Alan Braggins wrote:
In article , The Natural Philosopher wrote:
T wrote:
"tim...." wrote in message
...
So, according to Kevin's voiceover, the house the guy was building was
being built of materials which stored heat from the summer to release
in the winter!

How does that work then? Surely for there to be enough heat put into
the walls for there to be any left at the end of the winter the house
would be unbearably warm in the summer!
[...]
The probable answer is that it wont work. There is no way you could
store enough heat energy in this way for an entire winter.
Although as I calculated here, a meter deep insulated pool of boiling
water under the house, could.

Even better if you can use molten salt:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seasona...thermal_stores
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal...alt_technology

I've not seen the program yet, but "being built of materials which stored
heat" enough for seasonal storage, not just day/night storage, sounds pretty
implausible. Phase change materials let you pump heat in without raising the
temperature, but even now Google tells me there are ones designed for use
in building materials, I can't see it working for a _seasonal_ store.
http://www2.basf.us/corporate/080204_micronal.htm

(If you can fill a basement with an insulated pool of boiling water, then
phase change materials might be a more efficient way of doing the same thing.

the insulation requirements for hot water are a lot less demanding than
molten salt :-)


As are the heat exchangers.


It was a thought experiment, but it essentially showed that a tank of
almost boiling water could hold a ****load of heat.

hat counts is, once its big enough, the rate of heat loss. Again boiling
water is not so hot that its gonna radiate much, and insulation would
keep it cosy.


http://www.capzo.nl/index.asp?CategorieID=2&Taal=EN

Neat link. I bet it isnt as cheap as water tho :-)

But building out of materials which will act as a store isn't the same as
designing a building around a huge store.)

No..which was my point

The house here is pretty massive, but even so its time constant is 3
days, not three months...