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Re: Recovery of Solar Heat from Attic



Peter Swartman <pswartma@icis.on.ca> wrote:

>I used to install solar water heaters and have been in hundreds of attics.

OK.

>In the winter they are colder than the house and in the summer they are
>hotter.

How about in the spring and the fall?

>Unless you have some sort of heat pump, you will NOT get any heat
>out of an attic.

None? Perhaps not as much as if it were transparent, as you say later on...
You should talk with my neighbor, who tells me that he often hears his attic
fan with a cooling thermostat turn on in the winter.

>If you remove the south half of the roof and glaze it,
>that is a different story.

How about just glazing over an existing dark roof, say with some thin
polycarbonate or polyethylene plastic, with an airspace?

>As far as heat produced, the best conditions are when the temperature
>difference (outside and inside the house) is lowest.

Ah, the spring and the fall...

Nick


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