We have a lot on our list and, although it should be a low priority, our Wine Cellar is high on our list.

The Wine Cellar is important because it is integrated with our geothermal heat exchange.  Essentially, we will be creating a tank of hot water and a tank of cold water.  The hot water will be used to heat our domestic hot water and to heat our house.  The cold water will be used to cool our house.  When we are in ‘cooling mode’ we will take the waste hot water and dump it into our swimming pool.  When we are in ‘heating mode’ we will take the waste cold water and dump it into our Wine Cellar.

Integrating our system requires that we consider each of the elements in order to complete the design.  So, spending some valuable time at this point in the project on our Wine Cellar is prudent since it will help us complete the geothermal design and implementation (construction).

Of course, the layout and design of the Wine Cellar must be functional and pleasing to the eye.  We’ve done plenty of research on wine cellars, including our visit to St. Maarten last year.  Bryan visited K&L Wine Mechants in Redwood City several times to review the construction details of their racks.  He took a number of photos during his visit to their branch on December 12, 2010.

Wine Cellar Design Alternatives

We need to finalize the ceiling height and cooling panel design components so we can establish our design and definitive cooling panel layout.

The big question that we needed to answer were related to the size of the aluminum panel that would take the BTUs from the wine bottles and move that energy to the heat exchange unit (where it would go to wherever there was a heating call).

This answer requires exact dimensions and cooling load requirements.

Mocking Up the Wine Cellar Racks

We spent several days ensuring that our wine racks would be consistent and symmetrical.  We took the dimensions of our ‘space’ and sent that information to several wine rack manufacturers and they provided us with layouts and dimensions of what they could do.  At the same time, we do have Al and Nep to work on fabricating and installing the wine cellar.

After analyzing the Wine Cellar, we decided that we would only use Redwood and stainless steel inside the Wine Cellar.  There will be no finishes inside the Wine Cellar – all the wood and surfaces will be natural and not coated with any stains, paints, etc.

Our decision criteria for the unfinished materials include durability and the resistance to corrosion. Although we will be controlling the humidity of the air inside the house, the Wine Cellar will definitely be more humid than the rest of the house.  With the increased humidity, the air will also be much cooler (57°F) so we will be very close to the dew point with the humid air (if the air is too dry then the corks will shrink).

Given our situation with tight spacing and our desire to fill the space completely, we have to assemble the various components of the wine racks inside the Wine Cellar.  Although it may seem trivial, it is not (go figure!).

It felt good to get the first mock up of our wine rack completed and located in the appropriate position inside our Wine Cellar.

Now we can complete the design of the cooling panels in the ceiling.

Cheers!

Starting with the concrete 'box', located under the garage. The 2x4 sleepers on the floor will be used to attach the racks to the foundation and to raise the hardwood floor off the concrete.

The mock up of the North wine rack is in place. In the mock up, we built a rack to hold one 750 ml and 1.5 l bottles in the smallest location to verity the fit.

This wine rack will be very tall (105 inches from finished floor to the top of the rack) and is designed to hold 820 750 ml bottles and 16 1.5 l bottles.

The profile of the North rack, which is a mirror image of the South rack, is one bottle deep at the top and two bottles deep at the base. There will be two rows of display bottles that will be at an angle. The counter top will be granite.

The North (and South) racks are taller than the dropped ceiling and will be two inches below the aluminum cooling panels.The ceiling will be dropped by six inches so it can be insulated. Overall, the finished ceiling will be 9-1/2 inches lower than the bottom of the hollow core concrete panels shown in this photo.

The bottom of the North rack, showing the space that ill extend across all three racks (North, center and South). The hardwood flooring and redwood ceiling in this area will match the flooring and ceiling in the Wine Dining. However, there will be six inches of crushed rock around each of the racks and the walkway between the racks will be perpendicular to the hardwood flooring that continues from the Wine Dining. Reed Kingston recommended (strongly) that we include sufficient space to walk from the North aisle to the South aisle without moving the sliding glass doors (does this look ok Reed?).

This week ended with two inspections scheduled for Tuesday, 09/07/10:  PG&E will perform the ‘mandrel inspection‘ and the City of Monte Sereno will inspect our mounting system and rough electrical for our solar photovoltaic panels.  We scheduled these inspections because we installed our 400 amp combined service entry device (400 amp electric panel) and all of the conduit and electric cables for the solar photovoltaic panels were run through to the appropriate points on the roof.

