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Ann. Rev. Energy 1986. 11 : 1-24 Quick links to online content
Copyright © 1986 by Annual Reviews Inc. All rights reserved
SUPERINSULATED HOUSES
William A. Shurcliff
Physics Department, Harvard University, Cambridge,
Massachusetts 02 138
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INTRODUCTION
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SOLAR-HEATED HOUSES
mass production got under way, the overall cost of such systems, per
square foot of collector area, might drop below the initial value (about
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the field. Others struggled along, losing money year after year. Few made
satisfactory profits. Although several companies have found how to make
high-performance durable systems that are cost-effective in certain appli
cations [Rabl (5)], the enthusiasm of architects and builders for active solar
heating has diminished. For a while the preferred solar heating design has
been the passive type.
enough to store much heat gathered during the sunny day for use at night.
Such systems can be very simple, with no moving parts: no fans or pumps.
Usually there are no ducts, pipes, or controls. Occupants of such houses
can demonstrate, proudly, that their south rooms are comfortably warm
(or even too warm) even on the coldest days in winter, provided the sun
is shining .
Some of the earliest direct-gain houses were successful, but many were
disappointing. If the designer attempted to supply only a small fraction of
the wintertime heat need, performance was often excellent. But if, in h is
fervor to achieve as much as 60-80% solar heati ng, he provided an
especially large area of south-facing windows, many troubles arose, includ
ing overheating on wintertime sunny days, tremendous heat-loss on cold
nights (with need for much auxiliary heat), and general overheating in
summer. Also, the large window area often resulted in discomfort from
glare and in fading of carpets and upholstery.
Many designers tried a modified approach, called indirect-gain passive
solar heating. They interposed, between south glazing and south rooms, a
massive wall, for example a 12-inch-thick concrete wall. Such a Trombe
wall absorbs the solar radiation, becomes warm, retains much heat until
evening, and transmits some heat to the rooms throughout the night.
Extremes of heat and cold in the rooms are avoided. The system is simple
and durable. A drawback is that the large black wall blocks the house
occupants' finest (south) view . Another drawback is that there is no easy
way of controlling the rate of heat flow from wall to room: no way to
speed the flow when the room is too cold, no way to slow the flow when
the room is already too warm.
Some other designers exploited greenhouses and sunspaces, attached to
the south sides of houses. Such adjuncts, in effect walk-in, live-in solar
collectors, can receive and store much solar energy and can supply some
4 SHURCLIFF
kind of passive solar house with the assurance that it will perform well
and provide at least 50-70% of the wintertime heat need . However, an
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auxiliary heating system will still be needed for use in long cold cloudy
spells; occasional overheating may occur, especially in the autumn when
outdoor temperatures may be high and the sun is so low in the sky that
eaves fail to provide shading ; and the architect is constrained as regards
orientation and layout of rooms and windows and the disposition of
thermal masses such as concrete floors, masonry partition walls, and water
filled tanks.
obliged to specify floors of concrete and may instruct the occupants not
to cover the floors with carpets. Keeping the rooms cool on sunny summer
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In about 1980 a whole new approach to fuel saving came to the attention
of United States and Canadian architects. Called superinsulation, this
approach provided a high degree of comfort in winter and summer,
reduced fuel consumption by 75-95% relative to conventional houses,
allowed the architect great flexibility of house design, and increased con
struction costs by only a few percent.
The method was announced and explained in talks at building-con
struction conferences and, in 1980, in one full-length book [Shurcliff ( lO)].
Enthusiasm spread rapidly, and by 1986 several tens of thousands of
superinsulated houses were in routine use. The number of such houses has
more than doubled each year. In some colder regions of the contiguous
United States and in the colder provinces of Canada the new method now
completely dominates house construction practice.
Definition
Although there is no universally accepted definition of a superinsulated
house, the following definition is representative. A superinsulated house
is one that (a) receives only a modest amount of solar energy (for example,
has a south-facing window area not exceeding 8% of the floor area), and
(b) is so well-insulated and so airtight that, throughout most of the winter,
it is kept warm solely by the modest amount of solar energy received
through the windows and by intrinsic heat, that is, heat from miscellaneous
sources within the house. Little auxiliary heat is needed: less than 1 5 % as
much as is required in typical houses of comparable size built before 1974.
6 SHURCLIFF
Auxiliary heat means heat from a system installed specifically for heating
room air. Such systems include oil and gas furnaces, electric space heaters,
heat pumps, and wood-burning stoves.
