Christofoo Review

I was very glad to find your website, as a link from the Vermont-based hydronic design firm. I have been spending some of my time designing a house plan (for myself, for a change) and have pretty much decided on hydronic radiant floor heating, along with some unsubstantiated thoughts on somehow trying to incorporate solar heating into that. The only bonus that paying child support has to me is that it gives me time (but not the money to build) to design and detail the snot out of this house; three more years left until financial freedom and no more renting. One of these days, I will start a NavisWorks webpage for my website maybe with some 4D construction sequencing and some rendered conceptual details of the proposed house.

The item of solar-charging the hydronic heating that I have been thinking about is using a solar closet to heat a rock storage "room" (actively charging it in daylit hours via solar-powered muffin fans), which may be able to function as a heat exchanger, reducing or even eliminating a water heater. Alternatively, an uninsulated water heater in such a rock storage "room" used for the radiant hydronic heating, absorbing heat for use in the hydronic heating. The heating delay that I read about may work out just right with this concept. I learned lots about the solar closet concept from the works of Nick Pine, from Colorado, I believe; an easy Google find.

Thanks for sharing your experiences! Dave

Hi Dave, thanks for dropping by!

In many ways new work is much more fun than retrofit - anyways it seems a lot more straight-forward to me, having only done retrofit.

I have had a few solar design ideas I might throw at you, in case one might be useful:

• Actually first, check out the passive solar energy book if you haven't seen it already. Very good read, with lots of very low-cost concepts for new work (i.e. south-facing windows and thermal walls) http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/SolarHomes/PasSolEnergyBk/PSEbook.htm . (Of course, passive solar design doesn't provide a thermostat, so I probably wouldn't use it by itself. Although, if your solar heat gain is overkill you can sort-of have a thermostat - called an open window.)
• Materials absorb much, much more heat per volume during phase change, so if space is any kind of premium you might want to research phase change materials (PCM's) for thermal storage. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_change_material . I haven't had time to figure out how PCM's compare in cost-per-BTU, or if there is a very good PCM available for solar-radiant systems, or if there are any decent turn-key vendors for such a thing... so for all I know it may be a bad suggestion...

How do you like NavisWorks? Do you know of any decent low-cost or free alternatives (i.e. for the DIY crowd)?

I've demoed a slew of low-cost and free CAD packages (looking for a mechanical CAD more than an architectural CAD, although actually I'd love to have both), and I've been gravitating towards Creo Personal Edition. It's free, parametric 3d, and can create associative 2d drawings, and it was easy to learn (coming from Solidworks).

Cheers, Chris

Hi Chris,

Major delay in replying, I had forgotten to bookmark your webpage, so I have resorted to Googling some of the body text at various times, but at last it appeared in the Google results!

I will have to check out that book. The domain name looks familiar, so I may have been there already.

PCM's would definitely be advantageous, but here in NH, blocks of granite can be readily obtained, so consistency in mass would be a piece of cake.

If you are not going to be directly marketing CADD products, then check out http://students.autodesk.com

You just need a .edu email address. Easiest way, if you are not already a student, is to find the least expensive program that you can enroll in online and you should get an email address in order to access the "Blackbook", if they use that method of grading, project submission, lectures, etc.

DO NOT use bit torrents, etc. You can get cool software via legit channels easy enough.

There are also options like competitive upgrades. Many years ago, I purchased a very inexpensive GenericCADD (sp?) from Surplus Software (no longer an option), then Autodesk bought the product line and because I had registered (always do that), I received an inexpensive upgrade path to the Autodesk version of it, then to AutoCAD LT.

Some of the software that I use can be found at: http://the-hurds.net/Computer-Software/index.shtml

Now that I am only part-time, thanks to our wonderful government and their screwing up the FAA funding process, I am pushing to convert my favorite house plan to completion, finish creating 3D components, create 3D construction components (scaffolding,concrete forms, cranes, etc.), some interior furnishings, and then building a 4D animation of the house's construction. I'll host that on my YouTube account, with links to my websites, so I can hopefully get some NavisWorks business drummed-up by having a REAL demo of my abilities. I work in the aviation division of a civil engineering company in NH, so all our projects except one MassDOT one for Logan Airport came to a screeching halt.

I received a legitimate license to Navisworks Manage 2009 for free simply by paying attention to a presentation that Autodesk was giving and being able to answer a question about it after the presentation that won me the doorprize of a license; it is a Not for resale license, which means that it cannot be upgraded. The cost to be at the presentation - free, and they supplied pizza and soda, as well. You can import 3D objects from practically any source into Navisworks - which is one of their claims to fame, even SketchUp. The only 3D objects that I have had trouble importing (I was a beta tester for their newest version, too) was TurboCAD 3D objects, and I think TurboCAD blocks, as well. I absolutely love using NWM 2009, just wish I worked for a firm that used it.

Bookmarked, now!

Cheers! Dave