Looking for ideas for a "Green Shelter"

[Bryan Couch]

Well here we go... This will be a long but hopefully entertaining read and I hope it will spark some conversation and debate!

The last few months have moved my research and learning about passive house design, passive solar design, mechanical systems, heating, electric, etc into high gear. I can't seem to find enough time in the day to read, research and learn anymore! Here's a little update on my situation.

My family and I (and 55+ other families) are living in the footprint of a proposed open pit mine. Over the last few years there has been a lot of exploration and talk about the possibility of this mine opening. Back in early January the mining company released its Preliminary Economic Assessment which provided a very positive report for the development of this open pit project. Since then we have received a little more information on the impact this has on the current residents within the mining area.... we all need to move!! :wacko: Now the project isn't a done deal yet, there are still a number of hurdles for the mining company to clear... HOWEVER... things are moving forward for the affected property owners. We are now starting to move into negotiations with the company regarding our properties. We need a plan NOW! It's time to get going, they want to put a hole in the ground in 2 years!

So, with that out of the way, what am I looking to learn you ask? Well, property pickings are slim in Geraldton. There are currently 0 houses comparable to ours for sale, so we've been forced into planning to build a house. We've never thought about building a house until about a year ago and never thought seriously about it until last fall. At the same time we've been kind of changing the way we think about our impact on the environment lately and we've been trying to "go green" at least as much as we can little by little. So now that we're planning on building a house we have a huge opportunity to design a house as "green" as we can.

We are 95% committed to building a passive house, not a passive solar house, a passive house. The big difference is that a passive house focusses on air sealing and insulation to reduce heat loss and then uses passive solar gain (like a passive solar house would) to keep heat demands as low as possible. Lots of good info HERE (http://www.passipedia.passiv.de/passipedia_en/).

We are probably 100% committed to solar PV in some form. Uhh, I guess "probably" means it's not 100% so lets say 99%. :laugh: We don't have a building lot yet so off grid or grid tied are both still possibilities. If we're grid tied I think we'll end up going to the 10 kW max for Microfit. If we're off grid... well that's a whole different kettle of fish! I've looked at it and we'll see what happens with a building lot and the cost of running services to it. It would be a huge commitment for the family and a huge learning curve! The kids LOVE to stand in front of the fridge with the door open saying "There's nothing to eat!" and all 6 of them do it!! You'd think they'd learn by 16 but they don't!

Now on to the undecideds... is that a word? :weird:

With a passive house we'll still need supplemental heat. October to January are cloudy and dark, with panels at 50* (= to latitude) we have 3.1, 2.5, 2.8, 3.2 sun hours respectively. The end of December and all through January we see an average night time temp of -26 and an average high of -12. We also spend a good portion of our winter with the overnight low dipping to the -30 to -40 range, and not climbing much during the day. Just for fun the record low for Geraldton is -50.2 on Jan 31, 1996 and the next night was -49.3! Brrr.

So how do I heat 3000 sqft (or so) keeping in mind a passive house requires <15 kWh/(m2/yr) for heating and a heat load <10 W/m2? Typically a minisplit heat pump is used to provide heat in a passive house. The problem.... -40*, minisplits loose their production the colder it gets outside and by -20 they are pretty much useless. Unfortunate because they are very efficient. Geothermal radiant floor? Expensive and most likely very inefficient at the level of heat demand required by a passive house. Solar radiant floor? My main concern would be panels on my roof at -40, if they freeze I have a big problem! My first choice at the moment is a fireplace. Lots of firewood up here and possibly a few years worth just from clearing a lot to build! There are a few fireplaces that burn as cleanly as a wood stove and add a nice country farmhouse feel to a room. An open floor plan and a fireplace may do it and if I need to I can look at an inline heater for the ERV or electric baseboards for the bedrooms.

What about domestic water and hot water? This is where I've been spending most of my "learning time" lately. We would like to use rainwater harvesting for whatever we can, laundry, toilets, gardens, car washing...easy enough... but is it worth it to try to keep a large storage tank from freezing? I don't know yet! This winter our frost line got down to 8'-12' depending on where you were in town!

The bigger question is how do we heat our water in the most efficient way? What about preheating with solar and then using an electric water heater? Maybe a few extra PV panels to heat a largish storage tank which would feed into a smaller tank to bump it up to final temp for use. If the solar heated tank gets a little cool in the dark winter we still have the regular tank to keep us having warm showers and for most of the year that solar storage tank would provide the bulk of our hot water.


