these days (the place I lived that was built 15 years ago had tri-pane, currently living in a house built in the 60s with ordinary double-pane. I can't imagine any new windows being anything that tri-pane around here. To get it just look at this thermal image: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f2/Pass ivhaus_thermogram_gedaemmt_ungedaemmt.png [wikimedia.org]

When it comes to heavy duty insulation there's more of a trade-off. It's not the insulation itself that's costly but the building process. If you build a heavily insulated house it needs to be air-tight with forced ventilation if used it in a somewhat cold climates. Otherwise the humid air inside will travel along the existing openings and when it makes contact with colder ares it will create condensation. And that condesation will lead to a mold problem... which is usually pretty bad.

Re:San Luis Obispo? Not very challenging

[dgatwood]

While I can't solve all your problems, I have a few ideas that might be worth trying.

For windows, during the summer months, you want high reflectivity. During the winter months, you want low reflectivity to let more radiant energy in. Solution: double windows. The outer panes swing open like shutters. The main window can behave however you want. The outer pane basically consists of a two-way mirror, and closes during the summer heat. It opens in winter to let more radiant energy in. Make it electronically controlled based on the output of a photocell on that particular window. Alternatively, use shades in the same fashion.

For added thermal conversion factor, use the most dirt cheap black and white passive matrix LCD panels you can find as shingles. During the winter months, set them to black so that they absorb energy and convert it to heat (and disable the vent fan in your attic). During the summer months, set them to transparent (with a foil back) so that your roof reflects the sun's energy back out. Alternatively, use a crawler robot to stretch out a reflective Mylar sheet over your roof during the summer and retract it during the winter.

To warm yourself further in the winter, you'd ideally like a solar concentrator. Use an array of mirrors that track the sun and focus light on your house. During the summer months, point them instead at a solar collector to produce electricity. Alternatively, during the summer, burn the house down with the solar concentrator (due to a "technical glitch"), collect the insurance money, and buy a beach house in Florida. :-D (Kidding!)

Mosquitoes like standing water. Drain and fill the lake. Alternatively, pour alcohol on the surface of the lake and ignite it during breeding season. Alternatively, turn it into a salt water lake.

Other issues? :-D

Real Energy Design 101

[WillAffleckUW]

If he actually cared, it would be more like this:

1. Use as little space as possible, so as to reduce unnecessary energy use.

2. Realize that the more space you devote to a garage, the larger the number of inefficient automobiles you will buy to fill it.

3. Spend all money saved in replacing inefficient corporate jets with green jets that use half the fuel to carry the same passenger load - or ride coach.

But that would be efficient design of an energy-efficient house.

Now, maybe he'll get a plug-in hybrid for the garage, that gets more than 100 mpg, that might help a bit.

The Woz has been duped by snake oil salesmen

[Overzeetop]

Hard to believe the Woz can be taken in by this whole "southern yellow pine" bullshit. Energy efficiency is much more than using the same wood we us by the million board-feet here in the southeast. I happen to be an engineer who workes in the residential market, and I can pretty much guarantee that there is no miracle in S. Pine.

There is a certain amount of value to thermal mass, but it's not a panacea. You see, if your diurnal cycle lies outside of your comfort zone, it's going to take a massive amount of energy to keep those walls at your comfort temperature, and solid substances used in building are all very conductive. Want R-19 walls? Great - go build your walls 15 inches thick! Getting that temp cycle to work for you requires that your average temp is your indoor desired temp (Lisa, in this house...).

When thermal mass houses are subjected to extended cold (like we have here, even in Virginia), they suck - heat that is.

There are lots of great things you can do, but energy efficiency can be helped most by doing the following:

1) Don't build a new house - buy an existing one.
2) If you build, don't do the code minimums - they are there so production builders can make 25% while giving you a Wal-Mart quality product (excuse me, "affordable" housing is what they call it) ... and the best way to save energy...
3) Move somewhere where you don't need to heat or cool your house to be comfortable.

Now, if you're still dead set to build something energy efficient, give me a call and we can talk about my fees. The last house I built from scratch - about 52,000 conditioned cubic feet with several hundered square feet of windows in a 6500HDD environment cost me just about $40/mo to heat and cool, on averge, throughout the year.

