Eco-Friendly House in Vermont
via Diary of a Vermont Eco Builder
Diary of a Vermont Eco Builder: The main goal is a super insulated house, that requires minimum energy to run. The overall design of the house and placement on the land takes into account passive heating and cooling, reducing the mechanical systems that we’ll need over the changing seasons. Vermont can have extremely cold winters, as well hot and humid summers, so the systems used need to cover a large range of temperatures. One aspect that was very important to me was to see if we could reduce our fossil fuel use, meaning no natural gas (which is scarce in VT anyway), propane (widely used), or oil (also widely used). An all electric house however can skyrocket utility bills, depending on what you’re running, so we decided to offset this with a geothermal heat pump system for our main heating/cooling and hot water heating. Regarding electricity, Vermont is lucky that a very high percentage of its power comes from either hydro or nuclear, two very clean sources (nuclear has larger implications of course), as well as “cow power” at a slightly extra cost, and so all electric seemed to make the most sense.
via Diary of a Vermont Eco Builder
As it stands now, a geothermal system will be combined with an HRV (Heat Recovery Ventilator) and hydronic heating/cooling furnace, similar to traditional forced air systems. An HRV however is a air circulation system that provides constant filtered fresh air from outside, while at the same time removing the stale air from inside. The “recovery” part is that it transfers the temperature of the inside air back to the new air coming in, keeping it warm in the winter and cool in the summer. What this type of system gives us is excellent indoor air quality year round, and the ability to heat or cool the air cleanly via its hybronic coil.
