Architect Peter Pfeiffer and Trane's Chelsea Hudson tour Green Builder Media's VISION House Austin, explaining how an all-electric Trane heat pump and air handler support the home's zero-energy, climate-responsive design.
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Peter Pfeiffer: We are here at Green Builder Media's Vision House, Austin to talk about what makes this home special and how train contributed to that from a sustainability perspective. Now, let me talk about what we mean by sustainability here. It's a climate responsive home that responds to Austin's particularly hot and humid summers, as well as its mild winters. But the other attributes that are extremely important to our clients here was the health and how well trains equipment helps us maintain good indoor air quality in this home, but yet makes for a very serviceable and maintenance or lower maintenance home, as well as extremely energy efficient.
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Peter Pfeiffer: So it's the energy efficiency. The health and the durability are the attributes we were looking for in this home. And we're here to talk about how trains equipment helped us achieve those goals. I'm here with Chelsea Hudson from train to talk to us about the equipment we have in this home to further those goals. Chelsea, do you want to zoom in on a little bit on that?
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Chelsea Hudson: Yeah. So for this house, we selected a train heat pump system with an air handler. So this type of fully electric option was really great for this home. And the the sustainability solution that they were looking for. So unlike a typical gas furnace where you are going to burn fuel to generate energy, an all electric solution like this with a heat pump actually transfers heat and extracts the heat from the outside air and brings it inside.
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Peter Pfeiffer: And then wintertime.
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Chelsea Hudson: Yes, in the winter time.
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Peter Pfeiffer: And it pumps heat out in the summer.
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Chelsea Hudson: Right. That's right. So in the summer it's going to just reverse operation and operate just like an air conditioner. Effectively cooling your home even on those hottest days.
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Peter Pfeiffer: You know, a lot of people are surprised to learn that a heat pump is really that simple. It just pumps the heat out of the house in the summer and into the house in the winter. A heat pump was particularly important for this project because this is a truly zero energy home. All of the energy used to make this home operate comes from the renewables up on the roof.
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Peter Pfeiffer: A very large solar array, coupled with a very reliable battery system makes it so. This house can very much be all electric and very efficient. The heat pump was important for that. But, you know, we chose a AC or 15 or thereabouts. Heat pump because we wanted a heat pump that was not only efficient, but very good at helping us keep the humidity under control.
00:02:38:10 - 00:03:03:24
Peter Pfeiffer: It has a very good, sensible heat fraction so that it can both cool the air and dehumidifier the air. It also is particularly quiet. And that's the other reason why we like this equipment. It's very quiet, both inside and outside. As an architect, we also have the ability to design the mechanical system in such a way that it operates most efficiently and and quiet, more quiet.
00:03:03:26 - 00:03:37:12
Peter Pfeiffer: We do that, and we place the air handler more or less in the center of the house, with just one large trunk duct running down the axis of the house to throw the air towards the exterior walls instead of ducting it to the exterior walls. This way we had very short duct runs, very quiet air distribution system, and very efficient because the short of the duct runs and the more central the air handler is, the less work the air handler has to do to deliver the air to the various rooms in the house.
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Chelsea Hudson: So like you said, these types of systems really can see great homeowner benefits in their quiet operation. And really maintaining that whole comfort, that whole home comfort, solution. When you pair these types of systems together with these types of designed homes, homeowners are really able to see those long term benefits of reduced utility cost. And they're able to see a more sustainable,
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Peter Pfeiffer: Solution for the house.
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Chelsea Hudson: So yeah, absolutely.
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Peter Pfeiffer: Well, let's not forget to talk about the how convenient the thermostat is and the fact that it's Wi-Fi enabled.
00:04:17:13 - 00:04:34:23
Chelsea Hudson: Yes. Yeah. So great choice with the the trained smart thermostat. It really ties that system together and has other great features that homeowners get, even using the diagnostics solutions. Like you said, the enhanced dehumidification.
00:04:34:25 - 00:04:41:01
Peter Pfeiffer: So the diagnostic solution, so the homeowner can easily diagnose what may be going wrong with their equipment.
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Chelsea Hudson: What really, I think what they're able to do is, is give access to their local dealer that they work with. So problems can be caught before they even really come up.
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Peter Pfeiffer: Oh that's neat. Yeah. That's neat. Does it even tell you when the filter needs to be replaced?
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Chelsea Hudson: I think it does.
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Peter Pfeiffer: Well, good. So I think we were lucky to have Trane involved in this project with us. We think we hit a home run and doing a truly sustainable home that is affordable. We wanted to design a home that would be easily financed under a conventional mortgage. There are many very sustainable or zero energy homes that are much more expensive than this, but we wanted to show that you don't have to spend that level of money to get a truly zero energy, climate responsive, sustainable home.