I'd like to see more on how specifically the crawlspace to living area wiring, piping, venting, and so forth is actually done and laid out. It would be so informative and cool. I am a young person but I want to build a custom home like yours someday in the future. Can't get enough of this content because I appreciate how mindful each decision is and the reasoning to back each choice up.
Thanks for being a fan! If you haven’t seen this one, you’ll dig it, more coming as we keep installing down there. Plumbing Tour: Efficient Drain and Water Planning th-cam.com/video/6pVQ26ss1qI/w-d-xo.html
Your electrical system is a perfect example of the 'housing obesity' epidemic we are seeing more and more. Homes that are getting bigger and bigger, homes that consume vast amounts of energy. My wife and I live in a super-insulated off-grid solar home we designed and built ourselves, and use a fraction of the power you do. The whole point of our approach is to do more with less, and becoming a slave to one's utility bills is just what we set out to avoid. I do enjoy your indoor air quality videos, though.
Pay attention to where you put high load breakers, they will heat up so if you spread them out in the panel it can prevent heat related problem. I've seen issues in big houses that have multiple ac and heater breakers all next to each other respectively
I'm not saying you're wrong but I've done institutional electrical (hospitals) for my entire career and never seen overheating circuit breakers. In rare instances an old one will warm up and start nuisance-tripping but as a rule circuit breakers do not get hot. If they did they'd be a hazard so manufacturers make sure the contacts and conductors inside are beefy enough to not cause IR drops.
@@paulmaxwell8851 well I've seen failures like this in houses with multiple ac breakers stacked together. I would bet the equipment put in hospitals is much better and a failing breaker will very much heat up. I once found a breaker that was stuck on just from how hot it was.
Curious but did you consider installing mounting blocks at the various exterior locations where there will be a penetration and then you seal (against air infiltration) the wire or pipe once the trade does their rough in work?
Is the low voltage cabling being done separately? Stuff like Ethernet, speaker wiring, thermostats, cameras? Given the rate that technology is changing, you might want to use PVC conduit for some of that, as the standards seem to keep changing, and the cables along with them. Rerunning cables through finished walls to an existing box is challenging. My house was built with telephone wiring and first generation CATV wiring. While wireless technology has come a long way, cables are still needed in a few places, such as to connect WiFi hubs and power them, potentially with PoE. What will that look like in 30 years? Who knows.
Building a house on a slab, how would you suggest running the wires (in the encapsulated attic)? Also any ideas about insulating the slab or do we even need to consider that in Anderson South Carolina?
There's lots of options, depending on whether you're building or renovating/remodeling and what budget you have to work with, along with what can be considered the most bang for your buck that's still practical. Like one option is to insulate the exterior for a layer of continuous insulation, which can let you leave the interior framing open and free to use to run all utilities or reduce the need to worry about keeping insulation continuous on an additional interior layer. Another is just to make the walls thicker to allow for both the insulation needed and still have enough space left over to run utilities... You can even create a service cavity specifically for running utilities, which is especially useful if you're also doing sound proofing as decoupling an interior wall from an exterior wall provides a good sound break that can also serve as a service cavity... You can treat your attic like he does his crawlspace... Or, if you raise your floor a few inches you can run the electrical under the floor, it doesn't need to be a crawlspace if just running conduit... There's also a lot of different products, usually used for renovations of older homes like putting conduit into the wall trim... crownduit.com/ Also, depending on what built-ins you have, you can also use them to bridge areas or put electrical instead of through the walls or need to route another way... A lot just takes planning before you actually build but also consider if any of them will ever need to be changed or serviced then accessibility may be something to consider but service panels can be put just about anywhere and blended in to look like the rest of the wall or floor or ceiling...
I’ve worked with solar thermal and PV before, and short answer is they’re not as universally, perpetually awesome as the marketing says. Our PV panels have sat in storage for 3 years, in fact. I’ll talk more about this later.
Over here the roi on solar is a very long time. Very close to the replacement time. Big problem is main usage is when sun is not shining. Even for work where we use most power in the day time the roi is still very long.
