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[welshboy]

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[billi]

Hi Welshboy

Nice to hear the word "trombe wall" again....

I read about it and have a few pictures/diagrams about possible setups...

Only one i have seen is here in my neighbourhood the house direct (2 meters) away from the sea .
Its a renovated house stonefaced  house with natural(dark) stone and they just hanged/attached a sheet of Glass about 4 inch apart from the wall all along the south and west sides of the house

There are air openings to the inside of the house , to direct use the heat between the glass and the stone wall into the livingspace or you close these  and the solid walls get even warmer and act even more as a thermal store  or you close them in times when its sh/te weather to keep the heat inside......

The owners are pretty happy with this idea 

Perhaps not many people talk about the trombe wall anymore (passive solar heating/gain is the posher word perhaps)


I like the idea of thermal mass and think it can be achieved simple with using air and mass as the available media and not try to force it into water pipes and pumps to squeeze the heat gain then into a minimalistic water store
Better to buffer the whole building

Lots more to think off .... and tell,

billi

[ajstoneservices]

Billi

You are a mine of information have another applaud

Tony

[welshboy]

Hi Billi,
Mrs Welshgirl doesnt favour the idea of me mangling the look of the house ! I was thinking more along the lines of a garden wall / patio "trombe" with water pipes to the house. This would divorce the problem of looks and summer overheating .The site I mentioned talks of  temperatures of 49-50 celsius  in december. I know that is in utah at 38 degrres latitude but we would have the same sun angle as that in october and february- just thinking

[billi]

Sure Mrs Welshgirl has to be happy 

you have to rename your idea to stonestorage or hotwall or what ever ... the site you meantioned is a housewall, not a garden wall .

So i think     - get a solarheater instead - solar-air or solar water , what ever..


billi

[Ivan]

Navitron have got some fancy solar air heaters - if you want something a little more high-tech and techie-looking http://www.navitron.org.uk/page.php?56

I haven't had chance to test one out yet...

[rhys]

Interesting - Do you have any technical information on this panel. Duct sizes, air flow rates? Could it perhaps be used to pre heat incoming air used with a  MHR ventilation unit.

[djh]

What an excellent thread

welshboy, Thanks for that NREL PDF. I guess you already know that you can separate the thermal mass from the heat collection; very easy if you're using water. So it's also worth searching for 'facade collector' and the like. I'm just building a test panel from some polycarbonate and polystyrene (I know, really green )

billi, Your neighbours' house sounds very interesting. Are there any pictures or other details anywhere? Details of the mounting for the glass? I worry that in the UK there'll be building regs problems unless the glass is toughened or whatever is required nowadays. Plus there's the risk/cost of breakage. And I don't suppose there's any way to actually measure its performance?

Anyway, brilliant thread - applauds all round!

Cheers, Dave

[dhaslam]

The problem in winter in our cloudy climate is how to size the panels.  The Navitron ones will produce something like one half kilowatt per square metre in Dec/Jan and 1 to 1.5 in the months next to these.  If you need 25kw per day then you need a lot of glass.   More with low efficiency collectors.  Would it more sensible to use the existing roof since it is there already and collect heat on days when  it is actually sunny?  All it would need is some pipes inside the slates to collect fairly low level heat.   Of course there would only be heat on sunny days but the area would be very large for small expense. 

[mespilus]

Hi dhaslam +list,
You  mean a bit like http://www.ece.vill.edu/~nick/Solar-Heat.PDF tried and tested technology This is the one I am going to use in the heat pump solar posting by me. I have tested it on a nice day without glass and it was consistently raising the temperature from about 12 c to 28 c  over a distance of 18 ft of corrugated zinc in one pass  at a projected flow rate of 354 gallons an hour over 120 corrugations. Like they say there is nothing new under the sun !

I'm getting the dreaded 404 error for your link.

[billi]

Welshboy i like the black tar idea as an absorber  ....

Just as an example for a trombe wall -- southfacing wall 10m x 5m x 0.4m strong=  20 qubicmeter stonestorrage in the house   
Here is some info about trombe wall

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trombe_wall

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2008/03/29/HOCRVCV42.DTL&o=0


Billi

[djh]

The trickle collector would work in those periods and the trombe would just store heat in the concrete - later the water could be circulated through the trombe pipes extracting that heat so the flow rate doesnt have to be so critical. Anyone see a flaw in this thinking?

If you're going to do that, why not just circulate the water while the sun is shining and store the heat in an insulated tank like 'regular' systems?

Cheers, Dave

[billi]

I don't get the point ?

When you build a new house you pay for the blocks/ walls anyhow  so .. flow rates ... doesnot bother me..

Just store the heat of the windows/glass in your home 


Sure if a timber framed house , then not much store available , but still possible to put clay blocks inside


in other case we have to go back to the thermal store topic




Billi

[billi]

Still i donot get it 

Why these flowrates?  Are you cooling or heating ?

just get a solar system  with a good pump ! that knows when to circulate hot water  with adequate flow rates


billi

[Cornish Dragon]

Welshboy, how is your wall doing ?
Funnily enough today I was thinking to myself
as I was working on the estates new
navitron tubes I could put a trombe wall
in front of them below the winter sun angle
about 28m worth of wall....
Some thirty years ago I went to the Milton
Keynes Energy exhibition and was well
impressed with a house with a trombe wall.
Does anyone else have any experience
they can share ...please ?
Thank-you
cd