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However, in reality, the basement is bound to be naturally much cooler. The earth and the thick concrete walls both act as high-capacity long-term ballast, and all through the summer my basement is nice and cool even if I haven't been using A/C -- and the front half of my basement is half-exposed with uninsulated wood walls instead of full-height concrete. The situation in a car is far different. My guess would be that it really isn't strongly affected by temperature-related air density differences because the volume is so small, the height is so small, and the air is constantly moving, so insulation should be evenly distributed. |
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Basements are much cooler, without a doubt. That kind of points to how bad an insulator cinder block/concrete is, though it is true that you'll never be able to fully fight the entire planet earth when it comes to temp in a basement. Summer time it's fine since it requires zero to cool it, but in wintertime it's a bit of a PITA when it comes to saving energy especially if you have uninsulated floors (or rather, uninsulated basement "ceiling") and don't seal the sill/concrete joint. Big heat sink and energy waster. I was talking about heat transfer, btw, not air movement, but wasn't very good at expressing that initially. :) When you say the front half is exposed with uninsulated wood instead of cinder/concrete, you do mean that the wood is overlayed on the concrete/block right? Can't say I've ever heard of a wood-only basement (though my not hearing of them does not mean they don't exist, lol). |
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This last year, we put up an arbor over our back porch and west facing sliding doors. It has cottage (climbing) roses planted at all 4 corners of it to fill in a lattice on the west side of it and over the top. It should do allot to reduce solar heating in the summer without sacrificing much of the minimal heating we get during the winter. We have also placed an inexpensive bamboo exterior shade off the eave to block out heat into our bedroom window on the same side. We had two successive 90+F days recently that made for a great test of it's effectiveness, and whereas our upstairs bedroom had routinely been 2-3 degrees warmer than the rest of the house with the AC running, the new shade cut that differential down to about 1 degree. And that makes a significant difference when you are trying not to overcool the rest of the house just to get a good night of sleep. For $24, it should payback on the investment before the end of summer. |
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On the other hand the unequal pressure would also leak into the attic through unsealed electrical wire holes and fans/canister lights/chimney openings as well as through any other openings you have as well with the outside, eventually. Whole home sealing is what I prefer, for just this reason. It's one of the reasons you seal up an attic, so that you're not blowing air conditioned air (or heated air in winter) from lower rooms into the attic, either through gas equalization or temperature difference. Quote:
Home efficiency comes from many different factors. The thread was just asking about "which would you do first". My answer, seal and insulate everything. If push came to shove, and I was given a choice of only being allowed to insulate and fully seal one area, and was forbidden from doing any other areas forever after, I'd probably go with the attic. Real life though, I'd canvas the house sealing and insulating because leaks happen and they matter no matter where they come from. |
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Sealing the house so thoroughly is good if you're also ready to vent properly too. However, I think if you overdo it it ends up not paying for itself. There's a certain amount of inefficiency that has to be accepted, either in the form of unsealed drafts or on-purpose vents. You can pay to have tighter control on that inefficiency but the point of diminishing returns is closer than you think. The implications of insufficient venting are more far-reaching than one might intuitively think, and sometimes can take longer to hit than you'll know or own your house. Having been in construction for years (and glad I'm out of that racket!) I know enough to know that my understanding of ventilation needs is rather more vague than I used to believe. There are, of course, the simple and common concerns to address. There's indoor air quality, which tends to be far worse than most people think; though if you think it's good, isn't that good enough? There's direct construction consequences; most people know that an improperly ventilated roof will rot its sheathing before the shingles die naturally, but most do not know that the shingles may die early even if the sheathing holds up. Those are simple and easy examples. Here's another one: Getting a good draft for wood burning requires intake somewhere, and my house is too well sealed for it, so I often have draft problems despite a well-designed internal chimney. Hello smoke! I burn waste wood that was landfill-bound, which costs me nothing, saves others money, saves landfill space, and probably doesn't contribute any more pollution than if the wood rots in the landfill and the landfill gas is either vented or burned (not to mention all the forest around my house to absorb it anyway, and the closed-loop format of wood as fuel). See, part of why my house is so efficient is that it's well sealed because it's a modern modular home, meaning that it's built almost 100% traditionally except that it's built in a factory and shipped to the site to be placed on the foundation. Our indoor air quality really suffers from being so well sealed, though, and all winter I suffer with it. A little draft here or there would be much better than opening windows! |
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Why not just poke a really small hole or two here or there and cover it with screen and a door? One way up high, one way down low, and let nature do its work (just thinking out loud, not sure if this would be truly a good idea, lol). |
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