Architect Peter Pfeiffer walks Trane's Chelsea Hudson through Green Builder Media's VISION House Austin, explaining how a detached garage on its own mini-split, a high-efficiency heat pump, and a right-sized solar array deliver better indoor air quality, comfort, and a negative monthly energy bill.
00:00:01:24 - 00:00:46:04
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.
00:00:46:07 - 00:00:57:18
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.
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Chelsea Hudson: Can you tell me more about how many split was used?
00:01:00:11 - 00:01:28:13
Peter Pfeiffer: Sure. And you know, we have a detached garage in this house, which is a large component of how we, from a design perspective, are addressing better indoor air quality by separating the garage from the house. We are greatly reducing this large source of pollution in the home. So if we have this this separated building and there is the workshop in there, we wanted to be able to condition it, to be careful or to be comfortable for when the homeowner is using it.
00:01:28:20 - 00:01:42:19
Peter Pfeiffer: So that was a perfect application for a train mini split system. It keeps it, Roberts office warm in the winter and cool in the summer when he's there. But we don't need to be running it all the time.
00:01:42:22 - 00:01:55:18
Chelsea Hudson: So I think one thing that, really stands out to me with this type of, like, self-sustaining home is, really being able to leverage that fully electric or all electric type of system.
00:01:55:20 - 00:01:58:24
Peter Pfeiffer: It dovetails nicely with the renewables on the roof. Chelsea.
00:01:58:24 - 00:02:13:16
Chelsea Hudson: That's right, that's right. And so you know where where we really like to see, that energy efficiency and, and focusing on the the sustainable silo.
00:02:13:18 - 00:02:39:13
Peter Pfeiffer: It enhances the low carbon footprint of the asset aspects of this house. It supports itself. It doesn't have to bring in power from the outside, and it supports itself by using that power very efficiently. So rather than put an oversize solar array on the roof, we're able to do a more reasonably sized solar array because the house itself is so efficient.
00:02:39:15 - 00:03:06:10
Peter Pfeiffer: And I think the fact that if we go back to the, garage and the separate garage from the house, not only does that help us with indoor air quality, but by having the garage on its own train mini split system means we could avoid the problems associated with when a home tries to cool its workshop area out in the garage with the home's air conditioning system, right?
00:03:06:11 - 00:03:32:17
Peter Pfeiffer: Many times, if you blow air above the work bench so that the homeowner is comfortable out there, if you don't bring that air back into the house, then the house is going to a negative pressure, which is very bad in terms of enhancing air infiltration problems. So we just made the decision to separate the home's air conditioner from the garage, its mini split system, and that made for better indoor air quality and better comfort and better use of energy.
00:03:32:20 - 00:04:04:24
Peter Pfeiffer: This home has a 15 plus heat pump with a humidity sensing, very easy Wi-Fi enabled thermostat, a multi-speed air handler, and, mini split system out in the workshop and garage. Those items all work together to make for some wonderful results, not just for comfort and and, quietness point of view, but from a very good energy efficiency and indoor air quality perspective.
00:04:04:26 - 00:04:26:25
Peter Pfeiffer: And to make my point about the energy efficiency, and I don't know if you've seen this, but it's pretty neat is here. It's last month's energy bill on this House. It's a -$73 or the utility has given the homeowner a $73 credit for next month because of the efficiency of this home and of course, because of the renewables on the roof.
00:04:26:25 - 00:04:37:29
Peter Pfeiffer: But remember, it's a very reasonably sized renewable system. It's not oversize. This is because of the equipment efficiency, the home design and the renewables.
00:04:38:01 - 00:04:44:03
Chelsea Hudson: Yeah, I think we all would really love to see that on our utility bill that says do not pay. So I think that's that's really great.