While visiting us recently, my father expressed concern about the clicking sounds that released the pellet into pellet stoves. He said it was distracting and we would hate the noise. But he is talking about a stove in his brother’s old home more then 20 years ago. I am sure things have changed. But, this is still something that I had to check into this week.
I went to the store to listen to the pellet stoves. The salesperson said the old pellet stove feeders did make noise, but the new ones are much quieter. While in the store a stove was on and I could not hear it at all.
A reader asked about the air circulation in the pellet stove. There will be a duct that comes in directly from the outside to feed the flame and then another duct to expel the exhaust from the stove. This way only the air in the house will be heated by the stove and no exhaust will be added to the household air. This stove uses renewable resources and is 95% efficient.
A reader of the 25th post comments that we are “ignoring massive negative environmental and social externalizes [read: “externalities”?] caused by hydroelectricity in the west,” and that if we want to achieve the strict standard set forth by the Passivhaus Institute, “it seems like the best way to go about it would be to follow the requirements rather then bend the rules.”
First, we should be clear: we don't want to circumvent the program or bend it to our whim; we just want the Passivhaus Institute to consider our situation. For instance, to our knowledge the program does not acknowledge where a power source comes from in multiplying electricity use by 2.7 to account for the costs of delivering it through the grid and for the likely use of some fossil fuel to produce it. Yet in Oregon about two-thirds of our power is hydroelectric in origin, and we plan on using some solar installation (for water or electricity or both) to reduce our dependence on the grid. We just think that the Institute might perhaps begin to recognize local conditions and individual energy production and use in its calculations. And the good news is, even if the Institute does not choose to recognize those factors in our case, the house will still be as energy efficient as we have set out to make it!
As for concerns about the negative environmental and social impacts of hydroelectric the commentator notes, we are certainly aware of those, and that is one of the reasons we are so committed to a high performance home.
There can be a lot of finger pointing of energy making and consumption but we must all point to the future and decide how best to cut back on the environmental damaging effects of producing energy and leave behind the gluttony of the past. How can we slow down the use of energy making facilities be it hydroelectric, coal or atomic energy? The goal should be the three "Rs" - reduce, recycle and renew. This is what this passive house is all about!
Be Blue - Protect our sky - Again I challenge someone to figure out how to store the energy we make! Understand electrical energy sits in the lines waiting to be use and when it is not use it is slowly released. There is no storage of the electrical energy at all! The grid was invented by Thomas Edison September 4, 1882 and not much has changed. If someone figures out a way to store the energy this would be the greatest invention the world has ever seen. (Please don't sell the idea/patent to a power making company so they will hide it away so they can continue to sell polluting power). To be able to store safe renewable energy like solar, wind or even wave would be earth changing. Start brainstorming!
