First images of a house design for sustainable living and the lucky Johnson Family

Dr. Spacey's Great Bolts of Fire Experiment

Heat Recovery Ventilation Systems HRVs

Hey we have a bonus point idea check it out!

Our Bonus Idea is the HRV/ERV AIR filter, the HRV/ERV air filter is an electric filter that takes the stale inside air and removes it from the house but then adds fresh outside air after it has been heated. The HRV/ERV filter is very energy efficient and does not make much noise, it can also be used on up to three floors using only one HRV/ERV unit.

Great Bolts of Fire (added details)

The first time I did the experiment I accidentally used galvanized bolts which changed the results very much. I've made a chart to show the differences between experiment one (Ex1) and experiment two (Ex2).

Details of experiments:
Ex1: Large Bolt 11cm. Small Bolt 5.5cm (galvanized bolts) Volume of water 150ml
Ex2: Large Bolt 8.5cm Small Bolt 2.0cm (non-galvanized) Volume of water 50ml

Dr Luna Spacey

Heat: Expanding and Contracting Matter

Hi Dr. Boyle,
I am writing to you on behalf of Dr. Wallace Noot,Dr Noot asked me to write because he was just on the point of contacting you when he was called away to an important meeting. He has been researching Recycled Plastic Lumber. He belives that it might prove useful for decking and other outdoor building. He has been experimenting recently with expansion of matter upon heating. He has tried some of your experiments and is planning on using them in a demonstration to students. He has also witnessed a very interesting but very dangerous experiment wherein metal bolts were heated with a blow-torch and it was possible to see the bolts expand and contract as they were heated and then cooled. Dr. Noot will not be including this in his demonstration. In one story Dr Noot heard about Recycled Plastic Lumber it was reported that long lengths expand and contacted to such a degree that decking that had been bolted into the wall tore itself free and did some damage along the way. Dr Noot is recommending Recycled Plastic Lumber with the warning that short lengths should be used. Dr. Noot recommends this product because it provides a use for all the plastic bags we create and stops them from ending up in the landfill. Dr. Noot is investigating whether any polluting gases are created in the process of turning plastic bags into plastic lumber.

Dr. Rees on behalf of Dr. Noot of Heat Team B

Great Bolts of Fire

The experiment that I did entitled "Understanding The Difference Between Temperature and Heat" had a few flaws in it. I made a few adjustments and the results were a bit better. I used bolts that were extremely different sizes. I used test tubes and a smaller amount of water instead of having a larger volume of water like there was in the styrofoam cups. The experiment results are as follows; first for your experiment and then my adjusted experiment.


Your Experiment

Original Water Temperature - 22 °C

Tube 1 (large bolt) temperature - 24C (temp. measured every min. for 4 mins. - no change)
Tube 2 (small bolt) temperature - 23C (temp. measured every min. for 4 mins - no change)

My Adjusted Experiment

Original Water Temperature – 21 °C
Minute
Tube 1 (large bolt) temperature - 29C (temp. measured every min. for 4 mins. - no change)
Tube 2 (small bolt) temperature - 23C (temp. measured every min. for 4 mins - no change)

original experiment by Dr. Patrick Boyle
adjusted experiment by Dr Luna Spacey of Heat Team C

Earth Houses

I think that Earth Houses (houses made of dirt) are a good idea. They are affordable, sturdy and gathering dirt doesn't cause any enviromental problems. We can use the dirt left over from digging holes like basements and from excavating.
Many ancient buildings (like the great wall of China) have lasted for many years. Dirt can hold in heat in winter and keep heat out in summer. It may well prove to be a profitable insulator. Dirt houses would only need support, insulation (to further insulate) electrical, heating, cooling and water systems, topping it all off with dry-walling and paint.

from Dr Huggatree of Heat Team A

More on Green Roofs

1. If you want to reduce energy, a green roof would be a good choice because it works in the winter as well as the summer.
2. The great thing is that green roofs provent water flow by retaining up 75% of the rainwater.
3. A green roof puts more oxygen in the air.
4. Green roofs can reduce the temperature of cities which is great because in the summer the temp. is 10 degrees hotter then areas around it.
5. In Europe green roofs last for 40 years.