@@tweake7175 my comment was toward a grid-tied solar photovoltaic - which means there is not a connection to peak time of day use, but a year-long gain/use program.
@@HomePerformance it kind of depends on your power company. If that company does not provide for a grid-tied credit for power gained then, sure, it's not worth it because then you're having to justify a storage system (batteries), which is not an easy justification (if only considering the R.O.I. - however, if you're considering the source of the electrical power your power company uses, then it's a different situation. Having electrical power generation from coal should be illegal.
What do you think of the clay outlet box seal sheets? I think they call them puddy pads. Used for sound and fire. But definitely seal the box and penetrations.
You'll want to make sure to balance your loads on your panel. IIRC the meter reading will be taken from the highest drawing side. If you have 3 rooms always in use on the left side bus bar and 3 on the other side that aren't, you're going to be paying more. I think this is to keep multiple households in a neighborhood from drawing from the same line feeding them. Of course it's not a concern with 220.
i never say i dont like your channel or your tv show pbs , i see what you are doing and i like some of your videos . i have work all over the world on multi billion dollar projects with thousands of gcs and enginners . you seme to be a smart guy .you should understand how to set a time line for jobs and projects you are doing. this is your house you are showing people this so you get views.thats fine but in the real world time is money you have to keep up with your time line and come in on budget/.
Thanks- it’s just flexible airsealing tape around two bigass (2 gauge?) wires- the panels are on an inside wall. Outdoor boxes mounted to siding and furring strips.
Don't forget that in the near to medium future most people will be charging electric cars at their homes. Most of the time you'd want to slow charge them at off hours overnight but it should definitely factor in to your design load to have them fast charging at an inopportune time.
True, and as they plan this to be their forever home that they will hopefully pass down to future generations. Good to keep in mind what future needs may be needed to be met and avoid added costs of replacing systems instead of only upgrading them in the future.
Probably is- I used to think that kind of thing was hack, until my eyes were opened to structural design. Those 6 are the only thing holding up the main roof beam.
@@HomePerformance Thanks for the reply. "Follow the load path" has been helpful to me, as well. Knowing your attention to detail around insulation (and everything else for that matter), I was surprised to see such thermal bridging because of two little windows. I didn't look up to see that it was a nail laminated beam holding up your roof!
400A will soon be the norm as cities transition from natural gas in an effort to electrify everything. Most medium to large homes with less than 200A service will need an additional 200A for HVAC, cooking, and future EV charging
Overkill for most medium (2500 sq ft) homes, unless they are running electric baseboard heaters (and who would do that now.) Things keep getting more efficient, and stuff like heat pump water heaters use a fraction of the power resistive ones do. Car charging can be significant, but most people go way overboard here for bragging rights. A 30A/240V circuit is plenty for charging single car, if parked at home overnight. That will do about 20 miles an hour, which is enough to cover 99% of peoples' commuting in just a few hours.
Did you make, or are going to make any videos on the metal roof install? I saw the underlayment and eave videos and expected that you would show the details of the metal going on. Loving the content, keep it up.
Thanks for following- our metal roof, while awesome, isn’t scientifically interesting from the physics/chemistry/microbiology angle. We figured there’s plenty of other vids about it already.
LMAO... This guy had to cut the video right in the beginning at about 00:30 because he was dumb enough to touch the meter socket. He was talking about there being live wires in there and you can see his hand get real close and was still moving toward that socket when the video cut and skipped. He should have left that part in there. It would have been funny as hell to see him twitch when he touched that. And at least a few people 'like' this comment please so I know if he mutes my comment or mutes me in general because he's too embarrassed to say what he really did. LOL...
Great question. No answer. What something costs is very different from what it’s worth. What’s the actual cost of your children, vs. the cost of not having children? Sorry, not trying to be obtuse, just have a hard time going down the cost road, since this has been the center of my life for years, of my parents’ lives, of my bride and children’s too. Too much wrapped up in the ball to pull the yarn back out.