The 8% limit on south window area is appropriate because, if the area
is much greater, the heat loss on cold nights may be large and the solar
energy intake on sunny days may make the rooms too hot.
The 15% limit on auxiliary heat (relative to comparable-size pre-1974
houses) was chosen because a house that conforms to this limit can get
through the winter fairly tolerably even if auxiliary h eat is cut off entirely.
Specifically, the house will never cool down to 32°F; pipes will never freeze
and will never have to be drained; and faucets, sinks, toilets, tubs, etc will
continue to operate normally. Furthermore, it would take only a little
additional heat, as from a wood stove or one or two portable electric
heaters, to keep such a house fairly comfortable even when fuel supplies
are cut off.
In summary, the basic strategy of superinsulation is to make the house
so well-insulated and so airtight-so conserving of heat-that it is kept
warm almost entirely by heat that is received informally and is free.
Some architects object to the word superinsu/ation. They point out that
it fails to suggest the importance of airtightness. In fact, insulation and
airtightness are approximately equally important. Some writers use the
terms micro-load, self-sufficient, or energy-conserving, but none of these
terms is fully satisfactory.
ORIGINS OF SUPERINSULATION
proposed house, called Lo-Cal House, would need only one third as much
auxiliary heat as the so-called well-insulated designs then being promoted
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In the last five years much progress has been made in superinsulated house
design . Some improvements provide better performance ; others simplify
construction and reduce costs.
Many different wall-frame designs have been tried out, many different
types of insulation have been used, and many approaches to securing
airtightness have been explored . Although all of the variants appear to
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PERFORMANCE
8 . If there is no oil or gas furnace, the smells of oil and gas are absent and
all parts of the basement may be clean and clear for use as workroom,
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PROMOTION
associations.
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DESIGN
Insulation
The entire shell of a superinsulated house is well-insulated. The insulation
on the attic floor is made especially thick, partly because of the familiar
rule that heated air rises but mainly because the attic floor is large and
unobstructed and accordingly installing the i nsulation here is simplicitly
itself: just lay it on the floor, or spray it on the floor. In cold climates such
a floor may be covered with 6- 12 i nches of fiberglass or with equivalent
amounts of blown-in wood-fiber. [Fiberglass batts provide a thermal resis
tance of about 3.0 (ft2 OF hr/Btu), called R-3, per inch of thickness. This
means that a one-inch-thick layer of such material will transmit 1/3 Btu
per square foot of area per hour if one face of the material is hotter than
the other face by one Fahrenheit degree.] Thus a 12-inch-thick layer on
the attic floor provides about R-36; the flooring and roof add to this, so
12 SHURCLIFF
that the overall insulation above the main rooms may be about R-40 or
R-45.
The R-values ascribed to insulation are often approximate only. The
true R-value of fiberglass depends on the extent to which the material is
compressed or expanded. It depends also on temperature, being greater
the lower the temperature. The same remarks apply to blown chopped
fiberglass and to blown wood fiber. Plates of extruded polystyrene
(StyrofoamTM, for example) have greater R-value when the temperature is
reduced, but may have lower R-value some years after manufacture
because the "blowing gas," freon, gradually leaks away and is replaced by
air, and air is a more efficient transporter of heat than freon is. The
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decrease with time. The R-v alues of such high-quality foam plates range
from 5 to 8 (ft2 OF hrjBtu) per inch of thickness.
Exterior walls also are heavily insulated, usually with fiberglass batts,
foam plates, or blown wood-fiber. Because the walls are obstructed by
windows and doors, installing insulation is a little complicated, and com
monly the R-value chosen is less than that of the attic insulation . In cold
climates, walls are extra-thick and R-values of 25--45 are common.
Basement walls are usually insulated with two to four inches of extruded
polystyrene (example: Styrofoam), which is practically water-and-mois
ture-proof and lasts almost indefinitely . Usually it is placed on the exterior
face of the concrete basement wall; it may extend all the way to the bottom
of the w all, or (with some s aving of material and money) it may extend
only about two feet downward with a terminal outward flare; the flare
effectively adds many tons of earth to the insulated region and thus adds
to the thermal mass of the house.
Initially, fears were expressed that the use of such insulation would
permit the earth immediately adjacent to the foundations to freeze, and
that when it froze it would expand, press strongly against the basement
wall, and perhaps crack it. Experience has shown that usually no trouble
anses.
