The most efficient way to heat our home presents a plethora of choices. The price of heating oil has skyrocketed this year. We've had one of the longest, coldest winters in decades this year along with heating oil and gas prices the highest ever. This lethal combination of factors has hit hard this winter.
So, after better understanding the ideas of thermal mass and daylighting, we can better focus our attention on super-productive ways to supplement the heat in our home. This is critical if you live with long, very cold winters like we do in Maine. What we would like to figure out for our home are ways to use all of that heat generation to fuel more than just the fireplace! Could it also be heating a boiler that heats our hot water tank or perhaps even a steam (or heat) powered generator that runs some of the appliances? Could the hot water or steam generated also be routed through pipes in the floor for radiant floor heat (and perhaps in the driveway too...?! ) or through baseboard heat units?
And what about the kitchen? We love brick-oven pizzas! In Europe they have long been using kachelofens, a type of masonry stove, constructed of ceramic fired brick to heat their homes. They are different from our typical wood-burning stoves in that the whole mass heats up and continues to put out heat up to 8 hours after the fire has gone out. They can also be built in ways to allow for baking and cooking.
http://www.pyromasse.com/infoe.html
This is a Canadian distributor that also holds seminars on how to build your own
http://www.canadiankachelofen.com/
We discovered a couple in Norridgewock, ME who now build and sell these unique masonry stoves. They traveled throughout Europe twenty years ago and came back here with their designs in hand. They can still only get the cast iron doors from Finland. These are highly adaptable units and extremely efficient with all sorts of potential. They describe the features in this link.
http://www.mainewoodheat.com/gallery.html
Once again, we're attempting to discover ideas that might work for our climate and situation. Even if we can just learn or borrow the principles that are put to use. Our typical fireplaces are large, inefficient holes that draught more heat up the chimney than into the room. We need more than merely aesthetics. Some of these old world ideas bring both efficiency and beauty. Works for me!
Daylighting is a relatively self-descriptive term however there are lots of applications and variations on the theme. Daylighting also falls under the category of passive solar in a couple of ways. One way is to take advantage of natural lighting in your home with the use of clerestory windows, skylights, site orientation, etc. Another way is the use of windows to allow direct sunlight into the home to be absorbed and later released in the form of heat energy.
These links provide some great information on how to incorporate more natural light into our dwelling spaces, and the wonderful benefits daylighting produces.
This one is an overall description
http://www.eere.energy.gov/buildings/info/design/integratedbuilding/passivedaylighting.html
This one applies more to home design
http://www.homepower.com/basics/design/
This article relates the negative effects of the exclusive usage of flourescent lighting
http://www.daylighting.com/hazards.asp
This article gives lots of links to specific products and applications
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Lighting/lighting.htm#Solar
Thermal mass is a concept that applies to how a form or substance absorbs, retains, and releases heat. The principle of thermal mass has very useful and practical applications in regard to homes and buildings in general. When used wisely in ways that compliment a family's needs and the climate in which they live, the benefits of thermal mass are very impressive.
Thermal mass is a form of passive solar which applies simply to the
manner in which certain designs and materials absorb and release heat
or coolness. Once the materials and design are in place, it just works
naturally with no mechanical parts or fuels. And these elements vary
depending on the climate and amount of sunshine an area receives. These links provide a more overall, in depth discussion of thermal mass
and how it is incorporated into building construction for maximum
energy efficiency.
http://www.greenspec.co.uk/html/lowcarbon/lowcarbonthermalmass.html
http://www.eere.energy.gov/de/passive_solar_design.html
These links describe basic concepts involved in a passive solar house or home construction.
http://www.consumerenergycenter.org/home/construction/solardesign/thermal.html
http://oikos.com/library/energy_outlet/passive_solar.html
A few of the most common thermal mass materials used today include cinder block, concrete, brick, stone, earth or burms (referred to as "soddies" in the pioneer days), adobe or adobe brick, and logs. Here is a photo of a home design in Colorado using passive solar architecture and thermal mass materials.
http://www.strawbalehomes.com/solar1.html
http://www.strawbalehomes.com/stockplans.html
http://www.thenaturalhome.com/passivesolar.html
This article pertains specifically to log homes
http://www.sharploghomes.com/mass.htm
Water is also an excellent thermal mass but is not used in construction obviously. However, creative uses of an indoor pool, if incorporated into the energy design of the house, can have some incredible benefits (more on that later!). Some are also using 'water columns' as room dividers, window covers, and in garden rooms. The advantages of using water for additional thermal mass is that it diffuses light without blocking it out completely and humidifies the air. Water is also the winning heavy weight champion of all thermal mass materials coming in at 10x greater than even the densest stone and concrete.
http://www.thenaturalhome.com/passivestuff.html
I was first introduced to the idea of thermal mass when I rented an 'earth home' with one of the girls I worked with in Vail. It was built into the side of a mountain called Belly Ache Ridge at about 9000 ft. altitude. The details in this house were very forward thinking and definitely high-tech--even for today and this was in 1989. It was done in a southwest contemporary style and was finished at a cost over a million dollars (way over my budget). But by living in this house, I began to see ways they used passive solar and thermal mass--although I had no idea what those concepts were or even that they existed. All I knew at the time was that it was a very cool (or warm) house!
As the economy continues to take a nose dive, I've been gathering more information on renewable energy sources and ways to increase our own self-sufficiency. This dovetails nicely with the whole homesteading concept and there are so many great ideas and innovations already available with more to be introduced in the next couple of years or so.
