a message of sustainability from whirlpool

I attended the Central Texas Water Conservation Symposium this past week and heard a fantastic presentation by Whirlpool's Global Sustainability Director, Ron Voglewede. Ron was full of useful and interesting information as well as exciting info on new and upcoming products.

The big news (at least for me) is that Whirlpool now has a ventless, heat pump dryer (#nerdalert). I cannot tell you how happy I am to hear this (think back to Steve Jobs rolling out the first iPad and how the fanboys peed themselves with excitement. That's me + this dryer.)

Your standard dryer blows. Literally. It pulls massive amounts of air from inside your home and pushes that air to the outside via the dryer vent. This forced venting causes a negative pressure in your house which results in unconditioned air seeping into your home, and Gawd-knows-where that air is coming from (imagine rat nests, spider sacs, and turds the builder hid in your walls). Having a dryer counteracts a major reason for having a properly-sealed house. If you recall (and why would you?), I wrote a ranting post way back in 2011 about dryers called "The appliance from hell: The lowly dryer". This new dryer is a game changer.

Voglewede announced that Whirlpool launched a ventless dryer in the US six months ago that not only doesn't blow but uses 70 percent less energy than a conventional dryer (dryers tend to use twice as much energy as refrigerators). As is often the case with new tech, the machine has gotten mixed reviews at the Whirlpool site (props to Wp for leaving the one-star reviews up). According to the reviews, there appears to be a design flaw in the filters that reveals itself after half a year or so. And new tech tends to cost more (this machine runs about $1,000 retail). Given that we had to shitcan a horribly expensive cutting-edge energy-efficient Whirlpool refrigerator weeks after the one-year warranty wheezed out, we'll prolly wait until they work out the bugs on this unit (or, given the fridge experience, buy someone else's). Nonetheless, this is exciting news!

water storage tank on the back of dishwasher (source)

Modern dishwashers are amazingly efficient. Studies show that the latest dishwashers use 17 times less water than hand washing, about 3 gallons per cycle. On the latest dishwasher tech front, the Europeans get all the cool stuff: Voglewede described units that recycle water, storing it in the walls of the unit (which then act as noise and heat insulation), futher reducing water use. At some point, we'll see these units here in the US (some units here already recycle some of the water, saving the last rinse for the first rinse of the next load).

A surprising set of statistics he shared is that dishwashers are installed in only 25 percent of multifamily units (apartments) and less than 70 percent of single-family homes. Having a dishwasher could save 5,000 gallons per housing unit per year.

Voglewede said that Whirlpool is thinking outside the box by trying to achieve net-zero for their appliances (if not neg-zero). Since the 70s, washing machines use about 80 percent less energy and 73 percent less water. Modern refrigerators use less energy than a single incandescent lightbulb (with newer, more efficient models using the power of a single LED bulb [hopefully they last for more than a year...]). Along those lines, Whirlpool has a test house in Indiana called the ReNEWW House, a bungalow retrofitted to achieve net zero energy, water, and waste. The family living in the house reduced per capita water use from 91 to 34 gallons per day, is net zero on power and water (there's a rainwater system), and is 93 percent waste free. To further decrease waste, Whirlpool has designed an in-home food recycler called ZERA that can even compost bones (serial killers take note).


Being a water guy, my ears perked when Voglewede said that, with population growth, our water bills will exceed our electricity bills by 2025 (I imagine that this is averaged over the entirety of the US). That's a pretty good incentive to save water. In our house, with per capita use less than 30 gallons per day, our water last year cost $202 while our electricity cost $1,070 (up from $713 the year before due in large part, methinks, to having an electric car [oooo: I smell a future post?]).

There were other cool talks at the event (which I will probably write about in a different blog), but this one (literally) brought it home.

[2/10/18: Someone turned me on to this site on ventless dryers]

howz them vents workin' out fer ya?

Glad you asked!

So far, so good. We're particularly pleased with how the vents in the master bathroom are working, extra-especially the one in the shower.

To refresh, we decided to place the shower vent directly in the shower (go figure!).

Time will tell if this is a mistake or not. The electrician didn't think this was a good idea, surmising from experience that the moist air will corrode the fan in short order. He may be right, but what made us think our situation may be different is (1) recognizing that effective ventilation requires appropriate ventilation time and (2) by placing a timer on the fan we will run it for that more appropriate length of time after a shower event. If there's no timer, most folks will understandably turn the fan off when they leave the bathroom. A primary purpose of these bathroom fans is to expel moist air from the house.

