In my Mar-10-2007 post, I talked about the Forberger-New-Lake-Front-ICF-House-in-Commerce-Twp-Michigan and I showed you the pictures of the interior of the beautiful house and earlier I had posted pictures of the exterior of this lake front beauty

Boy, what would it be like losing heat in your house in the cold Michigan Winter. Here is a story that warms your heart for the beneficial features of Insulating Concrete Form -- so following is a description of events in Dieter Forberger's own words ...


Message from Dieter Forberger
Monday, March 19, 2007 1:57 PM

ICF house goes without heat for over 48 hours, with over night temps at 20 degs & 30 degs. each night, and only loses 12 degs. of inside temp. over the same period!

Here is a note of interest relative to energy efficiency. This past Saturday morning we got up and it was a bit cooler than usual in the house. We normally keep the master bedroom area at 64 degs for sleeping. The rest of the main floor is at 69 degs. and on the upper level my daughter keeps her room at 70 degs. I went down stairs and found the Vitodens 200 condensing boiler was not running. After several attempts to restart the boiler failed, so I looked up the error code . The problem seemed to be a high temp switch was not letting the boiler stay on for more than 3 seconds. The repair man come after lunch, unfortunatly he could not get the part until Monday , today. It has been over 48 hours since the heat has not been on in my home. Saturday night the outside temp. dropped to 20 degs. the day time high temp was 47 degs, Sunday night the temp. outside dropped to 28 degs the day time temp. wa s 40 degs, Monday morning the outside temp. is 31 and snowing, and inside the house it is still 57 degs. That's a 12 deg temp. drop over more that 48 hours without any heat. That means that ICF walls, the concrete floors and the R-48 ceiling are doing their job. Hopefully the repairman will have the replacement part installed and the system operating today.

------------------------------


Message from Dieter Forberger
Monday, March 19, 2007 2:41 PM

Why don't you wait until I get the heat back on. I'll update you on the total time without heat and the internal temp drop. The data that I gave you was from the north side of the house where there is no sun. In the front dining room, rigth now it is 60 degs. F even though it is over cast outside. I'll send you an up-date later. The repair man just came with the parts.

------------------------------


Message from Dieter Forberger
Monday, March 19, 2007 5:45 PM

The repair man just left. The sensor was ok. The sensor did exactly what it was design to do, shut down the system if the internal boiler temp. exceeded the high temp. limit. The circulation pump was defective and replaced. The defective pump caused the internal temp. of the boiled to go above the temp. switch limit. The house was without heat for over 54 hours and the temp lost was from 69 deg. F to 56 degs. F. You can use that on your web site. Now I am going to turn on both the radiant heat full blast and the air handler which has hot water coils to get the house up to temp.

------------------------------


Hopefully, FORBERGERs are now comfortably warm and cozy in their energy efficient ICF house. Stay tuned, if I hear anything more from Dieter ... I will keep you posted.

beginning of A-Heart-Warming-Story-About-Forberger-New-Lake-Front-ICF-House-In-Commerce-Twp-Michigan

back to our Energy Efficient Building Network home page

Fill in the following form to subscribe to our upcoming news letter, to keep
up with our latest updates, and to tell us how we can help with your Dream Home building project: