Forget Heat Pumps - This House Cools Itself With NO Electricity!

so i recently traveled to ireland home of green fields cloudy skies pasty skin and very very old buildings from neolithic tombs called dolmen like this one named paul nebron dates back to over six thousand years to tower houses that would display the wealth and opulence of celtic chieftains everywhere you look are reminders that as long as there have been humans we've been building buildings and it's only in the last 100 years or so that we've used electricity to heat and cool these buildings so there's only two options one that humans were miserably uncomfortable for thousands of years up until very very recently in our history or two they found ways to build their homes so that they could be comfortable without electricity i don't think the first one is true yes we have a lot more comforts than we used to but i think that the human desire for comfort probably existed before electricity so how did they do it how did they build for comfort without using any electrical or mechanical means and in a day and age with temperatures higher than ever and our grids are tested to the breaking point what can we learn from that [Music] by the way the worst power outage in u.s history was the northeast blackout in 1965. it prompted new federal regulations that ensured the nation's power grid would be reliable but in texas it's run by ercot ercot stands for the electric reliability council of texas which sounds sarcastic to even say right now not to be confused with epcot epcot's a totally different thing ercot was formed in 1970 and it manages the texas power grid uh beyond the federal energy regulatory commission's jurisdiction now not all of texas falls into ercot's control there are some parts that are on the national grid but for the most part if you live in texas you live with ercot's grid and as we enter the second summer after that incident we're still dealing with the threat of rolling blackouts and shutdowns and failures why because the equipment is old and there's a bunch of politics and money exchanging hands that's too much to get into with this video but texas isn't alone when it comes to concerns about the power of grid because the use of electricity all across the country is on the rise you know the more we turn away from fossil fuels and toward electricity to power our homes the power grid is going to continue to be pushed to the limit so one thing a lot of people are talking about right now is a heat pump which basically moves heat from a cool space to a warm space so the pump makes the cool space cooler and the warm space warmer basically it transfers heat instead of generating it the netherlands government is on board banning fossil fuel heating by 2026 and mandating the use of a hybrid heat pump the government said this could lead to a savings average of 60 on natural gas consumption but even still these heat pumps run on electricity so yeah i'll ask it again how did they do this before electricity people lived in uncomfortable climates and places for a long time were they just miserable no they weren't miserable they were clever and they devised some really interesting ways of of living comfortably really simple ways some of these are really cool let's start with wind catchers the city of yaz in central iran has the most wind catchers in the world the city also includes other heat-beating structures like an underground refrigeration structure called a yak shawl and an underground irrigation system called canuts wind catchers are often rectangular but can be circular octagonal square or other shapes here's how they work two main forces drive air through and down into the housing structure these are the incoming wind and the change in the air's buoyancy depending on the temperature the wind catcher catches the air funnels it down into the dwelling below and then deposits any debris or sand at the tower's foot it then flows throughout the structure's interior sometimes over subterranean water pools for further cooling warm deer eventually rises and leaves the tower through another tower or opening aided by the pressure in the structure according to researchers using wind to cool structures goes all the way back to egypt about 3000 years ago there the structures had thick walls few windows that face the sun and openings that let the wind end it out in the desert regions of north america native americans would either live in caves or build homes with thick adobe walls up against the sides and mountains to stay cool on the flip side of that the inuit people would construct igloos to stay warm in the arctic regions igloos stay warm because the snow walls are good insulators these help keep in body heat and the generated heat by oil lamps of the inuit used for cooking and socializing and traditional igloos are usually made out of snow since solid ice doesn't retain heat as well as compressed snow and the inu would usually keep on their fur line clothes while they were inside the igloo during the day and then at night they would sleep and wrapped in heavy furs to stay warm so yeah for thousands of years people figured out ways to stay cool or stay warm without the need for electricity now i know electricity is great it's brought us a lot of wonderful things none of us want to live without it but what if you could slash your home's use of it by up to 90 percent and still be comfortable that's the idea behind passive housing now while the word housing is in the phrase the concept can apply to a variety of structures apartment buildings industrial facilities retail stores schools etc in fact passive housing works better for larger structures because they have more efficient geometries as the structure gets bigger the ratio of its surface area to volume decreases and this increases its efficiency now there are two different and independent passive