DIY Builds
DIY Builds
Photo: KoolShooters
The ground is frozen all the time—permanently—that's why it's called “permafrost.” It gets really ugly if heat from the building melts the frozen ground. That's why buildings on permafrost are elevated with ventilated airspaces between them and the ground to control heat loss from the building to the ground.
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Figure 1: Extreme Enclosure Section—Building supported on space frame. Note the vented frieze board, the vented facia, the insulated soffit, and the Bernoulli blocked soffit expansion chamber to control snow entry. The roof and wall assemblies are drained to the exterior between the exterior rigid insulation and the exterior (to the structure) fully adhered impermeable membrane. This membrane is the air barrier, as well as the vapor barrier for this structure. Figure 2: Roof Section—The vent rafters are connected through the roof rigid insulation with a metal bracket and a long roofing screw. Note the 4 in. (100 mm) strip of plywood under the rafter to distribute the load due to the limited compressive strength of the rigid insulation. Photograph 3: Ventilation Rafter—The 2x4 (standing proud) is connected through the roof rigid insulation with a metal bracket and a long roofing screw. You can purchase 14 in. (356 mm) long epoxy-coated steel screws. Stay away from stainless steel screws because the heads twist off. Stainless steel tends to be soft. Ask me how I know. Putting it all together in a system that works and that is constructable is not easy. We have learned elsewhere, in high snow-load areas, how best to deal with ice dams. We need a ventilated roof cladding to deal with the thermal resistance of snow. The roof cladding needs to be at the same temperature as the exterior. When the outside temperature is below freezing, the roof cladding must be below freezing. If it is above freezing, the snow melts, runs to the edge of the roof and freezes. Then, we get big hunks of ice that can fall down and hurt you big time. Oh, they also dam up the melt water and the roof leaks, hence the term ice dam. Because snow has an R-value4 (remember the igloo?), we need to flush heat away from the underside of the roof cladding using ventilation. That part is easy. What is difficult is keeping snow out of the ventilation space, and then designing an assembly that can live with the snow getting in anyway. Stuff happens. We can go to a long-dead European by the name of Daniel Bernoulli to help us out. Bernoulli’s equation tells us that if we have a fluid flowing in a pipe, and a sudden enlargement exists in the pipe, there will be a corresponding drop in pressure. If we then shrink the pipe again, we have an increase in pressure. Folks will recognize this as an expansion chamber. We can use the concept of an expansion chamber to control rain entry and snow entry into soffits. If you have a sudden drop in air pressure the air typically gives up the snow or rain droplets it is carrying. By turning the soffit into an expansion chamber, we can collect the snow in the soffit, rather than have it migrate farther up the ventilated roof cavity. Once in the soffit, we can let the snow eventually melt there and then drain the snow melt out. But just in case, because stuff happens, we’ve learned to design the entire ventilated roof cavity to be able to drain snow melt out. Connecting the roof to the wall is not straightforward either. The walls can cause problems with the roof. Solar radiation heats the outside air immediately adjacent the exterior cladding, as well as the air behind the cladding in the ventilation air space. This warm air rises. We do not want this warm air to get into our ventilation space under our roof cladding as it will heat up the roof cladding. The bottom of the roof overhang must be insulated to keep the solar heated air rising up the exterior walls from melting snow on roof overhangs, and vented facias. The roof ventilation air comes from the edge of the roof assembly, not from under the roof overhang. The ventilation spaces under the roof cladding and under the exterior wall cladding also serve to compensate for flaws in the interior air barrier and vapor barrier. Yes, they need to be perfect, but sometimes air barriers and vapor barriers don’t quite achieve perfection, and you had better accept that buildings move and age, and the building materials themselves age and, well you get the message. Exfiltrating moisture-laden air and vapor that is diffusing outward eventually end up in these ventilation spaces. Once in these spaces, we can remove the moisture to the exterior. Evaporation, sublimation, and drainage all play a role depending on time of year since that determines the temperature of the relevant surfaces. Another approach is to drain the wall to the exterior between the exterior insulation and the air/vapor barrier. This works since the drainage gap is warm. Recall that frozen water does not drain. Combining roof and wall cladding ventilation with roof and wall drainage covers most of the bases.
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So, we have an ultra-vapor tight and ultra-airtight enclosure that is superinsulated. Let’s put people inside, along with their stuff. Presumably, they will want to live and work as much as they can inside because it is so miserable outside. Yes, you guessed it, they are going to need air. Air for them and for their stuff and for whatever they are doing. We are not going to argue about how much they need. We will leave that for another day. But, it is clear that this air is going to come from the outside. The problem with getting air from the outside north of the Arctic Circle is that it is really, really cold and the more of it you bring in or the more of it that you need, the more of a problem it is with respect to comfort and energy. Air-to-air heat exchangers5 are essential. In fact, it makes sense to have two of them in series, it is that ugly. They also freeze up and must be defrosted on a regular cycle every hour when it is really cold. Figure 3: Extreme Structural Insulated Panel Section—A soffit expansion chamber is not used in this detail. However, the ventilated roof cavity is drained and water tight. Note the liquid applied vapor open drainage plane. Most building wraps flutter if they are not supported on both sides. This solves that problem. How do you provide heat to an ultra-airtight enclosure? Well, if you burn something, you had better figure out how to get the products of combustion out and how to get combustion air to the thing you want to burn. Sealed combustion appliances are the only option. Folks who try other approaches usually end up as a footnote in the annual Darwin Awards. The good news is that we have lots of systems that work. They are also extremely efficient. An even more interesting problem is how to deal with sewage. It tends to freeze. Sewage pipes, permafrost, buildings that move, and extreme cold leads to lots of crap. This is a complex problem that we will leave to another day. I will say that electrically heated waste lines are common, as well as above grade superinsulated and heated septic tanks and leach fields. Unfortunately, so are open sewage ponds and sanitation reminiscent of third-world nations. These buildings are likely the future of housing in general: superinsulated, ultra-airtight, great windows, sealed combustion, mechanical ventilation, drained and ventilated assemblies. We need to live and work in the arctic because of the energy resources we need. The irony is sweet. We have to build these ultra-efficient structures in the arctic because we haven’t built ultra-efficient structures everywhere else.
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