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)
“To nourish children and raise them against odds is in any time, any place, more valuable than to fix bolts in cars or design nuclear weapons.”
—Marilyn French (20th century)
“If I commit suicide, it will not be to destroy myself but to put myself back together again. Suicide will be for me only one means of violently reconquering myself, of brutally invading my being, of anticipating the unpredictable approaches of God. By suicide, I reintroduce my design in nature, I shall for the first time give things the shape of my will.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)