So far, this fan has worked beautifully: It keeps the moist shower air in the shower. When on (sometimes we forget...), there is no humidity in the rest of the bathroom. Also, because the fan is pulling air from the top of the shower door, we don't get chilled. As the warm air rises, the fan ejects the warm, moist air and pulls in air into the top of the shower from the rest of the bathroom (more on this later...).

As part of our evil plan, we also placed a fan in the toilet closet over the toilet to remove (ahem) potential odors. Again, this has worked great. A more typical alternative would have been to place one fan in the general area of the master bathroom. Wethinks this would not have worked nearly as well.

One thing I worried about was the make-up air. That which is blown out of the house will come in somewheres else. Where would it come from? Turns out some of the make-up air for the shower comes in from the vent in the toilet closet. How do I know? It gets a lot warmer in there when the shower vent is on.

This is all fine and good: the air has to come in from somewhere, and that's a better place than others I can think of. Except there's one small problem: the shower is venting right next to where the toilet closet is venting:

See those two vent hole covers? One is for the shower and the other is for the toilet closet.

So there's a chance that some of the air being vented from the shower is coming back in through the toilet fan plumbing. Not a big deal, but if we had to do it all over again, we would have wanted these a bit farther apart.

Stay tuned for longevity issues with placing the vent directly in the shower.

punch party! (attack of the HVAC, house numbers, you grasshole, and more!

Still ironing out the wrinkles on the house. Took Thursday off to sit with the builder and an army of trades as they banged on the punch list. Lots done, but still bits to go...

attack of the HVAC

The biggest wrinkle in our ironing has been the HVAC system. The sub came out and fixed the blown damper and also hardwired the ERV into the system such that it doesn't blow when the full system isn't blowing (all it would be doing at that point is wasting electricity). Unclear why they didn't install the Bryant ERV, which better integrates into the thermostat, allowing the user to control how much fresh air is brought into the house.

We're still having major temperature control issues with the various zones, and the sub basically doesn't know how to fix it (although they won't admit it). The on-site guys say that the system does it all itself, so there's nothing to worry about. Yet we continue to have serious problems:

Byant says "The system will never purposefully cool or warm greater than three degrees from the set points." Yet that is what it is doing.

I'm not an HVAC professional, but I figure it might be one of four things (or combos of all):

1. The dampers aren't working properly, particularly the damper to the master suite. There are times when we get a (comparatively) good amount of air into the bedroom, but more often than not we hardly get any air while the system dumps air into the rest of the house.

2. The dampers are working properly, but the "factory settings" don't send enough air into the master suite. The system is "smart" in that it measures back pressure in the main air distribution center and adjusts the dampers to maximize air flow and minimize air noise through the vents. I found dealer documentation for the system online, and it says that this function can be overridden. We're at the point we don't care about vent noise. Get us some damn air!

3. The ductwork "design" is causing problems. Air flows like water: it prefers the path of least resistance. The path to upstairs is short and sweet: 3 to 20 feet in large and relatively straight tubes. The path to downstairs is also short and sweet: 3 to 20 feet in large and relatively straight tubes. The path to the master suite is a nightmare, long and bitter: 20 to 40 feet through small tubes and various right angles. It is the path of most resistance. What might be happening is that at the lowest fan speed for the system, there's too much back pressure such that the other zones open up to dump the air, and then that's where all the air is going.

4. The ductwork to the master suite is somehow pinched or blocked, which would cause the air dumping just described. Since it appears the sub may have "disposed of" pieces of insulation board in the ductwork (that may have been the problem with the blown damper), it's possible a piece of insulation board is also in the ductwork to the master suite.

I'm thinking the issue is prolly a combo of 1, 2, and 3. Since 3 is impossible to address right now (at least not without tearing up half the house), we have to hope the problem can be solved with the dampers. I don't think 4 is the issue because there are two tubes that run to the master, and both seem to have issue with air flow.

The builder is working to get a Bryant technician (not a dealer tech) out to the house to check the system. The sub sent their best guy, and his response was "I've never seen a system like this." Hopefully the Bryant tech can fix it.

we have numbers!

and they look grand! These are the numbers we bought from modernhousenumbers.com who were kind enough to make us a small zero to riff on the up-and-down rhythm of the o's in our address. The first time we put them up (we being the builder and me), we put 'em up upside down. We were so focused on placement and distance from the light that we neglected to notice that the numbers work right side up (6909) as well as upside down (6069). After they were up the first time, I'm, like, "They look good! but something ain't right...". Fortunately, we only had to change two of the numbers. Our sock-of-the-month club deliveries will now arrive safely.

you grasshole

The first time around they forgot to cut the pavers for feather grass holes. We have them now:

power

We now have power to the hot tub as well as the (future) stage:

outdoor speakers

The outdoor speakers are now installed.

handrails

Our neoplastic handrails are installed! Interlocking-cubist-volume hardware with a slab-of-hickory rail. We bought the rail from stairsupplies.net. Reasonable price for some real nice rails.

tidbits

They put a wheel on the gate:

fill metal on the windows:

spigot on the garage:

and holes in the wire center cover in the pantry:

some laggards...