Starting with the home, there are several ways to start minimizing energy usages and, if building from the ground up, the benefits get significantly greater. There is some really interesting stuff out there--so much, in fact, it's hard to know where to start!
So, I'm going to begin a series based on the topics I'm researching or thinking about for our home (yet to be built). We all know how to cut back--that's been covered pretty thoroughly over the past decades. What I'm looking for are radical new ways of confronting oil shortages, alternative fuels, home construction, storing and freezing food, sheltering livestock, etc. This is where, in my mind, it gets really exciting!
As an introduction, let's just define some terms. I've discovered an entirely new vocabulary...words like passive solar, active solar, thermal mass, photovoltaics, combustible heat, gasifiers, glazing, daylighting...just to name a few. Many of you out there are very familiar with these concepts and terms. To others (like me) relatively new to the scene, it might as well be a foreign language.
So with this as the starting point, I'm going to provide some links to information and examples addressing these various topics. I'm going to throw questions, suggestions, and concerns out there for you to think about for your own particular situation and, of course, feel free to post comments as much as you like. Please fill in the gaps or educate me and others in ways I've totally missed the point. This is a broad new frontier and requires innovative and creative ways of looking at certain principles and discovering new applications and ways of harnessing the energy produced in practical, do-able forms--that make sense and aren't cost prohibitive. Any backyard inventors out there? I'm seeing all sorts of potential for our engineering-minded, inquisitive son!
An important aspect in all of this, which sometimes eludes the avidly zealous "go green" types, is that choosing alternative energy sources has to make practical sense--and that does translate into dollars and cents. Many people out there have difficulty caring too much about the caribou in Alaska when they're struggling just to meet the never-ending monthly bills piling up and keeping the bankers paid on time. Fortunately, renewable energy sources are becoming more cost-effective (especially with utility and gas prices increasing). Also, many families are searching out a lifestyle that is more self-sufficient and less dependent on utility companies, corporations, foreign distributors, and big government. A large capital expenditure on such things as acreage, livestock, renewable energy sources, timber lots, etc. are viewed as investments that can pay for themselves in the long run as well as in peace of mind and quality lifestyle.
We're finding that in many cases, it's not so much what we're spending but how we're spending. If we can continue to find ways for our family to funnel the money into supporting ourselves which in turn benefits the environment and the local economy as opposed to supporting large corporations and foreign distributors, it becomes more of a win-win situation (unless you're a large corporation or foreign distributor, of course).
Here is a conventional-looking home here in Maine (near Kennebunk, I think) that has incorporated a number of "green" ideas with photos and also a short video clip on how it all works in addition to how the systems compliment each other.
http://www.solarhouse.com/index2.html
This article details many of the considerations involved in how we can go 'green' or at least how to investigate more of the possibilities.
http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Your-Own-Electricity
Stay tuned for more info!
I've been researching "Life in Maine" recently to get an idea of how people actually do survive up here. After a more typical type of New England winter when the snow started flying in November and is now around 6 feet deep in March, it's been an appreciation course in how "NOT to be prepared for winter." My husband commented the other day that living in Maine is not a life--it's an adventure. This is especially true if you're from Texas. My hunt for some enlightenment turned up some real treasures. The scenery in Maine is not the only thing that's colorful up here--the born and bred Mainers fit the description pretty well, too. And if not "born and bred," those who have moved here and actually continued to stay here--year round--offer some great insights, too. Perhaps even better from my perspective, since people who grew up here don't realize how different it is from the rest of the nation. If you're looking for some true character-building, this is the place to be! We (and most anyone will agree who lives here) have to really want to live in Maine to live in Maine. We also have concluded that we really want to live in Maine. Here's a quote from one site I visited that also has some great anecdotes:
Ambition Unlimited - Limited Opportunities
I have to believe that if jobs were easy to come by here,
the population of Maine would soon rival California.
Or at least Rhode Island. So, in a sense, "the struggle"
to make a go of it here contributes in a big way to making Maine
"the way life should be."
http://www.bobfenton.com/responder/4th.htm
This next site is a husband/wife team that provides some great info on gardening, etc. Her husband takes over in the humor dept. by providing a "Guide for Newbies" in Maine. Very clever (and close to the truth)!
http://www.mainecottagegarden.com/humor/Guide_Book.html
Did I mention that many up here are far from politically-correct? Here's an example...
Here's a great selection of books by local authors I found from the Waterboro Library. With titles like Man Bites Log: The Unlikely Adventures of a City Guy in the Woods you can't go wrong! My question is, "why doesn't L.L.Bean carry more of these books?"
http://www.waterborolibrary.org/oldsite/bkrural.htm#MENFict
http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook24151.htm
People in Maine are also very helpful--or at least they try to be (hint: don't ask anyone for directions. That's right, no one.) Other than directions, however, they have a wealth of good advice on gardening tips and things pertaining to homesteading or farming. I discovered these great sites for this kind of info:
http://www.farm-garden.com/feature
http://www.umext.maine.edu/onlinepubs/htmpubs/2433.htm
I also love the idea of the "Farm B&B" and discovered these sites. They offer an alternative to the typical B&B where you can help milk goats or cows (or just watch!) and pick produce fresh from the garden or orchard. There are a bunch to choose from--I want to check more of these out in the future:
http://www.theheartofnewengland.com/Farm-Stays.html
http://www.high-view-farm.com/
Enjoy--and perhaps see you in the summertime!
