Air Conditioning

[localfiend]

Scoured everything available on the non-members side but there's not much discussion on this topic. Don't think I've found any pictures either. I imagine thats mostly becuase sane people like to stick log homes in an area with pine trees which generally means a more temperate climate, in the summer months at least. :D

Those of you who live in warmer areas, what have you done for AC? Central Air? Wall units?

I want to build a modest house:

Square
~1000 square feet
2 Stories
Maybe a basement (which would add to that 1000 sqft)
Roof overhang as large asthetically pleasing
Largish logs (Don't want to go under 12")

We can get months of temps around 95 during the day, and 85 at night with some of the hot days at 110 and the nights above 90.

I'm trying to get an idea of the cost of items that I don't really feel comfortable scrounging for.

[edkemper]

It doesn't take much to keep one of our log homes cool.

How hard are they to keep warm in winter? Skip's place was something around 5,000 sq ft with multiple stories and it was heated easily with one of the old style wall heaters.

Where my property is, summers get up to about 95 on the hottest days. I happen to have a portable A/C unit that can be (hot air) vented through a window. That is all it would take for my 30x30 if at all.

[FishingAddict]

I've been in some that have had smaller window units in them that just seemed to stay warm and sticky (damp) for a day or 2 after starting them up. Then they got comfy and stayed there.
Mind you these had been closed up mostly for weeks andit was miserably hot and humid and I doubt these smaller a/c units are the most efficient things out there at that.

Imagine if you living year round in it it would never get that warm (or cold in winter) so not an issue. From everything I've read big logs retain heat - hence natural they'd take awhile to cool down to I guess.
I am talking seasonal use log home - no doubt different than if someone resides there.

[ribbonevt]

Here is an interesting site.

It is the Earth AC or Undergroung AC

http://www.mb-soft.com/solar/intake.html

Hope this helps. Ribbonevt

[Sasquatch]

Here is an interesting site.

It is the Earth AC or Undergroung AC

http://www.mb-soft.com/solar/intake.html

Hope this helps. Ribbonevt

I've seen a couple examples of something similar. I plan on trying this with the small guest cabin before we build the main house to see how it works.

[localfiend]

That is interesting, though I really think I'd want to go with their alternate plan that uses water. The potential for mold & bacteria buildup makes me a bit nervous.

[LogHomeFeverDan]

I'm with localfiend, I just can't get past the possibility of legionnaire's disease. I love the idea but I'd have to go with liquid.

[Basil]

I used a central ac unit. I designed my house to be sort of a social gathering place in the summer, with outdoor kitchen, cross breezes, high ceilings and stone floors. As a result, we rarely use our ac unit, even though we are fully exposed on a south facing hillside. The downside is that in the winter, we are constantly digging out of the heat sink that is the 25 foot tall ceiling. Ceiling fans help, we have wood stove, heated floors, etc. but you can do a lot with design too. The 10 foot wide wrap around porch shades the walls and keeps them cool, too. I'm in KY so hot and cold are both considerations, I just planned to spend most of my summer having parties!

[LogHomeFeverDan]

I used a central ac unit. I designed my house to be sort of a social gathering place in the summer, with outdoor kitchen, cross breezes, high ceilings and stone floors. As a result, we rarely use our ac unit, even though we are fully exposed on a south facing hillside. The downside is that in the winter, we are constantly digging out of the heat sink that is the 25 foot tall ceiling. Ceiling fans help, we have wood stove, heated floors, etc. but you can do a lot with design too. The 10 foot wide wrap around porch shades the walls and keeps them cool, too. I'm in KY so hot and cold are both considerations, I just planned to spend most of my summer having parties!

So after I take the class.........when's the invite coming???? :cool:

[localfiend]

I used a central ac unit. I designed my house to be sort of a social gathering place in the summer, with outdoor kitchen, cross breezes, high ceilings and stone floors. As a result, we rarely use our ac unit, even though we are fully exposed on a south facing hillside. The downside is that in the winter, we are constantly digging out of the heat sink that is the 25 foot tall ceiling. Ceiling fans help, we have wood stove, heated floors, etc. but you can do a lot with design too. The 10 foot wide wrap around porch shades the walls and keeps them cool, too. I'm in KY so hot and cold are both considerations, I just planned to spend most of my summer having parties!

That'd be the way to do it, party's are always good. I plan on having high ceilings on one end of the house - so it could take a bit to heat (it get's cold out here as well, -10 occasionally). Heat's not a big deal though, I like it about 65 in the house. I'll have to look into a wraparound porch. That's money I don't have right now, but it sounds like it might be worth it.

Where did you stick your central AC unit? Basement? Anyone stick the AC stuff under the house if you built with piers?

