20x30 ???

[Chuckca]

We've chosen the 20x30 floor plan...still a few questions to answer....

1.  Could a whole-house fan be installed....if so...any ideas where...or is there a better method to ventilate?

2.  Where would a wood stove be placed for the most efficiency and output?

3.  Would there be space in the bath for a stack unit washer/dryer?

Thanks
Chuck

[jonsey/downunder]

Chuck
I see no one has had a shot at this one yet so I thought I might jump in. I looked at using a fan in my house but just went with a couple of vents. I have a cathedral ceiling and I placed them up in the pitch. I am relying on them to pull cool air in from the back of the house as an air-conditioning system. I had my mate Lurker climb up a ladder and do a smoke test for me. They work great. The vents are placed in the Dutch gable, the part of the roof facing north (sun is to the north here) heats up and creates an updraft that pulls all the hot air out of the house.
 If you were to use the "whole house fan", you would probably need to work out how you would want the air to move through your house, and place it accordingly. I would guess somewhere high.

Wood stove the same, look for the draught pattern of the house.

With the washer/dryer, I also had a problem with space. My solution was to separate the laundry from the house. I used the laundry as a part of my carport. This effectively gave me a nice breezeway. I know it's a little inconvenient but a simple hamper in the bedroom should solve that problem.
Hope this is of some use to you.
Jonesy
Ps how did you get on with the drafting software? It may be worth putting up in the referral links if it's any good.

[Amanda_931]

1.  There are whole house fans and whole house fans.

During the '50s my aunt in Detroit had an exhaust fan in the ceiling (with either another or huge vents in the attic).  Intake was from several places on the ground floor. 

Since hardly anyone had air conditioning then, and everybody in the house either worked or was in school, it worked remarkably well in her badly insulated, sunbaked house in a working class neighborhood in Detroit.

I lived with just exhaust fans in a window for many years, in Indiana and the Nashville area.  Ideal was for the intake to be right over the bed, exhaust through as many rooms as possible from there.

Expect you could do something in the point of a gable, south side for preference, the intake low on the north side (Jonsey, reverse those directions!)

2.  Never had one--yet anyway.  At a guess, in the largest area, in the area you most want to keep warm, and surrounded by room on all sides.  Might not be able to do that last one and the other two, but not on an outside wall, anyway.  Exiting at the top of the ridge.

(The rocket stove--Glenn just built one--can be used to heat a long bench--but how do you do that down the center of the house?)

3.  If ca refers to Canada--or you're any place that gets below freezing, you couldn't put most washers outside.  Most of them do not empty the pump.  I put antifreeze or alcohol in mine in the winter because there is no inside for it to go at the moment.

20 x 30 ought to give you plenty of room to put one somewhere.  There are a couple of combination (not stacking) ones around now, one 120 volts, one 240.  

I think I'd rather have a utility room, with things like circuit breakers and hot water heater and washer and dryer.  But another one of my pet peeves is having to tote laundry through three or four rooms in order to hang it on the line.

Remember that the great California energy crisis might not have occurred if some fairly small percentage of families put their laundry on the line.

(unless of course Enron et al re-jiggered the numbers so there was going to be an energy crisis there anyway.     )

[Daddymem]

What is the purpose of your ventilation?  If it is to get the nasties out and new air in an air-to-air heat exchanger might fit the bill so you don't lose your heat (or cold I think) as you ventilate.  
If I can find it again, there was an article in my local paper about a house that had gaps in their floorboards all the way up to circulate heat and cold for an incredibly low heating bill...and this is in New England, home of the nor'easters and blizzards.  Another idea is something like John's thermal flywheel in his solar saltbox.

[Amanda_931]

There is general ventilation as well as cooling.

I got the idea once that air-to-air heat exchangers were DIY or ebay.

Somebody sent me an old Popular Science/Mechanics article/plans for a home-built.  I could send them out--it's three huge files.

I still want fresh air routed into my closets!

[Chuckca]

My idea.....was to use a whole-house fan or fan system to cool the house down during the night and morning hours....then close all the windows (this would keep the cool air in and the hot air out)....

We have a 2000 sq ft home in CA....our whole-house fan is mounted in the ceiling....in the hall way...vents to the attic....we also have an eve fan that is on a thermostat that goes on when temps reach 100 degrees.

Our average gas and electric (combined bill) is $81.00 per month...not bad...

We rarely have to turn on the AC....unless the ambient temp reaches 100 degrees or higher....we have a 21 degree differental between the inside and outside ambient temp...guess you could say our home is well insulated....

I want to use this same concept on the 20x30 1 1/2...but there isn't an attic?