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Re: Solar Energy



Gary Coffman <gary@ke4zv.atl.ga.us> wrote:
>nick@vu-vlsi.ee.vill.edu (Nick Pine) writes:
>>Stephen Lajoie <lajoie@eskimo.com> wrote:
>>
>>>How do you propose to save energy over a six month period?
>[snip]
>>An 8' solar closet with 18 55 gallon drums full of water, and 1' of
>>insulation, would cool from 145 F to 70 F in 46 days, sitting outside
>>in the same cold, cloudy weather.

I think you snipped the wrong part. Saving energy for six months requires
something more like a 16' solar closet, with its storage time of 288 days.
 
>Putting that in perspective, you're talking about 594,000 BTU, about
>the amount of heat my furnace puts out in two hours.

Gee, your furnace is five times bigger than mine, and you live in a
warmer climate...

>What do you suggest for the other 2158 hours I need heat each season?

This is way out of context... Unless you live at the North Pole, I suggest
you build a low-thermal-mass sunspace sized to provide all the hot air
you need to keep your house warm on an average day in December. Then build
your solar closet into the north wall of that sunspace, (or the south wall,
if you are Orstralian), an 4' x 8' x 8' insulated closet with another 8' x 8'
layer of glazing inside the sunspace glazing, so the lost heat from the closet
ends up in the house, via the sunspace air, and the warm sunspace environment
when the sun is shining makes the closet run hotter inside... 

So this closet would have a separately-glazed passive solar air heater attached
to its insulated south wall, and it would be filled with some containers of
water, and on an average December day, the solar hot air would just keep
the closet warm, like a stagnant solar collector. The closet would be just
coasting, lurking, without providing ANY heat to the house on an average
December day, with some sun, except what leaks through the insulated walls
between the closet and the house. THEN when the sun goes in for a week or so,
you let some heat out of the closet to keep the house warm. Simple, no?

Nick


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