Energy of Conversion

[Icono]

The energy of conversion is the energy it takes to change a matter's state from a solid to a liquid, or back again. The temperature of the matter remains the same, be it liquid or solid, only it's state changes. The energy of conversion for water from a liquid to a solid is about 1,050 Btu/pound of water.

I don't know what the energy of conversion for the resin at 71F is, but that house can store and release thousands of BTUs over the course of a day and night.

San Luis Obispo? Not very green.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you were going for a funny, but there's one item most people forget about when it comes to energy efficiency. Landscaping.

Re:The Woz has been duped by snake oil salesmen

[Megaport]

I have to agree. As much as I love the Woz, its time that he put down the crack pipe on this one. According to TFA, Woz is shopping around a few Californian locations such as Half Moon Bay to build the house...

Thus sayeth the Wiki about Half Moon Bay, California [wikipedia.org]: Half Moon Bay usually has mild weather throughout the year. Hot weather is rare; the average annual days with highs of 90F (32C) or higher is only 0.2 days. Cold weather is also rare with an annual average of 2.5 days with lows of 32F (0C) or lower.

Of course the eco-house will remain at body temperature all year around, but so will a tent in that part of the world. This looks too much like cheating.

-M

I say DUH...

[mr_nuff]

I've always been impressed with the Dilbert Ultimate House http://www.dilbert.com/comics/dilbert/duh/index.ht ml [dilbert.com] as an example of a cool looking and functionally efficient dwelling. If anybody could lay down the cash for one, Woz could.

Re:Wish Woz had done his homework

[SteveWoz]

Actually, the Enertia.com site shows homes mostly in very hot or cold places and the testimonials are outstanding. I think that 3 of them have been built in California and I believe that all 3 are in very hot areas, like Auburn. I'm looking forward to a huge reduction in energy usage. My current energy bills are quite large. I may build in an AC system anyway but it won't use as much power as at my current home. I don't want to get into pissng contests about what is better than something else. I do want to make a major improvement for myself, that's all.

you better buy it

[Anonymous Coward]

If you cover the dome with this stuff
http://www.line-xicd.com/bomb/bomb.shtml [line-xicd.com]
the stuff won't crack, so water won't get in

Re:San Luis Obispo? Not very challenging

[smellsofbikes]

Another way of dealing with radiant energy is careful design of eaves. The sun is higher in the summer and lower in the winter, so by extending the eaves, they largely shade the windows in the summer but leave them open in the winter. Lots of people put up sails (essentially) in the summer to shade the side of the house.

What I've done is use mylar-coated bubblepack, that claims to be 99% reflective for heat, on swinging frames, in the attic. In the summer, the frames are swung up against magnetic catches perpendicular to the sunlight, so the heat radiating in from the roof is reflected right back, while in the winter the frames are parallel to the sunlight and all that radiated heat hits the ceiling of the house itself. You wouldn't think, with 75 cm or so of insulation on top of the ceiling, that it'd matter so much, but it makes a 15 degree C difference in attic temp, which definitely affects the temp inside the house.

Tracking mirrors are very expensive, take enormous amounts of maintenance, and take up a lot of space. It's much better to just dig the house down into the ground as far as you can and rely on the ground heat. Some clever people have been doing stuff with digging a very deep hole, filling it with sand and embedded tubing, then building their house on top, and spending the whole summer pumping heat from the house down into the sand, and relying on it throughout much of the winter. A physicist named Ted Thompson, who was involved with early atomic bomb design, was doing later work with having crawl spaces open to the outside during winter and spraying fine mist into them, forming immense ice piles, then using that for cooling for the early part of the summer. (ice lasts a long time with just a little insulation, if there's enough of it.)

Lakes aren't the problem with mosquitoes: puddles are. Lakes have fish, which eat larvae. Plus, in most locales, salting a lake would probably be illegal and certainly would piss off your neighbors. Turning wetlands into lakes is much more effective, but screws all the wildlife that was living there. And, for the record, alcohol is 100% miscible with water, so in order to burn a lake you'd have to pour roughly 45% of the volume of the lake worth of alcohol in there and burn it. If you're convinced you need to burn a lake, what you want to do is pour oil on the lake and light that up: it floats and doesn't mix.