Heart House

        Hello and welcome to my post! I am NM, a Global Citizenship Experience lab school student. In GCE, we have a class called Urban Planning, where we have been learning about architecture and urban planning in Chicago. Now we are in our second unit of Urban Planning which is called “Power”. In this unit, we are learning about electricity and circuits! We have learned about voltage, watts, resistors, conductors, insulators, and the different types of circuits and how to make them. We also learned about Alternating Current and Direct Current, and how each can be used for different things. For this project, we were asked to create a circuit, and we actually had engineers from Arup come into the classroom and lend us their knowledge. They were helpful when answering our questions!

"Heart House", NM, 2023

"circuit diagram", NM, 2023

The rules for our circuit were for it to be a parallel circuit, for there to be 5 resistors, and for there to be a switch that turns everything off and a switch that turns only a section of it off. When CD and I got these rules, we first started making a circuit that branched out in different directions, but that wasn’t working for us. We tried multiple other shapes but we were having trouble with the electricity flow. Then we thought about what the classic parallel circuit looked like and decided that we should follow that. We made 5 branches so that we could put one resistor on each branch, 4 resistors being lights, and the last being a fan. We previously had trouble with the LED lights, but realized that they had to be facing a specific direction. So we fixed the direction of the LED lights, and it worked! We were able to make a simple parallel circuit with a switch turning on and off the whole circuit, and a switch turning on and off only the fan. Here is a video of our circuit working!

                                                    "Our circuit", NM & CD, 2023

Now how can the resistors of our circuit represent real-life, energy-efficient appliances?

We imagine our circuit as being a long 2-bedroom family house. These are the appliances that we imagine to be in our house:

Resistor 1: LED lights (90+ LIGHTING - SE-350.051 (14 watts))

Resistor 2: Geothermal Heat Pump (Bosch SM036-CS 3 Ton Geothermal Heat Pump (197/253 V)(19.1 amps))

Resistor 3: Slowcooker (All-Clad Deluxe Slow Cooker with Cast-Aluminum Insert (320 watts))

Resistor 4: Television (Clear Tunes - CT-1514S (9.5W)

Resistor 5: Dishwasher (Fisher & Paykel - DD24DDFTB9 (annual 144kWh) (1.65 gallons/cycle)

These are more energy-efficient appliances that we chose, but why are they more energy-efficient than others? This is why:

LED vs Incandescent:

LEDs are much more energy-efficient than incandescent bulbs because they consume less energy to make the same amount of light. They use 75-80% less energy, meaning that by using LEDs you can save a noticeable amount of energy, resulting in lower electricity bills and reduced energy consumption.

Price comparison: LEDs are more costly than incandescent bulbs, but LEDs actually last 100x longer. Typical LEDs also cost between $20-$70, unlike incandescent which run $2-$15. Comparing our LED bulbs which are $9.38 to the: Westinghouse 150 W A21 A-Line Incandescent Bulb E26 (Medium) Warm White 1 pk (150 Watts) (2.59$), there is a $6.79 difference. 

Geothermal vs AC/Heating:

Geothermal is efficient because provides substantial energy savings. Geothermal uses the temperature of the earth to heat and cool your home, which takes less energy compared to traditional systems. 

When using geothermal, it is more costly when purchasing, but it's not the upfront cost. In the long term geothermal is better, but individual apartment climate temperatures would still be using a traditional air conditioning/heating unit.

Price comparison: Geothermal can save 25% to 50% (this is not their limit), depending on factors like system design and local climate conditions. Comparing our Geothermal Heat Pump which is $5,848.75 to this AC: Goodman 3 Ton 14 SEER Air Conditioner GSX140361 (197/253 V) (2,968.00$), we can see there is a $2880.75 difference. 

Slow Cooker vs. Oven:

A Slow Cooker will typically use 108 watts compared to an oven which uses about 4000 watts. Using the All-Clad Deluxe Slow Cooker with Cast-Aluminum Insert can take 2-8 hours on high and 4-20 hours on low, and it retains heat better than ovens as it has a catch in the model that keeps heat from escaping. Even with this, it can still vary as a slow cooker cooks slowly. 

Price comparison: Our Slow Cooker (229.96$), compared to this: GE 30" Freestanding GAS Range White JGBS10DEMWW (2628 watts (lowest)) of $578.00, we can see there is a $348.04 difference.

Clear Tunes vs Samsung:

Price comparison: When comparing our television ($80) to this: Samsung 43" Cu7000 Crystal UHD 4K Smart TV (55V average) (115V max) which is $299.99, we can see there is a $219.99 difference.

Fisher & Paykel vs Frigidaire:

The Fisher & Paykel dishwasher actually uses less water. It saves a lot of water and is much more energy efficient because of that. Frigidaire may cost less money, but it is less energy efficient. 

Price comparison: When comparing our Fisher & Paykel dishwasher which is $2,099.00 to this: Frigidaire FFID2426TS 24" Built-in Dishwasher - Stainless Steel (annual 270kWh) (8.5 gallons) which is $479.00, we can see there is a $1620 difference. 

                                                             "Circuit with cover", NM, 2023

“Our calculations”, NM & CD, 2023

In my school we focus a lot on the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. This project is specifically related to SDG #7, which is to "ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all". There are different targets within SDG #7, and our circuit design applies to target 7.1, which is to "By 2030, ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services". When picking our appliances for our imaginary house, we focused on expanding the use of affordable, reliable, and modern energy. 

                                                   "Mini Solar Panel", NM & CD, 2023

Once we got our circuit to work with all the requirements, we wanted to try and get our mini solar panel to work on it too! This was a lot harder than we thought it would be, we tried just holding the wires to the positive and negative of the circuit then we stripped the ends of the wire and wrapped them around it, but that didn’t work either. Eventually, we had to move on to our other project work, but when the engineers from Arup visited the classroom, we went back to trying to get the solar panel to work. We asked them questions and got their help, and ended up getting it to work! Throughout making the circuit I learned that trying things as simple as possible is probably better (at least first), I learned that connecting a solar panel to our circuit is very difficult, and I learned that LED lights need to face a certain way. This was a challenging but also very fun and interesting project. I am happy with how everything came out and I hope you like it too! Thank you for visiting my post!

Citations:

“Product Finder — ENERGY STAR Certified  Dishwashers.” Energystar.gov, 2023, www.energystar.gov/productfinder/product/certified-residential-dishwashers/results. Accessed 19 May 2023.

“ENERGY STAR.” Energystar.gov, 2023, www.energystar.gov/. Accessed 19 May 2023.

‌“Product Finder — ENERGY STAR Certified Light Bulbs.” Energystar.gov, 2023, www.energystar.gov/productfinder/product/certified-light-bulbs/results. Accessed 19 May 2023.

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“Product Finder — ENERGY STAR Certified Televisions.” Energystar.gov, 2022, www.energystar.gov/productfinder/product/certified-televisions/details/2400243. Accessed 19 May 2023.