There's a Box in The Basement, Dear Liza, Dear Liza

There's a box in the the basement, dear Liza, a box...
With what should we build it, dear Henry, dear Henry
With what should we build it, dear Henry, with what?

We had some fun with this one. The boiler, hot water tank, washer and dryer needed to be located within the thermal envelope (the heated space within the house). The reason is two-fold: 1) any waste heat generated from these devices should contribute to the heat already required to condition the house, and 2) the difference in temperature between the device and its surroundings should be small, reducing the heat transfer (heat loss) to the surroundings. Upshot: placing hot water devices in the thermal envelope improves energy efficiency.

So what's the problem? We wanted to conserve as much of the usable space in the house as possible. We generated numerous floor plans with different versions of bathroom, laundry and heating equipment locations. With recent advances, boilers are actually incredibly quiet and compact, making placement inside the home a reasonable option. That said, we didn't want to take up more livable space than we had to...yet we also didn't want folks to have to go to the basement to do their laundry.

So... in the end, the boiler and hot water tank went to the basement and the washer/dryer were stacked in the bathroom on the first floor. If the homeowner wants to in the future, the washer/dryer could be moved down to the basement should the basement ever be finished into a livable space. In the homeowner's manual we will actually be including a section to talk about our recommendations for any future expansion of the thermal envelope into the basement, including wall placement.

Now, with the boiler and hot water tank in the basement, we needed to get them into the thermal envelope (connected to the heated space on the first floor). So we built a box to house these and any future hot water systems. I must admit, Henry thought we were a little crazy when we gave him the specs for this one. While we had a good sense of the insulation requirements for this box, we were less familiar with standard practices...because this was not a standard practice! We spent some time getting great advice from CET on the type of insulation to use (rigid, fiberglass batt, etc), the methods of applying it (between polywood, exposed...) and joining it (seams and caulking). Because of the uneven nature of the original basement earthen floor, Henry's crew used a post and beam structure with a full floor for the box and then located it at the edge of the foundation under the kitchen to minimize pipe lengths (also an energy efficiency consideration).

The first time we saw it complete, one of Henry's guys had a huge smile on his face and said, "Did you see the bomb shelter? That thing's tight!" Ha! Take a look: