Passive Solar Heated Home Design

[huggy59]

The groundwater contamination issue is due to a used motor oil storage and transfer facility up the hill from my property that was used for 20-25 years up to about 1980, I believe. I'd have to check the sources for the details again. The problem is that "somehow" products other than used oil found there way into the facility, which we not supposed to be there, of course. Then there were spills and corroded temporary storage tanks underground, dumping, etc. It is a known Superfund site and was cleaned up in the mid-90's I believe.

http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/HAC/PHA/hows/how_toc.html

Suffice it to say, if it were just oil, it wouldn't be a problem because oil floats - you can just use water below the oil levels and you're fine. Unfortunately, there are PCE's and PCB's (and other soluble carcinogens) that have dissolved into the water underground. This is moving slowly with the aquifer layer that they entered during the time the site was leaking. It didn't help that the site was near the top of the hill in the area.

EPA doesn't want it to spread any more than necessary, so no pumping or drilling or piercing of the water layer containing the contamination. They also don't want this water brought to the surface, which would allow it to leech and run further into other areas. Even the pond in this small valley is slightly contaminated, but it's really just a marsh bog that was flooded when they put in a small dam. EPA has monitoring wells all over the place.

So, wells that were here have been filled with concrete and shafts cut off, a water distribution system was put in to supply drinking and cleaning water for homes whose wells were contaminated.

If I could make an air-tight engineering case that with a closed-loop system and sealed wells, I probably could get permission. However, it would be a lot of cost for engineering, bureaucratic BS, etc. I just don't think it'll be worth the aggravation. My existing well (which hasn't yet been closed for some reason) is only about 150-200 feet deep - not deep enough for a single-water-column heat exchanger I'm told. I'd need something like 1000 feet.

As far as forced hot air heating is concerned, most of the homes I've lived in for most of my life have had it. I now have baseboard hot water, and my home is just as bad as far as extremely low humidity levels and stratification goes. My home is an open-concept contemporary with vaulted ceilings in over half the house. There are no currently-working baseboards on the second floor - because the 2 rooms on the second level are open to vaulted ceiling areas, and I have high windows that allow strong daily sunlight into them, the baseboards aren't needed!

I have suspended ceiling fans in the vaulted areas. I've also installed small proof-of-concept air circulators (12v PC fans in dryer ducting!) from peak to floor to help keep a more even heat mix - really helpful when using the fireplace insert, too. Since my floors aren't yet finished, I'm seriously considering hydronically heated floors to augment the heating system, but since I want central A/C, I think forced air is still a good way to go. The floors are still the coldest part of the house since I don't have a truly heated crawlspace.

We'll see. I'm still weighing options and costs and such. No money just yet, but I can still research and plan!

 

[pete]

I have one of those old superfund sites about 3 miles away . . . used to be a sewage processing plant . . . just a big septic system for all the tank-sucker trucks to dump their loads . . . but some not so pretty chemicals found their way down the drain . . . its been cleaned up and closed as a superfund site . . . but the county health dept still monitors the wells on site . . .

. . . and by your basic description, our houses sound rather similar, too . . .

. . . back to the topic . . .

. . . you could go with a sub-grade closed loop for your geothermal . . . since you already have the boiler for 2nd stage heating you could use a hydronic heat pump w/ your geo-loop . . . you'll have hot water for your floors and could use a basic fan-coil unit for A/C . . .

. . . I know I sound like a salesman for Radiantec, but for about $1 per square foot you can get your underfloor supplies . . . and even for the occasional DIYer insatllation is not complicated . . .

. . . their design places the tube under the rough floor or in a poured slab, so your upstairs would need special consideration . . . either a light-weight concrete pour or some other manuf. system meant for installation on-top of the sub floor . . .

. . . I've done two installs with their stuff, both in slab and underfloor . . . and both of us are very happy with it . . .

 

[huggy59]

Pete, if you don't mind my asking, as subgrade loop is buried how deep over what kind of area? I do have about an acre of lawn here that might be put to use, less the leach field... I'm just wondering about the costs.

However, I'm on a rock outcropping, so even a subgrade loop might not be possible here. I was oriignally thinking about a deep-well system.

 

[pete]

obviously, the size of the ground-loop depends on your heating/cooling load . . . and there are a few design options to suit various situations . . .

check these links for some info . . .

horizontal closed loop


slinky closed loop

lot's of additional info there as well . . .

Pete C

 

[huggy59]

Thanks a bunch, Pete. On the first link/page you gave me, I noticed the illustrations for parallel vs. series loops are reversed! I advised the webmaster... hehe

 

[realolman]

I'm sorry if this is a downer, but this gasoline/oil business has me scared to death. I think this could get very bad very quickly. People in other countries are shooting at people trying to gather up a bundle of sticks. I see no reason why it wouldn't happen here. I hope some of you will show me where I'm wrong,and give me some optimism. I think it'd be the first time I'd ever have been happy to be shown how wrong I am.

That civil war greenhouse seems like a crock to me.... 68 degrees ?... cords of wood?... wood stove with a water circulator?... that would be a boiler. If you live on the equator, you could cook a pot of beans on a six foot parabolic reflector. Around here (western Pennsylvania), you could grow impatients in it.

A guy around here wrote a very good (funny) article about how he spent $9000.00 saving money by heating his house with wood... chainsaws, trucks, sheds, etc. For people in urban areas, it just ain't happening.

