Consumer Homes.

Question:

Carlos: After 20 years in the passive solar field, we too believe that passive solar can be very cost-effective (and healthy). Please send me a hard copy of a brochure describing your software so that I can consider it for display purposes during our "Open Houses" at our latest demonstration project. We have had 17,000 real visitors so far. Jorg Ostrowski,  M. Arch. A.S. (MIT), B. Arch. (Toronto),   Envirotect in full-time professional practice since 1976, doing   environmental/architectural design, ecological planning & consulting on   sustainable  buildings & communities. R&D, lectures/seminars/workshops A.S.H. – Autonomous & Sustainable Housing Inc., 9211 Scurfield  Dr. N.W., Calgary  Alberta  Canada T3L 1V9, Phone: (403) 239-1882, Fax: (403) 547-2671 Web: http://www.cadvision.com/Home_Pages/accounts/hedstomb/ash.htm

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> Carlos: After 20 years in the passive solar field, we too believe that > passive solar can be very cost-effective (and healthy). > Please send me a hard copy of a brochure describing your software so that

Unless you restore a Frank Lloyd Wright. No seriously, passive solar is about the finest style of living there is. By design you share your life with the outside, you do not have the dryness of forced air, and you usually have a pleasant design. I hated to sell the FLW, but had to. See the restoration site listed below. More photos just added and smaller contact sheet navigators. — Bill Taylor – Host at:         http://www.chamfer.com – Frank Lloyd Wright, Violin Makers, and Madison

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Passive solar has a big drawback due to the laws of physics. Since you are LIVING WITHIN your heat storage medium you MUST put up with temperature variations. — Rad Dole gave his blood, sweat and tears for his country. Clinton only gave semen.

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>Passive solar has a big drawback due to the laws of physics. Since you >are LIVING WITHIN your heat storage medium you MUST put up with >temperature variations.

False. Nick

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>>Passive solar has a big drawback due to the laws of physics. Since you >are LIVING WITHIN your heat storage medium you MUST put up with >temperature variations. >False. >Nick

Nick: Please help us out with a little more followup. Philip Kabza CSI AIA Progressive Architecture Engineering Planning Grand Rapids Michigan USA

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>>Passive solar has a big drawback due to the laws of physics. Since you >are LIVING WITHIN your heat storage medium you MUST put up with >temperature variations. >False. >Nick

If you can provide an example system design for a 100% passive system (that means no fans, pumps, etc) that doesn’t experience temperature variation, ie maintains constant design temperature (365 day – 24 hour) throughout a dwelling of arbitrary plan at arbitrary latitude, we might not consider your assertion completely unsubstantiated. [BTW: It has to be feasible, no NASA budgets...] While it is not strictly implied that one ‘lives within’ the heat storage medium, the dwelling and storage system must be thermally coupled either by convection, radiation or conduction for passive heat transfer to occur. The storage medium will unavoidably vary in temperature. The variation within the dwelling may be damped but cannot be entirely eliminated. A successful design will limit the variation to a comfortable range.

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>>>Passive solar has a big drawback due to the laws of physics. Since you >>are LIVING WITHIN your heat storage medium you MUST put up with >>temperature variations. >False. >If you can provide an example system design

I’ve been doing that here for two years now, George Including a long email correspondence with you, in which you seemed unable to understand it… >for a 100% passive system (that means no fans, pumps, etc)

I don’t think that matters much. Sure, $15 thermostats and $50 2 Watt dampers and 36 Watt fans are not purely passive, but passive purity seems old-fashioned, compared to comfort, simplicity and cost-effectiveness. >that doesn’t experience temperature variation, ie

Not even 0.001 degrees? >maintains constant design temperature (365 day – 24 hour) >throughout a dwelling of arbitrary plan at arbitrary latitude,

A circus tent at the North Pole? >we might not consider your assertion completely unsubstantiated.

Have We mistaken ourselves for The Queen? Some people seem to take longer to catch on than others, eg people who are unwilling to do arithmetic or high-school physics… >[BTW: It has to be feasible, no NASA budgets...]

