RE: GBlist: hybrid systems: passive solar + everything??

[Scott Schreffler <ScottS@bumgardnerseattle.com>]

What does this have to do with PASSIVE solar???

-----Original Message-----
From: Norbert Senf [mailto:mheat@mha-net.org]
Sent: Thursday, January 27, 2000 9:30 AM
To: Bion D. Howard; greenbuilding@crest.org
Subject: Re: GBlist: hybrid systems: passive solar + everything??


At 08:47 AM 2000-01-27 -0500, Bion D. Howard wrote:

>The type of system you describe harkens back to the days (daze?) of the
>National Solar Demonstration Program where otherwise pretty good engineers
>and designers used a HEAP of Federal money to try a bunch of stuff that
>largely failed to follow the well known KISS principle.
(snip)

A while back I found a copy of "The Well Tempered House" (1980) at a used 
bookstore. Here's an excerpt from a great story told at the Fairview 
Conference (1979) by Harold Orr, who worked for the Saskatchewan Research 
Council and was one of the designers of the Saskatchewan Conservation House 
(1976):

"...I don't think that there are any true solar houses appropriate to this 
area of the country. Now there certainly are some in other areas of the 
world. But here, it really isn't feasible to try to design a solar house. 
So we wrote back to the Government of Saskatchewan who was sponsoring this 
project and said we were interested in designing a conserving house that 
would be appropriate for Saskatchewan but we were not interested in 
designing a solar house. About three committee meetings later we got a 
reply to our letter. In the meantime we had been designing a conserving 
house and we had the house pretty well under way. The notice from the 
Government of Saskatchewan said fine, go ahead and design a conserving 
house, but make it solar.

We can't win them all, so we put solar energy into the house. I think that 
perhaps the solar energy installation has distracted from the particular 
values of the house. The thing that is very striking on the outside of it 
is the 160 sq. ft of solar collector, which is very noticeable. The first 
thing people see when they come in the door are the pumps that circulate 
the fluids through the solar collector. There is a big sign that explains 
the thermal storage tank. There is a control panel, complete with a handle 
that kids can turn and not do any damage. So people immediately think solar.

Then they get into the mundane things. There are windows with shutters on 
them. Beautiful carpet on the floor. But they cannot see the vapour barrier 
anywhere; they cannot see any insulation except for a mock-up of wall which 
is not entirely accurate. Upstairs they can see a heating coil which is 
heated with solar energy. And so on all the way down the line.

Consequently people ask how much the solar system costs. There is $30,000 
(1976 dollars) worth of hardware and that can just about be doubled for the 
labour of putting it into place. So, there is $70 to $80,000 for the solar 
system. When we go back and try to calculate or estimate how much it costs 
to heat this house, we find that the amount of energy needed for heating is 
very, very small. Such calculations do not even take into account the 
internal gains, such as heat from people in the house.

The design loads in the Saskatchewan Conservation House are 11,500 BTU per 
hour at a design temperature of minus 40F. It is about the same size as a 
1100 sq. ft. bungalow with a completely finished basement. Such houses in 
Saskatoon are being designed with a heating load somewhere on the order of 
60,000 to 80,000 BTUs per hour.

One of our problems was how to buy an 11,500 BTU furnace. They only make 
them for trailers.

Tent trailers.

Small tent trailers. In any case, to heat this house with electric heat 
costs about $35 per year. We had a $70 - $80,000 heating system to provide 
$35 worth of heat, which doesn't make sense..."

Norbert
----------------------------------------
Norbert Senf---------- mheat@mha-net.org-nospam
Masonry Stove Builders	
RR 5, Shawville------- www.heatkit.com		
Quebec J0X 2Y0-------- fax:-----819.647.6082
---------------------- voice:---819.647.5092
			
		
				


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