Besides the HVAC problems, a few other straggling issues...

The doorbell chime we got doesn't work with the doorbell button. Because the doorbell button rocks it hard, we ordered a chime that we know will work with the button. The only problem is that it never came. UPS says they delivered it, but it didn't show up. We had it sent to the bride's office. However, UPS says no one was home and left it at the front door at 2 pm on a Monday. Someone was at the office (they have a receptionist), so that suggests it was misdelivered. If that isn't frustrating enough, the chime supplier won't return emails about the order.

Fixing to go blog postal on 'em...

On Thursday (punch) morning I told the bride that I was going to shower in the guest bathroom to make sure everything was in working order. She looked at me like I was crazy (as she often does), but I tromped upstairs to get my scrub and suds on. After adjusting the water temp out of the tub spout, I went to engage the diverter to turn on the shower (the thing that forces the water out the showerhead instead of the tub spout). However, there wasn't one (this took a bit of time to conclude because I was sure I was missing something)!

After discussing the lack of a shower diverter with the builder and plumber later in the day and both swearing there wasn't one during the install, the builder checked in with supplier and found out they had sent us the wrong control assembly. In other words, there is no opportunity to install a diverter in the present set-up. That's bad news because replacing the control assembly requires tearing up the wall. Presently looking at tub-spout based alternatives...

This could be a blessing in disguise. The tub spout with this set-up, although gorgeous, is not terribly stable (the sealing has split several times now...) and, because of its heft, begs people to use it for leverage (which breaks the sealing and portends greater problems in the future).

Speaking of sealing issues, we still haven't dealt with the potty problems in the powder room. The toilet cantilevers off the wall, which fits the cantilever motif of the house but isn't exactly the most stable of configurations, especially when former football players stop by for a visit. The installation has left the toilet with a wobble, which breaks the sealing between the toilet and the wall and just feels ominous. After discussions with the plumbing sub and builder, the plan is to cut out the drywall (the source of the wobble) and replace it with Hardie backer and the large format white tile we used in the other bathrooms.

decorating news

Upgraded our IKEA dresser with a higher-end (IKEA) dresser:

Moving on up, baybee! (and moved the old dresser to the guest room.)

Found a cool neoplastic water bowl for the cat (he only drinking moving water...). Filtered and splashed with a UV light. Great for disco parties, too!

Found a new coffee pot. Had a cheap Black and Decker black pot for the apartment. This one fits the house better:

Also found a magazine rack for the "contemplation room". This clever little thing made out of silicon came from Kontextur. Only comes in packs of three, so we have two more to figure out what to do with...

Also from Kontextur are a toilet brush and plunger/roll holder. White and wood goes good (as it should).

coming up

More work on the punch list, more decorating.

attack of the HVAC, neoplastic cat, decorating, landscaping, artscaping, green knees, and a place for umbrellas

One ringy-dingy...

attack of the HVAC

We've been having issues with the HVAC where it struggles to get the master suite to temp while the rest of the house turns into a meat locker. Case in point from bedtime early last week:

By the morning the "public areas" and "upstairs" were 69 and 68, respectively. Not good. I became convinced that a damper controller and zone had been reversed. While isolating each zone (raising the target temp in the other two zones and lowering the target temp in the zone of interest), the cat and I heard a good crash upstairs when I isolated that zone. And here's what we saw when we rushed upstairs:

Basically blew out the damper (which shouldn't happen, by the way...). The "clean-up dude" came out yesterday to check the zones (he believe the upstairs and public areas had been switched; I'm not so sure...) and southern engineer the blown out damper for another crew to come out and fix properly this week. Hard to see in the photo above unless you know what you are looking for, but the installers left a hunk of solid wall insulation in there that had blown up against the damper (there should be nothing but black distance between the damper blades, some have silver; that's the obstruction). That could have also been the reason for the failure.

We also chatted with the clean-up dude about the ERV not being connected to the thermostat control. For some reason, the installers chose not to use the Bryant ERV, which would integrate with the system both in terms of on and off but also speed of the fan (low, medium, and high). The system they installed only allows the on-off, and that isn't connected to the system. That means the ERV blows all the time, even if the HVAC fan is off. That's fine with a fully ducted ERV, but ours is only connected before and after the plenum, which means that it just circulates with itself when the full system fan is off. Not good. That will (hopefully) get fixed this week, but we're stuck with the one speed.

corbusier/perrand sofa

We had a bulky settee we moved to the house that just wasn't cutting it in the new space, something we suspected would be the case:

The settee is that spatially heavy thing at the bottom of the photo.

