Talk:Zero heating building

In my opinion this article violates the Neutral point of view and reads somewhat like an Advertisement of zero heating buildings with Quadruple glazing.

It does not discuss the demand for coolants such as hydrofluorocarbons to cool the buildings for prolonged periods outside Scandinavian countries like Norway, which contribute to global warming because they are potent greenhouse gases and which may benefit from containment techniques because it may be harder to contain the coolant than containing air and solar heat (see also insolation.

In addition, the last section spins the building being cut off from daylight and the Natural environment as an advantage, but a consumer motivated to save the environment may perceive viewing the sky and some exposure to natural air, in Spring and more generally not being cut off from weather as a plus. In particular in Residential buildings, where the comfort of individual families is a premium (unlike office buildings with large numbers of employees, customers and machines) perhaps it would also be a marketing bonus to give the user control by, for instance, providing the ability to retract the shades during breakfast and elect to deploy them to block the afternoon Sun, as opposed to home automation that works without user input based on subtle parameters such as humidity ot Carbon dioxide levels.

Lastly, while air quality in zero-heating buildings]] may be improved in areas with significant Urban pollution effecting outdoor air, areas with more vegetation and less sources of Air pollution may save energy without any penalty in air quality with natural ventilation when humidity and temperature are comfortable, and the absence of draughts in multiple-panel glazing should perhaps be weighed against the poorly studied long-term effects of coolant leakage. In addition, to preserve air quality and prevent the spread of infection (see also Respiratory illness and Mold spores, air filters and ventilation ducts in air conditioning systems may need to be inspected or cleaned.

I hope you wouldn't consider it Soapboxing for me to conclude that in setting aside urban Zoning of Zero heating buildings, especially in Mediterranean and subtropical climates, more public input could be beneficial as well as studies, where feasible, of coolant use, the energy advantages of natural ventilation, and any strain on air conditioning systems; studies independently funded by someone other than politicians (who may have made prior commitments) and the manufacturers of insulating glass windows and associated cooling equipment

24.46.46.43 (talk) 17:36, 13 March 2022 (UTC)LeucineZipper.

Thank you for your valuable input. I think each article in some way promotes its content. I have a hard time imagining it otherwise.

Zero-heating buildings are to be used well above Mediterranean latitudes. As you correctly pointed out machine ventilation and some machine cooling is needed. Cooling demand is generally on par with a Passive House standard level. Natural cooling is used up to 16°C outdoors temperature through VAV ventilation. VAV ventilation is usually modulated with some sort of indoor air quality sensing.

I don't see much use for natural ventilation for the future as CO2 already in the atmosphere prevents urban overnight cooling to a degree that produces excessive unmet-hours in "all-natural ventilation" settings. Note, that in real-life buildings temperatures exceeding 24°C count for unmet hours (quite different from EN standards).

Zero-heating buildings have the highest uninterrupted contact with the environment and the sky is normally visible as with all windows. At the same time also has the highest collection of natural (day) light.

I have to agree on HFCs being potent GH gases, and their tentative leakage into the atmosphere is undesirable. Though much more these gases leak out of automotive ACs than of stationary applications in buildings.

Zero-heating buildings address practical aspects for winter energy storage, light, visual, thermal comfort, cost efficiency and general public resistance towards building automation, though frankly quite sophisticated ventilation is required.

Real estate developers in Skandinavia, where most such examples have been built have benchmarked all the building methods on their market and in their opinion, "Zero-heating" assures the highest comfort of living.

Alek14 (talk) 18:48, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree that in Skandinavia such buildings address the practical need of 'winter energy storage' and hence 'thermal comfort' in Skandinavia. Regarding cost efficiency, I suppose the real estate developers there have numbers (perhaps too technical to include in the article, but if you find such links, feel free to include them in the resource list).

However, I am skeptical that zero-heating buildings address many aspects that relate specifically to public resistance towards building automation. As you noted, natural cooling is used 'through VAV ventilation'. I am not sure what that is (perhaps offer a link please) but the fact that it is modulated through 'indoor air quality sensing' means that the user has no agency as to which window to open in which room. Again, that is relevant to single-family residences, apartment buildings and maybe hotels rather than, as I noted, office (or utility) buildings.

In any case, real estate developers stand to gain from building a radically different building instead of retrofitting. so while their input on the 'practical aspects' as listed in the penultimate (sixth, if I didn't lose count) paragraph is, I agree, invaluable, I do believe a fair hearing should be given to proponents of other modalities, like the ones involving some form of natural ventilation or motorized windows, and pending convincing some of the skeptics more data should continued to be gathered, in particular about the advantages of said technology in office buildings that may be being built in Scandinavia (and Canada, Siberia)...

Also, it is useful to know that car cooling systems leak more coolant than buildings (which may make it imperative to retrofit garages for built-in cooling, especially in the Mediterranean and lower latitudes!), an environmental protection strategy presumably involves (though perhaps specialists in agencies should have the final say) a combined approach seeking to reduce total organic greenhouse gas emissions from all sources. 24.46.46.43 (talk) 03:15, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

VAV (variable air volume) ventilation is a well-established method.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variable_air_volume

Regarding automation, Zero-heating has none except for ventilation. We try to steer our clients away from openable windows as much as possible as openable windows are a disaster for the winter performance of buildings. Ventilation air has to go through an energy return arrangement.