Bryan was confident that the weekly project review meeting tonight would go reasonably well.  Especially since he put two (2) bottles of Rombauer Chardonnay (Carneros 2008) in the fridge to cool …

Completing the Geothermal Ground Loop

The two-person team from 88HVAC, Justin and Michael, completed the test of our ground loop today.  Of the 25 concrete piers that go 30 feet into the ground with two U-tubes in each pier, we had one U-tube that failed (low water flow).  We could not solve the problem so we abandoned this U-tube and continued to connect all of the other U-tubes.

Bryan spent some time with Justin reviewing his recommendations for the valve configuration for our geothermal ground loops.  Justin presented several alternatives and they discussed each one.  The conclusion is that we will have copper pipe inside the house going to the underground concrete box in the North West corner of the house.  From this box, there will be HDPE pipes going to the four sets of concrete piers on the East and West sides of the house.

Although the copper materials have a higher cost, the labor cost will be the same or less to install the copper fittings.  Given the valves to isolate and control the water flow, copper fittings will have a smaller ‘footprint’ inside the flush mount concrete box.  The copper fittings will have a cleaner and simple layout and finish.

Background on Our 400 Amp Electric Service

We will have a 400 amp underground electric service.  Some people have asked, ‘with such an energy efficient house, why do you need a 400 amp service?’  The short answer is that there are code requirements that are a function of the size of the building footprint that determine the minimum amount of current that a house requires.  Since we do not have any natural gas coming into the house, we have electric cooktops and electric clothes dryers.  Although the calculated current is just under 300 amps, we will have a 400 amp service. Problems occur with too little electrical current, not more electrical current.

Mungo Hardwicke-Brown, who introduced Jo-Anne and Bryan in June 1991 when Jo-Anne was an Associate with Blake, Cassels & Graydon (now Blakes) in Toronto and Bryan was a Principal with Ernst & Young Canada, spoke with Bryan several times regarding our electric service requirements.  Currently, Mungo is completing a major renovation of his family’s home in Calgary, Canada.  Although he has a 200 amp electric service, he very much covets our 400 amp service.

The underground electric service enters our house through a 3-inch conduit.  This conduit goes through our concrete foundation wall and enters the bottom of our combined service entry device.  A ‘combined service entry device’ is the technical term for an electric panel that has an electric meter on one side and circuit breakers on the other side.  The side with the electric meter is only accessible to the electric utility and the circuit breakers on the other side are accessible to everyone else.  While we would have preferred separate components due to space constraints, the SU3040D400CN model from Square D (a division of Schneider Electric) is only 28-1/4 inches wide and costs less than a separate meter housing and distribution panel.

We will have four distribution panels, two of which will be in the East Mechanical room and two in the West Mechanical room.  One of the two panels in each mechanical room will house the circuits that will be connected to the transfer switch for our auxiliary backup natural gas powered generator.

Scott Andersen (from Toronto, Canada)  designed the electrical system so we could have two distribution panels in two different physical locations (one in the East Mechanical room and one in the West Mechanical room) that would work as one ‘virtual’ panel.  Scott, who has designed and built several unique lofts and homes in Toronto, completed the conceptual design for our house.  He is a partner with Burman & Fellows, which is an integrated commercial electrical contractor that focuses on grocery stores in the U.S. and Canada.  Scott designed the electrical distribution system to allow the auxiliary backup generator to provide power to circuits on each side of the house, the benefit of which would be reducing the amount of wire that needed to be run to the prioritized electrical circuits throughout the house.

Our electrical layout, as designed by Scott Andersen. Note the two auxiliary backup generator provides power to two distributions panels, which are joined and act as a 100 amp single panel.

Installing Our 400 Amp Combined Service Entry Device

Doug and Josh, the two-person team from Certified Electric, arrived on schedule to our project site at 9:00 am to install our combined service entry device.  They cleared their work area and reviewed the plans with Bryan.  Together, they went through PG&E’s electric and natural gas service requirements, which specify the electric meter and natural gas meter location requirements and the layout of the East and West Mechanical rooms.