To replace it, we got a le Corbusier-Charlotte Perrand love seat lock-off, which works much better in the space:

It's not as comfy as the other sofa in the living room (perhaps because it's a knock-off?), but the cat seems to like it!

neoplastic cat

Speaking of the cat, he seems to have gone neoplastic on us!

a little more fence work

The builder is coming out this week to finish off the punch list. A crew came out to work a wee bit on the fence, including the fence on the south side of the house:

We're glad to have that up since it secures that side of the house. Soon it will be painted the same gray as the garage. The crew also finished the fence at the back of the house. It is (ahem...) tall.

on the hook

We've been placing hooks and whatnot about the house and have been debating whether or not to drill into the tile. We're reluctant for a variety of reasons, so we're happy to "discover" that suction hooks work great in the bathrooms for holding towels:

and are easily moved or removed without leaving a trace.

The other type of hook we've discovered are sticky-temp hooks (3M Command Hooks, as seen on TV!). What's cool about them is that they stick to unsuctionable surface but also can be removed later without damaging what they are attached to. And you can get them where they are nearly invisible.

For example, we hung this print in the kitchen:

Here it is with the print removed:

Can you see the hook?

Look closely! It's like underwear from Victoria's Secret: It's barely there!

Other places require a more visible and traditional hook or bar. Here are a couple:

de stijl walls finished

The yard walls out front received their final coat of paint last week. Lots of comments and questions (and head shaking) over these walls. A friend calls them "the tombstones".

other landscaping bits

In other landscaping news, the feather grass for the front were planted this past week:

The grass is starting to grow in the back driveway:

Found these cool solar yard lights at IKEA to use out front:

Bought some yard art at arhaus (not exactly a place to shop for modern stuff...). As I was checking out, the lady behind the counter asked what I had come in for. "Balls," I replied. "Well," she said, "That's not something you hear every day!"

But it was the truth. When they first opened several months ago, I checked them out, and they had these cool sandstone and granite balls. And that's what I came back for (bonus: on sale this time!).

Also found a cubic planter for the bride's jade plant:

turned my knees green

In other news, I turned my knees green installing those IKEA lights...

Need to use Photoshop to spray on a tan...

window treatments

Found some removable window film to add some screening to the powder room and the door to the backyard form the master. Seems like it will work like a charm. Had been looking to replace that back door, but the film with wee gaps of unfilmed window has made me reconsider. It totally looks modern now!

a roof for the bookshelves

Finally have a roof for the bookshelves!

plugged in

Thanks to Beaker's Bro, I've fallen in love with adorne plugs and switches. Along those lines, I switched out the humdrum plug at the front entry with this beauty that hides the plugs. Building code goofily required a plug in this wall. This gray replacement fades into the background a bit and ties in with the floor.

a place for umbrellas

Been raining lately, so we needed a place for umbrellas. Found this beautiful umbrella holder at The Container Store:

I can haz scratches?!?!?

found the Gehry

Found Frank's tea kettle.

"Your house looks like a museum!"

We've now heard this comment several times from folks that have gawked at the outside. On the inside, we kept the walls (and much of everything else) white and muted to be able to highlight the art (and whatnot) we have. And we have a lot. 

The house seems to require a bit of sparseness to work, at least by our eyes, and the same is true in how we are placing art pieces. We still have a ways to go (and the three-breasted woman has gone missing!), but here's where we are so far.

This is a Blondie poster from 1976. I've been a Blondie fan since I was a wee lad and heard "Heart of Glass" on the school bus near Fenton, Illinois. Blondie was my first rock concert, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, August 5th, 1982.

A Tara Mcpherson.

A piece we call "The Zombie Bandito". Really, this is the Mona Lisa of Zombie Banditos. By the Amazing Hancock Brothers.

Another Mcpherson at the front door.

Everything in the powder.

An oil by Dan Burns of the old Austin Power Plant in all its Streamline Moderne glory.

A (sad little) print we picked up in L.A. 

A print of graffiti by Fafi.

Another Mcpherson. Yes, we're collectors...

A piece purchased at the Croft Art Gallery in Waco in the master bath.

That art I found in the trash.

Graffiti artist from San Marcos.

That same grafitti artist.

A Frida Kahlo print: The Death of Dorothy Hale.

Another Amazing Hancock Brothers piece.

And here's (some) of the other pieces we have:

Still a lot to dig through and place!

moment of bliss