Phone: 509-948-2689 or 509-735-1266

Your FORTRESS Against High Housing Costs

Super Insulation

Super Insulation is the fundamental feature that allows the energy savings achievable with Castle Super Low Energy Homes. R-60 fiberglass batts are used in the walls, which provide almost three times as much insulation value as required in Super Good Cents homes. A double 2" x 4" exterior wall with staggered studs configuration is used to prevent leaks and heat seepage along edges. The ceilings utilize R-76 blown-in cellulose insulation, which is very economical, and provides exactly twice the heat loss resistance of a Super Good Sense home. This material is made from recycled newspaper that is treated with a fire and pest retardant (typically borax, environmentally friendly).

  Engineered Windows

Utilizing the sun with south-facing windows and engineered overhangs can further utilize the heat necessary to keep a home comfortable in winter. Our designs emphasize south-facing glass and specify coatings that maximize the benefit of passive solar heat. With properly designed overhangs no sunlight enters the home in summer months, but enough sunlight enters on sunny winter days to require no additional heat, even in the coldest outside temperature or wind conditions. The concrete floor system acts as a thermal flywheel or thermal mass to store the solar heat through the coldest days. The only moving parts to this system are the windows themselves (to exhaust excess heat) and shades, blinds or curtains to retain the heat at night and to reduce conductive heat gain through the windows in the summer. The power of this system simply has to be experienced to be believed and the beauty of it is there is no operating cost!

Radiant Heat

Castle Super Low Energy Homes offer radiant hydronic heat as an option in concrete floors to maximize comfort in winter and to provide natural cooling in the summer. The hydronic heat system is a flexible polyethylene tube (PEX brand) laid out on a grid pattern in the floor before pouring the concrete. A 12V thermostat system controls a small pump at the water heater (which is natural gas or propane fired) that delivers hot water when heat is required. This system is very simple, with only one moving part (the pump), and can be operated with a car battery in the case of an extended power outage. No other method of heating at any price can compare to the barefoot comfort of radiant heat in mid-winter and it only uses 10-20% of the output of the hot water heater, depending on the size of the home.

       Air/Air Heat Exchanger

An additional option in the Castle system is an Air to Air Heat exchanger. Simply put, this machine removes stale air from the home (usually from the laundry room) and replaces it with fresh air from outside, in the process removing heat from the outgoing air and putting it back into the incoming fresh air from outside. This is all accomplished at approximately 95% efficiency, with the added benefit that 95%+ of the allergens are removed from the incoming fresh air. The greatest benefit from this device is that heat from the clothes dryer can be captured in winter with the result that for every hour the dryer runs, no heat is required in the house for three hours on the coldest days (without any sunshine). This is all accomplished without elevating the relative humidity in the home because the moisture from the dryer goes out with the stale air from the laundry room.