Jake's Passive House - #4: Insulating a Passive House Basement
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- Опубликовано: 23 авг 2024
- Everybody remembers the feeling when descending into their own basement or a friend's basement when they were kids. They were dark, damp, smelly places that were always cold and wet and smelled of old socks, no matter what the weather was like outside. Here, Craig Novak, Project Manager for Jake's House, shows us how we can build a modern, dry, warm, comfortable basement that will stand the test of time and will be an amazingly comfortable place in the home, no matter what the weather is like outside.
How best to insulate and waterproof a basement has been my biggest source of indecision. I live in an area with a ton of rain, and fully expect the ground to get fully saturated, to the point of getting standing water against the house.Thanks guys!
Hi @BenThompson8683, we did videos on waterproofing basements for the Cereza passive house, as well as the Jake’s house projects. Obviously, your last line of defense is your waterproofing membrane, but the best defense is honestly great drainage away from the house, not only sloping the ground away from your house, but an underground French drain that surrounds your basement and directs the water away to a catchment area or to pump it somewhere away from your basement. I hope those help.
Good stuff thanks! Building next year and learning all I can. Aiming for net zero in Pittsburgh PA. Leaning towards ICF…
Thanks for the nice feedback..ICF sure seems imple, but every time I see it done, i am not impressed with the quality of the work or the finish. Please feel free to let me know other topics that you would be interested in hearing about.
What is the point of the insulation at a depth below the frost line?
Great Question: Firstly, this is a pretty temperate environment, so we don’t have a frost line anywhere in this area. The main reason to insulate foundations for basements is that for basements, the concrete is part of the insulated envelope and therefore needs to be insulated from losing heat to the environment, which in a basement is the ground. Because the ground can be considered an endless heat sink, the R value on dirt is 0.1 and the average ground temperature around here is 55*F, if you didn’t insulate it, the house would continually lose heat to the ground, forever, and quite quickly at that, considering the difference in temperature would always be around 25*F.
Good advice for any location for comfort and good bldg practices,but a lot of hoop jumping in California for the climate change hoax and their suicidal govt. policies !
While there are a lot of policies that are burdensome in some circumstances, they are highly relevant and protective in other circumstances. The problem is that there are those that would abuse the system, causing harm to their clients, neighbors, community or the environment. Laws are meant to protect us from those people and while they burden the entire population, there is a reason. Like seatbelts and helmets, when you need them, you are glad you have them. And if you deny climate change, you are just not well informed and/or you are not paying attention. Even Exxon believes in climate change, and they have a 100,000,000,000 reasons a year to not believe in it.
Why do you talk about the house sitting on top of the insulation when the insulation is actually outside of the house, outside of the foundation and going to be buried under rocks? The house isn’t sitting on the insulation so it’s quite unclear what you’re trying to say. Also, why not show how these things were done so it’s a little more clear?
@SeeHowIDoIt Thanks for the comments. “Outside the house” can have a lot of definitions. Which layer of the exterior walls, roof and floor do you consider the outside layer? For the roof, is the outside the waterproof roofing membrane, or maybe it is the shingles or do you qualify the outside as the insulation layer(s), or maybe the sheathing or the roof framing or the drywall? So, the house foundation concrete actually does sit right on top of a thick raft of high strength polystyrene insulation, so no dirt or rocks actually touch the concrete of the foundation, so any energy loss that would occur in the house foundation should have to go through the foam insulation. This insulation on the outside of a foundation is called exterior rigid insulation and it is still considered part of the house and part of the foundation because it is separating the house from the outside.
Good idea about showing more figures. We are working on that for future videos. Thanks again.
How does one anchor the wall thought the insulation and concrete floor ? rebar ?
The walls do not sit on top of the insulation. They sit between sheets of insulation that separate the finished floor from the foundation or slab floor.
@@BuildingABetterWay It appears looking at video that the wall is sitting on two layers of insulation very confusing
@Starkslws I am sorry we made this confusing. The foundation is a big thick flat block of concrete. It is sitting on a big slab of insulation that is formed like a mattress made of sheets of Polystyrene insulation. The concrete of the foundation does not touch the dirt, only the insulation. The walls of the house at the basement are sitting on that slab on concrete. What you see from the outside is the slab of concrete and then concrete walls sitting on top of that. I hope this is more clear. Sorry for the late reply, I just found your response.