DAIKIN’S ALTHERMA™ DELIVERS DESIRED FOOTPRINT ... BOTH LITERALLY AND FIGURATIVELY
 

The Challenge
Oregon locals embarking upon building the most sustainable energy efficient home possible, wanted a heating solution worthy of their green vision.
 

Daikin’s Solution
The first UFactorThe factor representing resistance to heat flow of various building materials..S. installation of Daikin AlthermaTM - a domestic heating and hot water solution providing outstanding performance even during the coldest months.
 

Application: Residential
Location: Portland, Oregon USA
 

Portland, Oregon consistently ranks among America’s greenest cities. In fact, a recent Popular Science magazine study rated it the country’s greenest city. So when Dawn Bauman and Wendy Broussard set out in February 2007 to build a home in Portland’s Collins View neighborhood, their quest to make it as sustainable, energy efficient, and eco-friendly as possible wasn’t out of the ordinary.
 

However, one eco-friendly aspect of the home would turn out to be unique – so unique in fact, the homeowners have only half- jokingly considered putting a guest book in their mechanical room. Bauman and Broussard ended up with the first installation of the Daikin AlthermaTM system in the UFactorThe factor representing resistance to heat flow of various building materials..S. and a tremendously eco-friendly heating and hot water supply solution resulting in multiple tours of the home’s mechanical room.
 

“We are strong believers that living on this planet is a privilege and we need to be good stewards of it. Although we all have footprints we leave behind – we decided ours could be just footprints and not dents left on the environment,” Bauman said. The Bauman-Broussard home, which received a LEED Platinum rating, is the site of the first installation of Daikin Altherma.

MANY DEMANDS, FEW SOLUTIONS
 

Bauman and Broussard began the project in winter 2007 by interviewing several architectural firms, focusing on ones with green building expertise. They selected Constructive Form Architecture and Design, LLC, a young/start-up firm whose members have “environmentally supportive” design experience throughout the UFactorThe factor representing resistance to heat flow of various building materials..S. and Europe.

Brent Hinrichs, architect with Constructive Form, explained the homeowners were intent on selecting as many

green options as made sense for them. This involved extensive research and discussions since the design intent was “to use a minimal amount of energy and the most efficient (though not cost prohibitive) systems available, in conjunction with reducing the overall electric and heating loads for the project as a starting point,” Hinrichs said.

“The air-to-water heat pump was the preferred option....otherwise we would have been looking at a solar thermal preheat for a modulating electric boiler system given the goal of eliminating fossil fuel,” he recalled. Hinrichs and his Constructive Form co-owners, Simone Goldfeder, designer, LEED AP and Kina Voelz, architect, LEED AP, discovered none of the North American air-to- water heat pump systems under development were available at the time. They also learned the other existing systems had lower efficiencies – especially at winter temperatures.

Thus, they contacted every international manufacturer they could find via the Internet, and found Daikin Altherma was an all-electric system with a variable speed “inverter” compressor providing a high coefficient of performance while deliveringthesought after combined/ integrated hydronic and domestic hot water functionality.
 

They worked with the local Daikin AC office and when Daikin officials approved the home as an introductory test-site for the continental UFactorThe factor representing resistance to heat flow of various building materials..S., Daikin Altherma was specified. "

Daikin was very responsive and engaged in identifying potential test sites for the Daikin Altherma system in North America,” Hinrichs recalled.

A NORTH AMERICAN FIRST

Daikin has more than 50 years of experience with heat pumps and provides more than a million of them to homes and commercial applications each year, so while Daikin AlthermaTM was new to North America, everyone involved in the project confirmed that a proven history of performance and efficiency was the most important aspect of its selection for the job.
 

Broussard and Bauman were fairly active in the design of the home, and at one point seriously considered using only a wood stove for heating. But they didn’t warm to the idea of starting a fire each morning for warmth. “We knew we wanted in-floor radiant heating – but we never really had to pursue other brands of systems, thanks to the guidance from our architect/design firm,” Bauman said.
 

Construction started in May 2008. The HVACHeating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning. contractor selected for the job, Jacobs Heating & Air Conditioning, is the Portland area’s largest Daikin Network Alliance (DNA) partner and had extensive experience with other Daikin products. The radiant heating system, which has four zones and runs throughout the 1.5-story, 1,820 square-foot home, was one of the first aspects of the mechanical system to be installed.
 

Brian Erdahl, lead technician at Jacobs, explained all of the radiant floor tubing was run to the remote manifolds in the walls and some panel radiators were oversized, so they could match the BTUs

needed with 120°F water. Next, the contractor ran supply and return feed lines to the mechanical room to supply the radiant floor and panel heaters in four separate zones.
 

After the plumber installed the plumbing lines and everything was roughed in, the Daikin Altherma outdoor unit and the Hydrobox (Daikin’s indoor unit containing the refrigerantA chemical that produces a refrigerating effect while expanding and vaporizing. Most residential air conditioning systems contain R22 refrigerant. R22 is regulated under the Montreal Protocol and in the United States by the Environmental Protection Agency. R22 is scheduled to be in production until the year 2020. It's used in approximately 95 percent of air conditioning equipment manufactured in the U.S. today./water heat exchanger) were set for installation. A heat recovery ventilator was also installed to control the fresh air entering the house and works hand in hand with Daikin Altherma for outstanding efficiency and air quality.