@@HomePerformance I know enough about you through your videos to be certain you have materials and labor down to the penny, and this ain't no $150/sqft project, that's for certain!
Is that your main goal? $150/sq ft? It’s not mine. Our tiny house is $600/sq ft if you look at it your way, but I don’t look at it your way, obviously.
Sean, that hurts my feelings. I’ve said in previous vids we’re spending $400k on the house, but that doesn’t include all the free labor. I charge my clients $150/hr for consulting- is that what I should value my labor at 6 days/wk? Times 3 for my parents too? A bazillion dollars. That’s the number you’re looking for.
With all the $$ you have spent over insulting and air sealing(which I agree) 2 questions. 1. Why didn’t you just use low voltage light system.. then all those horizontal runs could be eliminated. 2. Ceiling fan in the kitchen ? Really? You built a crazy efficient house. To me they are just big dust collectors.
It’s always a question of upsides and downsides, and where your priorities lie. We do have some low voltage lighting, and I can tell you it also uses wires, so I don’t get your point there. And as for the ceiling fans, in a house as efficient AND spacious as ours, how else would you circulate the air? Our 45,000 cu ft of indoor air is only conditioned by 2 3/4 tons of equipment, which is 1100 cfm. When you add in the dehumidifier and HEPA filtration, it’s only up to about 1700 cfm, which is not a lot for 45,000 cu ft. Ceiling fans are necessary imho. And if your house is dusty regardless of reasonable cleaning, there’s something else going on that should be addressed.
Home Performance .. fyi this is just a healthy discussion.. What I was thinking about the low voltage lights, is now u are not running 14 gauge all over the place and you should be able to do those long runs to avoid going horizontal. For me , I am thinking of a house as more of a low voltage house. How many things really do take a lot of power these days. Not that much. Just your major appliances.. I do love you put everything in the craw. I guess I am sort of a head of my time, but I think ultimately we will have more of a dc house than an ac one. IMHO.
Sounds great, sorry if my brevity came across as touchiness, it’s not. I think you’re saying use more wire, but of a thinner gauge. Agreed that the elec grid we have now needs improvement, but the manufacturers haven’t caught up to the times either, so I’d be nervous switching to DC today.
@@HomePerformance having run a lot of tech cables in homes i think you have done the right thing. Tech changes so fast that any special wiring will be obsolete pretty fast.
I find it hard to believe the water heater draws 120 amps. That's nearly the entire load for many small houses and certainly doesn't sound efficient. I don't think I've ever ever seen a residential circuit breaker over 60 amps.
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I'd like to see more on how specifically the crawlspace to living area wiring, piping, venting, and so forth is actually done and laid out. It would be so informative and cool. I am a young person but I want to build a custom home like yours someday in the future. Can't get enough of this content because I appreciate how mindful each decision is and the reasoning to back each choice up.
Thanks for being a fan! If you haven’t seen this one, you’ll dig it, more coming as we keep installing down there.
Plumbing Tour: Efficient Drain and Water Planning
th-cam.com/video/6pVQ26ss1qI/w-d-xo.html
The house where we got 4.6 cfm of duct leakage 😉, the house was
That’s thinkin. I’m not capable yet. Still was deciding where pens would go the day before.
Home Performance me neither... for the record I think you’re building a fantastic house, very impressive.
Your electrical system is a perfect example of the 'housing obesity' epidemic we are seeing more and more. Homes that are getting bigger and bigger, homes that consume vast amounts of energy. My wife and I live in a super-insulated off-grid solar home we designed and built ourselves, and use a fraction of the power you do. The whole point of our approach is to do more with less, and becoming a slave to one's utility bills is just what we set out to avoid. I do enjoy your indoor air quality videos, though.
Well, we all have different priorities and I for one am glad we’re all different. The world is a colorful place.
