12-06-2010, 02:25 AM
Recent code amendment suggestions included roof, wall, door, window and floor insulation. That's wrapping up your house like a drum, certainly not designing it to work with insulation?? It's a practice far more geared toward freezing cold or incredibly hot climates. Unless I'm missing something? It's why I edited my post "...as the main design element for cooling". I like the idea of some insulation, but feel that ventilation is most important here. We use insulation in the yurts. It prevents them from heating up. We also use the 5' diameter skylight in the center that opens for a great, natural ventilation. So yes, I like insulation. I just don't like it as the main way to cool a house and I see no reason to force people to have it, especially if their homes are designed with excellent ventilation as the main means of cooling. When it gets chilly, it's easy enough to put a sweater and some socks on. It's never gotten more cold than that since I've lived here, unless we're talking about wayyy up mauka. Last night we could see our breath outside, but inside our bedroom, which is just a standard framed construction with drywall, no insulation, it was toasty warm, even had to kick the covers off.
Pog, I would imagine that you had ventilation and maybe you just didn't realize it if you never had problems with condensation. If you're in a humid environment, which Fern Acres is, and you cook something on the stove or turn on a heat source, without ventilation, the windows will likely fog up and the ceiling will often get a thin layer of wet. In a yurt, it all collects on the interior of the central dome, which is why we vent kitchens and recommend the dome be opened during cooking.
Ventilation doesn't need to be electric, i.e. fan, exhaust, etc. Natural ventilation often works great. The point is that it's a fundamental building design here and if you have enough of it, you won't need insulation. Can if you want! But not mandatory, as the building codes were trying to deem it.
Back to the helicopters. Black ones. Blue ones. Silver ones. We're yurt-sitting down the road, they'd be on a different route than we are. The copters fly over their place just as regularly. I'd love to get a flight path, something saying how many helicopters fly overhead on average in the entire subdivision. I bet it's astounding. If you don't like the copters either, comment under the trip advisory comment or on Tiffany's blog, http://www.bigislandchronicle.com/2010/1...ters-grrr/
Perhaps together we can make a difference. I know it's been griped about before, but maybe we were griping to the wrong people. If you get the tourists informed and involved and their money stops promoting these insensitive flight patterns, then I believe we'd start to see a change. Have a great week punawebbers!
Pog, I would imagine that you had ventilation and maybe you just didn't realize it if you never had problems with condensation. If you're in a humid environment, which Fern Acres is, and you cook something on the stove or turn on a heat source, without ventilation, the windows will likely fog up and the ceiling will often get a thin layer of wet. In a yurt, it all collects on the interior of the central dome, which is why we vent kitchens and recommend the dome be opened during cooking.
Ventilation doesn't need to be electric, i.e. fan, exhaust, etc. Natural ventilation often works great. The point is that it's a fundamental building design here and if you have enough of it, you won't need insulation. Can if you want! But not mandatory, as the building codes were trying to deem it.
Back to the helicopters. Black ones. Blue ones. Silver ones. We're yurt-sitting down the road, they'd be on a different route than we are. The copters fly over their place just as regularly. I'd love to get a flight path, something saying how many helicopters fly overhead on average in the entire subdivision. I bet it's astounding. If you don't like the copters either, comment under the trip advisory comment or on Tiffany's blog, http://www.bigislandchronicle.com/2010/1...ters-grrr/
Perhaps together we can make a difference. I know it's been griped about before, but maybe we were griping to the wrong people. If you get the tourists informed and involved and their money stops promoting these insensitive flight patterns, then I believe we'd start to see a change. Have a great week punawebbers!
Melissa Fletcher
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"Make yurts, not war" Bill Coperthwaite, 1973
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"Make yurts, not war" Bill Coperthwaite, 1973