I think thats enough for now... some of you may have dozed off! :wondering:

What I'm looking for now are ideas from those who've been there. What has and hasn't worked for you and what do you think about my, uhhh, plans?, ideas? I'm not sure what to call them at this point! haha. I'd love some feedback and ideas that may or may not work!

I'd like to take this thread through our planning process to a final design and then hopefully we can move to a "build thread"!

I'm looking forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas!

Bryan

[Mark Ross]

:popcorn:

subscribed!

[Rob Beckers]

Hi Bryan,

Great plans!
If I were to build a passive house, I'd use passive solar for a good chunk of my heating needs (when the sun shines, which actually happens a lot in winter), and a wood or pellet stove to supply the rest. Placed strategically (or with the help of a simple fan/duct system) a single stove should do for the whole house, because a passive house needs so little heat! Forget about fire places, they look good (and the newer ones with either a secondary burn or catalyzer are more efficient), but they do not provide nearly the amount of heat a stove does. I have a fireplace in my house that is very efficient, with a catalyzer, closed front, and blower to extract heat, and still most of heat just never makes it into the house (fire places are enclosed on most sides, except the front). Don't believe manufacturers specs on BTU output for fireplaces; I don't know how they measure but it certainly is not the heat you get into the house.

Try to combine a good amount of thermal mass with that superb insulation a passive house has. Especially if you can combine that with passive solar it will work out great! The house will just coast through the colder and warmer spells in winter and summer, without getting uncomfortable or require much additional heating or cooling. In fact, if done right, especially at your latitude, there should be no need for air-conditioning.

By the way, my favourite books about passive solar is this one. I'm not a great believer in the rather complex heat storage system he describes in that book (in a floor with air channels), it's so much easier to just use a stone/concrete slab, the book is great at providing rules-of-thumb for sizing windows, overhangs in a way that makes it work.

Let's see, for a 3000 sq. ft. house your total heat load should be under 3kW if I use 10W/m^2, or 10,000 Btu/hr. A wood stove can easily supply that amount (heck, there are stoves that do 60,000 Btu/hr!). Split-units are great for cooling, but not so great for heating in our climate. You'd be on backup coils all the time.

Rain water use doesn't have to be year-around: If you're planning on having a basement it's not too hard to put a substantial (plastic) tank in the mechanical room, and plumb it so regular water substitutes when you run out (in winter). Much of the year you'd be able to use rain water, sometimes it'll be regular well/tap water. If you are going to be on a well and septic then in honesty I don't see why you would want or need to use rain water: Well water does not get treated, there are no chemicals involved in processing it, it takes very little energy to pump what a normal family uses, and it's most definitely 'recycled' after use in a very environmentally friendly way. Pretty green in all!

Re-run your PV output calculations for solar panels at (at least) 60 degrees, possibly 65 degrees. That would be the winter angle, when output is lowest (but better than at 50 degrees, and it'll shed snow better). We've installed adjustable PV racks so you get the best of both worlds (summer and winter). It would be entirely possible to take a passive house off the grid, and I don't think it will take all that much of an adjustment in behavior (it's more about awareness, and in truth I've seen it become a game with children trying to keep electricity use as low as they can, even teenagers!!). However, making your own electricity is many times more expensive vs. buying it from the utility at this time. Cheapest off-grid electricity I've ever heard of was around 50 ct/kWh and I bet most off-gridders pay substantially more, while in Ontario we pay around 15 ct/kWh on average for grid electricity. On the other hand, people living off-grid tend to use less of it, so there is some economy there. Batteries are the big consumable item, they need replacing every so many years, and they are expensive!

By the way, the consensus seems to be at this time that making hot water from solar is cheaper via PV modules than it is by using solar hot water panels or tubes.

I'll leave it at this for now. Time to put my 4 year old to bed...

-RoB-

[Brian McGowan]

I have actually given this a great deal of thought and drawn up some rough sketches of what I would want a house like this to look like to make best use of the environment to absorb as much natural energy as possible and be as efficient as possible.
I only have a minute so quickly,
A full first floor and a half second floor with the roof peak offset over the half second floor leaving as much roof surface facing south as possible.
The vertical wall of the south side of the house would be completely made of an integrated solar air heater. Search for solar barn to see an example of this.
Depending on what you intend to use for heating fuel you should consider micro combined heat and power unit. The ones I have seen most are basically small 1.2kW generators where they also scavage all the heat from it. It would make 28.8 kWh/day and about 26,000BTU/hour.
All bathrooms and the kitchen are built around and drain to a single vertical standpipe with a drain water heat exchanger in the basement at the bottom to recover all of the heat from the drain water to preheat the water going into the water heater. Mine saves me in excess of 30% of the energy used to heat water. In my dreams there are 2 baths and 3 bedrooms upstairs and a bath or powder room and kitchen downstairs. One of the upstairs baths is attached to the master bedroom and the other is for the other two bedrooms.

