[RE-wrenches] Summer cooling

[R. Walters]

Hi Dana;

In-floor heating of a super insulated building is a great idea.  In- 
floor cooling however, has some serious condensation problems and is  
not a good idea.
In earth Air duct systems can harbor mold and Legionaries' disease.
Here in Northern New Mexico we use adobes (lots of thermal mass) and  
open up to the cool night air. When I lived through Texas summers,  
you either ponied up for AC, went to your mountain home, or suffered.
You stated the first 2 steps:
super insulate & increase thermal mass.
Next ?? :
Reduce your cubic footage of air conditioned space.
Reduce east & west glazing
Grow overhanging deciduous trees on the East & West
Use Fans
Use some evaporative cooling if possible
Use small High efficiency AC units (Sanjo?)
Raise thermostat
Use geothermal heat pumps
Migrate?
?........

Ray Walters


On Aug 20, 2008, at 4:03 PM, Dana wrote:

> I have always wanted to do a super insulated house design that had  
> a large central masonry mass or floor slab with heat tubing that  
> you could cool in the summer during the nighttime and solar heat in  
> the winter with solar. Or an earth tube air duct system that you  
> could pull cool night air through that would cool the slab. I built  
> a Passive Annual Heat Storage home 16 years ago that kept the house  
> at 68 F during the summer in western Washington. I was very  
> comfortable. Any thoughts ?
>
>
>
> Thanks -
>
>
>
> Dana Orzel
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.re-wrenches.org/pipermail/re-wrenches-re-wrenches.org/attachments/20080820/e19482f8/attachment-0003.html>