Pay attention to where you put high load breakers, they will heat up so if you spread them out in the panel it can prevent heat related problem. I've seen issues in big houses that have multiple ac and heater breakers all next to each other respectively
Thanks for the tip my friend- I’ll make sure the sparkies know
I'm not saying you're wrong but I've done institutional electrical (hospitals) for my entire career and never seen overheating circuit breakers. In rare instances an old one will warm up and start nuisance-tripping but as a rule circuit breakers do not get hot. If they did they'd be a hazard so manufacturers make sure the contacts and conductors inside are beefy enough to not cause IR drops.
@@paulmaxwell8851 well I've seen failures like this in houses with multiple ac breakers stacked together. I would bet the equipment put in hospitals is much better and a failing breaker will very much heat up. I once found a breaker that was stuck on just from how hot it was.
@@wallpello_1534 I'm curious, was that problem with breakers with torqued-down connections?
Can’t wait for thanksgiving!!!!! 🦃
Fingers crossed
Curious but did you consider installing mounting blocks at the various exterior locations where there will be a penetration and then you seal (against air infiltration) the wire or pipe once the trade does their rough in work?
What do you think about Schneider Electric's new Square D 200 amp Energy Center enclosure?
You look like my dad. I wish he'd come back
Is the low voltage cabling being done separately? Stuff like Ethernet, speaker wiring, thermostats, cameras? Given the rate that technology is changing, you might want to use PVC conduit for some of that, as the standards seem to keep changing, and the cables along with them. Rerunning cables through finished walls to an existing box is challenging. My house was built with telephone wiring and first generation CATV wiring. While wireless technology has come a long way, cables are still needed in a few places, such as to connect WiFi hubs and power them, potentially with PoE. What will that look like in 30 years? Who knows.
10-4, John. That’s why we have the crawlspace and mechanical shaft!
Building a house on a slab, how would you suggest running the wires (in the encapsulated attic)? Also any ideas about insulating the slab or do we even need to consider that in Anderson South Carolina?
There's lots of options, depending on whether you're building or renovating/remodeling and what budget you have to work with, along with what can be considered the most bang for your buck that's still practical.
Like one option is to insulate the exterior for a layer of continuous insulation, which can let you leave the interior framing open and free to use to run all utilities or reduce the need to worry about keeping insulation continuous on an additional interior layer. Another is just to make the walls thicker to allow for both the insulation needed and still have enough space left over to run utilities... You can even create a service cavity specifically for running utilities, which is especially useful if you're also doing sound proofing as decoupling an interior wall from an exterior wall provides a good sound break that can also serve as a service cavity...
You can treat your attic like he does his crawlspace... Or, if you raise your floor a few inches you can run the electrical under the floor, it doesn't need to be a crawlspace if just running conduit...
There's also a lot of different products, usually used for renovations of older homes like putting conduit into the wall trim...
crownduit.com/
Also, depending on what built-ins you have, you can also use them to bridge areas or put electrical instead of through the walls or need to route another way... A lot just takes planning before you actually build but also consider if any of them will ever need to be changed or serviced then accessibility may be something to consider but service panels can be put just about anywhere and blended in to look like the rest of the wall or floor or ceiling...
@@ZeoCyberG Thanks for the information, just saw this for some reason I missed it . Sorry for the delay.
@@georgewelden2507 No problem, youtube doesn't always notify you when there's a reply...
I really like your attention to detail. Thanks. Tell me though, how did this super hi-tech project ignore solar power?
I’ve worked with solar thermal and PV before, and short answer is they’re not as universally, perpetually awesome as the marketing says. Our PV panels have sat in storage for 3 years, in fact. I’ll talk more about this later.
Over here the roi on solar is a very long time. Very close to the replacement time. Big problem is main usage is when sun is not shining. Even for work where we use most power in the day time the roi is still very long.
@@tweake7175 my comment was toward a grid-tied solar photovoltaic - which means there is not a connection to peak time of day use, but a year-long gain/use program.
@@HomePerformance it kind of depends on your power company. If that company does not provide for a grid-tied credit for power gained then, sure, it's not worth it because then you're having to justify a storage system (batteries), which is not an easy justification (if only considering the R.O.I. - however, if you're considering the source of the electrical power your power company uses, then it's a different situation. Having electrical power generation from coal should be illegal.
