Conversation via E-mail

Joe and I were talking about water and heat earlier today, so I figured it would be good to have it on the site.


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Talking with Joe Stienworth last night, I found out that a good person
to talk to about some of this would be his Dad. He lives over by
eaglebrook church in a house that he designed from top to bottom to be
the most energy efficient house in every way. After it was built he
received an award from NSP(think) for basically not having to pay them
any money. It's not an UGHouse, but if I see him I'll have to ask him
a few questions because I'm sure he has helpful knowledge for
insulation on the outside walls, and other things of the like. Apparently
he only needs to start thinking about heating his house in late
November, and even then it's just a couple of logs in the fireplace
for a while.

Also, how will this water running through the floor be heated? Because
the way I understand it, the water running through the pipes is
traditionaly heated by gas. And aren't we not going to have gas out
there? Heating all that water electrically is supposedly more
expensive.

On a different note: I remember my dad telling me about a new type of
water heater that's much more efficient. Rather than heating a large
tank full of water, it heats only what you are using as you use it. So
theoretically you could take an infinitely long hot shower.
The efficiency come in when you're not home, because the water heater
is not trying to regulate the temperature of 80 gallons of water all
the time.

But, I don't know, electric water heaters seem like something that I
should look into, because it seems to me like they could work just as
well.


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Heh heh, yeah, it would be an electric hot water heater that heats the floors.

You're exactly right, no gas, too hard to deal with, too expensive, and too unreliable.

I seem to remember hearing about this type of hot water heater that you mention, it would definatly be something to look into. We might need two heaters, one for usable water(shower, cooking, etc) and one for the heat.

The great thing about water is that it does take a long time to heat up, but that also means that it takes a long time to cool down as well, making the temperature very stable.

Also, in the UGHouse, we would only need minimal heat from the floor, so it would really only need to be "warm" water, not really hot.