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Design Project I

Zero Energy Homes

EDSGN 100 Section 003

Team Wally

Alexa Paolantonio, Tyler Hutchison, Austin Hummel, Sonalika Yerra

10/14/2016

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Index

Team Information 3

Executive Summary 4

Introduction 5

Customer Needs 6-7

Research of ZEH 8-10

Concept Screening & Scoring 11

Cost Model 12-13

Design 14-15

Model 16-18

Conclusion 19

References 20

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Team Wally

(From Left to Right) Sonalika Yerra, Tyler Hutchison, Alexa Paolantonio, & Austin Hummel

Tyler Hutchison (dth5171@psu.edu)

Alexa Paolantonio (anp5441@psu.edu)

Austin Hummel (abh5413@psu.edu)

Sonalika Yerra (sjy5113@psu.edu)

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Executive Summary:

The Smith family is looking to upgrade their current living space to a zero energy

home. The home must be able to accommodate the needs of a family of 3. The family

would like an open floor plan of the house, so their young son has room to play. As a

family, they have been progressing towards green energy to help save the environment

over the past few years. The objective of this project is to design a zero energy home for

the Smith’s while keeping their living needs and budget into consideration. Their current

home is in Colorado, on the outskirts of the town Boulder. They want to stay on the

property that they are currently on, so they will have their current house taken down and

will also hire a contractor to level the ground in order to prep the building site. The

Smiths have chosen to have solar energy as their primary source of energy for their home.

They have requested that the cost stays under $215,000. The square footage of the house

is going to be 1,536 ft2. The house will be 32’x48’, and will contain: 2 bedrooms, 1 full

bathroom, a utility room, a combined kitchen and dining room, and a family room per

requested by the Smiths. Further specifications they have given us are that the home has

energy efficient appliances, a backup energy source, and is still aesthetically pleasing and

modern.

In developing the design for the home, we looked at a total of 8 Zero Energy

Homes with the Smiths to try and figure out what would suit them and their needs the

best. This was very useful in having the chance to pull the best concepts from all of the

other homes into our final design. The Smith’s narrowed it down to two homes that they

liked the best. Through evaluating the homes further, we came to a conclusion that the

Smiths liked that both homes used photovoltaic cells as their main source of energy, and

want to include this in their home. Another aspect that the Smith’s saw in these other

homes and wanted to include in their living space was the strategic use of windows. This

is a way to maximize the use of sunlight, and minimize the need for the use of artificial

light sources, and therefore helping in reduction of overall energy in the home. Another

thing that the Smith family would like for us to include in their home is the use of energy

star appliances. The Smith family not only enjoyed the aesthetic aspect that these

appliances bring to the home, but they also liked how energy efficient they are as well.

The design was presented with various risks. One of it was meeting the budget as zero

energy homes can be very expensive. We were able to stay under their budget and stay at

$195,646. Thus, choosing the correct resources and materials was important. Since solar

energy was our main source of energy, the storage of the energy was also necessary.

Regular inspections on the working area would not delay the work. The final prototype is

scheduled to be ready by October 2016.

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Introduction

Over the past few years, there has been much talk about exhaustion of non-

renewable, natural resources. In order to solve our problem with mass depletion of

these non-renewable resources, actions have been taken to reduce consumption and

reserve these limited resources. Of these resources, we can note that natural

resources like fossil fuels are most notably the non-renewable resources that will

be likely depleted within our lifetimes. We consume so much of fossil fuels

through daily commutes and heating our homes that without it, our lives would be

completely changed negatively. Therefore, to offset that negative change before it

occurs, we must set out to change the way we consume, and one way of doing so is

through the use of Zero Energy Homes. This is attainable via a home having a net

zero energy. To obtain a net zero energy, an object, such as a home, must use other

methods of energy consumption such as renewable energy sources. It is a possible

method to change the rapid depletion of non-renewable resources that occurs

currently through energy consumption. A home can be designed around the key

factor of having a net zero energy consumption, and our team has set out to

complete that objective.

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Customer Needs

While doing research on current builds of Zero Energy Homes, we conducted some surveys to

get some ideas of what the majority of the consumer base thought of the idea of having a Zero

Energy Home.

Below is the exact survey we took. The answer with the highlight signifies the highest ranking

answer

Renewable Energy Source Survey 1. Do you believe that taking steps towards green energy would be beneficial to our country?

a. Yes b. No

2. Where would your ideal ZEH be? Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Colorado, or Oregon?

a. Colorado b. Pennsylvania c. Oregon d. Massachusetts

3. Would you rather have your ZEH in the country or city?

a. Country b. City

4. Would you buy a ZEH if it is more expensive upfront? If not, if the government provided tax incentives would you?

a. No, yes b. Yes, yes c. No, no

5. Would you like the addition of solar panels?

a. Yes b. No

6. If you answered yes to number 5, would you prefer your solar panels to be located on your roof or in your yard?

a. Roof b. Yard

7. Would you prefer solar or wind energy as your primary source of power for your home?

a. Solar b. Wind

Since the majority preferred a ZEH in Colorado, we researched the area of Boulder, CO. We

found that the population was 97,385 in 2010 and that the average snowfall was about 88” per

season. The area has a relatively dry climate in the summer with temperatures in the 90’s, and

has snowy winter conditions with temperatures averaging in the 30’s.

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Customer Needs

We then compiled these results of our survey into a customer needs table as shown

below.