From Dr Kendra Acre of Heat Team C

photo from birdwOrks: www.flickr.com/creativecommons

Green Roofs:Reduce Water Pollution and Energy Use

Using Green Roofs in Housing for Sustainable Living

There are many reasons why green roofs are an excellent idea. For example: during rainfalls, runoff from rooftops can create problems like water pollution or sewer overflow. However green roofs slow this water flow, therefore reducing water pollution and the pressure on storm water structures. Green roofs are also great insulators. They can lower a buildings cooling costs in the summer, and during the winter reduce heating costs. Green roofs can also reduce the 'Island Effect' found in cities, because green roofs can help bring the overall temperature down. A green roof can also protect the waterproofing membrane on a roof from UV rays, causing it to last longer. One of the main things that I like about green roofs are the fact that they can improve air quality. This is because they can filter the air by absorbing and converting carbon dioxide to oxygen.
Dr Lola Justice, a member of Heat Team B

Announcement of competition for bonuses

City Council announces NEW Competition for Bonuses
Teams can compete to be first to publish the idea to use a particular Device/Feature in their Design for Housing for Sustainable Living thus gaining points. Ideas should be submitted by e-mail to appropriate experts on our advisory panel.

Submissions need to include one or more of the following:

1. Engineering description of the device and how it works
2. Physics (explanation & theory) upon which the design is based
3. Possible environmental/societal impact of the device and suggestions of how to minimize this.

If submissions are accepted by the panel they will be published on the BLOG (heatgame.blogspot.com) and the team with the successful submission will gain points. Once published, other teams can use the idea/device/feature in their house but they must cite the team that originally published the idea. Other teams may critique a published idea to gain points from the team that has earned them. Critiques are posted directly on the BLOG as comments. If experts feel the criticism is good points will be awarded to the team that submitted the critique. Experts in other fields can also offer critiques that will take away points. The bonuses collected by teams will be added to the payment received for final house designs.
NB. In addition, improvements to experiments, information and useful links can also be submitted for consideration for publication and bonus points.

For more information please contact Mr. Robin Garfunkel garfunk.rob@gmail.com

Inside the physics lab

RADIANT HEAT

working in the lab. with Peggy, Dermot and Dr. B.

Beautiful light as shown here is created in passive solar homes

from chiS wreN
architect

Green Roof

A Green Roof Garden studied by Dr Carson. This one, incorporates trees, shrubs and lawn chairs. It doesn't incorporate the entire roof as you can see. It makes one wonder how effective it would be

pics. of Trinity College Dublin

Trinty College Dublin, home of Dr. Boyle, Peggy and Dermot;
Front square (top), Main gate (centre) and
you can see a bike here in the centre by the statue that looks very like Peggy's (lower).

Ecuador 'Cloud Forest'

Ecuador 'Cloud Forest'

Imagine a copper mine here. The forest would be gone. The water contaminated and local communities devastated.

Pic from Dr Lewis's friend

GROB pic?

COULD IT BE GROB?

IMAGE INTERCEPTED BY nnAssA

from Dr. Pat. Boyle

To find out more about GROB read the comment to Dr Boyle's first post.

2nd post from Dr Rita Carson

From Dr. Rita Carson
Very nice to read your comment to my last post Dr. Lola Justice. You are the first environmental scientist who has e-mailed me from the Housing for Sustainable Living Project. That environmental greenhouse program sounds very interesting. I would love to hear more about it. My children Toby and Samantha have just gone to bed so I have some time to chat. I have been making some plans for planting in the green roof garden in the spring. I have started seedlings for a vegetable garden as I was thinking why not grow vegetables up there this year? This project you're working on has great scope. When you get to the point of discussing ideas e-mail me. I have found that the biggest difficulty on construction projects is getting the engineer to take the pollution issues seriously. I had a look at your contract and was delighted to see that minimizing environmental impact is written in. There are some great building products on the market now that are non-polluting. You should contact Dr. Stephanie Carson next, she'll help you with chosing products that are manufactured in plants that pay their workers a fair wage.

