It's an interesting article on this one particular mansion, but the idea that "the same tricks for more efficient heating can be used in modern designs" seems pretty silly.
We don't use fireplaces anymore (a major "trick" being to put them in the middle of the house rather than in the exterior walls), and while using large windows to capture sunlight and heat works great in the winter, it also leads to overheating in the summer and thus more energy for air conditioning.
> These are modest changes, imperceptible to most, and they won't enable us to forgo active heating and cooling entirely. But they do echo a way of thinking which, today, is oft ignored. Hardwick Hall was designed with Sun, season and temperature in mind.
Everyone I know who has built a house has thought very much about sun, season and temperature. This is very much a factor in determining the sizes and quantity of windows on south-facing vs. north-facing walls, for example.
Again, it's a very interesting article on this one particular castle, but the idea that it has something to teach modern architects and builders is pure fantasy. We're already well aware of all these factors and how they interact with materials and design.
It's not like the wisdom is lost, it's just ignored in modern builds.
All architects think about siting and solar exposure. But the builders are in charge, and they optimize for what the market responds to -- which does not always include factors like these which contribute to long-term comfort and livability.
So I would say that consumers could learn a thing or two. That said, most buyers are not buying newly-built homes, so their ability to influence the inclusion of some of these features are limited.
The industry is downstream of market demands. If customers aren't aware enough to demand smart things, builders will skip them to save money, or to optimize for more visible features. Same old story.
And if they are not used it's more of question of price and other available options and not "the modern architects forgot".
Making what's essentially "an insulated box" is far more universal climate-wise than most of the old methods, because what's good in summer (north-facing windows, good airflow, getting some cold from the ground) is terrible for winter and vice versa. And where it is useful, it IS used, just instead of fireplace having big thermal mass we have floor heating where the concrete floor is the heat storage (and sometimes extra tank of water)
And every method to make it "better" directly competes with "just buy more solar/battery to run heat pump cheaper.
> and while using large windows to capture sunlight and heat works great in the winter, it also leads to overheating in the summer and thus more energy for air conditioning.
A lot of contemporary energy-efficient designs slope the windows now such that light can enter in the winter but not the summer, but in the past this problem would have been remedied with awnings.
> while using large windows to capture sunlight and heat works great in the winter
That's what awnings (or solar overhangs, or light shelves) are for. You block the high/hot summer sun but let in the low/cool winter sun.
> the idea that it has something to teach modern architects and builders is pure fantasy
Isn't the idea of mcmansions that they co opt smart classic design ideas, but use them in a manner which doesn't let them fulfill their function purpose(skeuomorphism)? So someone certainly has some things to learn
I think the idea with McMansions is that they are just tacky. Poorly aped styles. Columns that don’t do anything and are proportioned wrong for the load they are intended to look like they carry. Complex roofs that do nothing useful but “look fancy”. 100% style over substance, but with style that snooty people look down on.
I imagine that McMansions are generally about as energy efficient (per square foot) as other contemporary homes, though.
> That's what awnings (or solar overhangs, or light shelves) are for.
Right, this is my point. We already think about these things.
> Isn't the idea of mcmansions
I don't think McMansions, or whatever your favorite example of bad architecture is, shows that we've somehow lost knowledge. Architects and builders are aware of all of these things, but that doesn't mean there aren't still clients who want less energy-efficient designs for all sorts of reasons, like aesthetics.
We know how to build energy-efficient buildings that are appropriate for the location and seasons. We also know how to build buildings for other purposes, and are aware of the tradeoffs in how they use more energy. Energy conservation isn't the only goal in home design.
When we lost power for 10 days a few winters back we attempted to use the fire place for heat. It was a fail. Post and beam house (large wide open floor plan) with a large transfer from 1st to 2nd floor, and apprently my lack of skill for optimizing heat over beauty in the fireplace, left us without much of a thermal bump. To this day I swear we were pulling heat out of the chimney faster than we were heating the house; I cooled the house with fire.
To use it effectively you want one with water jacket and just use that hot water with your normal house heating system. You don't need much power to run circulation pump so UPS + some solar panels should be enough even in deep winter. There are also systems that get it out of the exhaust but that doesn't get you much heat storage, just instant heat and generally less efficient.
Old school version of that were masonry stoves that come with ton+ of mass for the bricks and smoke being routed all over (often including a place to sleep) to take as much heat as possible from it.