Sometimes the builder installs the insulatio n on the basement-wall inner
face. The insulation is then protected from outside threats such as bur
rowing rodents, insects, tree roots, and frost-heave. But the concrete itself
may become so cold that when any moist basement air reaches it, moisture
will condense on it and will eventually form puddles. Another disadvantage
of applying insulation to the basement-wall inner face is that the walls
then do not contribute to thermal mass.
Sometimes a two-inch-thick plate of insulating foam is installed beneath
'
the basement floor. What about houses that have concrete floor slabs and
SUPERINSULATED HOUSES 13
no basement? Some builders install foam plates beneath the entire slab;
others install such plates along the slab periphery only. Many houses have
crawl spaces and outdoor air is allowed to circulate through them; thick
insulation, such as six inches of fiberglass or four inches of foam plates, is
installed beneath the floors of the living rooms.
Many manufacturers of exterior doors sell doors that are well-insulated,
having R-values of 10-15. Such doors are highly cost-effective. Typical
doors of a decade ago had R-values of only 1-3 and allowed much heat
to escape .
What are the best-compromise R-values of walls, ceilings, etc? There is
no one best set. Different values are appropriate to different conditions of
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not well-insulated ; the outermost glass surfaces may be fairly warm and
thus emit much such radiation and, in the thermograph images, appear
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bright. Likewise if there is a gap in the insulation of the wall proper, the
wall surface here will be abnormally warm and will show up in the image
as a bright area.
Thermographs are expensive. Simpler devices, called infrared line scan
ners, arc available; thcy produce no true images but merely supply a
varying sound and/or meter reading as the device i s swung so as to scan
along the wall in question. They cost less by an order of magnitude than
thermographs.
The persons who install insulation in walls make great efforts to see that
the space available for insulation is entirely filled by it. If there arc slender
empty regions (voids), circulation of air may occur here; warm air from
the warm face of the wall may flow to the cold face, thus partly defeating
the insulation. Also, steps are taken to see that no outdoor air can find
its way into the insulation to cause convective cooling there; the usual
procedure is to install, in the outer region of the wall, a plastic sheet that
is impervious to air. A commonly used material is a duPont-spun olefin
called TyveFM which, while preventing air flow, allows some transmission
of water vapor, so that moisture that threatens to accumulate within the
wall can find its way to the outdoors.
Great attention is given to reducing heat loss through windows. A
typical single-glazed window has an R-value of only about 1 ; thus the heat
loss here, per square foot, is about 30-50 times the heat loss per square
foot of a superinsulated wall . Double glazing has twice the R-value ( R-2) ;
triple or quadruple glazing is far better yet and is well worth the extra
expense in houses in very cold locations. Further benefit results from use
of glass sheets of new ("low-e") type that emit very little far-infrared
radiation, or use of special mylar films that have low-e coatings. The
combined use of such sheets with a low-conductance gas (argon or xenon)
between the sheets can yield R-values as high as 8. These new techniques,
SUPERINSULATED HOUSES 15
not yet fully developed and still expensive, have great promise; they may
greatly ease the restriction on maximum amount of window areas per
missible in superinsulated houses in cold locations.
An alternative to the use of high-R windows is the use, at night, ofhigh-R
window coverings: thermal shades or shutters. An enormous variety of
such devices is now available, with R-values ranging from 2 to 12 (Shurcliff
(9)]. However, the better ones are expensive ($6-$15 per square foot,
installed), may be cumbersome in appearance, and require occupant atten
tion twice a day.
Airtight Construction
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Builders of superinsulated houses take pains to build houses that are nearly
airtight. Decades ago little attention was given to air in-leak or out-leak
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(together called infiltration), and, typically, one third to one half of the
wintertime heat loss from the house was the result of infiltration. The air
leakage rates were high enough, typically, to produce one complete change
of house air every hour or half-hour-or, on windy days, every quarter
hour. Such rates of fresh air input are three to ten times the rate needed
to ensure indoor comfort and health.
Today's builders use refined techniques to reduce infiltration rates
almost to zero . Rates as low as one complete air change per two hours or
even per ten hours are common; they are so low that special equipment is
required to provide the amount of fresh air needed, as explained in a later
section. Much use is made of caulking materials to fill cracks around sills,
window frames, etc. All wall penetrations for pipes and electric cables
are made very tight. Even basements and attics are tightly built (unless
deliberately vented to allow moisture to escape).
