Installing an air condenser on ICF foundation
ontariomom
11 years ago
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audiomixer
11 years agoontariomom
11 years agoRelated Discussions
ICF Construction
Comments (3)dreambuilder- I am not sure of your climate, but flg makes some good points. However, here are things to consider: First off, the biggest goals for me in construction was the shell. I am in a heating dominate climate zone 6, with heat degree days of 7200. Typical ICF performs well in heating climates, but the faulty claims of "added r value" due to mass is simply not true for heating climates. In cooling climates, or climates where the diurnal tempertures stays above and below the interior house temp, then the concrete creates a buffering effect, thus the claims of added "r" value due to decreased temp swings (ok ok, its not r value at all, but typically a calculated u value, but I am keeping it simple here). With that being said, why would I chose it for heating climates. Well, you still get a constant steady state r value of the EPS foam. EPS foam also increases slightly in performance as temps drop oddly enough. Even if you go with a "standard" stacked horizontal block, you are still hitting a constant (continuous) r of around 24. This is important, especially when comparing to frame construction. Take a code min. 2x6 framed wall with crappy batts. The batts, advertised, gets you an r19. We all know this is not true. With perfect install (never happens) they are lucky to get near that. So you have an r19 (at best wall, already r5 below ICF) now factor in your studs every 16", headers, corners, etc. This is your framing loss factor, and its typically around 20%. This is almost an r4 whole wall hit to your structure. Your total wall r value drops to around 15. Again, ICF is now near an r10 higher since there is no studs or anything to interrupt the constant EPS foam. You can reduce the framing loss factor by adding exterior foam board sheathing, ranging from 1" at r5 and up. This boosts your cavity area up to r24 and your stud area up to r6. Your framing factor reduces quite a bit, but your whole wall r value is still around r20, again still under ICF. Now the big kicker...add in the natural air tighness of ICF and framing as a lot of work to do. You need to caulk and tape any and all joints between studs, sheathing sill plates, top plates, windows, etc. All are places for air to get through. With ICF, you focus around doors and windows as well as the roof connection. Concrete also will not move as noted over time. Wind blows and racks the wood framing. The tape can pull off over the sears, caulk and stretch, shrink and lose bond. Your efforts to create the air tight wood framing is unknown in 5 years. Depending on how you do it, you can hang your floor structure off of the basement walls. This is how I am doing it. So it is constant concrete and foam from footer to roof. No band joists areas for bugs, spiders, mold, dirt, etc. you also have some additional grading flexibility since technically you can run your grade and waterproofing above your floor line if needed for whatever reason. You also add in the storm protection, quietness, and fire protection. Depending on your location and insurance, you could get a deduct on home owners because of it. On my specific project, since super insulation was a goal, I got about as close as I could get on ICF. My forms are vertical forms with an average r value of 28. I was originally going to do double stud wall framing at an r40(whole wall r36) but decided on ICF for many of the reasons above. Running load calcs, the BTU hit in my climate between r40 and r28 was only about 1400 BTU. Total load for 3600 sqft condition (half below grade) is only 24k. 2x6 framing would require at least double that. This has upfront cost reductions in hvac equipment. However it would be unfair to claim the BTU load is due to ICF, because there is a lot more to it than that. The design is heavily influences by solar temporing, and my glass is tuned to account for around 25% of the heat for the winter. Combine that with subslab basement insulation, r60 insulated attic, triple pane windows with u values at .22 and lower and placed only where needed (and only casements when needed, otherwise stick with fixed for air tightness), it all adds up to create the total package. For people who claim there is no payback, let me put it this way, in clear dollars. No one knows what energy costs will do to be in the upcoming years, however we do know they will keep going up. That is a given. Prelim energy audits and modeling is showing a total cost of conditioning (heating and cooling, over 12 months) will cost around $360. For easy math, that averages $30 a month to heat and cool 3600 sqft where temps get well below 0. My previous 1200 sqft 2x4 home cost $130/month just in gas with a new 97% furnace. Now lets add in rebates from local utility companies. I will get around $6k back in rebates from various utilities from appliances to Energy Star 3.0 ratings. That right there covers the upfront cost