Green living or extreme living?

I don't know about no furnace, and I couldn't take 63 myself, but super-insulating works and actually isnt' that expensive in a new house, of whatever size.

It would be a lot easier to just live underground. Once several feet below, the temperature will remain relatively constant. Cave living is actually gaining popularity in Australia where old mines are available. Water issues and radiation can be a problem though, and the lack of sunshine has a negative impact on mood (especially during the cold season) but this is actually a very green way to go. The extreme insulation in an above-ground structure is nearly impossible to perfect (though it has come a long way in the past 10 years), as there is always an air leak somehwere. Not to mention, if you make a house too tight, that is where mold issues start should a bathroom or kitchen not be properly ventilated. Personally I love my above-ground, wooden structures, but I am a bit old school and can admit the obvious weaknesses in this design.

I recently saw some data on heat loss versus home size. While I don't remember the specifics, I think it was on the order of a ~900 sf home losses 50% less heat than a ~2,000 sf home. Again, don't qoute me on that, but I do remember the difference being quite significant. It will be interesting to see how this experiment works out for the family.

I suspect that this type of living will be considered quite normal in a few years time when oil is $200 a barrel.

750 feet is small, and 63 degrees is NOT warm enough. You're wearing sweaters and heavy socks around your own house. I'm all for green technology, but it's got to keep the house warmer than 63 degrees, sorry.

Actually, this might work better on a larger than on a smaller house. Since efficiency of heat loss is likely related to exposed surface area and the surface area increases expotentially to the 2nd power while the volume of the house increases to the 3rd power, the ratio of total exposed surface area to house size would be less for a larger home. This would also depend on the home configuration and other variables, and there is likely an optimal size. A geodesic dome might be an ideal shape.

This home does not comply with building code in MA`. All homes must have a permanent heat source that will heat the house to certain levels ..

bostonrunner said exactly what I was going too.

Though as a practical matter, the 2 story colonial is the ideal shape -maximizes volume to surface area ratio in a house people would live in.

I am perpetually surprised by the popularity of Capes. They are an enormously ineffecient design, from construction through use, yet everyone loves them. At least on cape cod etc. they are historically contextual, but why would anyone else with any sense who understood anything about buildings own a cape, much less build one? They only make sense where lumber is very expensive, and labor dirt cheap - say cape cod circa 1700.

It seems kind of crazy to the extreme. I am pretty frugal myself but 63 during the waking hours is chilly for me. I would love for 75 but I don't live like that in the winter, I do have an assortment of blankets, sweatshirts and socks for my 68 degree house. I also am getting kind of crazy with my closing and opening of drapes, which helps but is not the be all end all of the situation. As I can afford I will add better insulation and windows it only seems logical. Good luck to that family, I would love to see a follow up on them in February.

63 degrees is a bit colder than most of us would like it but by building this way he probably saved quite a bit of money vs. some of the options like solar thermal heat or geothermal heat. As his wife points out on the coldest days she can plug in a $20 space heater for a few minutes and very quickly bring this super-insulated building up to a comfortable temperature at almost no cost.

As to whether it costs more to super insulate or build conventionally, think of it this way--insulation is pretty inexpensive. The builder added insulation costs and cut out the cost of a furnace/boiler and ductwork/plumbing, plus the ongoing costs of actually heating and cooling the house. I can't imagine that adding another few inches of insulation and some very high-grade windows and doors cost anywhere near as much as all that plumbing/HVAC work and equipment would have.

If I were building new homes right now, I'd be building them as close to net-zero energy as possible, although maybe a little bit bigger than this to appeal to buyers. I'd do this not just because buyers are asking for it and because it's the right thing to do; I'd do it because done right it would actually be LESS expensive to do it this way!

Accidental,
Maybe the 750^ft is in the shape of a small running track? That'll keep them warm.

First, in a country with so much vacant housing--both for sale and for rent--no new house is a "green" house.

Also, I am mystified how they got a certificate of occupancy with no furnace. What if it doesn't work as planned? How does a building inspector know they have the funds to retrofit a heating system into a house with no radiator pipes, no ductwork and concrete walls? How will the next buyer know it works? Are there standard building codes for furnaceless houses in MA?

Oh, and thank goodness we never have power outages in New England, what with their entire supply of oxygen depending on a motor.

Like the guy who spent $100K to superinsulate his house in the story reported a while back, extreme experiments like these probably do more harm than good to the green movement.

If I am active (cleaning or doing home maintenance), it can be 50 degrees and Im fine. I will typically work outside in just a tshirt right down to the high 30s. But if I am sittle idle at the computer doing my work, anything less than 68 frigid.