house certifications and standards there's a german-based passive house institute that administers one and the us-based passive house institute that administers the other but don't be confused the passive house institute has nothing to do with the passivhaus institute they're they're two different things each group offers certifications net zero options and a retrofit certification both also have standards that are grounded in building science and physics require practitioners to use a common suite of design principles to achieve targets and focus on three performance metrics those metrics are building air tightness thermal energy demand and total energy demand the main difference between the two standards comes down to performance targets based on the climate of the project's site for example phi has the same cooling and heating load demand criteria for climates around the world except for a dehumidification demand is dependent on climate but phi us has climate-specific targets that are tailored to their locales there are five fundamental design principles behind passive housing including airtight construction continuous insulation filtered fresh air with heat recovery high performance doors and windows and thermal bridge free design and these are followed by five secondary principles including building orientation daylighting and solar gain efficient water heating and distribution moisture management and shading a saving electricity isn't the only benefit to all this there's also a lot of it that comes down to filtered airflow and they do this through a balanced ventilation systems which don't just keep the house cool it also prevents mold and mildew from arising passive housing structures are also quiet have no dust keep bugs outside eliminate moisture and odors are durable and are more affordable in the long run here in dallas the first passive house went on the market in 2018. it was a 300 square meter home with two levels it also had a water harvesting system and 4.8 kilometers of buried tubes in the yard that acted as an irrigation soaker system with no roll-off the house was pre-wired for solar panels and it made use of smart technology to control household functions so yeah passive houses pretty cool um there are some disadvantages though the main one is probably the upfront cost which can be 20 to 30 higher than traditional construction although ideally you would make that cost back in the savings and electrical bills over a few years and passive housing construction can also be challenging in places with really hot summers or really cold winters in fact for a lot of places probably dallas included it might be necessary to have a backup cooling and heating system builders may also need to have lots of insulation to stay below the limit of 15 kilowatt hours per year window areas may be limited because the required energy performance standards also those windows used have to be a low e coating and triple glazing which is more expensive now another thing to consider is whether or not a passive house will retain its value local property values and politics need to be thought of as well you know for some locations having a passive house would be super cool super hot hot and cool whatever but you know other places might not really care about it they might be indifferent or even show content for these types of houses but if you are interested in designing a new home or retrofitting an old home to conform with passive house ideologies i'll put some links to some places down below that can at least get you started maybe you can even find somebody in your neck of the woods that can help you out now before we go another little thing that's interesting to talk about in terms of like how we can passively cool and heat structures is biomimicry i talked about biomimicry a while back it's basically taking design principles from nature so one place that might be a good example of it is the eastgate center in harare zimbabwe designed by architect mick pierce the country's largest office and shopping complex has no conventional air conditioning or heating but still it stays a consistent temperature year round and that's because this design was inspired by termite mounds okay so here's the deal termite mounds have tiny holes in them and this basically allows the air to flow through it freely it basically operates like a lung it just inhales and exhales throughout the day as the temperature rises and falls and the eastgate center works in the same way outside air is drawn in through low powered fans and that air is then cooled or worn by the building's mass depending on the temperature of either the concrete or the air this air is invented through the buildings floors and offices before leaving through chimneys at the top and pierce included jagged stone on the building's facade that's meant to sort of emulate cactus prickles this isn't just a design thing it turns out that pointy surfaces have greater surface area than flat ones so they absorb less heat and they also radiate that heat out more easily keeping the building cooler because of all this the building can stay between 28 degrees celsius during the day and 14 degrees celsius at night and it does all of this using less than 35 percent of the energy of similar buildings in the country it literally doesn't have an air conditioning system and because of that the building's owners have saved at least 3.5 million dollars and the tenant's rents are 20 lower than the other buildings in the area another example of a building taking its cues from nature to help stay naturally cool or warm is the gherkin in london this was designed by norman foster based on sea anemones and sponges the building cylindrical shape allows wind to flow quickly around it and drive wind through the structure center to keep it cool then you have the spring mountain's visitor gateway in the