# Customer statement Needs Statement

1 Design a ZEH in Colorado A ZEH in Colorado will produce enough energy

that it uses

2 Location must be in a rural setting A quiet, open setting will prove to be

aesthetically pleasing

3 Reduce costs as much as possible Price must be designated under $215,000

4 Use the addition of solar energy in the

build

Mount solar panels upon the roof to provide

additional energy

5 Modern Design Innovative, new designs will be the ones

considered first

6 Easy to Maintain The house will be designed in an attempt to

minimize the amount of space used

7 Able to house a family of three The house will feature 2 bedrooms and 1 bath

All the data was then organized into a metrics – matrix format. This needs metrics

format combines the customer needs to display how they relate to features and

specifications of the design

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Research In addition to our surveys conducted above, we did further research into what

exactly some current build Zero Energy Homes look like. Below are 3 examples of

what we found.

Location (city, state) Easthampton, MA

House size (floor area in square feet) 1575 sq. ft.

Number of floors 2

URL of web site where info is found http://netzeroenergycoalition.com/case-study/1426/

Number of occupants Not listed

Number of bedrooms 4

Type of heating system (forced air, hydronic, radiant floor, heat pump, etc.

Heat pump

Main heating fuel (electricity, natural gas, wood, oil, etc.) electricity

Size of photovoltaic system (kilowatts) 7 kW

Solar water heater (yes or no) no

R-value of wall insulation 37.5

R-value of ceiling insulation 80.0

Ventilation air heat recovery (yes or no) Yes

Predicted or measured annual energy use 7417

Any other pertinent info House built by Habitat for Humanity team

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Location (city, state) Montague Urban Homestead, MA

House size (floor area in square feet) 1152 sq. ft.

Number of floors 1

URL of web site where info is found http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SolarHomes/MAZeroEnergy/MAZeroEnergy.htm

Number of occupants Not listed

Number of bedrooms 3

Type of heating system (forced air, hydronic, radiant floor, heat pump, etc.

Heat pump

Main heating fuel (electricity, natural gas, wood, oil, etc.)

electricity

Size of photovoltaic system (kilowatts) 4.94 kW

Solar water heater (yes or no) no

R-value of wall insulation 42

R-value of ceiling insulation 100

Ventilation air heat recovery (yes or no) Yes

Predicted or measured annual energy use 1949 KWH

Any other pertinent info

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Location (city, state) Tiverton, RI

House size (floor area in square feet) 1372 sq. ft.

Number of floors 2

URL of web site where info is found http://netzeroenergycoalition.com/case-study/1418/

Number of occupants Not listed

Number of bedrooms 4

Type of heating system (forced air, hydronic, radiant floor, heat pump, etc.

Heat pump

Main heating fuel (electricity, natural gas, wood, oil, etc.) electricity

Size of photovoltaic system (kilowatts) 9kW

Solar water heater (yes or no) No, but does have an electric heat pump water heater

R-value of wall insulation 40.00

R-value of ceiling insulation 60.00

Ventilation air heat recovery (yes or no) yes

Predicted or measured annual energy use 10890

Any other pertinent info

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Concept Screening

Concept Scoring

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Cost Model

To determine all of the final costs of building our proposed design of a

Zero Energy Home, we were able to form a cost model displaying all of

the individual costs of each criteria for our design. In our first section of

the cost model display, one can see all of the criteria that we included to

form a final cost. This criteria includes dimensions, square footage, wall

R values, window area, appliances, the heating and cooling system type,

photovoltaic system specifications, average temperature and total cost.

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Cost Model

This second portion of our cost model displays various areas that we

were initially provided throughout each region in Pennsylvania, along

with data that we inputted for our location, which is Boulder, Colorado.

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Design

In our final design, we determined from our concept screening and scoring that a

single story, 2 bedroom household would be an efficient design for our project. We

kept it very conventional and straightforward. Bedroom #1, technically speaking, is

the master bedroom, yet it features no master bathroom. The house only features

one bathroom for the sake of space conservation. There is a utility room adjacent to

the bathroom and a wide open area in the front featuring combined kitchen, dining,

and living spaces. We did not take into account minor details such as closets (for

example) in our design. The minor features will be implemented into the build

when enacted.

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Design

Featured below is our side elevation. It depicts the wall and roof specifications as

well as the window set specifications. We set out to keep windows limited to the

South side for reasons of using energy from the sun for heating the house. The first

window set will provide energy to the front open living space while the second

window set will provide energy into the bedrooms. Note that the walls for the

bedrooms span all the way to the top of the ceiling. This is so the second window

set can function properly.

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Model

We have two types of methods in terms of depicting our model. First we have a

physical model. It is made of Balsa wood with the addition of glue, tacks, and

paper decals.

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Finally, our second method of depiction is a 3-D SolidWorks generated model.

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Conclusion

At the conclusion of this project, I think our team as a whole can say that our

project has been a success. We researched multiple scenarios that could have been

acted upon and we confidently chose what we believe to be the best one that

fulfills the customer's needs while meeting the requirements of a Zero Energy

Home. During our research, we found out what exactly it takes to fulfill those

requirements. We learned about photovoltaic systems, how exactly solar angles

from the sun can be used for heating, and how much energy can really be

conserved by these homes. Our design has successfully completed our customer

needs (as stated above) and has definitely shown that it has the potential to meet all

of our expectations.

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References

http://netzeroenergycoalition.com/case-study/1418/

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SolarHomes/MAZeroEnergy/MAZ

eroEnergy.htm

http://netzeroenergycoalition.com/case-study/1426/

ZEH Home Calculator found on EDSGN 100 on Canvas

All other files/presentations/assignments found on EDSGN 100 on

Canvas