Marcus - Your reasoning is half bakes. You might as well drive around a 10mpg 1966 Chrysler instead of a 50mp Prius - its more green, right? I get your point, but sometimes its best to let an old house die and build a newer, better one. While I dont entirely agree with wha this family is doing will work, I give them all the credit in the world for trying something new instead of just talking about it.

I may be missing something, but don't you need a furnace or heat source in order to have hot water for a shower?

@Um? - you can have a hot water heater without a furnace. The full article mentions they have a tankless water heater (an especially efficient type).

We keep our thermostat at about 60F. It is generally closer to 65 in our house. With a sweater and warm socks, we're fine. We insulated (14 inches of closed cell spray foam under the roof, and 4 inches in the walls that were open for a kitchen remodel) and replaced windows in the past few years. Our furnace often doesn't come on for days.

And the cost of our insulation retrofit was paid off in less than a year with rebates from Nstar, tax write offs and a major drop in our bills.

I've noticed that at 60F, our house often feels warmer than my sister's, where the thermostat is set at 76, and the heat is always on. She has noticed it to. We think her heat is set high, but the house generally doesn't reach that temperature because of drafts and general heat loss. My house is considerably larger, and I paid about a third of what she did in heating costs last year.

Marcus - Your reasoning is half bakes. You might as well drive around a 10mpg 1966 Chrysler instead of a 50mp Prius - its more green, right? I get your point, but sometimes its best to let an old house die and build a newer, better one.

I don't know what "half bakes" means, but no, you don't get my point. There is plenty of existing housing that doesn't need to be torn down, rebuilt, greened--it's empty, it's unoccupied, and its infinitely kinder to the environment than building a new one. Whether the particular house they chose was salvageable or not is irrelevant.

I would have loved 63 last winter. My husband in all his wisdom kept the house at 58 except when we had company. I lived in blankets and double irish wool sweaters. He is still the object of family jokes. For this winter we compromised at 65 which is really not that bad - although I know some would still consider this chilly.

Anyway, this may be completely far fetched but I was pretty sure that igloos with foot thick snow walls kept things pretty warm for eskimos. I found this on Wikipedia - On the outside, temperatures may be as low as −45 °C (−49.0 °F), but on the inside the temperature may range from −7 °C (19 °F) to 16 °C (61 °F) when warmed by body heat alone.

"The house, basically, is air-tight, with a specially designed ventilation system designed to expel stale air and bring in fresh air."

An adult at rest breathes 388 cubic feet of air per day, at the same time converting 19 cubic feet of oxygen into CO2. This stale air has to be replaced with fresh (outside) air, which in the winter will be very cold air. Maybe the outside air is heated before it enters the building, but that sounds a lot like a furnace. Furnaces burn oxygen too, so it better not be inside the house or it will consume all the oxygen.
It sounds about as practical as living inside a plastic bag. I hope an engineer looks at their design.

KBster - without knowing how it works specifically, you can use a heat exchanger which used the exhausted air to heat up the incoming air. There is lots of heat loss, but less than if you just open the window.

I'm usually warm, so I don't like the heat much above 68, but in the winter, 63 is just too cold with a toddler in the house. If you have to space-heat (with its attendant problems) in order to bring things up to a comfortable temp, what's the point?

Charles, regarding Capes: the real reason for their "popularity" around here is that's what people can afford.
I doubt there are lots of families (who need more than 2 bedrooms, anyway) that would prefer a Cape, but around here they cost about what the 2-story Colonial you mentioned costs in other parts of the country.

Note that tankless water heaters may be a good alternative for businesses as well as homes. Pubs, Restaurants, Hotels, Motels, and more, all use TWH's for the very large cost savings, being able to expense or depreciate the up-front costs. So if you have an in-home business, or you just want to make points with your boss by cutting expenses, keep that in mind.

What they're doing is very possible. Check into the PassivHaus standard (started in Germany) or deep energy retrofits. I want to renovate my current house like these folks have done, and have been looking into this.

They use an HRV (heat recovery ventilator) which uses two separate "tubes" next to each other. One takes in cold outside air and one pushes out warm inside air. Because the tubes are next to each other, some of the heat from the outgoing warm air crosses over to the incoming air. It's how a standard radiator works. Use a lot of surface area between two fluids and the warm one will heat up the cold one, without ever mixing the two fluids together.

We're looking at adding a water tight barrier on the outside of our house along with insulation and then residing. It should drop our energy bill dramatically, and make the house less drafty. I'm not sure if we can get away with no furnace in our particular house (haven't gotten to that stage of the design yet) but I hope we can use a lot less energy.