[Basil]

I have an enclosed crawlspace, one unit in the crawl and one in the attic. As for the wrap around porch, I consider it structural. Using today's materials, anyone building a log house that gets rained on, in my mind, is building it to rot. So I built to keep my logs from ever getting rained on. Cool summer temps are just a side effect-much like the large seating areas, perfectly positioned for drinking beer in the evening...

[mudflap]

I'd like to resurrect this topic: Anyone have any pics of running ac ducts thru a log home? I'm planning a pier foundation, so under the house ducting would be fine for the first floor (although my gut tells me the first floor is never going to need it). My question is about the second floor- where would I place the ducts- through the joists or something?

My issues are:
I'm not from the South- out west, swamp coolers work just fine
I now live in the South- mentioning swamp coolers makes people give you funny looks.
Heat is not really a problem- we might have 3-4 days a year where the temp stays below freezing, other than that, keeping things cool is the name of the game.

[rreidnauer]

If you are finishing the ceiling on the first floor, simple conventional construction routing up through walls and in joist bays is the way to do it. If not, then you'll need to be more creative. Maybe some sort of industrial look, like maybe using corrugated pipe painted black, with registers cut into it? Do you have house plans already?

[Arrowman]

I'd like to resurrect this topic: Anyone have any pics of running ac ducts thru a log home? I'm planning a pier foundation, so under the house ducting would be fine for the first floor (although my gut tells me the first floor is never going to need it). My question is about the second floor- where would I place the ducts- through the joists or something?

My issues are:
I'm not from the South- out west, swamp coolers work just fine
I now live in the South- mentioning swamp coolers makes people give you funny looks.
Heat is not really a problem- we might have 3-4 days a year where the temp stays below freezing, other than that, keeping things cool is the name of the game.

Swamp coolers. lol. I remember the first time my wife introduced me to swamp coolers (she was from Colorado, I lived in Kentucky). I still think they are useless, especially once you enjoy the results of a properly sized and installed central a/c unit.

But I agree with Rod. Show some plans and we could help you out some. I basically just laid out a couple of stacked walls going to the upstairs lofts to run the HVAC duct work through.

[allen84]

Corrugated pipe painted black would look neat.... two things however, 1. I believe you would need an insulated duct within so the pipe doesn't sweat. 2. corrugated pipe is galvanized so paint might not adhere very well without sandblasting it first..... Make that 4 things, 3. sandblasting things that are round takes a lot longer than flat surfaces. AND 4. the plastic corrugated stuff is already black.

[mudflap]

I'll work on the plans- but basically, they are the LHBA 40x40 plans, 3/4 second floor open to below and 2 bedrooms. I'm planning on putting two large closets on the slope sides of the roof on each side of the upstairs rooms. Yeah. I'll work on some drawings. If I have log walls all the way around on the first floor, there's not really going to be a way to hide the upstairs ducts, is there?

[Arrowman]

I'll work on the plans- but basically, they are the LHBA 40x40 plans, 3/4 second floor open to below and 2 bedrooms. I'm planning on putting two large closets on the slope sides of the roof on each side of the upstairs rooms. Yeah. I'll work on some drawings. If I have log walls all the way around on the first floor, there's not really going to be a way to hide the upstairs ducts, is there?

I'm not familiar with the 40x40 plans. I only bought the 30x30. If you want to send me something basic, I can help you with ideas on where to locate everything.


Corrugated pipe painted black would look neat.... two things however, 1. I believe you would need an insulated duct within so the pipe doesn't sweat. 2. corrugated pipe is galvanized so paint might not adhere very well without sandblasting it first..... Make that 4 things, 3. sandblasting things that are round takes a lot longer than flat surfaces. AND 4. the plastic corrugated stuff is already black.

Only the duct work in the unconditioned area would need to be insulated, so he could always transition into non-insulated inside the envelope. Although that may be more of a pain than just running insulated pipe everywhere.

[mudflap]

Ok, found a guy in Alabama with a blog on his log cabin- haven't gone far enough to tell if he's LHBA or not, but he has a full basement with HVAC in the downstairs, and talks about putting window mounted systems in the upstairs windows. I'm still working on drawings (cutting trees took over my life). I could see doing this with ductless units, but still have some questions that I don't think require drawings:
1. how do you heat/cool your bathrooms with ductless units- put one in each room? seems like overkill to have an entire ductless unit installed just for a bathroom.
2. has anyone got any photos of their ductless system that I could look at? Or any HVAC system photos, for that matter. Just want to get an idea for how that might affect my floorplans before I commit....

[Arrowman]

Ok, found a guy in Alabama with a blog on his log cabin- haven't gone far enough to tell if he's LHBA or not, but he has a full basement with HVAC in the downstairs, and talks about putting window mounted systems in the upstairs windows. I'm still working on drawings (cutting trees took over my life). I could see doing this with ductless units, but still have some questions that I don't think require drawings:
1. how do you heat/cool your bathrooms with ductless units- put one in each room? seems like overkill to have an entire ductless unit installed just for a bathroom.
2. has anyone got any photos of their ductless system that I could look at? Or any HVAC system photos, for that matter. Just want to get an idea for how that might affect my floorplans before I commit....