2nd post from Mr. Brunel

From Mr. G. I. Brunel
I enjoyed reading the comments to my last post.
Well its good to know we have excellent people as engineers on the Housing for Sustainable Living Project. Dr Abdul Damen - I'm very impressed with your qualifications. Many of the projects you mention sound vaguely familiar. I must say that the scope of your talents is awe-inspiring - with your energy and drive your team should make fast progress - so long as you stay focused and don't get caught up with musicals and tatooing - an interesting combination.
Dr. Samantha Hudson great for your team to have your know-how regarding energy efficient buildings. Your expertise is exactly what's needed for this project. I take it we are in a competitive situation here so I don't want to say too much and give anything away. These competitions bring up my stress levels. Send me an e-mail as soon as you have some ideas and questions I would enjoy collaborating.
Dr Querticous Peff-Puff great to hear you have no trouble with stress. A very interesting name - what exactly is your background if you don't mind me asking? Hungarian? E-mail me when you begin planning.
A word of warning to everyone. City council insists that team engineers base their designs on a firm understanding of the physics of heat transfer. They had a disaster apparently in 2010 where a couple of guys sold them a real bill of goods - if you know what I mean - told them this house design was way more energy-efficient than it turned out to be. The designers did not understand the physics of heat transfer and city council didn't either let me tell you. The problems were not discovered until after the family moved in and by then the design team Emporer Housing had scarpered. So be warned if you want this contract get the physics right. City council has been doing their homework.

2nd post from Dr Boyle

Great to read your comments to my last post Dr Luna Spacey and Mr. Wallace Noot. I expect you are not using your Dr. title because you are so modest Dr. Noot. Well I am going to ignore that. With all those degrees you have from McMaster University I'm sure one of them is a PH.D. The timing for your comments to us here at Trinity College Dublin couldn't have been better. We just sent off a paper to be reviewed for publication called A Comparison of Techniques Designed to Melt an Ice Cube in Seconds. Peggy and Dermot were also involved so now the three of us have time to spare. Our paper will be sent out to the reviewers within a week but likely we won't see it in the Journal of Heat Transfer Research until Christmas - you know how slow they are at getting publications out! Funnily enough the idea for the experiment came to us in the lunch room. Dermot started up this challenge to melt an ice cube as quick as you can. It was nuts down there in the lunchroom everyone got involved. You should try it at your end and see if you can beat our time! Dermot had put in a bunch of rules, like you can only use what you have on the table right now and you have to collect all the water somehow and you can't put the ice cube into your mouth. Anyway after all the messing down in the lunchroom Dermot and myself headed back to the lab. We got to thinking maybe we could write this up as a paper if we did the tests carefully as controlled experiments and timed things precisely. We thought this information about methods for melting ice might be of some use to other scientists and might even have some practical value. The idea just came to us out of the blue - thats the power of the imagination for you! So if you do try this out let us know your time - maybe we could add it to our data as an addendum. Oh sorry I got a bit carried away I forgot to ask you about the house your team is designing? How's that coming along?

The Johnson Family

Hi!

We are the family who are going to live in the first home to be built by the team that wins the contract in the Housing for Sustainable Living competition. We are very excited to have this opportunity. I’m Ida, the mom and the kitchen is the room that interests me the most…you must think I’m so typical! Anyway, we do share chores around here - although Natasha is very busy with school and extracurricular stuff so we don’t put too much pressure on her. My husband Harry is a bit of an organizational freak, I, on the other hand am messy…. So you see I am not so typical. I love to cook but I’m not great at clean up – that’s Harry’s job. We have a dog named Betty, she’s a big goof, loves to play and she’s pretty messy too come to think of it. Anyway back to the house, Natasha wants a big bright room, I want a big sort-of farmhouse style kitchen and Harry wants a workshop – he wants to take up carpentry. Other than that we want the house to be comfortable rather than fancy and we want the energy bills as low as possible of course, and we have to keep the cost down or we won’t be able to afford this beautiful house you guys are going to build! $300,000.00 tops-even then we’ll be paying a healthy mortgage!