If I had money for that I'd put a big hot water tank for buffer, heat it normally with heat pump, and just had emergency water-sheathed fireplate, with big buffer you can just fire it up once and have tank slowly give the heat back to the building. Or fire it up at the coldest days to save some heat pump power in days where there is barely any solar.
Yeah, if you actually want to heat the house with fire you’ll want an insert or a wood stove. Otherwise most fireplaces in most houses are decorative, and one pays for that decoration with heat loss.
That’s not uncommon, but having grown up in a house heated by wood fires I knew that when building our current house. The main fireplace is on a central wall and has enormous thermal mass. Beauty and utility can be combined.
Yeah fireplaces don’t make sense to me. Hot air rises and it sucks the existing heated air in the house which all flows out. The only way to heat the space is you need something with a lot of thermal mass that heats up in the process and then radiates heat. So a lot of bricks around the fire, some sort of baffle to enable the heat transfer and a system that sucks in air from the outside.
I like the idea of an outside vent, and unfortunately, I think an insert of some kind. I can't help but first think of the goofy look of a wood fired stove sitting half in and half out of the fireplace. Surrounded by a few tons of river rock. That said, after a couple days of a couple degrees, it's either that or the tent in the basement.
What did you think about the point in the article suggesting millions of people dying on South America caused the earth to cool down due to reforestation absorbing more green house gas. I find this hard to believe.
Yep cheap energy and modern building techniques made us lose a lot of the common sense of yesterday.
Good thing initiatives like the passive house institute are bringing back some of these principles, you can easily cut a modern home heating/cooling needs by 70%+ by following simples rules
Passive house thinking comes from an era of peak oil concerns, no solar, and no heat pumps. None of those conditions holds anymore. Further, passive houses are notorious for overheating and because they’re so airtight they require expensive mechanical ventilation and make-up air systems unless you want indoor air pollution problems.
People building houses today are much better served by spending their money on solar + battery + heat pumps than going passive.
you need FAR less solar+battery for passive house tho. And AC in summer is essentially free. Of course, it all depends on area, if winters barely have any snow and summers are very hot the benefits of very insulated house are much slimmer
The old houses didn't overheat because the floor wasn't insulated all that well so the cold came from below. We could do something similar by just mounting heat pump ground loop under the house, before it is built, but today house developers want it cheap and quick so you pretty much can't find much of that and would have to do it on your own.
Other interesting system is using underground as a way to cool house air intake, just running pipes underground for several metres to get it to cool down in summer and heat up a bit in winter. But again, expensive thing compared to "just add more solar panels/battery storage and let AC handle it"
Solar is still not free or unlimited. A well designed house will be more comfortable and save energy over its whole life while costing a fraction more than a badly designed house.
It's better no matter the heat source really. And it allows you to do without central heating and/or complex heating techs which are more annoying to maintain and replace
> expensive mechanical ventilation
A top of the line heat recovery ventilation unit cost the same as a shit tier air/air heat pump and has no moving parts besides the fans, which are cheap and easy to replace.
You can even make reasonably efficient heat exchangers at home with corrugated plastic sheets...
> because they’re so airtight they require expensive mechanical ventilation and make-up air systems unless you want indoor air pollution problems.
Most modern homes have this issue. Building science has driven them to be air tight bubbles. Look at blower door tests on current construction and a lot of "building science" driven construction.
It's still miles ahead of having literal holes in your window frames to let "fresh air" come in when it's -20c outside.
All you need to do is design a house with a sensible ventilation system, which costs virtually nothing compared to the rest of the building costs. It's even more stupid for americans because they already all have complex ventilation system...
> Fireplaces were strategically arranged so minimal heat would be lost to the outer walls
I'm always a little confused by radiators placed underneath windows in modern buildings. I'm sure it evens out cold spots, but it sends a lot of heat right outside.
This was deliberate engineering to bring in fresh air. After the 1918 Flu, there was a desire for more fresh air inside homes. All of the apartments I lived in Chicago were built decades later, but the radiator layout persists.
Article[0] on it
I’ve heard a story, and I don’t know if it’s an urban legend, that steam heat became popular after the 1918 flu pandemic because it was going to force overheating of units and make people open their windows and let the bad air out.