humboldt toyabi national forest headquarters in nevada this structure uses several biomimetic elements in its design like highly efficient radiant heating tubes that move cool and warm liquid to different areas of the building which is similar to the ears of the black-tailed jackrabbit it's pretty cool jackrabbits have gigantic ears and they use these huge ears to pump blood through and help cool them off and this works on the same principle so i get into this because i think it's really cool you know just using nature to find simple solutions but it's also really important according to the north american electric reliability corporation we might be running into some problems pretty soon they released their summer reliability assessment for 2022 in may and it warned of a high risk of failure throughout the midwest while texas and the western u.s are at an elevated risk according to the nerc director john mora quote it's a sobering report it's clear the risks are spreading and the pace of our grid transformation is a bit out of sync with the underlying realities in the physics of the system it's a warning we should probably pay attention to because this problem is only going to get worse humans live for thousands of years without electricity by being clever let's face it we've gotten kind of lazy over the last hundred years but we seem to be making our way back to clever heat pumps are all the rage right now they're pretty clever so it'll be interesting to see how far our cleverness can take us so people ask me all the time like what's the best way to support the channel you know between say patreon or channel memberships or or just watching the ads and that kind of thing and honestly i think the best way to support the channel is to support our sponsors because when you sign up for a sponsor it kind of increases the value of the channel and that kind of lifts everything and that's especially true for today's sponsor because i kind of helped build today's sponsor anyway i'm talking about nebula so you've heard me talk about nebula for a while now it's usually paired with the curiosity stream bundle but today i just want to talk about nebula classes you know those um other platforms where famous people teach you how to do what they do well have you ever wondered what it would be like if classes were taught by your favorite youtubers because that's exactly what nebula classes is yeah we've been working on this thing for well over a year now it just recently launched it's the biggest expansion of nebula so far and we're all really excited about it the classes are super high quality they're shot at nebula studios in new york and in them you can learn about music production from amy nolte video animation from volksgeist architecture from bright trip communication techniques from wendover productions there's business classes tech classes mental health classes you can even learn how to sue like a lawyer with legal eagle he will not teach you how to get such an impressive jawline i keep asking he won't tell me anyway they're releasing a new class every week there's already a pretty impressive library on there and there are also nebula talks which are kind of like ted talks from your favorite creators i've actually got one that just launched it's about how manifesting is but it still kind of works basically i talk about how you can sort of hack your brain to find opportunities that can get you closer to the dream life you've always wanted it kind of takes the woo-woo out of the whole thing and shows how some of the practices involved in manifesting are still pretty helpful so watch my talk and you'll learn how to manifest a passive house it doesn't work that way but i think it's interesting and i hope you like it maybe the classes are on top of the regular nebula subscription that gives you access to all of our content early and ad-free including nebula originals that you can't find anywhere else if you're already subscribed there it's five dollars a month if you're not already subscribed it's eight dollars a month for the whole thing nebula classes nebula originals nebula everything or if you're feeling saucy it's 80 for the whole year so basically two months free so if you're interested just go to nebula classes.com joe scott and it's all yours the the whole kingdom um no it really is the best way to support this channel or any creators that you might follow that are on there you know having our own platform outside of youtube is just a nice little fail safe because well you never know anyway it's nebulaclasses.com joe scott link's down below hope you enjoy it big thanks to the answer files the patreon supporters that help keep this channel afloat they are forming an awesome community i cannot thank you guys enough i got some names to shout out real quick we've got kelly woody bum bum mcpoopy fart face congratulations you got me to say it jb funk james presing george branca john engel johnny sibley jim caulfield passion george shaharabazid and edgar ciscovis yeah thank you guys so much if you would like to join them and get early access to videos and access to live streams that are exclusive to patreon and members only just go to patreon.com answerswithjoe please do like and share this video if you liked it and this is your first time here maybe check this one out because google thinks you'll like that one or look at any of them over here on the sidebar they have my face on them and uh yeah give them a look if you like them i invite you to subscribe because i come back with videos every monday all right that's it for now you guys go out there have an eye opening rest of the week stay safe and i'll see you next monday love you guys take care

Channel: Joe Scott

Views: 550,228

Keywords: answers with joe, joe scott

Id: UB_ima2t_xU

Length: 14min 21sec (861 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 11 2022