Gotta run but I have more ideas.

[Bryan Couch]

Hi Bryan,

Great plans!
If I were to build a passive house, I'd use passive solar for a good chunk of my heating needs (when the sun shines, which actually happens a lot in winter), and a wood or pellet stove to supply the rest. Placed strategically (or with the help of a simple fan/duct system) a single stove should do for the whole house, because a passive house needs so little heat! Forget about fire places, they look good (and the newer ones with either a secondary burn or catalyzer are more efficient), but they do not provide nearly the amount of heat a stove does. I have a fireplace in my house that is very efficient, with a catalyzer, closed front, and blower to extract heat, and still most of heat just never makes it into the house (fire places are enclosed on most sides, except the front). Don't believe manufacturers specs on BTU output for fireplaces; I don't know how they measure but it certainly is not the heat you get into the house.

The idea of a fireplace comes from a few different directions.

First, we WILL need heat and I hate having a gas and hydro bill every month that constantly seem to grow! Wood for a supplemental heat is by far the most inexpensive route. Especially when you live where we do! lol
Second, wood stoves don't particularly appeal to me. They do a good job throwing heat but I don't find them especially nice to sit in front of to watch the fire, I think with the amount of heat they generate for a room we'd have a tough time avoiding overheating and with little ones I'm worried about a hot stove in the middle of the room.
Since I need a very small amount of heat to begin with and fire wood is in great supply I was leaning towards the most efficient fireplace I could find to reduce the amount of wood and emissions while having a low BTU output. I don't mind sitting in front of the fire with a glass of wine or a scotch after supper watching a few loads of wood burn. :)

Having said that I've been looking at masonry heaters http://www.mha-net.org/ since they were mentioned over on NAWS.... I had briefly looked at them a while back but didn't get into any detail because there where no dealers anywhere close (Thunder Bay is the only place close) to me. It looks like this may be one of the best options, large thermal mass that I can position in the middle of our open space, slow heat release into the room should help avoid overheating, only the door gets hot and as long as I can find a mason/someone to do the stonework I can have the guts of it shipped from eastern Ontario. This leads to your next comment Rob.

Try to combine a good amount of thermal mass with that superb insulation a passive house has. Especially if you can combine that with passive solar it will work out great! The house will just coast through the colder and warmer spells in winter and summer, without getting uncomfortable or require much additional heating or cooling. In fact, if done right, especially at your latitude, there should be no need for air-conditioning.

AC has never been a thought! We don't have it now and I've never had it in my life! With a passive house there's NO possible way we'd be wishing we had AC. We are used to opening windows at night and closing blinds during the day for a grand total of around 7 days a year! My focus is definitely on the winter, summer heat doesn't last long, July and August average high is low 20's and the lows are around 10 (*C ;)).

By the way, my favourite books about passive solar is this one (http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/1933392037/ref=oh_details_o02_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1). I'm not a great believer in the rather complex heat storage system he describes in that book (in a floor with air channels), it's so much easier to just use a stone/concrete slab, the book is great at providing rules-of-thumb for sizing windows, overhangs in a way that makes it work.

Let's see, for a 3000 sq. ft. house your total heat load should be under 3kW if I use 10W/m^2, or 10,000 Btu/hr. A wood stove can easily supply that amount (heck, there are stoves that do 60,000 Btu/hr!). Split-units are great for cooling, but not so great for heating in our climate. You'd be on backup coils all the time.

Rain water use doesn't have to be year-around: If you're planning on having a basement it's not too hard to put a substantial (plastic) tank in the mechanical room, and plumb it so regular water substitutes when you run out (in winter). Much of the year you'd be able to use rain water, sometimes it'll be regular well/tap water. If you are going to be on a well and septic then in honesty I don't see why you would want or need to use rain water: Well water does not get treated, there are no chemicals involved in processing it, it takes very little energy to pump what a normal family uses, and it's most definitely 'recycled' after use in a very environmentally friendly way. Pretty green in all!

