Old technology to new

80watts

Well-known member
May 20, 2004
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Victoria
Watching alot of house building videos channels. One channel was "ancient wisdom" or something like that. Deals with subject of house heating in medieval times up to present. What most houses are missing is a type of mass (cement, sand, brick, stone etc) to absorb heat in daytime and give heat off at nighttime. Another is walls that can slow down heat during day and give off heat at night (kind of an insulator too). Trick is moisture control to prevent mold.
My house has 3.2 mid sized windows (.2 window above shower) on a 2nd story of a south facing wall, mostly because most windows are on a west side facing the street.
Kinda look at Amish people for design of heating and cooling of buildings.
Your looking at building with stone and dirt, which is no pun intended; dirt is cheap.

Insulation:
-3ft thick sod walls (walls absorb the heat of a fireplace during day and give off heat at night)
-Thick stone walls (castles walls 3-4 ft thick), with wall hangings (medieval times), air between the hanging and wall acts as insulator
-Woven branch wall with combo of (Straw, mud, manure mixture)
-Hemp wall (2 feet thick) (most walls absorb heat in daytime and give off at nighttime)
-Dirt walls/cement mixture/clay mixture to hold wall together
-ICF wall and floors and roof

Heating:
-Hypocaust (floor heating) sealing with clay so smoke won't rise into room, (floor is made of flat stone which absorb the heat)
-Rocket stove/fireplace (mass heating of brick) with torturous path (about 14 ft) before smoke leaves through chimney (causing heat to heat up mass of bricks/chimney, giving off 90% of heat to mass), which lasts for hours after the fire has burn't out.
-Under ground house (heat from the ground warms in winter and cools in summer time due to being mostly in ground).
-South facing glass wall and a mass wall/stone wall (with vents at top and bottom for air flow to rest of house). The space (between glass and mass wall) can be 1 to X feet to get heat from the sun. Kinda like an Earthhouse or green house attached to house.
-Sand Mass Battery (using a solar panel to heat sand in a 45 gal drum up to 600F) during day and sand gives off heat to air inside house at night. Uses a electric heater to heat up the sand using electricity from a solar panel.
-Modern heat pumps (quick and simple but requires electricity to run)
-Cement floor with Hot water heating pipes installed, instead of 4" floor, go for 5 or 6" floor for extra mass.
-4" pipe in basement floor with hair dryer for heating floor. insulated slab.

Cooling:
-Wind towers/underground streams (wind is forced underground and is cooled by ground/underwater stream and piped into house for cool air in arid climates)/
-River valley cooling (cool air at night reverses sending cool air up into house).
-Green house attached to house or house built inside a greenhouse (or 3 sides with 4th side on north)
-40-60 ft 8" pipe (under frost line 4-6 ft (ground temp 50-56 F) cools air going into house. An excellent way to preheat cold winter air (depending on temperature outside, can take air up to aprox 50 F, so your furnace only has to heat 50 F air to get to 72F (room temperature)). Energy saving on you heating bill.

Energy saving designs

-Enclosed porches acting like airlocks before going into main house/heated area
-South facing house/windows
-Net zero houses
-Solar hot water heaters
-Root cellars for food stores
-Sunrooms outside of main heating areas.

One of the common sayings in some videos is the government has bypassed these old ways, because of lobbying of special interest groups, like natural gas companies, insulating companies, refridgeration companies..
So the mass in the house was taken out in new construction (brick, stone, sand), so that the furnace would burn more fuel. The air intake shortened, so only cold outside air was used and more fuel was used; instead of an underground air pipe that could pre-heat your furnace air up to 50F, using less fuel for the furnace.
Designers were only putting in 1 heat source instead of 2 or 3. Electrical, gas furnace, and mass absorbing material etc.
Designer have taken away airlocks into homes (keeps heat in), enclosed porches (shake off rain, snow and keeps heat in house), and roofs over entrances (rain protection) to save on construction costs.
 
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