Started New House

[mjncad]

mjncad, I attached a pdf floor plan. It's funny the liberals here think California is "cutting edge" When it's broke, bad schools, bad crime, bad roads, but hey it has a bullet train and extreme envrionmental regulations.. The are proud to be leading the country in Env. regulation.

Here's another one for you, it's required I use floresent lighting in the home, even though I am 100% off grid and generate my own power!!!

Thanks for the floor plan, and it's a nice clean design. At the risk of spending your money, have you thought about extending the covered patio on the west side to shade the other two bedrooms from the hot summer sun? Another thought I had concerns the French doors; have you considered being unconventional and have them swing out like doors on commercial buildings do? This would give you more flexibility in placing furniture. You still have your traffic patterns; but the door leaf won't be entering them or banging into your furniture. If I ever replace the two sliding patio doors in our Great Room, it will be with French doors or a large single leaf door and fixed light that open outward instead of inward.

I'm not surprised concerning the fluorescent lighting. We have CFL floodlights in the kitchen and my only complaint with them is that they are dim until they warm up. At least they aren't making you put in the overpriced LED lamps...yet! I better not gripe to much as I don't want your thread shutdown because I got on my soapbox concerning Gummint interference. Feel free to PM me if you need or want to gripe about what the bureaucrats are forcing you to do.

Looking forward to seeing more pix as your home progresses.

 

[dave1949]

For off-grid power, I would think CFL's are a blessing, even if mandated. Real Goods estimates solar electric at $7.25 per watt installed. For every CFL or LED light that saves 40 watts/hour compared to an incandescent, that has to add up to big savings on your panel and battery sizing - at least for the lighting portion of your total load.

Silver lining
Dave.

 

[eepete]

One of the problems with CFLs is that they have bad power factor and harmonic distortion. Like the power supplies on PCs and TVs, the AC goes into a bridge rectifier that only draws current at the peak of the cycle. Capacitors are then charged, and then circuitry runs the device, be it the bulb or PC. So unlike an incandescent bulb, which draws power throughout the entire AC cycle and in perfect phase with the voltage, CFLs draw current at the peaks and somewhat out of phase due to the capacitor. Led lights have the same issues since they too must turn AC into DC.

The inverter in a battery or solar cell system really wants to see a resistive load, like an incandescent bulb. When a CFL has a rating like 13 watts, that is an average power rating. Think "If I were just making heat, what would I get". But the peak power drawn at the peak of the cycle is closer to 25 to 30 watts. So while it's a good deal for the end user paying an electric bill (where you pay for energy as if all loads were restive), the power generation ability needed to drive that 13W bulb is closer to 30 watts due to the peak current and problems cause by the power factor (phase relationship between the voltage and current). The folks passing all the CFL laws are generally unaware that the reduction in power plant requirements is less than they think. The CFL manufacturers (along with PC and TV makers) are working to minimize these effects, but it cost money. A little extra cost can be absorbed on a PC or TV, but it's rough on a light bulb.

Now it will all work because even with a bunch of lights on, the TV running, and the computer going, the total power for all this "bad load" will be under 400 watts, so a 4KW inverter can hack it. The key concept here is that in an off grid scenario, incandescent isn't necessarily evil. It's more power to run them, but easier on the inverter. CFLs save on system size, but when you are selecting the size of your inverter, count each CFL you think you'd have on at a time at twice it's rated wattage for the purpose of sizing the inverter. Adding 1 KW to the inverter size would be safe enough to compensate for all this. This should not be a big impact on your panel or battery sizing.

CFLs get very hot at the base. They were designed for incandescent replacements in table lamps where the bulb points up. With inverted use, such as a can light, the base gets very hot and the bulbs last about as long as an incandescent instead of the 5,000 hours often advertised. Fixture design is not evolving to deal with CFLs. So when selecting you light fixtures, consider using more sconces where the bulb is upright or on it's side and has lots of air that can pass by it. That way, you'll get the full life out of the bulb. You can google for problems with CFL overheating to find out more about this.

Now what's really crazy is that the two best candidates for lighting really want to run on DC, and in true form the people of the world can't agree on how to distribute DC in a house. Standards are a known point from which everyone can deviate, and creating them is difficult because everyone wants to have their product or patent be used instead of doing what is best for the world in the long run.

BTW, cool house and great thread, thanks for the posts!

Pete

 

[EddieWalker]

CFLs get very hot at the base. They were designed for incandescent replacements in table lamps where the bulb points up. With inverted use, such as a can light, the base gets very hot and the bulbs last about as long as an incandescent instead of the 5,000 hours often advertised.

Pete,

Thanks for this information. I didn't know this, and you post is perfect timing for me. I'm building a Cupola tomorrow if the weather permits, and I'll be mounting a light fixture inside of it. It's well vented, but I still want to keep it as cool as possible. I was going to mount it so the bulb was facing down just to make it a bit easier to change the bulb. Now I'm going to mount it witht the bulb up. It will be easier for me to do it this way, but a tiny bit harder to change the bulb.

Eddie

 

[dave1949]

Thanks for that tech info eepete. I know CFL's get hot - and I'm glad you explained why, because I always thought there is no way 13W can generate that much heat on an object of that size. I've put the KillAWatt on them even trying to figure it out. The KillAWatt reads about the rated wattage, of course it's not an oscilloscope which I guess is what would be needed to see what is really happening.

Most CFL's I have seem to be lasting a long time, a few have been early life failures. Had one that the bulb disconnected from the base and was hanging by electro guts. I estimate some of my bulbs have around 2300 hours on them now, so the jury is still voting

I don't follow solar electric in any detail now. I looked at it very closely when we were planning our house 4-5 years ago. I know some people were running dual AC/DC systems using the DC for lighting primarily. I think you will pay more for (purchase) any DC running appliance compared to AC.
Dave.

