Hello Captron welcome to Ecorenovator,
Quote:
Originally Posted by Captron
Our Digital Self-Heating Home system (DSHH) uses sun when available, stores excess summer solar under the slab, integrates log wetback (fireplace Boiler) AND hot water heat pump. In addition we integrated hot water into the package so the HW Heat pump heats the hot water first then the house.
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AC_Hacker here...
First off, I'm not the administrator of this blog, nor do I have privileged status of any kind here. Furthermore I can only claim to speak for myself and not for the other posters on this blog.
So, having said all that... it is my understanding that this blog is not a target for sales information (with the exception of the irritating insert adverts that diminish the usefulness of this blog for everyone). Rather it is a space where people with the skills and gumption and not unusually, very little money, share information about systems and structures that they have conceptualized or constructed or re-purposed, with the ultimate goal of reducing their energy consumption.
In short we are an innovative, resourceful, and relentlessly determined lot.
So, if you actually read a bit on this blog before you posted, you may well have already realized the kind of 'room' you were walking into before you spoke.
Having gotten all those bits of my own opinion out of the way, I looked at your web site and it looks like your company has learned many of the lessons of Passivhaus, regarding insulation, sealing, etc. I am interested in the details of your underfloor heat sink concept. I couldn't find enough info on your site to be of any use to me.
So for the sake of illustration, if you were building a home that was 2000 square feet in area, and the climate was such a severity that it required one Ton of conventional heating & cooling (1 Ton = 12,000 BTU/hr = 3.5 KW-h)...
- How much mass would you allow for the floor heat sink?
- Does your design system account for the large range of ground temperatures you might encounter in Finland, Alaska, Southern Spain, Caracas, etc.?
- Would you use regular cement or does your system also feature change of state additives (Phase Change Material)?
- If it does use PCM, what is the formulation?
- Are you running PEX through the slab for heat storage and heat reclamation?
- What kind of PEX spacing do you usually use?
- Are you running straight water or do you use antifreeze?
- How much insulation would you place under the floor to reduce loss?
- What percentage of heat do you estimate is nin-recoverable (lost) from your slab?
- How do you deal with interior summer heat while you are heating the thermal mass?
- Are you using radiant floor heating or have you placed an insulating layer over the heat sink structure and under the floor?
- Are you using inverter type mini-split heat pumps or are you going with inverter type central heat pumps and zoning the various areas of the house?
- Does your scheme use continuously variable brushless fans for ventilation?
- Are you employing HRV or ERV in the ventilating system?
- Are you using cross-flow, counter-flow or enthalpy wheel exchangers?
- How many airc hanges per hour do you design to?
- Do your wall structures use a separate, inside utility-wall to prevent insulation wall intrusion?
I'm sure there are many more questions...
Best Regards,
-AC_Hacker