I don't think I'd live south of the Mason/Dixon line without central air, but I am soft like that. I have come to enjoy all of my rooms on a given floor being +-4 degrees of each other.

[Plumb Level]

I've been thinking about a 4" - 6" duct running from my loft down to the basement, maybe along the RPSL. I'm actually just thinking about black single wall stovepipe. Put an in-line fan in there, preferably a reversible one. In the summer, I could pull air up from the cool basement and have it terminate at the top of the loft. Then in the winter, I could reverse it and try to harvest some of that warmest air at the top and blow some of that down to the basement.

I do think during the hottest summer months I will have a small window unit up in the loft.

My place is only a 25 x 25 with a 1/2 loft, on a full basement.

Also planning an infrared heater in the basement, maybe a baseboard heater also. Then also a wood stove on the main floor. Thoughts anyone?

[mudflap]

ok, so far, our discussion (the wife and me) on AC has concluded with this planned set up:

1. a main unit for the main floor, with ducts underneath the house (pier foundation)
2. we moved one closet on the main floor to another location in the bedroom, and can now route two ducts upstairs to feed the two bedrooms
3. a third duct will feed the upstairs bathroom through the laundry room on the first floor.

Using this plan, all the ductwork can now be hidden either under the house, or in the closets to get to the 2nd floor.

Reminder: we are in the South, so 80% of our concern is for A/C. We get plenty of heat, so we are not as concerned about that....

[david80]

I'd like to resurrect this once more. In class they talked about those split A/C things. I read up on it and watched a few installation videos, but I'm still not sure. Central air seems to be the way to go down south. Just wondering if anyone here has actually installed the split A/C unit.

[Arrowman]

I'd like to resurrect this once more. In class they talked about those split A/C things. I read up on it and watched a few installation videos, but I'm still not sure. Central air seems to be the way to go down south. Just wondering if anyone here has actually installed the split A/C unit.

I haven't, but I would highly recommend central heat and air. You will have a lot of condensation from one of those units with all of the humidity we have here.

[rocklock]

Those of you who live in warmer areas, what have you done for AC? Central Air? Wall units?
I want to build a modest house: Square~1000 square feet 2 Stories Maybe a basement (which would add to that 1000 sqft)

I have built a 31 by 31 in Washington on Camano Island. When its 100 in Seattle its in the 80's on Camano. I do not have any AC that requires power, but I have a bunch of COOLING that is natural. I have high ceilings, 28 foot to my ridge pole from the front door. I have 4 second floor windows that provide cross ventilation and a natural solar chimney. My walk out basement (my work bench) has never been higher than 68 degrees in temp even when it was over 100 in Seattle. Its really weird to stand in the basement doorway when it hot and feel the breeze from the basement to the second floor... I also have a fan that is reversible to increase the air flow in the summer or winter (down in the winter and up otherwise).

I believe you do not need AC in a log home given a basement that is underground and a few other things. But if you do need spot AC (like in a bedroom to sleep) there are portable AC units that are very reasonable...

[Basil]

I've got a unit in the attic and one in the crawl space. Works great. Parts of the house rarely use it in the summer, though. Yea, we need it in Kentucky but building with logs and covering the porches reduces need A LOT, our summer electric bills for 2800 sq feet are about $125 per month. Keep in mind our summer temps are 85-110 for highs. And the humidity makes it seem like we're on the ocean floor

[rreidnauer]

I'd like to resurrect this once more. In class they talked about those split A/C things. I read up on it and watched a few installation videos, but I'm still not sure. Central air seems to be the way to go down south. Just wondering if anyone here has actually installed the split A/C unit.
+1. .

[rocklock]

I'd like to resurrect this once more. In class they talked about those split A/C things. I read up on it and watched a few installation videos, but I'm still not sure. Central air seems to be the way to go down south. Just wondering if anyone here has actually installed the split A/C unit.

In Hawaii I have 3 split A/C units that cover the three bedrooms. They also can be used all at once to cool the living room. Its sort of like on demand hot water, only cooling. The real advantage is the compressor (noise maker) is way out back and the cooling units are positioned in each room for maximum effect. The hoses are run through a crawl space and are hidden entirely. The entire job cost about 5k about 12 years ago.

[Simpleman]

I built a small (1000 sq/ft) log cabin in Mississippi and had to have AC. I went with mini split in main room and it works great. I use fans to circulate air and it serves my family well. This is just a get away cabin not a home. Attached pic during construction.
http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20161216/654508e54dc376bf3dc250b01479760b.jpg


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