Greetings everyone!
For nearly a decade, one of our five design criteria
for the houses that we design and build has been ‘lifetime design’. Lifetime
design is the idea that a house is designed for its inhabitants to age in place
and includes such features as wider doorways and wheel chair turning radiuses in
kitchens and bathrooms.
Recently I was presented with a challenge when one
of our homeowners emailed me because they couldn’t tell if their radiant heat
system was working or not. I called the homeowner and asked her to explain to
me why she thought that her radiant heat system was not working. She told me
that the thermostat on the wall said that it was sixty eight degrees but that
her feet and legs felt cold even though the floor had radiant heat.
I was baffled after my phone call with this
homeowner and I decided that I needed to drive to the house to make sure that
everything was working properly with their heating system. One of the first
things that I do when I go to check out a radiant heat system is to take off my
coat and lay the coat on the floor with the inside of the coat touching the
heated floor. After the coat is on the floor for awhile, I will put the coat on
and usually the coat is toasty warm if the floor is being heated properly. As
soon as I walked in to the house, I took my coat off and laid it on the floor.
I could tell right away when I walked into the house that the heating system
was working because the house was nice and evenly heated. I wouldn’t need to
use the coat test mentioned above to see if the heating system was functioning
properly, but I did leave my coat on the floor anyway so that I could enjoy the
warm embrace of my radiant heat warmed coat on my way back to the truck when I
left.
I inspected all of the pumps and gauges on the
radiant heat system to make sure that everything was ok and thermostat and
boiler were working perfectly. After I spent time checking everything else, I
sat down and asked the homeowner a few questions. During that conversation, the
homeowner told me that she had poor circulation in her legs and feet. Sirens
started to go off in my head because I had discovered an issue that I had not
even considered!
A big selling point in a sustainable home is the
fact that the home is designed for the inhabitants to grow old in the house
without any need for future modification. Something that is not being
considered is the comfort of those homeowners when they encounter circulation
problems in areas of their bodies. There is no real answer at this time for how
to combat the issue of homeowners feeling cold in their homes even though their
heating systems are functioning properly. The best that any of us can do at
this point is to be aware that homeowners can and will experience any number of
adult onset conditions as they live in the houses that we design and build for
them, with access and mobility being most likely the biggest concern.
I brought the issue up to a heating and cooling
person that I know and told him that I thought it was interesting that this
woman couldn’t feel the all encompassing warmth of her radiant heat system. His
reply was, “Why didn’t you just have her reach down and put her hand on the
floor to see if it was warm, then you wouldn’t have had to make the trip and
the issues would be resolved.” I thought about his point as I was loading our
woodstove at home. I have to kneel down to load up the woodstove and just as I
was trying to stand up, I was thinking, “I should have had her put her hand on
the floor and saved a trip down there”. I mention this, because I had a hard
time getting up off of the kneeling position because my mobility is slightly
limited thanks to a lifetime of adventure and working hard.
My mind started to wander even more, as I thought
about the heating and cooling guy’s comment. We can’t ask someone to reach down
and touch the floor to prove to them that their heating system works, especially
since I can barely do that!
How can we help people with our houses? Before, the
question would be, “How can we help people lessen the load on the planet by
having their houses use less energy.” Don’t get me wrong, this is still a very
important and valid question! For those looking to the future and as green
building continues to grow by leaps and bounds, I think it is time to put a
tighter focus on what the house’s inhabitants will go through in their lifetime
in the house. That would help to better direct and define ‘lifetime design’.
AB
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