The task of ensuring tightness is made easier by the availability of
equipment that can evaluate the tightness quickly and accurately. Called
blower doors, these devices permit the construction workers to find out
just how tight the house is; and, when additional caulking has been
completed, they can measure the improvement accurately. By use of smoke
candles or other means they can pinpoint the locations of air leaks . Some
contractors encourage healthy competitions among thcir construction
crews, to see which crew can build the tightest house. Today, experienced
crews find it easy to make houses that are almost tighter than need be.
into room air per 24-hour day. In the houses of 20 or 30 years ago, no
significant build-up of moisture occurred; the rate of air-change was so
great that the moisture was promptly dissipated to the outdoors. In today's
tight houses, though, build-up of moisture in room air is a serious threat
in winter. (A later section explains how excess moisture can be eliminated
by air-to-air heat-exchangers.)
The threat is very real even with room air at moderate relative humidity
( RR), such as 40%. If such air finds its way deep into a tight, well-insulated
exterior wall, it will reach wall components that are cold enough to cause
some of the moisture in the air to condense. For example, condensation
will occur in 70°F, 40%-RR air that encounters a surface colder than
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44°F. Surfaces that are even colder may cause frost to form-frost that
will eventually melt and form puddles. Two harmful consequences of
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Window Area
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extend from floor to ceiling, which renders eaves ineffective and may
require, on warm days, the deployment of reflective shades. In some houses
a large fraction of the south-facing glass is sloped, to increase the solar
energy intake; this can lead to acute overheating. On cold nights, large
window areas lose much heat and the rooms may become too cold. To
counter these tendencies the architect may provide large-area thermal
shades to be used at night and may employ walls and floors of concrete
or other massive material. In summer, overheating is a frequent threat;
much venting of hot air is required. The designer must provide one or
more large (20-40 square feet) vents situated high up, for hot-air outflow,
and one or more vents situated low down, for cooler-air inflow. Fly screens
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may be needed, and perhaps protection from driving rain. The house
occupants must learn when to open the vents, and when to close them.
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Obviously, venting is of little use if the outdoor air itself is excessively hot.
The Achilles heel of superinsulation is the threat that indoor air may
become polluted . If a superinsulated house has been built so tightly that
the natural rate of air change is only once per several -hours, it is likely
that the relative humidity (RH) will increase to unacceptable levels and
the same may be true of various bad-smelling gases and also radon, which
is odorless. The indoor atmosphere may be not only unpleasant but also
a threat to health.
Humidity
If the house occupants take many baths or long showers, or do much
cooking that involves the boiling of water, the relative humidity of room
air may increase greatly. For maximum comfort, wintertime indoor-air
RH should be in the neighborhood of 35-60%. In extremely cold weather
the RH should not greatly exceed 40%, otherwise condensation on double
glazed windows may occur. The obvious way to keep the RH below such
levels is to continuously expel humid indoor air and replace it with outdoor
air, which in winter contains very little moisture-only about 1/10 or 1/5
as much as 70°F air at 50% RH contains. An alternative would be to
employ a dehumidifier; but such devices are powered by electricity and
thus are expensive to operate, and in addition they are ineffective with
respect to radon and other noxious gases.
Radon
In the last few years public health experts have found that some tightly
built houses have significant concentrations of the rare gas radon, a decay
SUPERINSULATED HOUSES 19
product of the radioactive elements uranium and radium [Shurcliff (1 1)].
Radon itself is radioactive and gives off polonium particles which can
become trapped in the lungs and may there produce radioactive
damage that can cause cancer. It is estimated that each year about 20,000
persons in the United States die as a result of cancer attributable to radon
in indoor air. In most parts of the country the danger is negligible; but in
regions that contain radioactive ores (granites, especially), the danger is
real. Usually the radon migrates upward from the ground, enters the
basement through cracks and at penetrations for water-supply pipes and
drain pipes, and finds its way into the rooms. Small detectors of radon
have been developed and can indicate whether, in a given house, it presents
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a threat.
Radon build-up can be prevented by sealing the basement space from
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Other Pollutants
Other pollutants commonly present in houses are
1. carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide from stoves and fireplaces,
2. formaldehyde from plywood, particleboard, adhesives, and insulation,
3. sprays used for killing flying or crawling insects,
4. smoke particles from cigarettes, stoves, and fireplaces,
5. various gaseous oxides of nitrogen and sulfur,
6. particles of lead oxide and asbestos.
Air-to-Air Heat-Exchangers
The ideal way to ensure a fixed and known rate of ventilation is to employ
an air-to-air heat-exchanger, a device that contains one or more fans or
20 SHURCLIFF
blowers, brings in fresh air at a constant rate, expels stale air at the same
constant rate, and recovers most of the heat from the outgoing air. In such
a device the two airflo ws are in opposite directions, and accordingly the
available heat in the outgoing air is transferred to the incoming air with
high efficiency. Although such devices have been in use in industry for a
century, small devices designed for use in houses are relatively new.