If we're on a well you're right whats the point of the rainwater harvesting and we will in all likely hood be on septic, from the ground to the ground with no chemical treatment is a pretty environmentally friendly way of doing things.

I'm torn on the basement. Right now we have a walkout basement that gives us a great place for the kids to go play and a lot of room for storage. It's also the first basement I've ever lived with that hasn't had a water issue. I'm going to do everything I can to avoid a basement but lately I've been pondering a small basement mechanical room. Just a concrete box big enough for whatever mechanicals I need, right under the middle of the house. My thinking is that any noise and additional heat would be contained and with the main floor foundation above, the ground around the mechanical room would be both insulated, and protected from excess ground water from the spring runoff. I haven't looked hard at it yet. It may not be worth the cost and if drainage is an issue that's not solved water will find a way, it ALWAYS does! This would also allow us to run all of the plumbing and electrical up the middle of the house and out to the sides from there hopefully saving on install and materials cost and allowing drain water heat recovery to be used to it's fullest extent.


Re-run your PV output calculations for solar panels at (at least) 60 degrees, possibly 65 degrees. That would be the winter angle, when output is lowest (but better than at 50 degrees, and it'll shed snow better). We've installed adjustable PV racks so you get the best of both worlds (summer and winter). It would be entirely possible to take a passive house off the grid, and I don't think it will take all that much of an adjustment in behavior (it's more about awareness, and in truth I've seen it become a game with children trying to keep electricity use as low as they can, even teenagers!!). However, making your own electricity is many times more expensive vs. buying it from the utility at this time. Cheapest off-grid electricity I've ever heard of was around 50 ct/kWh and I bet most off-gridders pay substantially more, while in Ontario we pay around 15 ct/kWh on average for grid electricity. On the other hand, people living off-grid tend to use less of it, so there is some economy there. Batteries are the big consumable item, they need replacing every so many years, and they are expensive!

I won't get into what I think about grid power... my bill has doubled in the last 3 years. We pay over $100 a month in delivery and fees for $70 of electricity! 776 kWh last month for $175. :mad:

The 50 degrees is just to take numbers from the charts. My wife has said from the start she wants the PV on the roof, she doesn't want them using up yard space and I agree with her. I'm not sure of a 60 or 65 degree slope on the roof, I guess it would come down to design but we'd like to build so the house looks like a normal house not an "eco-house". I tend towards subtlety, I'm really not an in your face look at me type. We'll see where this takes us. I've done some basic production and consumption calculations at 50 degrees but I haven't run a cost analysis on a system yet and I haven't compared various angles. I suppose that should come soon so we can design a roof to meet our needs and reduce the system cost. Having a building lot would help here, maybe we end up with enough space to put an array on the ground without feeling like we're loosing our yard. :noidea:

Is it possible or I guess smart, since anything is possible, to put panels on a roof at an angle greater that the slope of the roof? I have visions of huge snow drifts between rows of panels with no way to move the snow and by the end of winter they're all covered up and production is zero. Perhaps there's a solution but as I've said I haven't got that far into it.

By the way, the consensus seems to be at this time that making hot water from solar is cheaper via PV modules than it is by using solar hot water panels or tubes.

I'll leave it at this for now. Time to put my 5 year old to bed...

-RoB-

I've seen this more than once as well.... the PV vs hot water panels or tubes AND the "time to go put my little ones to bed". :laugh:

Thanks for the input Rob! I'm looking forward to hearing what others have used or ideas they have.

Time for me to go get the kids ready for school. :bigsmile:

[Bryan Couch]

I have actually given this a great deal of thought and drawn up some rough sketches of what I would want a house like this to look like to make best use of the environment to absorb as much natural energy as possible and be as efficient as possible.
I only have a minute so quickly,
A full first floor and a half second floor with the roof peak offset over the half second floor leaving as much roof surface facing south as possible.
The vertical wall of the south side of the house would be completely made of an integrated solar air heater. Search for solar barn to see an example of this.
Depending on what you intend to use for heating fuel you should consider micro combined heat and power unit. The ones I have seen most are basically small 1.2kW generators where they also scavage all the heat from it. It would make 28.8 kWh/day and about 26,000BTU/hour.
All bathrooms and the kitchen are built around and drain to a single vertical standpipe with a drain water heat exchanger in the basement at the bottom to recover all of the heat from the drain water to preheat the water going into the water heater. Mine saves me in excess of 30% of the energy used to heat water. In my dreams there are 2 baths and 3 bedrooms upstairs and a bath or powder room and kitchen downstairs. One of the upstairs baths is attached to the master bedroom and the other is for the other two bedrooms.