Good idea. >The storage medium will unavoidably vary in temperature. >The variation within the dwelling may be damped but >cannot be entirely eliminated.

Bullshit. If the heatstore is always warmer than the house proper, by design, there is no need for house temperature variations. 1. Look up the average winter temp and amount of sun where you live. 2. Find out how much heat your house needs on that average day. 3. Design some sort of low-thermal mass "sunspace" to provide that heat. 4. Put a solar closet behind it, with enough water to store heat for a week. Put a water heater above it with a warmwater convection loop, if you like. There are a number of ways to move air. Natural convection works, eg with dampers that open and close using bimetallic springs, for passive purists, but that requires larger dampers than systems that use thermostats and small fans…   Nick

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>> >Passive solar has a big drawback due to the laws of physics. Since you > >are LIVING WITHIN your heat storage medium you MUST put up with > >temperature variations. > False. >Nick is correct.  Passive solar does not increase temperature swings.

Thanks Carlos, but what I’ve been trying to say is that if a passive solar heat store is always warmer than the house, by design, it can keep the house at a constant temperature by supplying the house with more or less heat as required, making the house temperature swing  z e r o  … >In fact, the opposite is true.  Passive solar reduces temperature variations,

Or in some cases, completely eliminates them. "Passive solar" covers a lot of territory, even slightly active systems, to me. Those with a COP of 10,000, for instance, eg a system that controls 20 kW of solar heat with a couple of thermostats and a 2 watt motorized damper, one that might be PV-powered. Let’s not be passive purists. >For example, consider a common passive solar strategy: >installing red brick veneer on part of an interior wall >that receives direct sunlight in winter…

Now in that case, there  will  be temperature swings, and we  do  have to live inside the heat store. How can this be improved? Use the same volume of water, vs bricks, because water stores 3 times more heat than bricks by volume, and put it in an insulated box, so it can heat up to 130 F, vs 80 F, and heat water for showers, and supply *15* times more heat than those bricks, with a temperature swing of 50 F vs 10 F, while keeping the house at  exactly  70 F during a cloudy week. The box might also contain a sauna or a hot tub or a clothesline. >Winter sun will help warm that wall, causing the >house to be more evenly heated than from point sources >of heat from non-renewable energy sources. >Not just that, but the heat is released all night >at a much slower and even rate than the non-renewable >forced air.  The forced air will have to switch on >less often, since the temperature range that kicks on >the forced air thermostat takes longer to reach extremes.

Some people define a "solar house" as one with no other form of heat. It’s easy to make one of these 100% solar heated houses. Just turn off the backup system. Or don’t put one in Design the house so it doesn’t need one. Would you hang an outboard motor on an America’s Cup boat? How would you like to live in a zero-fossil-fuel house, with walls less than a foot thick, and not burn wood, nor use electricity for heating? >These types of simple affordable passive solar design >strategies increase the comfort levels of any standard house.

Yes, but let’s build more beautiful solar sailboats. Performance machines Nick

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I was just curious if anyone has had experience with combining some of the passive solar principles to air conditioning design.  That is, it is usually stated that radiant energy is much more strongly related to comfort than air temperature (anyone who has gone skiing on a sunny day knows this).  So has anyone tried using the cooled air to lower the radiant temperature of thermal mass (storage) in rooms rather than just dumping it out of registers. I would imagine that this might be a more temperature stable and comfortable approach, a la underfloor heating.  I am working on a recording studio facility that is in a basement and would like to do better than the usual approach. —       James Heddle       James Heddle                               Acoustical Consultants                        Voice :  +61 7 3822 1020     Brisbane  Australia                             Fax   :  +61 7 3822 3200    Web Site: http://www.gil.com.au/comm/jhacoustics

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Hi Nick, Ekotecture International Incorporated Ekotecture International is a Florida corporation, chartered for the purpose of licensing and franchising individuals, corporations, partnerships, trusts and foundations to design, build, manufacture install and maintain integrated natural energy environments which are powered by the universal energies of gravity, solar and geothermal inertia, evaporation & condensation& phase change. Integrated natural energy environments or Ekospheres