‘Circular’ House Made by Connecting Panels
QUESTION: I have seen some very attractive circular-looking houses. I was wondering if they are very energy-efficient and expensive to have built or build myself?
ANSWER: You are referring to a panel-type of house that appears to be circular. Actually, it is a series of 8-foot long, heavily insulated wall panels that are connected.
These types of houses are extremely energy efficient, both summer and winter, and are easy to build yourself. If you do much of the construction work yourself, the cost can be substantially reduced.
The panels can be custom-made to your plans and delivered to your site. The most common insulation package includes fiberglass batting covered with insulated sheathing with an insulating value of R-19. You can order the panels with high-efficiency windows and doors already assembled in them.
What is unique about these houses is that the roof is self-supporting. It is supported by a special truss system design, so there are no interior supporting walls required.
This allows you to locate the interior walls wherever you desire. You have the option of making a very open floor plan for effective air-conditioning and heating with solar or space heaters.
The circular shape improves energy efficiency for several reasons. With a circular shape, there is 15% less wall area for the interior floor space. This reduces heat gain in the summer and heat loss in the winter.
Winds tend to flow smoothly around the circular shape, reducing the pressure differences on the sides of the house. This minimizes air leakage into it and indoor drafts. The circular shape provides wall space for large windows in each room for effective passive solar heating.
You can order a basic house plan kit or have one designed to your floor plans. The sizes can range from 600 square feet to more than 3,000 square feet. For additional space and unique designs, you can add rectangular rooms to the sides or combine several circular sections.
With the circular shape and no tight corners on outside walls, you get more actual usable floor space than with a rectangular house. Therefore, you may be able to get by with less floor area than you had thought. That reduces your building costs and further reduces your utility bills.
You can write to me for Utility Bills Update No. 027, showing exterior diagrams and floor plans for four paneled circular house kits, building specifications and a list of circular house kit manufacturers. Please include $1 and a self-addressed business-sized envelope. Send your request to James Dulley, c/o Los Angeles Times, 6906 Royalgreen Drive, Cincinnati, Ohio 45244.
2 Slices or 4 Slices: What Does It Matter?
Q: I have a large family and I was wondering if it is more energy efficient to use a two-slice or a four-slice toaster in the morning? We really eat a lot of toast.
A: With most kitchen appliances, it is better to make larger quantities of food at one time. However, toasters are an exception. It doesn’t really make much difference, other than in ending fights over the first few slices.
Toasters brown the bread with radiant heat from the red-hot elements instead of cooking or baking it. Therefore, the residual heat in the toaster itself from adjacent slots doesn’t have much effect.
Letters and questions to Dulley, a Cincinnati-based engineering consultant, may be sent to James Dulley, Los Angeles Times, 6906 Royalgreen Drive, Cincinnati, Ohio 45244.