So good luck and keep in touch!

Mr. Brunel, engineer

I work on six projects a year and try to keep out of phone and e-mail contact the rest of the year so I won’t tell you too much about my personal life if you don’t mind. Don’t get me wrong I am as friendly as the next man but I have to watch my stress level for health reasons. I like to keep my work out of my personal life. Working as an advisor on this project to build Housing for Sustainable Living is a privilege. I have heard of Ms. Wren’s brilliant designs and I am looking forward to working with her…although between you and me I’m a bit worried about the budget and the deadline. I heard that she doesn’t like to cut corners; custom-made windows, geothermal heating systems and the like. Between Ms Wren and the tough new building code regulations that the city brought in I don’t know how we are going to make this project work within the allocated budget. Sorry, this is your job I am just an advisor. Phew! I was getting a little stressed there. Watch out for your blood pressure on this one there is plenty to worry about concerning the practicalities of this project – e-mail me for ideas to get you stated.

Dr. Carson, environmental scientist,

I live with my family in Ottawa. My present research focuses on the use of Green Roofs for Energy Conservation. I teach at the University of Ottawa in the Environmental Science Department. In winter I skate to work on the Rideau Canal. I am bilingual and teach my classes in both English and in French. I conduct my research on the roof of the building where we live. I am so happy to be able to bring my work and my family life together in this way. I have two children, Toby aged ten and Samantha aged eight. At the weekends the children help me work in the roof top garden. If you don’t know about the energy conservation potential of green roofs you will find this very interesting and may want to incorporate the idea into your housing project (I’ll send you some info.)

My husband John works long hours for the government. When he gets time off work our family loves to go on hiking and canoeing trips. Although I am presently working on the energy conservation potential of green roofs I have worked on many other areas in the past including: indoor air pollution caused by certain building materials, and ground water pollution caused by toxins used in building construction. I have worked with construction engineers as an environmental impact advisor on a number of other projects. I am happy to share my expertise as an advisor on the Housing for Sustainable Living Project. I can send you info. on green roofs, pollution standards, procedures for experiments to test for pollution and lots more so let me know the direction your plans are taking.

Dr Lewis, human rights advocate,

I have a small apartment in Ottawa but I am hardly ever home. My work takes me all over the world. Presently I am investigating concerns over the large numbers of children working on producing hand-made oriental carpets in Afganistan. The fashion for these carpets in the west has led to an increase in the demand and manufacturers are hiring children because of their superior eyesight and because they are a source of cheap labour. I am traveling around Afganistan collecting information by speaking with families, manufactures and government officials. There are so few opportunities for families to earn a living in Afganistan. I believe that the solution to the problem will only come when consumers in western countries insist on knowing the history of the carpets they are buying. Consumers need to be prepared to pay enough for the carpets so that manufacturers can afford to hire more expensive adult labour. I have worked in many different countries in Africa and South America as well as Asia. In all situations my work centers on establishing and maintaining workers rights in the manufacturing industries. Although I am very busy I do love to discuss work with students. You can e-mail me anytime because I always carry my laptop with me. This is the first time I have been invited to advise on a project such as the Housing for Sustainable Living Project. I am delighted to take part. I can send you information on various manufacturers so once you choose your building materials let me know.

Mr. Mc Phee, financial advisor,

I have lived in this city all my life. I live in the house in which I was born. I live with my mother who I have cared for since 2010. Mother is quite frail and she suffers from arthritis and osteoporosis. However she is very cheerful and gets out to play bridge with her friends once a week. I have worked as financial advisor to the city for twenty-five years. It is a tough job because city committees like to spend money and I am never sure where exactly that money is supposed to come from. The new building standards have been welcomed by the citizens of our town and of course it is about time something like this was brought in. But twenty new inspectors have been hired and now the Energy and Environment committee want to send them for training. I am a dedicated and careful worker and I know more about city council budget issues than anyone else in town The Housing for Sustainable Living Project could do well to listen to my advice. I am the one to ask about creating the budget for the project. I use excel and I can send you a spreadsheet to get you started.

p.s. I was surprised to hear that Mr. Brunel was working as your engineering advisor. I had heard that he was retiring for health reasons, stress related I believe….