Well, other modalities have their articles. There are passive houses, various net-zero, energy plus etc. each having its article. Most Zero-heating buildings to date (75%) were retrofits onto office buildings. There were public newbuilds but we are yet to see a single-home house to be built in this way. We believe it is doable and we're looking at ways to work this out with our German friends at Passivhaus.

For your interest, cars have AC compressors driven via mechanical connection to the engine. There is a point of the leak. Car AC tend to require coolant gas recharge in 6-10y. Stationary AC arrangements have fully enclosed compressors (such are with battery cars as well), where in principle no leakage is possible. Only accidents and manufacturing leakage occur, which is very small. Most HFC leakage in recent years came from China for not adhering to proper care in the manufacturing and deployment of ACs.

Besides, CO2 is a much more serious problem with its atmospheric residence time in thousands of years. HFCs might be potent GH gases but their residence time is in decades at most.

Alek14 (talk) 07:10, 14 March 2022 (UTC)

We were not discussing CO2. CO2 is a separate issue that is only tangentially linked to building ventilation, as the 'winter performance of buildings' is tied to the consumption of fossil fuels. What is needed is a big picture view, not justifying the release of one greenhouse gas with the presence of another to be sufficient grounds for steering the construction of single-family homes 'away from openable windows as much as possible' and replacing them with sensors that have a set point, not doing any better than keeping air quality at a predefined threshold.

Also, I do think your 'friends at Passivhaus' may do well to consider that we also need to provide renewable energy for the ventilation system, preferably build in by solar panels so all heat generated in wiring contributes to warming the building. Electricity from coal-fired plants may turn out to contribute more to global warming, if you look at the facts with open eyes, than opening the window, especially if it is nice outside and the seasonal flowers trump allergy concerns. Also, not breathing outdoor air may contribute to allergies, though that may be the subject of a different article if at all relevant.

The issue of Chinese manufacturers 'not adhering to proper care in the manufacturing and deployment of ACs' is an issue with a life of its own. I don't know what the supply chain is or how diversified, but the assertion that 'in principle no leakage is possible' seems like a marketing truth, not a scientific one. I am only a STEM student, I suppose it is the province of specialists like yourself to see which contractors install more reliable ACs and how often 'coolant gas recharge' takes place in the houses that were retrofitted and 'newbuild' houses as well. If you plan studies for both categories of houses that may inform best practices.

In any case, thank you for providing the link to variable air volume. In the article on passive houses which I came upon, heat recovery ventilation is brought up. I wonder how that compares to variable air volume, and why I found out about it from you, not an existing Wikipedia article. That may be a matter of future editing.

Have you heard of the voting on UCoC that is going on right now? There is still more than half a week left to vote if eligible. 24.46.46.43 (talk) 03:36, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

The whole idea of Zero-heating is about having heating-cooling-ventilation provided with a PV arrangement (on-site preferably). With Zero-heating we skew the annual consumption profile in a way that it can be matched with solar energy supply on a day-by-day basis. Obviously, consumption must be least in winter.

Renewables in general (wind in particular) are likely to see downsizing as it is material throughput heavy and materials will be expensive (espacially gas/oil based materials for blades). Nuclear, light on materials (per MW), is much more likely to see signifficant cost reductions with economy of scale.

As far as UCoC is concerned, I'm disinclined towards "Putin's Russia like arrangements", where creativity might be curtailed and freedom off thought (especially in sciences) might be supressed. I have experienced it with German Wikipedia - Germans already have such system in place through their natural mindset.

Alek14 (talk) 05:43, 16 March 2022 (UTC)

I agree, that is why I have not donated money to Wikipedia for years. They impose on you the banner saying, 'this is not a paywall' as if you are too foolish to realize that continued donations are what it would take to implement one. All those 'Millennium goals' for 2030 and 2050 or whatever they call it I consider sickening. All the more so given that the same people can be both check users and oversighters, spying on people and so on. If I were an administrator, I would make a push away from any 'zero tolerance' goals, you see that intolerance by management of corporations of political speech while those same corporations pushed a political agenda led to rioting in 2020 and 2021. I were eligible I think I would vote no.

Both nuclear and renewables require mining which produces dirty industrial waste streams, whereas oil and gas are becoming increasingly difficult to extract economically making proactively changing up the energy source imperative. Nuclear may not be renewable, but in terms of energy content it is abundant, especially with reprocessing of irradiated material, concentrating low-grade sources like mine tailings, etc. It has been around on a large scale longer than both solar and wind, so with my materials background I assume we know better how to mitigate waste plumes, incidentally Germany would have done well to have done what Ukraine did and divest from Russian energy by putting nuclear online, except I would advocate many small plants to avoid a single point of (high-impact) failure.

24.46.46.43 (talk) 02:44, 21 March 2022 (UTC)LeucineZipper