A Brief History

The project entails repairing the building at 335 Maplewood Ave in a manner that meets both preservation and sustainability goals. The building is the new location for Petersen Engineering, a firm that has been located in Portsmouth since 1992, and specializes in sustainable building engineering. We intend for this project to showcase techniques & materials that promote both preservation and sustainability and intend to share all aspects of the project locally and regionally through open houses, presentations, industry tradeshows, case studies and publications. We foresee this project being a valuable educational tool to demonstrate that preservation goals need not be compromised by sustainability goals. We have teamed with Bruss Construction who we know from past collaborations has exceptional experience and expertise on projects with the dual goal of preservation and sustainability.

The project received approval by the Historic District Commission on January 6, 2010 with construction scheduled to begin early February 2010.

The projected peak heat loss reduction is 85%.


Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Wizard Stick

A couple of weeks ago we bought a handheld smoke generator called a "Wizard Stick" to help us detect leaks and drafts in our building enclosure. Unlike the old type of acid based smoke puffers that are toxic to breathe and corrodes wires, the Wizard Stick produces safe non-toxic thick clouds of smoke using 6 AA batteries and a little bit of theatrical smoke juice. I have had the pleasure of keeping the Wizard Stick on my desk to experiment (play) with over the last few weeks.


Example of a chemical based smoke stick: http://www.teamflexo.com/products/teltru.asp



My office has not had its radiator hooked up yet and I use the smoke to verify that if I crack a window, air is being pushed out my window and not drawn in (because of stack effect). Depending on the wind, sometimes air will be drawn into the building and sometimes if it is gusty out, air will be drawn into and pushed out of the window crack erratically. It is a fascinating thing to see.


I discovered this mysterious little hold in the corner of my office that draws in air down into it. I don't know where it goes from there...




Our chimney has a brand new damper on it and it still draws a lot of air!

There are lots of inflatable bladder products available on the market that get jammed into flue right above the fire box and inflated. That is great and all but there is still a convective loop of outside air just on the other side of that inflatable badder. James and I have been trying to brainstorm a way to insulate and air seal the chimney flue up where the chimney intersects the roof. Here is a little napkin sketch James made...

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2 comments:

  1. AnonymousJanuary 10, 2011 at 1:18 PM

    In terms of an insulating material that can take compressive masonry loads--the usual go-to solution I've heard about is FoamGlas: http://www.foamglas.us/building/home/. It actually is available in the US. It's definitely a bit pricy (~$1.30 per board foot is what I've heard), but for a limited amount, it's probably reasonable. -Kohta from BSC

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  2. RyanJanuary 19, 2011 at 12:31 PM

    Kohta,
    The insulation does not necessarily need to have a compressive strength. All that it needs to do is:

    -provide a good tight air seal in the chimney
    -be removable
    -have a modest R-Value
    -be able to be easily set into place at the roof plane - not just above the fire box

    There are a number of products on the market that are close to what we are looking for however, they still allow a convective loop to take place in the chimney above the bladder. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LAZXdKQRmk

    Ryan

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