 

[saltman]

mjncad one of the things you can't see in the photo is a 100ft hill on the hill. The summer sun goes behind this hill a few hours before it getting dark. Having said that it would be nice to shade those rooms but I don't think a covered patio would be the way to go since there is no access to the patio unless I put exterior doors in every room or if you walked around the house. I have seen porches that wrap around the entire house but for me, I already have 700 sq feet of patio and don't really need any more.

I considered having the doors open to the outside but because of extreme winds and the size of the dining room I decided against it.

On the CFL's I was going to use them anyway but found it offensive that the County would dictate to me what I had to use for power conservation when I am generating my own power. Being a small business owner and now building a house I see so much control by our governement with little or no benefit to the majority of the population.

Thanks Pete, I think after your post I will not use the CFL's on the exterior lighting and the other lights that will be on for short periods of time.

 

[eepete]

Yeah, the can-light problem is a lesson learned the hard way. 115 cans can't be all wrong .

When I build in 2006, all this was not quite well known. I'm very glad I put sconces in the halls and up high in the TV room for low background lighting (use 7W CFLS equivalent to 25W incandescence). I've had to replace the kitchen 23W CFLs with 60W incandescents. If you look at the base of a CFL in can use, they go from white to dark yellow in a hurry. I've left in the 13W bulbs, pulled all the 23W and replaced with incandescent. Some measurements put the exterior of the base at 160 F, making the interior up in the 190 to 200F range. I also used the $18 a pop shiny reflecting air tight trim kits, which make things much worse. Small volume and no air flow. In the closets and showers, I used the bathroom trim kits which are just a plastic lens flush fit against the drywall. The 13W and 23W bulbs do OK since there is more air space in the can and a few slots and holes to help ventilate. But with no reflection (the can is aluminum, but it doesn't reflect like the shiny trim kits) I had to go to a 23W bulb to get the same light as a 13W in a reflective kit. So that's 50W of impact on the power plant vs. a 60W incandescent bulb. Works economically for me because I'm paying for 23 watts of power. Bases are not too discolored so I should get some nice long life out of them and the associated economic benefits including recouping the higher bulb costs.

In my work room, I changed the cans that are on all day long by putting in one of those extenders that creates 2 outlets where you screw in the bulb. This makes the bulb stick out of the fixture a bit and helps with the temperature (i have a temp probe I used to check this out). The aesthetics police wound't like this arrangement, but it works. Only to be use in shop like environments where you are stuck with can lights.

Two more lighting related ideas that are good and score high on the spousal approval system: In the bedrooms, I put the digital dimers on one can over the bed, with a switch as you enter the room and a switch you can reach from the bed. These are stock big box store Lutron dimmers. You have a good reading light, you can enter the room and then turn off the light from the bed, and when you have to get up in the middle of the night you don't have to go from groggy to 6 suns of brightness. These dimmers also ramp up the intensity, so the bulb life should be fantastic.
The 2nd thing I did was put outlets in halls so that I could put in the outlets that have a built in LED night light (also a box store item you can get). CdS photocell turns them off in the day. Also have 2 in the bathroom (they will work on a GFI circuit) and that's all you need there in the night. It looks odd to see outlets in the hall, but it's a big win.

I also put "12V" (really 13.8 battery voltage) LED emergency lights in, the lights are home brew. The main room also has LED up lighting. Cool effect, not cheap, home-brew board for that too. All that is controlled by the automation system.

saltman: Like most florescence, CFLs are kinda like well pumps. Run forever but only start so many times. So for short term use the economic benefit is lower. Where they shine (so the speak) is the hall or kitchen light you leave on all night, and this is where the sconce with a vertical bulb, open at the top, ventilation holes in the bottom is great. Note you can start with CFLs and transition to incandescence as they fail. You may find that some last longer than you'd expect and opt to keep with the CFL.
Also, not all brands are alike. I wish I had bought all Sylvania, GE or Phillips brand, not the unknown big box store brands. The flood light CFLs, if they are in an open fixture where it's just the socket with no "hood" over the bulb, are OK for outdoor use since the base and electronics is siting in the open air all the time. I've had problems when they were on a pole in the open due to water getting into the plastic dome over the "spring bulb", but they've been good where they are protected under an overhang. Note also that all my exterior flood lights on the house are right next to a window so they can be changed without a ladder. I'm not getting any younger....

Pete

 

[saltman]

Electrician was there today and will be done on Monday. HVAC guys also on site today and will finish Monday. Plumbers are a no show, they did the vent lines and drilled all the holes in the studs but that was it.

I am ordering cabinets tomorrow and picking up my shower pan. Using Marblestone in both bathrooms on the walls around the tub and shower.

Here is another photo, not much has changed on the outside other than I primed the fascia last weekend.

Recieved all my solar except the batteries so I'll be putting that in the next few weeks.

 

[EddieWalker]

Are you using PEX for your water lines? That makes it easier to work around the other things in your walls. Usually I like to get the plumbing done before the electrical because it's allot easier to move the wires around then it is to move the pipes around.

Are you doing a home theater? What about some conduit to run your wires from the TV to the components?

Eddie

 

[scgargoyle]

Really interesting info on the CFL's. Obviously, incandescents are better for some applications (like keeping baby chicks warm) and the applications you cited. One question- Where are we gonna get 'em once the PTB make them unavailable, which is just a few years away? Maybe I need to start hoarding them....