I think everybody would be interested in using some environmentally friendly, cheaper energy source. It just doesn't seem to be very feasable, and I think that hype about people not paying any heating bills, like this Civil War greenhouse story, damage whatever credibility that solar or other energy sources have, and do more harm than good.

Because farming is going down the tubes, the trend here is to stick up windmills on the farmers' ridge tops. I'm sorry, I just can't see it. We need to run industry if we are to be a viable country in the world. Every time I go by on a still morning, I think, "Boy, your ice cream's melting now."

( That's another story, that I think deserves a quick mention. Just wait until benevolent corporations like Exxon,Enron, or Microsoft control the food supply. )

My opinion is that nuclear energy is the only practical way to go. I know there are issues with it, but I don't see anything any better. And yes, I'll take one in my back yard.( and hope to get a job there) Since it isn't going to happen in the next few months, the clowns running this country had better give our nuclear energy program at least a fraction of the attention they give Iran's, because we're getting our lunch ate by China et. al. and I don't know what we're gonna do about it?

Maybe send them a nasty fax?

Again... sorry to be a Pud, but I know there are smart people here... I hope I will read some reason for optimism.

 

[Digger]

IMHO I think solar is very feasible to cut down on the oil, gas and coal needed to generate electric. Its not a direct replacement but could cut the reliance of those fuels for electric generation by almost half if the government would be serious about it.

Currently its about $8 a watt to generate electric through solar on a standard type of setup from what I have read. With utility, state, and federal incentives it cuts it down to about $4 or $5 a watt. That is still to much for most people. Get it down under $3 a watt and people could seriously consider it. Imagine a 4 kW system for $12K. Its still a lot of money. But if that pays back in 10 years by generating enough electric to save a little over $1K a year in your electric bill you would be all set after that.

My annual electric bill is close to $4k now. I could probably cut my bill by 40% with a 4 kW system. Thats $1600 savings could pay back the system in a reasonable amount of time if it was $3 a watt.

The upsides would be less power plants that need to be built for peak demands (summer days) if enough people could go solar. Less polution and all of the other obvious advantages.

I put in an on demand hot water heater. It was in use for 3 out of the 4 months that they utility used to recalculate my balanced billing (Dec through March). My gas bill went down over 35% in usage and 25% in cost (gas prices went up). They now have a $300 federal tax credit for them If everyone put them in that has gas hot water heaters it would cut the gas usage significantly. Since I put it in myself my payback is less than 2 years and it has a life expectancy of 20 to 25 years. Normally payback is about 8 years with professional installation. Even Home Depot sells them now by me. They have been around for years and they are proven technology.

I would not heat my house soley on wood etc but my sister does for the most part. Its not as comfortable as my house since they use a wood stove only but they have an oil furace that they use when needed. She saves a lot but to me its not worth it since my gas bill for heating is now down to less than $1K a year (when I take out the hot water heater and clothes dryer). Currently I pay $96 a month. reinsulate, put in triple pane windows and energy effecient doors etc. A high effeciency boiler or furnace and its not so bad or.............. electric heat to go with those solar panels

 

[elcano]

Check this article about the position of the Greanpeace founder about nuclear power. He admits that he was wrong:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6041401209.html

My opinion about energy is that we must diversify as much as possible. Keep oil for making plastics and other stuff that cannot be made in other way. For mass production of electric energy use coal, nuclear, wind, solar, hydro. You dont want to place all the eggs in only one basket or be locked into a source that suddenly become scarse. For domestic production there are also multiple options discussed above.

For cars and whenever chemical energy is needed, we should follow Brazil's initiative on ethanol. Copy it or just collaborate with them (Japan is doing the second one). They produce dual-fuel cars that can work either with gasoline or ethanol, so they can use whatever is available (again, diversity and a range of options is the key). As much as 80% of the cars sold in Brazil in 2005 were dual-fuel. They already developed an industry and a market on ethanol that is making the country independent of the volatile oil market. Currently their ethanol is cheaper than gasoline, and it could go cheaper as the production increases by exports to other countries like Japan. See this NY Times article for the details:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/10/world/am...=rssnyt&emc=rss

 

[huggy59]

I also think the future for homes is going to be multiple sources instead of one type of fuel for everything. We have gone a long way to make it simple, cheap and easy, but now things are changing. The true changes will come with the price of the "cheap and easy" sources becoming more expensive so that other sources are competitive. We've narrowed things done to a couple sources in most homes - heating fuel (gas and oil mostly) and electricity. Maybe we have to start living with less so that we can live ON less.

Personally, I don't think the US as a country is going to be able to compete with other countries when manufacturing is concerned. Our standards of living, costs, laws and other issues all converge to make manufacturing in the US too expensive now when compared to 2nd and 3rd-world countries, and their businesses. I worked at GE, and everything "manufacturing" they have is moving offshore. I live in Maine, and the shoe industry is gone now where it used to be a thriving industry here. Manufacturing has to move offshore for the companies to reduce costs (employee costs), or they aren't competitive. We're on top of the mountain, and there's only so much dirt, so when it comes time to smooth (average) things out, the top of the mountain will get lowered to fill in the valleys... we have to pick our areas to excel in.

Then again, as I pay record prices for auto and home heating fuel, why are the oil companies posting record profits? Sorry, didn't mean to get political... but I feel the answer to that lays squarely in the political arena. For me, that's reason enough for it being time to find another way to live. Just have to figure out how to engineer my personal mix of solutions! hehe