dfference. I am already a net below before I even factor in monthly energy savings. A wood framed house would not have qualified for the rebates unless a lot of extra work and exterior foam was added, which costs almost as much as the ICF did to begin with. As far as your concerns, dont have any. Pouring the foam walls is not much different the pouring the formed basement walls. They can add water to that just as they can ICF. However any experienced ICF crew knows adding more water increases the change of a blow out, so they tend to not do so. A 4 or 5 slump is plenty to fill the forms depending on the aggregate. Mine was a 5 slump with 3/8 chip mix. I personally filled the walls with no issues at all. THe biggest reason ICF has not taken off is it costs money. Not too many people care about their shell of their home unfortunately. My opinion is the shell is the only place that will ever give you payback. The shell is the area that protects you and your belongings. Why not put your money there? Make it the best, tightest, and most efficient you can. Do not rely on high dollar HVAC equipment for efficiency. It costs far less to boost shell performance with non mechanical items that can not go bad and need service in 5 years. ICF costs around 5-8% more than a typical code min. 2x6 framed house. This is quite small IMO. Some people spend this much on counter tops in their kitchen. check out my blog and follow it throughout the construction phase if you would like. Also read more about the design, solar design, wall sections, etc. Here is a link that might be useful: ICF house blog...See MoreI completed my DIY Air Handler Installation
Comments (10)Day 4 Update: I'm well into phase 2 which is the heat pump portion of the install. Yesterday I removed the old HP and brought the new HP to the site and set it on a new condenser pad. Today's fun project was crawling thru my crawlspace removing old refrigerant line and installing a new 50' lineset. My wife fed me the tubing thru a conduit feedthru I made thru the foundation of my garage right next to the air handler. Surprise #1 The lineset went thru the conduit just fine but hit a stub of a 2X4 hanging below a beam in the crawlspace. It was just a spacer for a water pipe but as luck would have it it was perfectly in line with the conduit feedthru. That was fun cutting off the stub laying on my back. Threading the lineset was slow going because the route was S shaped instead of a straight shot. I had to gradually bend the shape after every 4-5' was fed thru. It's now hung and tie wrapped with nice gradual bends. This time I got lucky since I have about 1-2' extra from a 50' spool. Surprise #2 It was really nice of Mueller to provide a 90 degree ell in the end of the lineset. However it now points 180 degrees from where it needs to to connect to the air handler. Trying to turn 50' of installed lineset 180 degrees just won't happen. I'll guess I'll just have to use a street elbow fitting. Next weekends fun project with be brazing all connections and doing leak testing, evacuation, final charge and checkout. Doing a project like this gives me newfound respect for the pros that do this type of work day in day out....See MoreCondensation pump tubing is frozen
Comments (10)The verticle height is about 8 ft, so removing or disabling the check-valve is probably not going to work. pjb999, if your in my basement, the tubing runs parallel in between 2 joists. In a most houses here, the tubing would penetrate the plywood siding to the exterior (just like most outdoor faucets are installed. However, my kitchen sink area is like a bay window, where the floor extends past the foundation, about 2 feet. Because of this, once the tubing is past the foundation wall, it is routing down so it penetrates the plywood straight down. From the outside, I can get on my back right under the bay window area and look straight up and see the tubing. Maybe I can try making a hole about a 1/2" below the point the tubing meets the outside plywood, and see if that helps with the draining. I was thinking of a T, but I'm not sure if I understand how you are proposing. From the sound of it, I'd end up with 2 tubes holding water. Unless you are suggesting I have the tubing from the second T drain back into the pump basin?...See MoreHVAC Register Condensation; Condensation on exterior of attic unit
Comments (5)The ceiling above the crawlspace is the bottom of the first floor. The warm moist air in the crawl space will rise up into to house if there is no vapor barrier to stop it. I would expect a three year old house to have tight windows and doors. The crawl space might be a source of the excess moisture in the house. What size is the AC? I would think a 2.5 ton single stage, or 3 ton 2-stage AC would be sufficient for a newly constructed 1749 sq. foot single story house. Did the builder provide a load calculation? A 6-10 minute run time might be considered short cycling. How often does this happen in an hour and what is the outside temperature?...See Moreaudiomixer
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