Design
On average, the houses were designed to required 44 kWh/m², 75% lower than the average 172 kWh/m² that would have been required had the houses been built to normal standards. (Analysis of 11 of the houses in use indicated that total savings made in practice was actually 60% ).The 44 kWh/m² resulted from:
- Electricity – 18 kWh/m²
- Space heating – 14 kWh/m²
- Water heating – 11 kWh/m²
- Cooling – 1 kWh/m²
In addition there was an average solar contribution designed to average 37 kWh/m², from a combination of passive solar gains, active solar, and photovoltaics.
The buildings were constructed to be airtight, be superinsulated to roughly double normal standards, and to minimise thermal bridges. Masonry and several timber framed methods were represented, along with a novel steel strengthened polystyrene block walls were used. The Berlin "Zero Heating Energy House" included a 20m³ (700 cubic feet) seasonal thermal store.
Read more about this topic: IEA Solar Heating & Cooling Implementing Agreement Task 13
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“A good scientist is a person with original ideas. A good engineer is a person who makes a design that works with as few original ideas as possible. There are no prima donnas in engineering.”
—Freeman Dyson (b. 1923)
“With wonderful art he grinds into paint for his picture all his moods and experiences, so that all his forces may be brought to the encounter. Apparently writing without a particular design or responsibility, setting down his soliloquies from time to time, taking advantage of all his humors, when at length the hour comes to declare himself, he puts down in plain English, without quotation marks, what he, Thomas Carlyle, is ready to defend in the face of the world.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)