Cohousing-L Mailing List: Heating/insulation/etc

[RAYGASSER (RAYGASSER]

Ref the discussion with Nancy Wight, et al, we've got some cold winters
in Ithaca (OK, so mayby not MoHoCo cold, but still cold), so we charged
our designers with keeping our buns warm and our pockets full. What we got:
Community is designed in two roughly parallel rows, with all houses facing
within 10 degrees of solar south. Houses have 14 foot mostly glass walls
facing south, and even at lowest winter sun, no house blocks any solar
penetration into any other house. They're "super-insulated" and most will
have "air-locks" at the main entrances. (OK, maybe it's just many and not
most; My house will). The architects say that heating costs will probably run
about $100-150 per SEASON (not month). That's about what I pay now per month
in NJ for heating.

We're not having any air conditioning (after all, we do call ourselves an
"EcoVillage"), but with  the super-insulation & designed-in air flow, it's
still expected to be "not an issue" (ref: architects), and IMHO, nothing
a decent ceiling fan couldn't handle.

We have to give up Gas cooking in the houses because super-insulation and
combustion by-products do not get along well together.

Houses will be duplexes, in clusters of 6 or 8 units (4 or 4 buildings) with
each cluster having an "energy center" with a common gas fired boiler and
each unit being treated as a heating zone (or two). We, too are looking
into ground-based heat pumps to either replace or supplement the boilers,
but no decision (and so far only a little research) up to this point.

(just noticed, that "4 or 4" above, should be "3 or 4". You'd think that
after typing all day on these damned keyboards for years, I could get
it right with less effort....)

Rrraaayyyy GGGGaaaasssssseeeerrrrrr Maplewood, NJ, EcoVillage at Ithaca
raygasser [at] delphi.com