There are two main types of air-to-air heat-exchangers : fixed-plate type
and rotary type. The former employs 20-50 fixed, parallel, thin plates,
usually of aluminum, separated by small airspaces ; warm stale air passes
from the house via airspaces 1, 3, 5, etc, while cold fresh air enters (in the
opposite direction) via airspaces 2, 4, 6, etc. In principle, the upper limit
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and 40% i n very cold weather. Typically any such control scheme ensures
a ventilation rate equivalent to about one half of a complete air change
per hour-a rate low enough to avoid large loss of heat yet high enough
to ensure good quality of indoor air.
A few types of rotary exchangers employ rotors that have been coated
with a desiccant. Such an exchanger recovers not only sensible heat but
also moisture ; that is, it recovers sensible heat and latent heat, together
called enthalpy. In houses that tend, even in winter, to be too dry, the
recovery of moisture from the outgoing stale air is highly desirable. A
special virtue of exchangers that employ desiccants is that the outgoing air
contains relatively little water and therefore the threat of frost formation
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cool down so slowly that their electrical heating needs could be satisfied
at delayed, off-peak hours. Of course, electric heat is expensive and may
soon become much more so.
Gas heat is cheap, and new small heaters that need no chimney-only
a small vent in a wall-have been developed. But gas heaters, if operated
incorrectly, may produce large quantities of pollutants ; superinsulated
houses are so tightly built that, whenever the windows remain shut and
there is no forced ventilation, concentrations of pollutants could become
dangerously high. Also, the discharge of combustion gases to the outdoors
can produce a small negative pressure in the room air, unless air is specially
ducted to the gas heater .
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Oil furnaces can, of course, be used. But nearly all of the available
furnace models are much too large and thus would run only occasionally
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and briefly, which makes for low efficiency. Again, special ducting of
outside air to the furnace may be necessary . Wood stoves have the obvious
drawbacks of creating the threat of indoor-air pollution and requiring the
ducting of outdoor air .
Heat pumps that draw their heat from outdoor air have the great
drawback that in very cold weather their efficiency is very low and electric
back-up heat is needed. However, heat pumps that draw their heat from
the ground or from deep wells have much promise ; they perform efficiently
and reliably regardless of outdoor temperature. Also, they can provide
cooling of room air in summer and supply heat to the domestic hot water
system. When and if the costs of such equipment are reduced, this approach
may be preferred .
At present all of the above-mentioned approaches are used. Perhaps in
the next few years a clear-cut winner will emerge.
SUMMERTIME COOLING
Canada and the United States are not the only countries that are rapidly
exploiting superinsulation. Sweden, which must import nearly all of the
fossil fuel it consumes, has pushed hard to persuade, or even compel,
the building industry and the public to adopt superinsulation. Rigorous
standards on insulation and airtightness have been adopted and very-Iow
interest loans are offered to assist the construction of houses meeting the
standards. Because the country is small and embraces only a narrow range
of climates, it has been possible to concentrate h ouse construction in a few
centrally located, large, highly mechanized factories. Modular houses,
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covering a wide range of styles and room layouts, are built to order,
shipped in trucks, and then assembled on-site very quickly-in a few weeks
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or, in some cases, a few days. Because the houses are of especially high
quality and have a variety of luxury features, and because the government
loans have such a low rate of interest, the public has eagerly bought such
houses. The low annual heating bills and high degree of thermal comfort
the year around are added inducements. By early 1986 efforts to sell
Swedish-built superinsulated houses in the United States were well under
way.
Japanese efforts to produce superinsulated houses are progressing and
Japan also may soon be marketing its houses in the United States.
The United States has such a great variety of climates, great range of
building-material availability, and great variety of labor practices that
there is no dominating centralization of house construction, no ' highly
automated facility for producing full-size houses.
In conclusion, superinsulation appears to be an outstandingly successful
strategy for building high-comfort, low-cost houses that require little heat
in winter and little cooling in summer. Passive solar heating may be
preferred by persons with special requirements, such as greenhouses, sun
spaces, or enormous window areas for view. In some circumstances active
solar heating may be the appropriate choice . But for persons whose main
goals are high comfort, low initial cost, and low operating cost, super
insulation appears to be the logical choice.
Literature Cited