Home Performance
In other words, they’re ugly.
What do you think of the clay outlet box seal sheets? I think they call them puddy pads. Used for sound and fire. But definitely seal the box and penetrations.
Yes, they work for airsealing too
You'll want to make sure to balance your loads on your panel. IIRC the meter reading will be taken from the highest drawing side. If you have 3 rooms always in use on the left side bus bar and 3 on the other side that aren't, you're going to be paying more. I think this is to keep multiple households in a neighborhood from drawing from the same line feeding them. Of course it's not a concern with 220.
That’s very interesting, thanks for the lesson!
i never say i dont like your channel or your tv show pbs , i see what you are doing and i like some of your videos . i have work all over the world on multi billion dollar projects with thousands of gcs and enginners . you seme to be a smart guy .you should understand how to set a time line for jobs and projects you are doing. this is your house you are showing people this so you get views.thats fine but in the real world time is money you have to keep up with your time line and come in on budget/.
question. did you use whole house surge protector?
How did you air seal between the two 150 amp breakers on the outside and two panels on the inside? Great work, looks super clean.
Thanks- it’s just flexible airsealing tape around two bigass (2 gauge?) wires- the panels are on an inside wall. Outdoor boxes mounted to siding and furring strips.
Nice. What's the make and model of the outside cabinet if you don't mind me asking?
Yikes, don’t know that one- but it’s standard fare at City Electric Supply.
Did you implement any whole-house surge or lightning protection?
Yes, we have whole-home surge protection
Why such large breaker panels when there are only 2 or 3 breakers in them? Do you somehow add them later?
I think you saw the panels under construction- they’re both pretty full.
Don't forget that in the near to medium future most people will be charging electric cars at their homes. Most of the time you'd want to slow charge them at off hours overnight but it should definitely factor in to your design load to have them fast charging at an inopportune time.
True, and as they plan this to be their forever home that they will hopefully pass down to future generations. Good to keep in mind what future needs may be needed to be met and avoid added costs of replacing systems instead of only upgrading them in the future.
14:00 Is that 6 studs together? Thanks for the video.
Probably is- I used to think that kind of thing was hack, until my eyes were opened to structural design. Those 6 are the only thing holding up the main roof beam.
@@HomePerformance Thanks for the reply. "Follow the load path" has been helpful to me, as well. Knowing your attention to detail around insulation (and everything else for that matter), I was surprised to see such thermal bridging because of two little windows. I didn't look up to see that it was a nail laminated beam holding up your roof!
No worries Jason
6:00 will silicone not work?
400A will soon be the norm as cities transition from natural gas in an effort to electrify everything. Most medium to large homes with less than 200A service will need an additional 200A for HVAC, cooking, and future EV charging
Yep, I was surprised, but using electricity for water heating and cooking (especially induction) eats up the amps
Overkill for most medium (2500 sq ft) homes, unless they are running electric baseboard heaters (and who would do that now.) Things keep getting more efficient, and stuff like heat pump water heaters use a fraction of the power resistive ones do. Car charging can be significant, but most people go way overboard here for bragging rights. A 30A/240V circuit is plenty for charging single car, if parked at home overnight. That will do about 20 miles an hour, which is enough to cover 99% of peoples' commuting in just a few hours.
Corbin -why are you taping those penetrations ? Why not sue caulk ??
Caulk has a shorter lifespan, I’d like to not worry about it for 100 years
Imagine watching a 17 minute video about how to run electric in a high performance house... so you could then write a comment to complain about it.
kick ass.
Thanks Dave
...and solar thermal as well?
No, Tim, we did not go thermal on this house.
300amp !!!!!!!
Here standard is 60amp single phase. (240v)
😎
The NEC minimum service size is 100 amps. So you're not installing 60 amp services anywhere in the USA legally. Sorry.
@@Kmoran81 i'm not in usa ;)
Were are you code is 100 amp and most places in the US they make you put in 200 amp
@@wallpello_1534 downunder. Other side of the planet 😎
Did you make, or are going to make any videos on the metal roof install? I saw the underlayment and eave videos and expected that you would show the details of the metal going on. Loving the content, keep it up.