While there were some European-to-UFactorThe factor representing resistance to heat flow of various building materials..S. voltage and metric-to-standard conversion challenges, they were all overcome fairly quickly and easily. Additionally, Jacobs had to work with the city of Portland for approval of the unit since there was an ETL listing, but no applicable AHRI testing and rating program. But, Erdahl said the city officials “were more than happy to let a system this efficient go into a home in the Portland area and they were great to work with.”
 

EFFICIENCY UNDER CONTROL

Daikin Altherma provides the ability to intricately monitor and manipulate system performance, and features an automatic control system adjusting the system’s operation to varying ambient conditions. It can basically be tuned to suit the homeowner’s exacting requirements, and also features an automatic re-start feature in the event of a power interruption. Additionally Daikin Altherma system can be equipped with a back-up heater (in a refurbishment type application, Daikin Altherma can reuse an existing boiler installation) that can be used for supplemental heating during extremely cold outdoor temperatures or as a backup to the outdoor unit.
 

The home’s control system was set up so the thermostat calls for heat, opens the valve, and turns the circulation pump on, but the pump will only run when necessary. Thus, the homeowners are not paying for the pump to check water temperatures when they are in the nonheating season.
 

Another benefit offered by Daikin Altherma is that it operates extremely quietly – as low as 49 dB(A) – and can even be set to produce 10dB(A) less noise during the night. In addition to Daikin Altherma, and a host ofother eco-friendly initiatives – such as installation of a 2.4 kW solar photovoltaic system – enhanced energy savings considerably. The homeowners are actually selling power back to the grid, and providing all of their domestic hot water with the use of Daikin Altherma via the solar photovoltaic panel array.

The house was also pre- plumbed for future solar thermal inputs and there is a potential for using a reverse-cycle to provide chilled water for partial tempering of the floor during cooling season.
 

Efforts like this earned the home – which was completed in February 2009 – Platinum certification under the United States Green Building Council’s LEED for Homes Pilot Program. And while that certification certainly hinged on several components, Daikin Altherma played an instrumental role.
 

Bauman and Broussard have been surprised at the number of people who have asked them where they can get the Daikin

Altherma system in the UFactorThe factor representing resistance to heat flow of various building materials..S. However, they say the best surprise is the efficiency. “Our electric bill is amazingly low for the size of the house and the fact that the entire house runs on electricity alone.”

DAIKIN ALTHERMA
All-in-one, all year round heating, cooling and domestic hot water supply solution
Daikin AlthermaTM is an innovative system that heats, produces domestic hot water and can even cool spaces. Daikin Altherma delivers maximum comfort the whole year through.
These heat pumps are an alternative to conventional gas or fuel oil heating.
 

ENERGY EFFICIENT OPERATION

The air-to-water heatpump from Daikin uses a sustainable energy source. In fact, it extracts heat from the outside air.

The system consists of a closed circuit containing R-410A refrigerantA chemical that produces a refrigerating effect while expanding and vaporizing. Most residential air conditioning systems contain R22 refrigerant. R22 is regulated under the Montreal Protocol and in the United States by the Environmental Protection Agency. R22 is scheduled to be in production until the year 2020. It's used in approximately 95 percent of air conditioning equipment manufactured in the U.S. today.. A thermodynamic cycle is created through evaporation, condensation, compression and expansion. A heat pump “pumps” heat from a low to a high temperature level.
 

The heat raised is transferred to the water distribution system (under floor heating, low temperature radiators and/ or fan coil units) in the home via a heat exchanger.

Depending on the model and the conditions, the Daikin Altherma air-to-water heatpump delivers between 3 and 5 kWh of usable heat for every 1 kWh of electricity it uses.

Daikin Altherma can be configured for use in both new and refurbishment applications, and connects to standard low temperature radiators, under floor heating or fan coil units. In combination with a solar thermal set-up, Daikin Altherma uses thermal energy from the sun to raise the temperature of domestic hot water, cutting on both CO emissions and operating costs.

Daikin Altherma is flexible enough to be configured in several ways:
␣␣ Space Heating Only

␣␣ Space Heating and Domestic Hot WaterProduction

␣␣ Space Heating and Domestic Hot Water Production with Solar Space Heating

␣␣ Space Cooling, Space Heating, Space Cooling and Domestic Hot Water Production

Manufacturer
Daikin AC Christina Trondsen 1645 Wallace Street, Suite 110 Carrollton, TX 75006 972-245-1510 www.daikinac.com
 

Architect/Building Design
Constructive Form Architecture & Design Brent Hinrichs 2975 SW Upper Drive Portland,OR 97201 503-297-5890 info@constructiveform.com
 

HVACHeating, Ventilating and Air Conditioning. Contractor
Jacobs Heating & Air Conditioning 4474 SE. Milwaukie Ave. Portland, OR 97202 www.jacobsheating.com
 

Builder
Ierulli Construction 13851 SW Alpine View Ct Tigard, OR 97224 503-572-4250
 

Daikin Equipment Bauman Broussard Home
Daikin Altherma
Indoor Section - Hydrobox (EKHBX016AB6V3)
Outdoor Section - Condensing Unit (ERHQ011A)
Domestic Hot Water Tank (EKHWS200B3Z2) (52.8 gallons)

Featured Eco- friendly Aspects included:

Low-VOC paint and formaldehyde-free glues Recycled paper and resin countertops Compact fluorescent lights
Solar-powered landscape lighting Pervious concrete driveway 100% of storm water treated on-site Reflective metal roof
Rainwater collection for site irrigation Flow-through planters Site restoration Native landscaping
Highly efficient plumbing fixtures.

Click here for the Altherma Product Data page.

Click here for Daikin's Altherma case study.