I’ve never heard it put that way, but the flu pandemic had a huge impact on heating systems, because they actually changed the code requirements for heating systems when the pandemic was around, because they didn’t know what was causing this. They thought there was something in the air that was causing this. And so what they did is they started requiring buildings to be ventilated. Essentially, they changed the requirements for heating buildings so you had to maintain 70 degrees in the building with all the windows open in the sleeping rooms. So people see these great big huge radiators and think that that’s what they have to have in the house. Usually, the reason those radiators are so big is because they had to heat the house with windows open.
It stops drafts from the window before they reach occupants. Yes, it is less efficient in terms of total heat inside the structure, but its more effective at avoiding uncomfortably cold spots, which is (in most places at most times of year) more important, plus, the utility lost to the occupied under-window space is less than the utility that would be lost for the same space elsewhere; the window already limiting alternate uses.
When the cold air coming from the window drops, it pushes the rising hot air out into the room. Overall loss of heat, but feels better for the human occupants long term.
I think a lot of those old central heat systems you couldn't actually control the heat, being able to lose a lot of heat to the window if you wanted was probably a feature. I was watching a video on old soviet blocks in cold areas and it sounded like it really sucked to live too close to the central heater and have to deal with super hot houses
I lived on the top floor of a 12 story dorm with radiators. Everyone on our floor would have the windows open all the time. When it was warm out, we needed any fresh air. When it was cold out, the radiators would be so hot, the fresh air balanced it. Down about 6th floor was nice though.
But, to answer the OP, putting conditioning on the perimiter of the building keeps the interior temperature gradient minimal. If you deliver conditioning to the center of the building, the perimeter approaches outside temperatures (depending) and you have a big gradient and much less comfort. There's also better heat transfer when you deliver conditioning at bigger delta T, which pushes towards the perimeter as well... But it means more ducting/piping. And if you're using fireplaces for heat, it's complex because classically fireplaces pull in air from the conditioned space, and make up air comes from outside, you really want that fire to warm up surfaces to get radiative heat; burying it in the center of the building will be better than having it off in the corner; but it you use outside air for combustion, you can put it on the perimeter.
Brits, Dutch, Belgium, Northern Germany. They all have this incredibly outdated building style that they refuse to change. Bricks with no insulation. I live 1000km to the south of them and it is pretty standard for us to have tripple pane windows and thick insulation on our houses. But they for some reason prefer to live in cold houses during the winter and overheated houses during the summer.
I have had multiple conversations with people who lived a while in that area. Rich, educated countries, modern economies, but they live like they are poor farmers in the 19th century.
This has not been true for at least a decade for dutch buildings: there are strict regulations requiring decent insulation for new buildings. Renovating and insulating old buildings is also encouraged, but not required by law.
British building regs literally require insulation? It is not a law that old builds have to be brought up to code, but there were government schemes where you got free loft and cavity wall insulation in old houses.
I don't think I've ever been in a UK home that didn't have these, except perhaps the electric shower; older homes may still use immersion heating for hot water.
Were you in prison when you experienced the above?
We don't use fireplaces anymore (a major "trick" being to put them in the middle of the house rather than in the exterior walls), and while using large windows to capture sunlight and heat works great in the winter, it also leads to overheating in the summer and thus more energy for air conditioning.
> These are modest changes, imperceptible to most, and they won't enable us to forgo active heating and cooling entirely. But they do echo a way of thinking which, today, is oft ignored. Hardwick Hall was designed with Sun, season and temperature in mind.
Everyone I know who has built a house has thought very much about sun, season and temperature. This is very much a factor in determining the sizes and quantity of windows on south-facing vs. north-facing walls, for example.
Again, it's a very interesting article on this one particular castle, but the idea that it has something to teach modern architects and builders is pure fantasy. We're already well aware of all these factors and how they interact with materials and design.
All architects think about siting and solar exposure. But the builders are in charge, and they optimize for what the market responds to -- which does not always include factors like these which contribute to long-term comfort and livability.
So I would say that consumers could learn a thing or two. That said, most buyers are not buying newly-built homes, so their ability to influence the inclusion of some of these features are limited.
The industry is downstream of market demands. If customers aren't aware enough to demand smart things, builders will skip them to save money, or to optimize for more visible features. Same old story.
Making what's essentially "an insulated box" is far more universal climate-wise than most of the old methods, because what's good in summer (north-facing windows, good airflow, getting some cold from the ground) is terrible for winter and vice versa. And where it is useful, it IS used, just instead of fireplace having big thermal mass we have floor heating where the concrete floor is the heat storage (and sometimes extra tank of water)
And every method to make it "better" directly competes with "just buy more solar/battery to run heat pump cheaper.