Mr. Garfunkel, city councilor,

I work for city council. I am head of the committee for Energy and the Environment. I was elected to council because of my experience in the community fighting to bring about a ban on pesticide use in the city. That was quite the fight, let me tell you. Recently I have been busy setting up tough building standards for energy conservation in the construction of new homes. It took a lot of work to convince people of the need until the energy costs sky-rocketed. Now everyone wants the new standards. I live with my family in a home that this year for the first time became a net producer of energy. Living on the edge of town we have installed a wind turbine on our property. Our house is a passive solar house. This means that it is built with windows facing south to absorb as much of the sun’s heat energy as is possible. It is also built with the highest insulation standards so as to reduce the transfer of heat energy through the walls and roof. My wife Linda enjoys being home in our cosy house with our young twins Tabatha and Maria. The girls are just two years old and are quite a hand full. In the summer Linda keeps a large vegetable garden on our green roof which is her pride and joy(and designed incidentally by Dr Carson). I am always happy to talk about the new energy conservation standards that I worked so hard to implement in this city. This Housing For Sustainable Living Project is an important new initiative of mine. The actual building codes are the constraining factor for this project e-mail me if don’t have a copy.

Ms. Wren, Architect

I live in a bright modern apartment in a renovated building in the distillery district in Toronto. The building used to be a factory and my apartment occupies the entire top floor. It is a wide-open-concept apartment with no separate rooms except for the bathroom. The floors are hardwood decorated with several oriental carpets and the triple glazed low heat transfer windows look just like the original, old fashioned sash-windows that I like so much. The walls are painted white and the large potted plants and ceiling fans give the apartment a tropical feel although the furniture has a Scandinavian appearance. I have a wide circle of friends and I like to entertain frequently. I really enjoy cooking. I experiment with dishes from all over the world. I have an office area in my apartment where I work on house designs on my iMac G5. I specialize in Designs for Sustainable Living. I teach at the Ontario School of Art and Design two days a week. I have a studio and an office at the art school. I love to share ideas with the OCA students, they are such a talented bunch. I particularly love to talk about designs for sustainable living and I am excited to be an advisor on this project. I am happy to share some of my award winning designs to get you started.

Dr. Boyle, Physicist

I live in rooms in Trinity College Dublin. As well as my bedroom I have a nice comfortable sitting room with comfy armchairs and a fireplace. The walls are lined with books from floor to ceiling and there is a large desk by the window. I love my books: I keep them well organized because I like to know exactly where to find each precious one in my collection. I also like to keep well-sharpened pencils in this pottery mug on my desk and I don’t like it if people move them. People say I am rather old fashioned, but I have a shiny new personal computer in the centre of my desk. I have a cat called ‘Whiskas’ to keep me company. I go to the College dining room for meals. I sit at a long table with other professors and we mostly discuss our work and the weather. During the day I work in my physics laboratory on Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer. I give lectures to students four times a week. During my office hours, my office is close to the lab. and quite convenient, students can come to ask me questions. I have two graduate students who work in the laboratory with me. Their names are Peggy and Dermot. Peggy and Dermot are married they have a two year old daughter Maggie and they share looking after her. Peggy and Dermot each work three and a half days a week in the lab. (from Peggy and Dermot- we really like Dr. Boyle; he is very enthusiastic about his own work and he also loves talking to us about our ideas)

We (Dr. Boyle, Peggy and Dermot) are excited about the Housing for Sustainable Living Project and we are happy to answer any questions that teams might have. We share your belief that a good foundation in the science of heat transfer is essential for good housing design for sustainable living. We have created a set of exciting experiments about heat transfer that we are willing to share. If your team wants to brush up on the basics of heat transfer e-mail us and we will send you our procedures.