Gotta run but I have more ideas.

I don't have time to look at and comment on this one now but I'll be back! It looks like you have a well planned dream!

[Brian McGowan]

Unfortunately it will probably remain a dream for me. I expect I am already living in the last house I will own. That doesn't mean I can't live vicariously through others and offer all the ideas I have.

[Rob Beckers]

Bryan C., just a few comments on your comments...

The efficient fireplaces are actually a lot more like a stove than a traditional fireplace: To be efficient they need to have an enclosed front so it doesn't suck more heat out of the house than it delivers (the norm for regular fireplaces). They get their combustion air from outside. As such they don't have the nice radiant heat you get from an open fire (and you can't really hear the wood crackling any more). It's an experience that is quite different from an old-fashioned fireplace, more so than I expected. I replaced a lousy open fireplace (constant giant air-leak in the house and would throw smoke in the room if you made more than a tiny fire) with this high-efficiency one (http://rockymountainstove.com/images/products/display/Panorama.1.jpg). Did most of the work myself in installing it. The new fireplace works great, produces decent heat, but it is different from an open fire (still nice). The glass doesn't stay this clear very long of course; even when running the fireplace pretty hot so it burns the soot off the glass it will colour and darken quickly (there's good cleaner for it, and it comes off, just a lot of work to do very often).

I love masonry stoves! They are a traditional heating source in central Europe, that's where I know them from. They work very, very well. The traditional ones do not have a window (you can't see the fire), I've seen modern interpretations that do. This thread on the forum shows a house with a masonry stove (http://www.greenpowertalk.org/showthread.php?t=2854#5). Looks very nice!

We live in a swamp over here (literally), and have to pump to keep the basement dry. It's not great. That said, I wouldn't want to live without my basement. Having that extra space (at little cost) is great! If you're looking for land, why not find some that is high enough to stay dry?

The problem with mounting panels on the roof for off-grid is that it is hard to get the snow off. At 50 degrees they will shed pretty good by themselves, but only if there's enough snow. When you get just a dusting or a few centimeters it will stick, and output of the panels will be zero. When you live off-grid that is not a tolerable situation.

-RoB-

[Bryan Couch]

Rob,

This is the fireplace I've got my eye on Rumford Renaissance (http://www.foyersrenaissance.com/). It has a guillotine door that can be left up, it does increase emissions and probably the amount of heat lost from the house but gives an open fire to watch. In the shoulder seasons a little less heat from a fire wouldn't be bad so I could still have a fire without overheating the house. The design of this fireplace makes sense to me. A shallow firebox will radiate more heat to the room and the higher combustion temps with burn cleaner and more efficiently. It seems like the best choice for a traditional type fireplace.

That being said it may just be a masonry heater we look at. It's looking to be the most attractive option the farther I get into them.

Geraldton is also built on a swamp. This time of year the sump pumps in town are only off for 45-60 seconds at a time before the turn back on. I've had water in a basement numerous times because the power was out, the pump broke or the float stuck. Now I don't eve have a pump!! I will definitely be looking for a high dry lot like I have now but high ground is in VERY short supply up here. I'd rather build my storage above the garage than in a basement. Just my opinion based on my experience. :)

Good point about access to the panels in an off grid situation. Snow removal, cleaning and repairs become much more important if your off grid. Climbing up onto the roof mid winter is no fun.

Bryan

[Bryan Couch]

I have actually given this a great deal of thought and drawn up some rough sketches of what I would want a house like this to look like to make best use of the environment to absorb as much natural energy as possible and be as efficient as possible.
I only have a minute so quickly,
A full first floor and a half second floor with the roof peak offset over the half second floor leaving as much roof surface facing south as possible.
The vertical wall of the south side of the house would be completely made of an integrated solar air heater. Search for solar barn to see an example of this.
Depending on what you intend to use for heating fuel you should consider micro combined heat and power unit. The ones I have seen most are basically small 1.2kW generators where they also scavage all the heat from it. It would make 28.8 kWh/day and about 26,000BTU/hour.
All bathrooms and the kitchen are built around and drain to a single vertical standpipe with a drain water heat exchanger in the basement at the bottom to recover all of the heat from the drain water to preheat the water going into the water heater. Mine saves me in excess of 30% of the energy used to heat water. In my dreams there are 2 baths and 3 bedrooms upstairs and a bath or powder room and kitchen downstairs. One of the upstairs baths is attached to the master bedroom and the other is for the other two bedrooms.