A lot of contemporary energy-efficient designs slope the windows now such that light can enter in the winter but not the summer, but in the past this problem would have been remedied with awnings.
That's what awnings (or solar overhangs, or light shelves) are for. You block the high/hot summer sun but let in the low/cool winter sun.
> the idea that it has something to teach modern architects and builders is pure fantasy
Isn't the idea of mcmansions that they co opt smart classic design ideas, but use them in a manner which doesn't let them fulfill their function purpose(skeuomorphism)? So someone certainly has some things to learn
I imagine that McMansions are generally about as energy efficient (per square foot) as other contemporary homes, though.
Right, this is my point. We already think about these things.
> Isn't the idea of mcmansions
I don't think McMansions, or whatever your favorite example of bad architecture is, shows that we've somehow lost knowledge. Architects and builders are aware of all of these things, but that doesn't mean there aren't still clients who want less energy-efficient designs for all sorts of reasons, like aesthetics.
We know how to build energy-efficient buildings that are appropriate for the location and seasons. We also know how to build buildings for other purposes, and are aware of the tradeoffs in how they use more energy. Energy conservation isn't the only goal in home design.
Old school version of that were masonry stoves that come with ton+ of mass for the bricks and smoke being routed all over (often including a place to sleep) to take as much heat as possible from it.
If I had money for that I'd put a big hot water tank for buffer, heat it normally with heat pump, and just had emergency water-sheathed fireplate, with big buffer you can just fire it up once and have tank slowly give the heat back to the building. Or fire it up at the coldest days to save some heat pump power in days where there is barely any solar.
And here's more info on The Little Ice Age: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
Debatable as to whether solar activity was a contributor to The Little Ice Age.
Good thing initiatives like the passive house institute are bringing back some of these principles, you can easily cut a modern home heating/cooling needs by 70%+ by following simples rules
People building houses today are much better served by spending their money on solar + battery + heat pumps than going passive.
The old houses didn't overheat because the floor wasn't insulated all that well so the cold came from below. We could do something similar by just mounting heat pump ground loop under the house, before it is built, but today house developers want it cheap and quick so you pretty much can't find much of that and would have to do it on your own.
Other interesting system is using underground as a way to cool house air intake, just running pipes underground for several metres to get it to cool down in summer and heat up a bit in winter. But again, expensive thing compared to "just add more solar panels/battery storage and let AC handle it"
It's better no matter the heat source really. And it allows you to do without central heating and/or complex heating techs which are more annoying to maintain and replace
> expensive mechanical ventilation
A top of the line heat recovery ventilation unit cost the same as a shit tier air/air heat pump and has no moving parts besides the fans, which are cheap and easy to replace.
You can even make reasonably efficient heat exchangers at home with corrugated plastic sheets...
Which brings us to next interesting problem - you would think that ERV should be built-in into modern cooling/heating systems, but it’s no the case.
Most modern homes have this issue. Building science has driven them to be air tight bubbles. Look at blower door tests on current construction and a lot of "building science" driven construction.
All you need to do is design a house with a sensible ventilation system, which costs virtually nothing compared to the rest of the building costs. It's even more stupid for americans because they already all have complex ventilation system...
I'm always a little confused by radiators placed underneath windows in modern buildings. I'm sure it evens out cold spots, but it sends a lot of heat right outside.
Article[0] on it
[0] https://www.chicagomag.com/city-life/a-history-of-radiators-...Edit: switched out to different article focused on Chicago
But, to answer the OP, putting conditioning on the perimiter of the building keeps the interior temperature gradient minimal. If you deliver conditioning to the center of the building, the perimeter approaches outside temperatures (depending) and you have a big gradient and much less comfort. There's also better heat transfer when you deliver conditioning at bigger delta T, which pushes towards the perimeter as well... But it means more ducting/piping. And if you're using fireplaces for heat, it's complex because classically fireplaces pull in air from the conditioned space, and make up air comes from outside, you really want that fire to warm up surfaces to get radiative heat; burying it in the center of the building will be better than having it off in the corner; but it you use outside air for combustion, you can put it on the perimeter.
I have had multiple conversations with people who lived a while in that area. Rich, educated countries, modern economies, but they live like they are poor farmers in the 19th century.
Were you in prison when you experienced the above?