Also, they discussed where and how the combined service entry device and other distribution panels would be grounded.  The Building Official for the City of Monte Sereno, Howard Bell, advised us that we could use the two of the 30 ft long #7 rebar to ground our electric service provided that the two pieces of rebar were more than six feet apart.  We had identified the pieces of rebar previously and Izzy had removed the concrete from these two pieces of rebar.

With a solid understanding of the site, PG&E’s ‘Green Book’ requirements, and our requirements, Doug and Josh set to  work laying out the conduit and then cutting the wood studs and exterior plywood/sheathing for the electric panel. 

The bottom edge of the new electric panel will be at the identical height as the original 125 amp panel, which was installed in 1969.  Given the larger size of the 400 amp panel, the top and sides needed to be cut. 

Nothing that a new sawzall blade can’t make happen …

Josh measures and lays out where the 3-inch conduit will go into the bottom of the combined service entry device.

Doug, using a new sawzall blade, cuts the plywood for the 400 amp combined service entry device. Note the location of the new panel is exactly where the original 125 amp panel was located on the East wall of the garage.

The completed hole ready for the new 400 amp combined service entry device. The plywood will support the panel until the framing is completed at a later date.

The back of our new 400 amp combined service entry device. The disconnect for our solar photovoltaic panels will be on the left side of the combined service entry device.

Our new 400 amp combined service delivery panel, as viewed from the exterior of the house.

Note the #7 reinforcing steel (rebar) that is exposed in the concrete pier. This is one of two locations where our electric service will be grounded to the rebar that goes 30 feet into the earth.

A completed concrete pier with our geothermal ground loop. Note the connection at the bottom of the photo, which connects the two U-tubes in the pier. Also, note the supply going into the first U-tube and the return coming out of the second U-tube.

The adjacent concrete pier, showing the connection between the two U-tubes and the supply and return connections.

The only concrete pier with a blocked U-tube. We are using the good U-tube in this concrete pier and have abandoned the defective U-tube. 49 of the 50 U-tubes in our 25 concrete piers were tested successfully for flow and pressure.

The East wall in the East Mechanical room. The seven wires in the box on the left will carry the current from the solar photovoltaic panels on our roof. The panel on the right is connected by 2-inch conduit embedded in the concrete to the opening in the Garage and to the West Mechanical room.

We are considering locating two electric distribution panels on the North wall in the East Mechanical room.

We are getting closer to putting the tapered insulation down on our flat roofs so we can put the membrane on and get water tight.  Before doing so, we verified that the SIP roof has no ‘voids’ in the insulation where the individual pieces come together. 

In anticipation of the next step, becoming weather tight, Bryan picked up the first of 72 boxes of windows so we could confirm the window preparation requirements.  Since we will be seeing Carole Murray tomorrow, it is important to show that we’re progressing and getting the windows out of her warehouse!  Also today, Bryan continued working with Izzy on ensuring the HDPE coming out of each concrete pier can be joined to create our ground loop.

At the end of the day, Gino Attanasio from White Cap dropped off two more 10-lb containers of expanding foam for us to use in tightening up our building envelope.

Picking Up Our First Window

We have 72 boxes of sliding glass doors and windows at Murray Window and Door.  We can’t install the sliding doors and windows until we are weather tight.  Well, we probably could install them but we are choosing not to.

In anticipation of the first clerestory window installation, we picked up one of the 16 windows.  This will allow us to identify exactly how the windows will ‘fit’ and how we will need to attach the windows.  While we have shop drawings, it is always good to have the actual item on hand to avoid potential problems.

After hoisting the window up and onto the roof, we were able to see exactly how the clerestory windows will fit.  This was important as we may have a conflict with the nail fins and edge trim in each of the four corners where the two clerestory windows come together.

Using Thermal Imaging to Verify Our Insulation Value

In our house, the SIP panels are connected on the roof with either wooden I beams or 6×12 splines.  In either case, there is a possibility of leaving ‘voids’ in the EPS foam at these locations.  If a void is left then the insulation value of the roof is compromised.  Voids will reduce the insulation value much more than thermal bridges, which is another problem that we want to avoid.