Gotta run but I have more ideas.

That solar air heater is a great idea but I doubt it would be feasible in my climate. The amount of heat I'd lose just overnight at -40 would be huge but maybe there's a use for something like that in an un heated garage or storage building? I didn't look to hard at it but if I could seal the vent openings for the coldest part of winter who knows.

Drain water heat recovery is definitely in the plans. For a few hundred dollars it would be crazy to not use especially in new construction! My wife and I are also trying to get an ideal floor plan together putting all of the plumbing in one central stack, putting the open/common rooms in the sun for solar gain and keeping the whole house compact and simple. Doing all of that while trying to make the plan flow and put certain rooms next to certain other rooms is a challenge! We'll see how it goes. :)

I'd like to hear some of your other ideas when you have some time. The more options there are the better the chances of putting a house together that will work well.

Off to check out the combined combined heat and power units.

Cheers!
Bryan

[Brian McGowan]

As with many solar air heaters, they only move air when the air in the heater is warmer than the air in the room. I have check valves in the vent openings so air doesn't flow at night and fans to move air when it is warmer than the room. It makes heat when the sun is shining and shuts down when it's not making heat so you don't lose a thing. It's a one way deal not a window. All gain no loss. Why they aren't built into every house that faces in the right direction is beyond me. Every house from this point forward should be built oriented in the correct direction to take advantage of the sun.

[Bryan Couch]

What do you use for the check valve at the bottom?

I'm picturing the top and bottom vent opening to the air in the heater outside of the building. At night when it's -40 outside the air in the heater cools towards -40. As it cools it sinks to the bottom of the heater and into the building through the bottom vent being replace by the warmer building air through the top vent. Now the heater is running in reverse cooling the interior air, all be it at a slower rate if the vents are blocked. Even if the vent opening was well sealed if it wasn't insulated it would allow a lot of cold in. At 20 degrees inside and -40 outside that 60 degree delta would be quite noticeable.

Or am I missing something in the design?

[Brian McGowan]

Don't know if this is going to work but I tried to attach a PDF of the crude house drawing I made. I will post this now and take questions later if it works.
OK I was unable to attach a file of any kind. Maybe I can email it to you.
In the mean time on to the air heater.
I used a dryer vent blocker as a check valve. I have found that with a little adjusting this works really well. I also made the ducts inside of the house so the cold air intake and the hot air output are both at the floor. Another thing I did which is not pictured is to make a "trap" on the hot air output side buy using enough duct inside the house to make an elbow be above the level of the top of the air heater. Traps are probably the easiest way to stop reverse thermosiphoning.

[Rob Beckers]

Don't know if this is going to work but I tried to attach a PDF of the crude house drawing I made. I will post this now and take questions later if it works.
OK I was unable to attach a file of any kind.

Brian, the little paperclip icon at the top of the editor is for attaching stuff. You can attach PDFs up to 1Mb in size.

Pictures, when attached, are treated a little different; the system will resize them on-the-fly if needed to enforce the size limits.

-RoB-

[Brian McGowan]

Yeah it just keeps telling me "upload of file failed". Made a PDF, word document and JPG. Nothing worked.

[Rob Beckers]

Yeah it just keeps telling me "upload of file failed". Made a PDF, word document and JPG. Nothing worked.

That is odd...
I just tried it and didn't have a problem (a 700kb PDF). I don't want to divert from this thread, so I'll start a thread over here (http://www.greenpowertalk.org/showthread.php?p=26395#post26395) to test uploads. Anyone with some time on their hands please give it a try. I'll delete the thread later.

Please try various file types. Keep in mind that there's a size limit for each file type (the upload box shows the limits), and for reasons unknown it doesn't work too well if multiple files are uploaded at the same time, so select one at a time, then hit 'upload'.

Just post there if you run into issues. If I can repeat it I can fix it (hopefully).

-RoB-

[Log Cabins]

A passive house without a fireplace it's impossible. I while a go I read a very interesting article about an engineer who made it's own green house. Nothing new, right. Well, he also updated the heating system after an ancient one, the roman one, with water (only that he didn't had the water circuit around the house). What he managed to get was a great system that cost him not much but the winter was very comfortable and easy to pass because all the costs where at about $70 to upkeep the entire house heating, domestic water. I guess that's a very good project. I would suggest not to consider a very modern design to the fire place but try and make it efficient.