Comment by kentonv
5 days ago
I haven't actually monitored power usage during parties. But I should do that at the next one... I have better equipment for than now that since we finished the solar install!
I suspect though that even when the game machines are running they probably don't draw all that much power compared to the HVAC. We seem to have ~10-12kW going to HVAC throughout the day... this feels broken to me (these are supposed to be high-efficiency heat pumps and such) but I haven't been able to figure out what's wrong yet.
Whereas if all the computers were drawing the theoretical maximum their PSUs support (750W each) that would be 15kW, but in practice I suspect they draw a small fraction of that most of the time, even when in-game.
Have a look into Passivhaus principles.
In your case I'm surprised that a new build did not have all the heating/cooling aspects calculated. How would you even dimension your HVAC if you don't know the numbers?
There are easy and not so easy solutions:
1. heat recovery ventilation - equalizes the incoming and outgoing ventilation air temperature so you don't have to heat or cool the inside as much but still get a lot of fresh and filtered air.
2. solar shades positioned in a way that shades the sun when it's high i.e. summer time but lets sun in when it's low during the winter.
3. proper insulation and air-tightness .. a hard sell for a house that just came online.
4. ground loop heat-pumps instead of air source.
Other than that I like your house, especially fond of the integrated catwalks/doors!
> How would you even dimension your HVAC if you don't know the numbers?
Well the people setting up the HVAC definitely ran the numbers accounting for windows, insulation, etc. The resulting system does successfully heat/cool the house.
What I'm a little unclear on is whether it was always expected to use this much power in the process. I've been struggling to get info out of my HVAC contractor, may need to hire someone else to come in and look at it.
It's almost certainly insolation (sol, not sul). UV/IR rejecting film on the windows might help, given mild enough winters that blocking it year round is fine. Check out https://youtu.be/uhbDfi7Ee7k
If you can find someone willing to do it, dumping the heat (pumped out as air conditioning) directly into the pool would be quite efficient relative to heating the pool separately. Have it dump to the ambient outdoor air only as overflow when the pool's thermostat is satisfied (upper 80s or whatever).