Today, we took the opportunity to engage Lorna Fear, with Visual Cue Thermal Imaging, to spend a couple hours going through our project to verify that we didn’t have any voids between our SIPs.  Bryan and Lorna worked together, with Bryan explaining how the SIP construction worked and Lorna reviewing the thermal images and identifying where potential problems could be.  Lorna is an expert at interpreting the thermal images and ‘seeing’ where there are inconsistencies in the building envelope.

The thermal imaging identifies different surface temperatures and displays those differences with different colors.  Since heat goes from hot to cold, a surface temperature that is colder than surrounding surfaces may indicate that the energy is being drawn into the building, through a less-insulated condition than the surrounding area.  However, surfaces may also reflect thermal energy, thus showing very ‘hot’ surfaces that may hide other problems.

Given her experience, Lorna can identify where potential problems may occur with our insulation.  Bryan asked Lorna to identify all potential problems locations as we can deal with ‘false positives’ at this stage.  If we miss a problem, it could be there for the life of the building.

Removing Concrete for Our Ground Loop

Bryan spent the afternoon with Izzy chipping away at the top of 6 of the 12 concrete piers on the West side of the house.  Ken Martin, from Silicon Valley Mechanical, fine-tuned the design of the geothermal ground loop so there are two ground loops on the West side that include six concrete piers in each ground loop.

Connecting the individual loops in each pier requires two 90 degree fittings and a short length of HDPE.  Then, the piers need to be connected to each other in a daisy chain manner, with a supply and return for each pier.  For the physical connection, Matt Jung (88HVAC) identified that we need a one-inch space for the cold ring and then another 4 inches to weld the fittings on.  Thus, there must be at least five inches of clear space on the top of each concrete pier where the connections will be located.

All of the piers need to be checked for sufficient space and, where additional space is required, the concrete must be removed.  Removing concrete is noisy, difficult and time-consuming (just ask Bryan). 

Picking up the first of 72 boxes from Murray Window and Door. Bryan was smiling as he picked up the first box, especially since we will be seeing Carole Murray on Saturday afternoon at Black Ridge Vineyards.

We have the window on the roof, and unpackaged it so we could see exactly how it fit and what the potential issues would be when installing it (and the other 15 clerestory windows).

Lorna, using her Fluke infrared thermal imaging camera, reviewing the South side of the South Gable over the Master Suite.

Lorna uses her Fluke infrared thermal imaging camera to review the upper flat SIP roof for voids.

This is the thermal image with the surrounding image around it. You can see the surface temperatures with the scale on the right hand side.

Lorna using her Fluke infrared thermal imaging camera, identified potential locations where voids may be on the upper flat roof that need to be investigated.

On this thermal image you can see where the warm and cool locations are. This thermal image shows that there may be voids between the SIPs that need to be filled with expanding foam.

Izzy and Bryan spent several hours removing concrete from the top of the concrete piers so the ground loops can be connected by 88HVAC. Matt Jung of 88HVAC will be coming by the job site on Sunday to verify if additional concrete needs to be removed.

Lisa Meline, of Meline Engineering, is a key member of our design team as she designed our geothermal heat exchange ground loops and completed the initial design of our radiant system inside the house.  Importantly, Lisa introduced us to Matt Jung of 88HVAC.

Lisa sent an e-mail last week saying that she had some meetings in the Bay Area and she would like to visit our site and see the progress to date.  Perfect.  Lisa showed up 15 minutes early and reviewed the site with Bryan.

Lisa arrived at the site early to review our progress to date.

Lisa taking photos of the PEX in the concrete piers.

Lisa was most impressed with the PEX in the concrete and took a photo of the PEX that was pressurized to 100 PSI (and holding the pressure!).

Quick Trip to Watsonville to See Jackel Enterprises

After Lisa left, Bryan and Christie Tunnoch, who was visiting from Vancouver, Canada, went ‘over the hill’ to Watsonville to Jackel Enterprises so we could measure the reclaimed beams from the original structure and to take a quick look at our resawn redwood decking.

Since we need 6×10 beams, we will need to identify where we will use the original beams in the remodelled ground floor.

Bryan and Christie met with Steve Jackel, who showed them some of the FSC inventory of FSC lumber that he had as well as other large timbers from British Columbia, Canada.

Steve Jackel showing FSC lumber that he is holding in his inventory.

Original Douglas Fir beams from 1969.

More original beams from 1969.

