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Earth-sheltered construction helps keep my house cool in the summer.
Spring water cooling supplements that, as an artesian well's water passes though a radiator in the house . The radiator has a fan behind it to circulate the air, and a drip-pan to collect condensation.
Because of the design of this house, as the sun's angle is high in summer, the front of the window-wall seperating the sun-space from the living area is totally shaded to remain cool. Conversley, in the coldest winters up here, sunlight completely floods the interior of the house to help warm it passively.
The sunspace becomes hot in summer and winter. There are panels on the roof that open to dump the excess heat in summer and large outside doors at each end of the sunspace allow cool outside air in to push the hot air out of the roof panels by convection. In the winter the outside doors are shut and a 1/10hp
fan (12vdc) circulates the hot air from the sunspace through the living space in the house to help heat during sunny days.
The sunspace is also used as a greenhouse to start vegetable plants early in spring for transplanting to the gardens after frost danger. In the autumn, some containerized plants (tomatoes etc. in 5 gal plastic buckets) are brought inside to enjoy past Christmas time. We grow vegetables hydroponically in the winter (large green hydroponic tank seen through front windows).
For cloudy days in winter, a wood stove is used to help heat the house. Only about 1/4 as much wood is needed in winter to heat this house opposed to conventional construction. A 7.5 kw biodiesel generator in the sunspace supplies some power and heat in winter (extracted from the diesel engine and exhaust heat). Used fry-oil is collected from restaurants in the area year-round. Waste oil heating is being studied now too, as there are plenty of sources for that.
All the wood used to construct the house, plus firewood to cook and help heat the house on cloudy winter days comes from the woodlot on the homestead.
- Basey
A year-round spring located behind the pine at the right of the earth-sheltered building
supplies cold water to a radiator inside the house to help cool in summer.