What are some other benefits of a zero energy home? There are many benefits to having a zero energy home. The house is designed to operate at zero energy with all the windows and doors shut, as if you had...
The house is designed to operate at zero energy with all the windows and doors shut, as if you had somebody living in the house that had asthma or hay fever or something that and you wanted to have total control of your environment. However, we also design the house so that it could take the advantage of the prevailing breezes. Our breezes in the Dallas area come from the south and go north most of the time. All the windows in the house are casement-type windows. That means that they open out like an awning kind of, except to the side. A casement window will trap far more air moving by the house than just a standard window that you slide the bottom up. So, we have got the casement windows such that on the front of the house, they will all open to the left. That traps the breeze coming by the front. On the back of the house, they all open to the right. There is a screened-in porch on the south side of the house that catches the breeze as it approaches the house, and then we have high escape places for the air to go up high in the house on the north side. So we can actually create a siphon effect up through the central stairwell of the house and draw fresh air in and let warm air go out. Some people like to live that way. If you do that, you are going to be better than zero - the utility company will owe you money at the end of the year!
But that does create some different things in the house. I like to run my homes at about 45 percent relative humidity. That is about the healthiest level of relative humidity for a house. Things like dust mites, they get their moisture through their skin. If the humidity is less than 50 percent, they cannot survive, as there is not enough moisture from them. If we dry the house too much, our sinuses start to dry out, and we start to have problems and we catch summer colds or things like that. If we make it too moist, other things like to grow - mold and mildew. In Dallas, I know that the average relative humidity over any month starts off at about 80 percent every morning and by the middle of the day, it is down to about 60 percent. So if I am encouraging a home monitor to open windows and let this high humid air come to the house, I have to start taking precautions. All the sheetrock in the house is paperless. Mold and mildew like paper. There are lots of things they like to eat, but gypsum is not one of those things. So if the humidity goes up in this house, it means that the walls may absorb a little moisture out of the air, but when it dries out, they are going to let the moisture back out. No damage would be done. So there are some different strategies that you have to consider if you are encouraging natural ventilation in Dallas.