Thanks for following- our metal roof, while awesome, isn’t scientifically interesting from the physics/chemistry/microbiology angle. We figured there’s plenty of other vids about it already.
LMAO... This guy had to cut the video right in the beginning at about 00:30 because he was dumb enough to touch the meter socket. He was talking about there being live wires in there and you can see his hand get real close and was still moving toward that socket when the video cut and skipped. He should have left that part in there. It would have been funny as hell to see him twitch when he touched that.
And at least a few people 'like' this comment please so I know if he mutes my comment or mutes me in general because he's too embarrassed to say what he really did. LOL...
You’re an idiot.
What is the ACTUAL cost for this build?
Great question. No answer. What something costs is very different from what it’s worth. What’s the actual cost of your children, vs. the cost of not having children? Sorry, not trying to be obtuse, just have a hard time going down the cost road, since this has been the center of my life for years, of my parents’ lives, of my bride and children’s too. Too much wrapped up in the ball to pull the yarn back out.
@@HomePerformance I know enough about you through your videos to be certain you have materials and labor down to the penny, and this ain't no $150/sqft project, that's for certain!
Is that your main goal? $150/sq ft? It’s not mine. Our tiny house is $600/sq ft if you look at it your way, but I don’t look at it your way, obviously.
Sean, that hurts my feelings. I’ve said in previous vids we’re spending $400k on the house, but that doesn’t include all the free labor. I charge my clients $150/hr for consulting- is that what I should value my labor at 6 days/wk? Times 3 for my parents too? A bazillion dollars. That’s the number you’re looking for.
@@HomePerformance I apologize brother it was a bad attempt to be funny in the current climate. I removed. LOVE ALL THAT YOU DO BRO!!
15:10 mmm yes blinky blinky
I hope you are not installing a smart meter - that would be a dumb idea.
With all the $$ you have spent over insulting and air sealing(which I agree) 2 questions. 1. Why didn’t you just use low voltage light system.. then all those horizontal runs could be eliminated. 2. Ceiling fan in the kitchen ? Really? You built a crazy efficient house. To me they are just big dust collectors.
It’s always a question of upsides and downsides, and where your priorities lie. We do have some low voltage lighting, and I can tell you it also uses wires, so I don’t get your point there. And as for the ceiling fans, in a house as efficient AND spacious as ours, how else would you circulate the air? Our 45,000 cu ft of indoor air is only conditioned by 2 3/4 tons of equipment, which is 1100 cfm. When you add in the dehumidifier and HEPA filtration, it’s only up to about 1700 cfm, which is not a lot for 45,000 cu ft. Ceiling fans are necessary imho. And if your house is dusty regardless of reasonable cleaning, there’s something else going on that should be addressed.
Home Performance .. fyi this is just a healthy discussion.. What I was thinking about the low voltage lights, is now u are not running 14 gauge all over the place and you should be able to do those long runs to avoid going horizontal. For me , I am thinking of a house as more of a low voltage house. How many things really do take a lot of power these days. Not that much. Just your major appliances.. I do love you put everything in the craw. I guess I am sort of a head of my time, but I think ultimately we will have more of a dc house than an ac one. IMHO.
Sounds great, sorry if my brevity came across as touchiness, it’s not. I think you’re saying use more wire, but of a thinner gauge. Agreed that the elec grid we have now needs improvement, but the manufacturers haven’t caught up to the times either, so I’d be nervous switching to DC today.
@@HomePerformance having run a lot of tech cables in homes i think you have done the right thing. Tech changes so fast that any special wiring will be obsolete pretty fast.
120 amps for a water heater, not smart ,install a standard water heater with a timer.
Sales people can sale a lot of stuff but not common sense.
I don’t think you’re on the same page here, Rich
I find it hard to believe the water heater draws 120 amps. That's nearly the entire load for many small houses and certainly doesn't sound efficient. I don't think I've ever ever seen a residential circuit breaker over 60 amps.