Heat Pumps for the Earflap Crowd

In my research for the new TV series This New House (premiering at 8pm, July 29, on the DIY Network), I came across a heat source you might want to check out.

Heat pumps are tried-and-true machines that cool and heat buildings across the southern tier of the U.S. They use refrigerant to move heat from inside to outside, or vice versa. Like an air-conditioner, they take heat out of houses and dump it outside in the summer; in the winter, the process gets reversed, capturing latent heat in air down to about 37 F, concentrating it by compressing the refrigerant, and sending the heat inside. But below 37 F, they rapidly lose effectiveness, working constantly to try to keep up with heat demand. This is why they’re less common or economical up north, where they require back up systems that heat (expensively) with electricity.

There’s a company in the heart of the frost belt—Bangor, Maine—that’s cracked the code for heat pumps for cold country. By adding a secondary booster compressor, which basically turbo-charges the process, the Hallowell Acadia heat pump (http://www.gotohallowell.com/Acadia™-Products/) is able to draw heat from air as cold as -30 F. As company founder Duane Hallowell puts it, “It’s a heat pump on steroids.”

The heat-pump process is based on the simple fact that heat goes to cold: whenever something is colder than the surrounding air, the heat in that air transfers to it, as the system tries to equalize. By making the outside coil of the heat pump even colder than the air, the Acadia is able to capture latent heat in frigid conditions. Concentrate that heat and transfer it inside and, voila, you’re heating a northern house using the outside air. And it’s all done with electricity, freeing the user from the vicissitudes of the oil and gas markets.

About 4,000 Acadia heat pumps have been sold since the company opened in October of 2006. They cost about $10,000 installed—that’s compared to $30,000 for a geothermal system, which uses the ground as a heat source. The machines are eligible for tax and utility rebates up to $4000 and provide between 25 and 55% cost savings over natural gas and oil, depending on electricity costs in your area.

Summer 2010

June's house of the month is a glimpse of the future It's a demonstration house that contains just about every high-tech bell and whistle currently on the market. Which of them will make it in the long run? Only time will tell, but it's more than academic to check them out in a real-life situation, which is the idea behind the Cleantech house in Beverly, Mass., open for tours now and for sale later. Check it out at http://www.bruceirving.biz/houseofthemonth.html

For house geeks, check out the National Trust for Historic Preservation's "@home" website: http://athomenation.org/. Lots of good tips and links for everything from historic homes for sale to insurance programs to folks' house baby pictures, including those of yours truly: http://athomenation.org/pg/photos/album/1669/northern-maine-boathouse.

If you're thinking of replacing your windows (and you know I have strong opinions about that*), putting new windows into an addition, or upping the energy-efficiency of your original windows, make sure your contractor knows about the Department of Energy's volume-discount program for highly efficient triple-pane windows and start-of-the-art Low-E storm windows: http://www.windowsvolumepurchase.org/

And on the self-promotion front, I've been getting a lot of calls lately from from people considering the purchase of a house and looking for a second opinion. They're falling in love with the place, but want a blunt assessment from someone with no agenda.

Most of the houses I've visited for assessment are being bid on by multiple parties. When we put dollars and time to the tasks needed to make the house work for my clients, more than half of my clients swallow hard, realize that they really want the house, and go into their bid determined to get it. A few, however, see that the project is way bigger than they thought and walk away, a bit disappointed but breathing easier.

If you know someone looking for a second opinion on a house purchase, please consider passing my name along.

And finally--having nothing to do with home renovation--is my strong recommendation that you check out my sister's killer goats' milk caramel, made painstakingly by hand on her small farm in Vermont. It's award-winning, its organic, and it's unbelievable on ice cream:http://www.fattoadfarm.com/.

* But don't take my word for it. Here's a link to some 15 scientific analyses that say that replacement windows are a bad idea in most cases: http://historichomeworks.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1600

Dreams and Triangles

I’ve been involved in house transformations for over two decades. Of the 33 renovations we featured during my time as producer of This Old House, each and every one was somebody’s dream house; the same goes for the projects I work on now in my career as a renovation consultant. No matter what the job is and regardless of its size and budget, whenever a house is improved, its owners’ strongest hopes and imaginings of better living come to the fore. We love our homes--and whenever love is involved, things can get complicated.

Standing in the middle of the constellation of the people involved—owners, architect, builder, subcontractors, town officials, materials suppliers—I have seen time and again that the human element plays a huge role in what everyone wishes were a completely rational and rationalized undertaking. Agendas both conscious and unconscious come into play, and although I believe that everyone truly wants the project to succeed, each participant’s precise definition of success is, human-nature-ly, different. These can grow under the inevitable stress of the job, and a single degree of difference can become a wide gap by the end of the road.

Everyone’s heard the old saws--the owners want everything done on time and on budget and still reserve the right to change their minds at any point; the architect wants a beautiful image for his or her portfolio; the builder wants to build as he sees fit, with minimal meddling—but most intelligent players know, at least intellectually, that such fantasies must be modulated by compromise and teamwork. Subtler things come into play, however, and they can hurt progress. Some of what I’ve seen over the years: owners afraid of insulting their architect by expressing dissatisfaction with a design; architects reluctant to allow builders to suggest solutions; builders tempted to make up for rising, uncompensated costs by cutting corners rather than making a case for more payment. Behind most of these problems are the myriad insecurities, fears, assumptions, and misunderstandings that follow us humans wherever we go and whatever we do. They’re just more intense when money is flowing and people are thrust together, usually for the first time.

I was never trained as a psychologist, but nonetheless have played some version of shrink on each job. Architects and builders report similar experiences; in my opinion, that’s a poor use of their skills. Not only is their time best spent doing what they do best—architects satisfying owners’ needs, builders bringing designs into three-dimensionality—but they themselves are within the triangle at the core of the project, the one that they form with the client. “Love triangle” may be putting it in melodramatic terms, but a triangle it is, with loyalties, alliances, and even trust issues that shift over the life of the project.

In addition to helping put owners, architects, and builders together as teams, my role as consultant is to break that triangle, providing a neutral Switzerland for each member to turn to. When a team member needs an objective view on an issue, a place to get heard, a confessor, or a prod towards better communication, I’m there. Occasionally hard-nosed, occasionally touchy-feely, sometimes acting as devil’s advocate or bringing an alternative product or method to the table, I try to keep the project’s best interests in focus and the issues out in the sunshine.

For homeowners who don’t hire me or someone like me, remember that despite being the non-professional in the mix, you are the leader. That’s because it’s your house and you are paying the bills. You set the tone, and if things like openness, honesty, and fairness are put in place at the start, you will have a much better chance of getting the best out of your teammates. Aside from researching their past work, when looking for design and construction partners, don’t be afraid to listen to your gut. Transformations take time, and you’re going to be in the trenches with these folks for longer than you might think. You need tolike them.

Oh, and plan for 20% cost and time overruns—it’s better to go into a dream with your eyes wide open.

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Bruce Irving is a renovation consultant based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He also serves as vice-chairman of the Cambridge Historical Commission, as a member of the editorial board of Architecture Boston magazine and contributing editor at Design New England magazine, and as series producer of This New House, a new television show debuting on the DIY Network this summer.

www.bruceirving.biz

617-719-2196

irving.bruce@gmail.com