Do it Yourself: Re: [DIY] Just an after thought:

15 January 2013

Re: [DIY] Just an after thought:

Living in a fairly new house these days, with
radiant floors. A number of windows include small air
leak vents. Probably a certain amount of air leaks around
doors, especially since there are several double/french doors.
Built with the whole "build it as air tight as possible, but
wait, codes require certain air exchange"

Yeah, as soon as the weather is nice, opening up windows for
"spring airing out".

Air tight wood stove draws in combustion air from the crawl space.
9 foot high ceiling probably help provide extra volume of air,
and little less cabin fever.

Thought about an air heat exchanger, but mostly just keep bedroom
window ajar.

Gas stove and dryer in main living space.
Gas water heater in separate, vented space.

Would be interesting to do this test on our house.

dave
On 01/12/2013 02:49 PM, Dale S wrote:
>
>
> *While watching an episode of "This Old House" last night I noticed they
> now have a new structural integrity test that they can run on a
> completed home. In this instance an exhaust fan was installed in the
> front doorway and the CFM of the exhaust air was measured to determine
> how draft tight the overall structure was. This was a large three story
> home with a full basement and they drew less than 2,000 cfm which is
> pretty low. This tells me that the natural flow of fresh air through
> that house with all the windows and doors shut in the fall and winter
> months would be like living in a walk-in refrigerator with a furnace.
> There seemed to be some implications that this might become a standard
> test on future homes to determine FHA saleability. I begin to wonder
> whether cooking and heating with gas would even be safe or whether the
> build up of CO and depletion of oxygen might become a problem. A local
> family was very nearly killed a few years ago when a forced draft
> furnace created enough back draft to fill the house with smoke and co
> from the smoldering embers in a fireplace, and a gas fired water heater.
> *
> *--
> Dale in the Flatlands. *
>

--
Dave Uebele (daveu@sptddog.com)