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The Building Envelope
Clip Transcript For:
The Building Envelope
computer-generated transcript - may not be 100% accurate
" We've come to the desert Palm Springs, California to build our energy wise house, and boy, what a place. This is a place of extremes, so it's a place where all sorts of building technology can be put to the test. Steve Easley, who's the building consultant is gonna help us understand some of the materials that are being used here. So let's get started talking about the building envelope of this house Steve. This is probably the 1st line of defense against the"
" Get them off a flatbed truck, tampering puts them in place, and you can build a house very quickly."
" If you don't have the typical framing on a normal home, about 20% of the whole surface area of the home has all the wood parts."
" Uh hmm."
" With this, as you can see, it's all insulation, and where it gets its strength is that these panels are actually glued to the polystyrene, so it's very, very strong. You can use it to make these floor panels and even roof panels with a span of 130 feet."
" What's the R factor here?"
" Just about 19, Bob."
" Power 19. Now, there are other areas of the house that we'll see where you couldn't build it with a zit kind"
" materials, but the process is unique in the sense that it gives you a very uniform strong, as you can see, connection between all these fibers, and what makes it insulated is it's ability to trap air. This is about our 19th."
" Already 19th, but this is not a 6-inch bath. This is just a regular 312 for [unk]."
" Actually, this here is about a 512-inch bath when expanded."
" I see."
" This came out of the packing so it still will compress."
" I see."
" It will grow as time goes by."
" I see. Well, that's pretty great."
" Now, another part of the building envelope that's very, very important and crucial is the windows, and when we're building in the desert, you want views, but you also wanna prevent a lot of hot air from coming in and thus the rays of the sun etc., so my favorite term, fenestration, with the location of the windows, the placement of the windows, is an important part."
" Absolutely. Well, in this home, most of the glass faces north. Very little east and west, but the glass, it does face east and west. It's a real high-performance window product. This is actually a triple pane window, but really what makes it unique, it's got several layers of low-e coating,"
" from the sun that strike that glass. It's a 4th of a typical home's air conditioner. So being able to block the radiant energy from the sun is really job 1, because in California, and most homes in the United States,"
" Uh hmm."
" about 45% of a home's designed cooling load is just heat gave to the glass."
" And if your electricity is expensive if it is out here, this is very important stuff."
" Very, very. So it really make sense to buy the highest-performance window as possible. There's an important number on this NFRC label,"
" Uh hmm."
" National Fenestration Rating Council label, and it's a youth"
" is very effective."
" Yeah, this is a radiant barrier sheathing----"
" Such as a roof sheathing, right?"
" Yes. In the guesthouse here, this product is applied here. What's interesting about it is that it goes down with the roof sheathing, and a very simple application. As the sun's energy strikes the roof, it absorbs that heat, and of course, it wants to be re-radiated into the home, which makes the home hot. This product reduces the temperature in the attic by as much as 30 degrees. It can basically provide you about an 8% to 12% savings on your energy cost."
" That's a great idea"
" And it's got perforations in it so that any moisture that does build up in an attic or space can, you know, be absorbed and pass through the boards."
" Great."