The original 2x6 tongue and groove redwood decking that has been cut in half and remilled (now is 5/8-inch thick) with a new tongue and groove.

Huge 14-inch by 14-inch Douglas Fir beams from British Columbia (not FSC).

Steve showed us some wood that he is drying slowly in his kiln.

Many people have asked us why we are installing solar photovoltaic panels on our roof.  They believe that solar thermal panels are superior since solar thermal can provide hot water for (1) domestic hot water; (2) radiant heating inside the house; and (3) heating the swimming pool.

Since we will have geothermal energy available for our domestic hot water, heating in the house, and even to heat our swimming pool, we have a greater need to generate electricity. 

Our geothermal heat exchange uses multiple pumps.  These pumps need electricity to operate, so we will be using renewable energy from our photovoltaic panels to obtain renewable energy from the earth.

Our stated objectives include being zero net energy and zero carbon.  We intend to meet these objectives is through renewable resources, including geothermal heat exchange and solar photovoltaic generation.

Increasing Use of Electricity

Generally, our household has been an early adopter of new technologies.  These technologies often require electricity to operate.  Thus, our household may use more electricity that others so we want to be ‘hedged’ against the rising cost of electricity.

In an article today entitled, ‘Plugged-In Age Feeds a Hunger for Electricity ‘ the New York Times reported that:

Worldwide, consumer electronics now represent 15 percent of household power demand, and that is expected to triple over the next two decades, according to the International Energy Agency, making it more difficult to tackle the greenhouse gas emissions responsible for global warming.

To satisfy the demand from gadgets will require building the equivalent of 560 coal-fired power plants, or 230 nuclear plants, according to the agency.

To reduce the burden that our household will put on the grid, we’re going to to two things. 

First, we will do our best to anticipate where ‘always on’ devices will be and have ‘on/off’ switches in those locations.  These switches may be connected to our home automation system so the switches can be turned off automatically when required.

Second, we’re going to have solar photovoltaic panels on our roof.

Sizing Our Photovoltaic Panels

We designed our house so we could fit up to 48 solar photovoltaic panels on the roof.  However, due to the current legislation in California, we can only generate as much electricity as we use.  We cannot be net generators of electricity.  Frankly, we can’t understand this legislation and we believe the legislation needs to change.  This issue is in front of the California senate, with AB 560 (to raise the limit on net metering from 2.5% to 10%) and AB 920, which would allow homes to be net generators of electricity.

Existing law provides that where the electricity generated by the eligible customer-generator exceeds the electricity supplied by the electric distribution utility or cooperative during a 12-month period, the eligible customer generator is a net electricity producer and the electric distribution utility or cooperative retains any excess kilowatthours generated and the customer-generator is not owed compensation for those excess kilowatthours unless the electric distribution utility or cooperative enters into a purchase agreement with the eligible customer-generator for those excess kilowatthours.

Given the size of our house and usage patterns, Akeena Solar estimated that we should install 32 photovoltaic panels and that will drive our consumption to zero.  Given that the cost of photovoltaic panels is dropping and the performance is increasing (and, we simply can’t generate a financial return on additional photovoltaic panels), we’re limiting our installation to 32 photovoltaic panels.

We will, however, have all the infrastructure in place to support 48 photovoltaic panels so when the legislation changes and we can be a net generator of electricity or, if our power consumption is greater than expected and we need more panels to drop our net consumption of electricity to zero, we can simply bolt in the additional photovoltaic panels as and when required.

Future Capability for Electric Vehicles

Although we do have electric vehicles today, we are going to have our garage wired for charging electric vehiclces.  If we have electric vehicles in the future (Tesla?) then our consumption will increase.  And we’ll simply bolt in those additional photovoltaic panels.

Other Thoughts

To help heat our swimming pool, we plan to put PEX tubing in the concrete decking around the pool.  Thus, the warm pool deck will pre-heat the water circulating in the pool, which will heat the pool and cool the deck.  With appropriate valves and controls, this should be a win/win.

It poured this morning.

Poor Weather Ahead

Looking over Los Gatos while driving north on Highway #85.

With our shotcrete scheduled for Wednesday morning, everyone was a bit nervous as the probability of rain is very high.  We received a fair amount of rain this morning so our project site is now wet. (more…)