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Passive Solar House Heating Lectures in the Philadelphia Area



High-Performance, Cost-Effective, Passive Solar House Heating

Wednesday, April 26, at 7:30 PM at the Academy of Natural Sciences, and

Thursday, April 27, at noon at Ursinus College, Pfhaler Hall room 114

Local engineer Nick Pine will describe a *new*, simple, passive solar heating
technique for houses, offices, schools, greenhouses and other structures.
The technique may be used for new houses as well as for retrofits to existing
houses: a low-thermal-mass sunspace heats the house in average solar weather,
and a higher-temperature, high-thermal-mass "solar closet"/sauna inside the
sunspace, heats the house during cloudy weather.

Nick believes that this inexpensive technique can provide close to 100% of
the year-round space heating  and  water heating requirements of a house in
Pennsylvania. A number of 100%-solar, inexpensive houses with long track
records have been designed by Professional Engineer Norman Saunders, using
similar techniques. These houses are mostly in the New England area, and
some of them have no backup heating systems at all.

The lecture will include a paper handout, a tutorial on the simple mathematics
of heatflow, and some examples of useful solar materials and tools, including
computer simulations. There will be a slide show with pictures of many local
buildings, with some specific suggestions for solar improvements for each,
including estimated costs of materials and numerical benefits. There will
also be some specific suggestions for further practical solar research.
 
Sponsors include the Philadelphia Solar Energy Society and the Ursinus College
Sigma Xi scientific society. There is no admission fee. All are invited.