Posted on 01/03/2019 8:24:17 AM PST by jerod
splurging on a $2,000 cat door.It's for the
My first question, as well. How does the cat get a sense of the temperature, scents on the wind, etc., to make an informed decision?
How will he come back in, if he lost his collar with the sensor in it?
Curious cats need these answers.
Lovely! MEOW!
My father was a carpenter. He had some pamphlets from University of Illinois issued in 1948 (I think) that discussed strategies for Home Building that reducing heating and cooling costs in new construction. These involved simple things like Solar orientation, roof overhangs, and window placement. It had to do with comfort and heating and cooling costs. There were no $2000 cat doors and global warning alarmism yet. Air conditioning was not widely used, people used Attic fans to cool the house at night.
Here is an updated 8-page version from 1981 (University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana-Building Research council. They make the wall thicker to hold more insulation and include more in the attic. The principles are still valid and you can feel good that it came from a time before the blatherings of the Gorites!
http://ease.illinois.edu/sites/default/files/images/Lo-Cal%201981%20flyer.pdf
If anyone is thinking of building consider using structually insulated panelling (SIPs)for faster assembly on site, better insulation, and better resistance to wind shear. (No Fiberglass batts used.)
https://www.wbdg.org/resources/structural-insulated-panels-sips
I don’t have a problem with “going green”.
I actually don’t have a problem if someone in America wants to pretend they are communist.
I do have a problem when they use the government.via OPM TO force other people to do the same.
I’ve got two of the model you show in the pic.
Doors, not cats.
Cats number in multiples of two lol.
Check this out. Round homes for places with hurricanes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ge-9rARXfo
Not as substantial as the monolithic structures but they probably will not settle into the beach! (I think Sand will only support about 600 Lb/sq ft.)
The argument against automatic Cat Doors is raccoons!
Passive solar homes have been around for hundreds if not thousands of years(think of the south facing cave) They make sense in climates where you are worried about heating your home in the winter or cooling your home in the summer. I live in a Salt box style house. The windows on the front face south west. The big shed roof faces north east.
Super insulating your home makes much more sense than worrying about if the products used to build it are “green”.
The hallway in in the house your friend built is called a “heat sink”. Typically a heat sink will have a masonry floor and wall to absorb the heat from the sun during the day and radiate in out when the sun goes down. The best heat sink is soapstone. Which is why they have been building soapstone fireplaces in Finland for centuries.
I have seen two story green houses built on the south side of a houses with masonry floors, walls and even barrels filled with water all used to absorb the heat from the sun. Then the doors and windows that can be opened and closed to let the heat radiate into adjacent rooms into the house at night. You can even add fans to help circulate the air instead of using natural convection(heat rises).
The thing all super insulated houses must have is an air to air heat exchanger. If not the air in the house can become toxic because the CO2 can not escape. Also, moisture can accumulate.
I love those things too. Id probably go with an earth sheltered one like the folks at Formworks assist with. One of these days I hope to build...
“I have been impressed by Monolithic. Dome Homes “
Very easy to build and find, actually. They are all in disrepair though.
One of my uncles built an envelope home. Its a big house, not some hovel, and it has a greenhouse all around it. Makes sense up here. Its an unnecessarily large barn of a place in Northern WI and he still pays almost nothing to heat it.
As long as the technology makes sense economically then there is no reason not to do it.
Those pamphlets were put out by the Forest Products Laboratory and National Building Codes. I remember also they brought up things like planting Deciduous Trees on the south side of your house to shade it in the summer but when the leaves drop they let the sun through in the winter. They also recommend softwood trees to block the prevailing winds out of the north in the winter.
The fact is you lose most of the heat in your house through window and door openings. Also, heat rises. Therefore, you need a lot more insulation in your ceiling/attic than you do in the walls. The best way to save money is add more insulation in your attic. You can’t have too much.
A $2,000 cat door? I think I’ll be starting a pet door business and make it weather proof and $4,000. I’m getting on the green movement...
Often times, efficiency comes at the sacrifice of reliability. Means replacing that expensive airconditioned sooner than later.
Not only that, my cats are VERY indecisive; or love pissing me off, or both (most likely).
When they’re in, they want to go out.
When their out, they want to come in.
ALL DAY AND NIGHT LONG.
And other live critters the cat might bring home/inside such as birds, rabbits, and mice.
We have a dog door that requires a ‘key’ our dog wears on her collar. Pretty simple tech and was easy to install. Keeps the cat inside (mostly) and any other critters out.
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